Summary: When Dr. Sam Lane is called upon to help Superman when he falls ill, he calls for reinforcements.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I make nothing. All Lois and Clark characters, plot points, and recognizable dialogue belong to DC Comics, Warner Bros., December 3rd Productions and anyone else with a stake in the Superman franchise. House doesn’t belong to me either. That belongs to NBCUniversal Television Distribution, Bad Hat Harry productions, Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions, and Universal, along with anyone else with a stake in that franchise.
Author’s Note: This story is in response to Kerth Challenge #3 which requested that one character from any (old or new) television show be brought into the Lois and Clark universe, into an actual episode. This one took more time than I care to admit and I can only hope that, as a very, very casual House viewer, I was able to do him justice.
Many thanks to Val, Feli, and Michelle for complete encouraging this fic.
***
“I’m sick.”
Clark blinked in surprise as the words tumbled out of his mouth – words he’d never once imagined he would ever say in his lifetime and mean it. Oh, sure, he’d had to fib about being ill in the past so as to blend in with regular people. At his last job, for example, he’d had to take a few days off after the entire newsroom had fallen like dominoes to a particularly nasty strain of the flu. It would have been too suspicious if he’d been the only person to not get sick, so he’d taken a few days and had visited his parents in Kansas. Italy had been nice, but he’d been homesick nonetheless, and his fake illness had given him a chance to go home.
But this time?
This time the words were real and he was scared.
“You aren’t the only one,” Lois quipped darkly, sending dagger looks of disgust in the direction of Mindy Church, where she sat in the back of an expensive car handing out presents.
“Seriously,” Clark replied, his voice sounding weak and hollow to his own ears. That got Lois’ attention. “I better get out of here,” he told her as he started to walk away from the crowded sidewalk where it seemed half of Metropolis had gathered to see Superman deliver the Christmas Tree to the Coates’ Orphanage – a yearly tradition he’d come to love just as much as picking out his own tree for his own apartment.
To her credit, Lois didn’t ask any questions, and simply helped him to clear an escape path. But with the arrival of Mindy and her sacks of gifts, Superman was now old news. Most, if not all, eyes were definitely off him. Still, he had to be careful in how he handled his departure. As much as he wanted to make a quick getaway, he couldn’t. Not just because Superman was held to a higher standard in the way he acted, but because he physically couldn’t move any faster than he was. His entire head was foggy and his body felt like it was trapped in quick-drying cement. Still, he waved clumsily to the crowd, even if few people were paying enough attention to see it. Unable to fly, he made for the opposite corner of the street, so he could duck behind the building there and conceal himself from probing eyes while he tried to get his bearings.
Shaking and sweating, he made it, but just barely. As soon as he was out of sight, he leaned heavily against the brick wall, his chest heaving with the effort walking such a short distance had caused. His head was swimming and he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. His heart was hammering in his chest.
“Aww, man,” he squeaked out as his knees buckled beneath him. He slid to the sidewalk as though he’d suddenly gone completely boneless.
With a look of horror, Lois rushed to try and catch him, but she was half a heartbeat too late. “Clark!” she called in a terrified whisper.
But Clark could barely hear her as blackness crowded around the edges of his vision and he fought to stay conscious. He failed. The next thing he knew, Lois was lightly slapping his cheeks trying to get him to come to.
“What happened?” he croaked out.
“You blacked out for about a minute,” Lois informed him. “Scared the living daylights out of me.”
“Sorry,” he apologized with a weak smile.
She smiled back. “Apology accepted. Just don’t scare me again,” she mocked admonished with a gentle poke to the center of his chest.
“Boy Scout’s honor,” he promised, just before a cough took him.
“Are you okay?” Lois asked, appraising him before offering him a hand up. “Can you stand?”
“I think so,” he said, taking her hand and pulling himself up off the ground. “Where’s the Jeep?”
“Two blocks over. Do you think you can make it?” Lois replied worriedly.
Clark shrugged. “What choice do I have?”
“Clark, you barely made it across the street just now,” she reminded him gently, her voice full of concern. She chewed her lower lip in thought. “Here,” she finally announced, taking his bicep in her hands and leading him two stores down to a narrow alleyway between a bookseller and a cigar shop. “Hide in this alley and I’ll get the car. It shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes. I’ll pick you up and then you’re going straight home to bed.”
