This is my first House fanfic. Please go easy on me.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of this: show, characters, medical cases.
"Come on, Come one...I know you're in here..." A harsh sigh of frustration accompanied by furious shifting of pages echoed through the rather empty library. "Damn it!" he slammed his fist on the desk.
"Man, you're much more of a hot-head than I've heard." A light voice carried its way to.
Greg House turned his head to connect the words with a face. Stepping out from behind a book case, a cute brunette with legs that seemed to go on forever revealed herself, holding a book behind her.
"I've never head any complaints." He replies cheekily.
The nameless girl chuckles, sauntering over to him, hands linked behind her still holding onto her book. "So what is the "great legend" that is Greg House doing in the shaggy campus library in the middle of this Friday night? Shouldn't you be out with your groupies?"
"A girl after my own heart...It's almost poetic if I didn't actually have a purpose. Medical mystery, as a matter of fact." He held up a patient file.
She drew closer, intrigued, "Symptoms?"
Already having memorised every aspect of the file, he mindlessly answered, "Famous cyclist collapses at one of his races. Patient admits to several blood-dopings and techniques he applied to himself, but his sickness is not caused by any of these. We found an air-embolism, but after it was removed, he showed system-wide muscle weakness. I thought it was-"
"EPO. The oxygen level in blood reaching the kidney rises and the amount of EPO produced naturally decreases, thus presumably causing all of his symptoms as he fails to produce red blood cells on his own." She finished.
"yeah, except this guy has fired his long-term agent thinking she was slipping it to him and he continues to deny it. Except it's all that fits..."
The woman takes a seat across from him and they both sit quietly, deep in thought.
"When was the last time he 'blood-doped'?" She asks out of the blue.
Frowning, he scans the file, "It doesn't say...What are you thinking?"
She meets his eyes, "Pure red cell aplasia. When he was doping, he was treating himself. But when he stopped, so did the treatment. It's rare, but it's all I got."
A huge grin spread across Greg's face and he leaped over the table to embrace the intrusive woman. "It's perfect. I've been killing myself over this."
They pulled away at a cough behind them. The girl tensed, causing Greg to pull away and address his second intruder. A clean-cut student dressed in slacks and a rumpled button-up stood there with a stern face, clutching car keys.
"Are you ready, Lisa?" his voice laced with what Greg associated as anger. He turned to meet eyes with the girl he now knew as Lisa only to be surprised when she wasn't there. She had gathered her book and was walking over to the man that still watched him.
"I gotta get going. Thanks for your help, you might've saved this guy's life." Greg House smiled before jogging past them and out the front doors.
Lisa and her ride lead themselves out into the parking lot, wordlessly entering the car. As soon as she situated herself with her seatbelt, she turned to him. "Jason, I wasn't-"
The sharp click of the door locking cut her off, "Save it."
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'breathe in...breathe out...breathe in...breathe out...you're fine, keep going...breathe in...'
"Lisa! Hey!! Lisa, stop!" Had Lisa not had her headphone one, she most likely would have stopped, but as it was, she couldn't make out the words past the loud music entering her ears. Only when a tall lengthy body seemed to fall into a jog beside here did she slow down and pause the music.
It was none other than, "The great legend of Greg House. It's been a while." She greated, continuing to jog, face forward.
"How nice of you to remember me. I wanted you to know you solved that case. Jim responded to Prednisone, so I ordered a scan of his neck and we found a thymoma. Now he can live his dream doing just what he was doing, only now no one can call it cheating." He gave her a side-wink.
She chuckled, "His name was Jeff."
Greg shrugged, "All the same, he gets to live...So, you come here often?"
Lisa nodded, "Run every day as often as I can. Feels freeing."
"I can related. Sometimes I associate running outdoors to running from my mind...At least for a little while." Greg followed her through the path that lead to the dorms. This was the last they both spoke until they reached the enterance of the building. They were both mildly panting, and let their eyes wander their surroundings until they met eachothers'. At that point they simultaneously grinned, unable to stop themselves.
Greg looked at his watched and cursed, "Ah, I got lacrosse practice in five minutes on the other side of the campus so I gotta run. It was nice...running with you. I'll see you around?" He waited for her to shyly nod before pecking her cheek and sprinting in the opposite direction. She made it all the way up to her room and locked her door before reaching up to touch her blushing cheek.
"What a touching moment..." the same man who had witnessed her first interaction with Greg stepped into sight, cornering her into the door.
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