Title: Hex

Rating: T

Genre: Angst/Drama

Pairings: No specific pairings - Friendship

Summary: After "treating" a patient for a serious condition, Dr. House starts to exhibit the exact same symptoms himself. But it's nothing he can medically cure with a perscription - It's demonic possession.

A/N: Sorry for taking so long guys! I hope to get a whole wack of writing in this week.. I'd answer each review personally, but I don't want you guys spending all the time reading that when you could be reading the next chapter. So as always THANK YOU all for reading and reviewing, and I'll try to write as fast as I can :)

Hex - Chapter 6 Phase 2

"Fear is the dark room where the Devil develops his negatives."

- Gary Busey

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Wilson dug his hands into his pockets and stood on the elevator staring at the buttons. Up, down, emergency, bunch of numbers. A nurse with her hands gripped onto wheelchair handles stood next to him silently. Well almost silently, he could hear her breathing and it was almost nauseating. He preferred not to get annoyed in the mood he was in and got off the lift at the next floor. The question had been biting at him the whole way down:

What the hell was wrong with House?

He asked himself that every day and usually got a regular answer that House was just House, and everything was wrong with him, but there was something else added to the list today.

It was mid afternoon now and Princeton-Plainsboro was in full swing with diseased patients rolling around in chairs, kids doubled over and hacking up a lung down in the clinic, and seniors getting x-rayed for broken hips behind every corner. Wilson made his way back to his office to make his two o'clock appointment with a young couple, one of the two just being diagnosed with lung cancer. He took place behind his desk and glanced briefly at his watch. Half past one. Plenty of time. Wilson shuffled around some papers on his desk and made two neat piles, then looked out the glass doors of his office.

He wondered what House was up to now. He knew there was a case floating around that House had turned down, and that the ducklings were probably hard at work on that one. He had briefly looked over the case file and had ruled out cancer so he had no big part in it. Looked right up House's alley though. Something about a kid with a weird throat problem. He figured instead of just sitting in his office pretending to do work, he should probably go investigate this problem further. He still had a half hour until the appointment, he could just zip over to Cuddy and have a little chat and zip back safely in that time.

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Wilson rapped his knuckles softly against the door and then opened it, popping his head in. He knew she usually barked at anyone bugging her like that, but she usually was pleasantly surprised when he did it.

"Ah James, what brings you here?" she asked with a smile and put her pen down on some papers in front of her. Wilson shut the door and gave her a slight sarcastic look.

"What always brings me here?"

Her face fell almost to a doom as she answered, "House."

He nodded and took a seat across from her desk.

"What has he done this time, our lawyer is speed dial number one," she sighed and went for the phone on her left side.

"Surprisingly a lawyer isn't needed this time," Wilson responded, a small smile in response to her joke. "But in all seriousness, there's something going on with him."

Cuddy's eyes grew a size bigger and she raised her eyebrow like Wilson was the stupidest naive person on the planet.

"It's House."

"Yes, but House is not House."

"House is not House? Then who is House?" Here came the confusion.

"House is House, but he's not House," Wilson attempted to clarify. Cuddy gave him a blank look trying to understand what he was getting at.

"He slept here last night," he finally said knowing Cuddy would find that pretty odd.

"Case?" was her immediate thought. Wilson shook his head and crossed one leg over the other.

"His last one, the tumor ..disappeared," he answered back with some hesitation, knowing what her reaction was going to be.

Her eyebrow was raised.

"What do you mean disappeared?" she questioned slowly.

"Disappeared, vanished, cured. Checked, double checked, and triple checked. It was there and then it wasn't," Wilson answered back seriously. He had no intentions of lying to Cuddy, even though she would think he was just as crazy as House.

"And you actually.."

"Yes, with my own eyes."

Cuddy leaned back in her chair and tapped her pen against the pile of papers on her desk.

"So why exactly isn't he 'House'?" she finally asked, curious, but not.

Wilson sighed and looked off to the side.