Clark nearly chuckled as Lois slipped into her role as his future wife. Was this what it was like, to be a normal man with a normal relationship? He hated feeling sick but he liked the easy way in which he and Lois could lean on each other and trust one another to get themselves out of any jam that they found themselves in.
“Okay,” he wheezed in agreement. The idea of making it all the way to the Jeep suddenly seemed as impossible as squeezing water from a boulder.
Stealing a glance around to ensure they were alone, she kissed his sweaty brow, then hurried down the block. He closed his eyes as he leaned against the wall of the bookshop. It was all he could do to remain upright and conscious. He felt so tired, like his entire body had been filled with Kryptonite weights. Everything hurt. His head was swimming in a fog. His chest ached with each deep breath or cough. He could have vomited, if only he’d eaten anything recently.
It seemed to take a life-age before he heard the distinctive roar of the Jeep’s engine.
Lois helped him into the front passenger seat as soon as she pulled up. She pulled one of Clark’s old sweatshirts over his head and helped him to put it on fully, concealing the suit, then she stuck a battered old baseball cap on his head. Silently, Clark was grateful that he and Lois always kept stakeout bags in her trunk, just in case they needed them in a pinch. Satisfied that no passersby would notice that it was Superman, and not Clark Kent in the car, Clark sagged back into the seat and closed his eyes after pulling the bill of the cap down low, shadowing his face.
He must have dozed as Lois navigated the city streets. He remembered nothing of the ride home until they were pulling up in front of his apartment. Lois put the Jeep in park and gently pulled the cap from his head, checking him to see how sick he looked.
“I know we have to be careful about your identity, but it’ll attract a lot more unwanted attention if you get of this car half dressed as Superman,” she explained as she motioned to his lower body, which was undeniably clad in the blue Spandex and red briefs of the hero’s costume.
Clark frowned. “Good point.” He thought for a moment. “I think I can wiggle into a pair of sweat pants, if I have any in here,” he finally said.
Lois nodded and turned in her seat to rummage in the old Bills duffle bag behind her. “Aha!” she called out triumphantly a few moments later as she fished out a pair of thick, black pants. “Try these.” She held them out to him.
Clark plucked the pants from her grasp and, huffing and puffing all the way, he wriggled and twisted until he got the sweats on and tucked in all traces of his cape. He still looked out of place without a winter coat on such a cold day, but he didn’t really have a choice. He looked as ordinary as he was going to get. He took the hat back from Lois and stuck it on his head once more.
“I’ll need to keep my head down,” he muttered mostly to himself, pulling the bill down to shade his face. “I don’t have a spare pair of glasses with me.”
Lois nodded. “Are you ready to go in?” she asked softly.
“More than ready,” he replied, just before a sneeze exploded out of him so hard that it rocked him forward, then back, and caused him to slam his head back into the head rest.
“Clark? Are you okay?” Lois asked, alarmed.
Clark nodded. “I think so. Come on, let’s get inside before I get any worse.”
***
Clark lay in his bed, his concerned mother and father hovering around him. His mother kept dipping a washcloth into icy cold water, wringing it out, and wiping his brow with it. It felt amazing on his too hot skin. He had to wonder at that. Too hot. He’d never been too hot or too cold in his life. He could walk through the heart of blazing infernos or dive into the middle of a glacier-filled sea and barely register the change in the temperature. But now, laying atop the blankets of his own bed, clad only in the thin, but durable, material of his Superman disguise, he felt like he was being roasted alive from the inside out. Martha pulled away the cloth, wet it again, then draped it over his brow.
“Thanks, Mom,” he told her. But it wasn’t just thanks for the attempt to relieve his fever. It was a thanks for all the times she’d tried to heal the hurts he’d suffered – not physically, of course, but hurts of the mind and heart.
She managed a brave smile for him. “I’m going to let you rest,” she decided.
She got up from her place on the side of the bed, and, flanked by Jonathan and Lois, left the room. Clark closed his eyes again – the light seemed too harsh, despite the fact that his father had drawn the blinds to give him some relief. But he could hear the people he loved most in the world talking in the living room nonetheless.
“My boy is sick. For the first time in his life,” Martha said, and it was easy to pick up on the panic in her voice. Clark imagined her turning into his father’s broad chest for comfort and reassurance.
“Martha,” Lois softly intoned, “does he have any medical records? X-rays? Anything that shows how his body works?”
Clark would have cracked a grin if he hadn’t felt like the entire world was spinning crazily around him. Leave it to Lois to go straight to the heart of things, to ask the reporter-like questions, to remain as level-headed and logical as she could while she fought for something – someone – she cared about.
“Nothing,” Jonathan replied with a soft sigh of regret. “There was just never any need.”
A knock sounded at the door and Clark heard Lois’ sneakered footsteps rushing to answer it. There was a click! as she opened the lock and a barely audible squeak as the door was opened wide. If he lived through this, he vowed to oil the hinges.
“We got here as quick as we could,” Clark heard the voice of his future father-in-law, Sam Lane, say in a grave, but confused, voice. “What’s going on?”
Lois cleared her throat, perhaps to knock away the tremble Clark had heard there only a minute before. “Daddy…you’re a doctor,” she stated simply.
Sam’s reply sounded a bit bemused. “Thanks for remembering, Sweetie.”
“I was wondering if you could take a look at a friend of mine.” There was no hesitation in Lois’ voice, only a bit of pleading.
Clark heard no audible reply. But footsteps echoed across the floor as she led her mother and father closer. Clark opened his eyes, squinting against the light. Better to meet Sam with open eyes, then appear as though he were asleep.
“Lois…Superman?” was the only thing Sam uttered, as soon as he entered the bedroom. Clark both heard and saw how stunned the once-famous doctor was.
“He and Clark are very close,” Lois effortlessly explained. “Clark’s out on assignment, so, when Superman got sick, I brought him here.” It was incredible to Clark how easily she spun the fibs to protect his identity. A rush of gratitude washed over him.
Mutely, Sam moved closer and instantly slipped into the familiar actions of a doctor. Clark submitted himself to Sam’s explorative touch as he felt for his pulse, checked for swollen glands, and tried to discern a temperature.
“Daddy, we need your help,” Lois pleaded. “I need your help.”
Clark nearly held his breath. Of all the times Lois had ever spoken about her father – or to her father in Clark’s presence – there had always been an element of resentment harbored there, even contempt on occasion. Sometimes it was hidden and sometimes it was waved around freely like a banner proclaiming war. But all of that was gone now, and Lois was once again a little girl who wanted to believe that her father could fix anything.
Sam frowned. “Lois, he’s very ill,” he said, speaking solely to his daughter, as though no one else, not even Clark himself, were in the room. “His physiology may be totally different from ours, and I haven’t practiced for fifteen years…”
Lois interrupted him, sounding on the verge of tears. Clark’s eyes fluttered shut once more. He was so, so tired…
“I know,” Lois said, choking back a sob. “But when I was little, I knew my father was a brilliant doctor. Wasn’t he?” That had to be meant for Ellen, Clark decided, and there was a murmur of agreement. “If I never ask anything else of you, be that doctor again.”
“I…” Sam faltered. “I’ll do what I can. But I’m going to need some help.”
“If you need a good nurse, I’m here,” Ellen offered. Was that…tenderness in her voice? Clark wondered.
Sam grunted a sound of acceptance. “Thank you. I’ll need all the help I can get. But that…wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” he confessed slowly and apologetically.
“Who?” Lois asked suspiciously, protective of Clark. “We can’t let it get out that Superman is sick,” she warned, though not harshly. Her hand went to Clark’s shoulder and he forced his eyes open.
“She’s right,” Ellen answered for Clark. “This is too sensitive a case to just…call in help.”
“I know,” Sam acquiesced. “But I can’t do this alone. Luckily, I know a doctor…brilliant man. A bit…brash and hard to get along with. But if anyone can diagnose your friend’s illness, it’s Greg.” He nodded to Lois. “It’s okay, Princess. He’ll understand the need for discretion in this case. If we can even get him here.”
“I don’t…” Lois wavered.
“Lois, it’s okay,” Clark consented. “If your father says we can trust this other doctor, I don’t see that we have much of a choice.”
Lois locked eyes with his half-closed ones. “Okay,” she breathed in surrender. Then she turned her sharp, determined gaze to Sam. “Let’s call him.”
***
Time seemed to stand still, with seconds stretching out into minutes, minutes becoming hours, and hours becoming eons. Clark wafted in and out of sleep and fevered dreams, only to wake into a world of suffering each time he cracked his eyes open. Each time, someone was there in his bedroom, hovering over him or sitting quietly in vigil. It gave him some comfort to find that he was never alone.
“Lois?” he called out during one of his periods of wakefulness.