"Well he's sick for one. Has a rash on his arm that he wouldn't let me look at. He went off in some wild rant about big shoes.." he shook his head, thinking maybe none of this had happened at all, because he was starting to come off crazy just repeating the experience. He glanced at the woman sitting across from him. "He walked without his cane," he added.

"Well he does that all the time-" she reasoned back.

"No, he really walked without the cane. Put weight on it."

Cuddy was lost for words and wasn't sure exactly what to say, or what Wilson wanted her to say.

"Where is he now?"

"I saw him early this morning up in his office. He's probably still there," Wilson hoped. He could also see House raising hell somewhere like the clinic or badgering patients, but the tone of his last statement to Wilson, "..leave me alone" sounded like he would still be closed off and in the dark somewhere.

"Well if he's sick, he's either going to let one of us look at him, or he's going home. Can't have a doctor around patients with a big patch of scabies up his arm." Cuddy promptly stood up from her desk with a mission in mind. Wilson was going to make a note that he didn't think it was scabies, but thought stopping her was more important. He stood up as well.

"I think it would be better if you didn't," he attempted. It was a weak and pathetic attempt, but he had to try none the less.

"You know as much as anyone, that if he's not 'House' then I would say that's a good thing. But you said it himself, he's sick, he shouldn't be here," Cuddy defended herself and walked round her desk towards the office door.

Wilson sighed and knew deep down she was right. He always felt guilty when ratting on his best friend. It was for his best interest, but too much 'love' would leave Wilson with a bruised eye. He stayed silent and let her go. Hopefully she wouldn't mention his name anywhere in her speech.

He left the office after her and made his way back to his own. Couldn't put all of his energy into Greg, he still had that appointment at two o'clock.

-----

Clack clack clack.. Woosh.

"Oh skippy, my two o'clock is here! Where shall we do it this time? The floor was too hard last time wasn't it? Maybe this time we'll go spread eagle on the desk, what do you think, Bambi?"

Cuddy gave the man sitting in front of her a disgusted look.

"Oh boy am I embarrassed! Bambi is my five o'clock, I'm sorry." House said with equal joy and stood up from his desk with the use of his cane. He had been expecting her after Wilson's departure and had cooked up a few juicy lines guaranteed to make her speechless for a couple seconds. Stall, was the word.

"Have nothing to do House? I know a place downstairs that would love to be graced with you presence," Cuddy got over his crude comments quickly and folded her arms. It was better not to let on that she had had a little chat with Wilson. And now that she thought of it, he didn't look sick at all. He just looked like maybe someone had gotten coffee grains into the pot, because he had that sour look on his face every day. Maybe Wilson had been overreacting.

"You know, that just sounds like lollipops and sugarplums, but I think I'll pass this time." House tossed his cane upwards into the air and caught it again giving her a, 'shucks, maybe next time' look. He started to twirl the cane, his own personal sport.

Cuddy raised her eyebrow at him as he stopped twirling, hooked the cane under his arm and then walked around behind his desk to get something.

"I don't pay you because your ability to sleep on the job is so valuable to this hospital-" she paused in mid rant as she actually noticed what she was looking at. His cane was stuck under his arm like a baseball bat no longer in practice, and he was almost wondering around without a thought of that at all. Wilson had been right. No cane, and full use of his right leg - it seemed. She was about to point that out and get answers, when he picked up his gameboy and said quickly, "Aha!".

"How come you're-" Cuddy finally started, flabbergasted. Was he milking her? Was his leg fine?

"Can't stop and chat, Bambi, I've got a patient!" he stuck his right index finger into the sky as if he was off to save the world and then shook his gameboy in his left to her face. He brought his cane down, dropped the game device into his left jacket pocket and made his way out the door at a speed only used in urgent fire emergencies.

A minute later, he opened the door again and peeked his head in, "And they're really sick too! Have you ever seen those national geographic magazines?" He waited for no answer and was back out of the office and making his way down the hall.

Cuddy stayed silent and stood there confused.

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He felt good. Better than good. And what was better than good? Goood. Yes that was the word. Three Os for emphasis. Goood. That reminded him of something. Melted chocolate falling on something like in those hershey commercials. Goood was a gooey word.