“I’m here,” she immediately replied from somewhere on his left. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
“No. I just wondered…how long has it been? Since your father decided to call his friend?” Clark answered, his eyes too bleary to make much sense of the clock on his nightstand.
“Oh, that. Um…about…” She checked the clock. “Three and a half…no, four hours ago,” she finally responded after a quick mental calculation. She sat down on the edge of his bed and put the back of her hand to his sweaty forehead. “He should be here soon. He’s coming in from New Jersey. That’s not too far away.” She seemed to be trying to reassure herself as much as she was him. “You’re still pretty hot,” she murmured after a minute.
Clark flashed her the best smile he could manage. “So the tabloids have said,” he joked, mindful of her still very much in the dark parents close proximity.
Lois chuckled lightly and she patted his shoulder. “Don’t flatter yourself, Farm Boy,” she said in a whisper as she grinned at him.
That made his own smile widen a bit before a wince of pain shattered the illusion that he was going to be alright. Before he could say anything further, a quick series of knocks sounded at the door.
“Was that…Shave and Haircut?” Clark asked in disbelief as he recalled the old melody.
“Ah, I think he’s here,” they heard Sam say with relief. There was a groan as he stood from his chair and crossed the apartment. Clark listened as Sam opened the door. “Greg, glad to see you made it,” Sam warmly greeted their guest.
“I would have been here sooner, but some idiot jackknifed on the highway,” came a gruff voice. “Luckily I hit it just as it was clearing, but it still ate up a good half hour.”
“It’s good to see you either way,” Sam said. “We really need your help.”
“What’s the case?” There was a sound of material being shaken out. Clark thought it might have been the other doctor’s coat being taken off. Perhaps it had started raining or snowing and the man was clearing it from the garment.
“I’m not sure. It’s like nothing I’ve come across,” Sam said in a tired voice, though it sounded as if he was being deliberately vague. “Look, Greg,” he added quickly. “I trust you, you know that. You advised me on…I don’t even know how many cases, back when I was nothing more than a resident slogging my way through medical school.”
“I remember.” The response was guarded, suspicious, but not entirely devoid of nostalgia.
“You have to swear to me that not a word of this case will ever leave these walls,” Sam pressed in a somber tone, making it crystal clear that there would be no arguing the terms.
“I already swore to be discreet on the phone.” It was obvious the other man was rolling his eyes by the way his words dropped like sarcastic stones from his lips. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have borrowed my boss’ car to race over here in the snow.”
“You stole her car?” Sam exclaimed, incredulous.
“Tomato, tomahhhto,” the other doctor said, casually shrugging off the difference. “Can we get back to the problem now?”
“I know. It’s just…a very sensitive case,” Sam said again. “If word ever got out…well, you can decide for yourself how disastrous that might prove.”
“Yeah, yeah, fine. Are we done now? Can I see the patient?” Whoever this ‘Greg’ person was, he sounded arrogant and impatient, and Clark wondered if he’d made a mistake in allowing Sam to bring in a colleague in to help.
“Right this way,” he heard Sam reply with a gentle clearing of his throat, a moment before he ushered his friend toward Clark’s bedroom.
Sneakered footsteps made their way closer, along with a strange thumping sound that Clark couldn’t quite identify at first. But in the next moment he knew what it was as a grizzled, slightly older man leaning on a cane ambled his way to Clark’s beside. He didn’t really look much like a doctor, Clark decided. He was used to the idea of a man or woman in a white lab coat with a file or clipboard in hand for note taking. But Greg was dressed in a Pink Floyd t-shirt beneath an open blue oxford shirt, well-worn dark blue jeans and sneakers that had obviously seen their fair share of mistreatment. He was tall and thin, with angular features and a scruffy, unshaven face that made him seem somehow intimidating and commanding of respect.
Greg looked down on Clark with discriminating blue eyes as he scratched at his stubbly chin. A slow, thin smile crossed his lips and it seemed that a fire lit in his eyes as his eyebrows arched in sudden astonishment. For a horrifying moment, Clark felt felt naked and exposed, as though the doctor was the one who possessed x-ray vision and could see right through him.
“Superman?” the man said to no one in particular, his chin jutting out slightly in a way that spoke of his curiosity about the case. His smile widened into a grin. “Interesting.” He brought his gaze back to Clark. He did not offer his hands to shake as he introduced himself. “Good news, Superman. I’m Dr. House. I’ll be the one saving your life.”
***
Continued Below