House slammed his way into the lab where he knew the three ducklings would be and they looked up, surprised at his entrance. Cameron especially.

"Hello my servants! Top of the morning to you," House walked around to the back of the three of them and leaned over Cameron's shoulder to try and get a look at the chart she was holding in her hands.

"It's actually afternoon-" Chase started to correct, and House shot his head back up straight, and held his index finger up again.

"Silence Bartholomew! That's what they call you back in England right? Sorry I'm not up to date on my British pop culture. I haven't been there in about a week." That shut Chase right up, and he raised his eyebrows directly across from him at Foreman.

"Dr. House, glad to see you're feeling better. Nathaniel Forrest, ten years old-" Cameron started to read off all the information from the chart, but House stood impatiently on his cane, staring at the ceiling.

"And what is this patient's name?" he sighed.

Foreman smirked from the side as Cameron looked up from her stool and crinkled her brow.

"Nathaniel Forrest," she repeated.

"Ah Nathaniel Forrest. You know what that reminds me of? Forrest Gump. Great movie wasn't it? Saw it when I was just a boy. In fact, I was that boy in the movie. The actor kid who was running away from everyone. Had to wear those braces when we were on set and I kept my little cane back in my trailer packed in a special wooden case." House paused and looked down back around the three confused faces.

"You know that billion dollar phrase, 'Run, Forrest, Run'?"

Chase slowly nodded in response because that was who House's eyes had zeroed in on this time.

"I wrote it." House's eyes stayed glued on Chase for way longer than necessary and then his head jerked upwards and back towards the ceiling.

"Symptoms of little Gump, shoot," he said impatiently. Cameron was still staring at him with puzzlement painted all over her face, so Foreman jumped in.

"We got his breathing stable after he was crashing earlier this morning," Foreman started in a tone as if he was telling the parents this information and not his own boss.

"-What do you want a cookie or something? Better make yours chocolate," House snapped in, still looking up at the ceiling, counting the panels. Ceiling panels, how interesting those were indeed. A bunch of square things coming together to make one general structure. Working together, the molecules of life tricking his eye into believing that what he was actually seeing was in a solid state. Solid. Reminded him of chocolate again, but now a solid chocolate bar. And chocolate cookies of course. But the bar was better.

"...throat is severely burnt.. Are you even listening?"

House snapped his gaze away from the ceiling and nodded furiously at Foreman who had obviously dictated five minutes worth of symptoms.

"House are you okay?" Cameron asked meekly directly beside him, quiet and concerned. She should be the wearing the sneakers. Always just 'popping' up at his side. Or she could always go be a rodeo clown.

He ignored her question as if she was just a house plant wearing lipstick and lowered his head, thinking for a minute.

"Name is Nathaniel.. something or other?" he asked, quieter this time.

"Forrest," Chase piped out, humored that House had forgotten his big rant about Forrest Gump already.

"The kid is stinking rich. There's your diagnosis! Everybody bow as my godly presence leaves the room," House started on his way out of the lab and just as he was about to open the door, he turned around to see three silenced and confused faces staring at him.

"Come onn, does Big Daddy always have to guide your hand down the yellow brick road? What do rich kids have?" He looked directly back at Chase.

Foreman cleared his throat to speak up, and House's eyes went on him.

"Quiet Eric, stinking rich kids don't steal cars, do they?"

"A pool," Chase answered bitterly.

"Christ, you're smart! Oh wait, that's me, I'm Christ. Now I'm just confused," House put his finger at his chin and left the lab.

The three looked between each other wondering what the hell had just happened.

"Are you sure he's not on any crack?" Chase leaned to his right on the counter and asked the other two.

"He's not on crack, he's just ..sick," Cameron defended and adjusted her glasses, looking down at the chart in her hands.

"Yeah, I'd be sick too if I were on crack," Foreman shot back, and Cameron rolled her eyes and stood up from her stool.

"He's not on crack," she said once more and went to leave the lab. As she was opening the door, she heard, "Well he's sure smoking a whole lot of something," and laughter. She rolled her eyes again.

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