My name is Kaiba Mokuba. I am nineteen years old, and I'm the best doctor in Japan. My brother Seto and I were orphaned when I was very young, so I don't remember my parents, but Seto tells me stories sometimes. When Seto turned eighteen, and I was twelve, we received our inheritance. I really couldn't believe how much money we got! I remember moving from house to house, family to family and Seto was the only real family I ever had. As soon as he had gotten me tested to receive my GED, he made me go to college [at only fourteen, just like he had] and I had decided I wanted to do something good with my life. So I became a doctor. I worked really hard, and by sixteen, I had gotten my doctorate. I specialized in Emergency Surgical. It was a thing of mine… having the patient being rushed in on a gurney, nurses telling me what's going wrong, what's going right, the thrill! It's just the best thing that's happened to me.
My brother, being the genius that he was, became successful as well. He became the CEO of his own technical company. He has single handedly advanced the world as we know it. There was now nothing in the world that hadn't been advanced by my brother or inspired by him.
"So are you sure you're ready for this?" my brother stood in front of me, smoothing out my coat. He had let me borrow the family jet to fly to America. I had been given a chance to help people over there too. They already knew that I was the best surgeon in Japan, so my hospital decided to make me travel and see the world. I was going to Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. There was someone there that I had really wanted to meet. Dr. Gregory House. He was said to be a genius.
"Yes Nii-sama, I'm ready. I promise, I'll call you when I get there. Feel free to call me any time alright? Even if I'm on call, I'm sure I'll be able to find time to speak to you." I smiled at my brother before giving him a hug, then walking away towards the terminal. I waved to him as I dragged my carryon bag behind me. I got on board after being shown to my seat, first class of course, and relaxed back into my seat, waiting for the long flight to begin, and then to be over.
The flight took, what felt like, forever and when I landed in the new airport, I searched. They were supposed to be sending another doctor for me to bring me back to the hospital. I finally found him. A thin man, medium build with blond hair, he was probably twice my age, maybe a few years younger, and he seemed to be color blind. He held up the "Mokuba Kaiba" sign in his hands, looking disinterested. I suppose that only Dr House and Dr Cuddy knew who I really was. I walked over to him and smiled.
"So, you're one of the doctors that works with House?" my voice carried a slight Japanese accent, but my English was nearly perfect. He looked me up and down, probably not believing that a nineteen year old could be the 'famous' doctor he had come to pick up. He held out his hand and nodded at me.
"The name's Chase, Robert Chase." I noted the Aussie accent immediately. I shook his hand and we were on our way to the hospital.
It only took about half an hour to get to PPTH and I was mildly amused by the sights. As soon as I had gotten into the car I called my brother to let him know that I was safe and everything was fine. We finally arrived at the hospital and I walked into the foyer. There stood a small woman [a lot of people were small to me though, after my third growth spurt, I had reached an alarming height of six foot eight] with long brown hair and, what seemed, no modesty. Her body was curved and her shirt had a major V, showing off her cleavage nicely. I was nineteen, and this was not something that I needed to see from the woman who would be acting as my boss. There was also a man, taller, thin, and with salt and peppered hair, using a cane.
"Welcome Dr Kaiba, it's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Li-" I cut her off.
"Lisa Cuddy." I smiled at her, and then turned to the other man. "And you, are Gregory House." he raised an eyebrow as I bowed to both of them at the waist, as is my home custom.
"So he knows who we are. Congratulations kid, you're at least smarter than my other lackeys." to which he began to walk away, back towards the elevator. Cuddy and Chase both followed after him, but I decided to stay where I was. I looked around the hospital for a little while; I had slipped my white lab coat on so I at least looked like I fit in. I walked up and down the halls, looking into some rooms, and passing over others. I stopped when I came to a man, sitting in the waiting room, holding a woman in his arms. She was unconscious and he was dressed in what looked like a blue jump suit.
"Are you and your friend alright sir?" I asked as I came to stand in front of him. He looked up at me with dark eyes; it looked like the man hadn't slept for the past few days. He had short red-ish hair and a medium build. The woman he was holding in his arms had short blond hair, a thin build, and small square black glasses on her face. She was pale and probably thinner then she should have been.
"No we're not okay! I've been sitting here waiting for this one doctor to come see us for the past three hours!" I blinked at the man. Three hours for one doctor?
"Sir, what is your doctors' name?"
"House," was his simple reply. I nodded and motioned for him to stand up. He did so, still carrying the woman in his arms.
"Follow me; I'll lead you to Dr. House." And off we went. I had passed by House's office on my exploitation and knew where it was. We quickly made it to his office and he was there, sitting in his chair, watching a soap opera and tossing a ball up and down. As soon as I entered the room he rolled his eyes at me.
"Unless someone's dying, get out." I didn't respond, just pulled the man with the woman in his arms into the room.
"She seems to be…" House looked up at her, saw her condition just as quickly as I had, and nodded, standing. He grabbed his cane and hobbled his way over to us, brushing past us to get her a room. We quickly had her in a bed and hooked up to a respirator. We put a blood pressure cuff on her and a heart monitor. The man stood at her bed side with a frown on his face. I looked him over. He seemed to be a lion protecting his cub… did that make this woman his daughter? No, they were far too close in age to have that kind of relationship. So… maybe his lover then? That was probably it.
"I have to go call into my CO…" he suddenly said to me. "Tell her I'll be back when she wakes up…" and he walked out of the room. It was just then, as he was leaving, that I noticed that he was wearing Navy dress blues working uniform. He was in the Navy then? That got me thinking… but I heard a monitor go off and I looked over to the woman. Her eyes slowly opened a dark, deep blue looking up at me. I smiled and came over to her side.
"Hello, I'm one of your Doctors, can you tell me your name?" she stared at me for another moment or two before she pushed herself into a sitting position.
"Kathryn… Evans. 18 years old, allergic to Sulfa products." I nodded as one of the nurses jotted this down to take back to Dr House. She hadn't needed to though because he walked right through the door as she finished what she was saying; Cameron, Chase and Forman were on his flanks. I had looked up his team so I knew exactly who they were when I saw them.
"I'm Dr House." Was all he said as he came to sit down in the chair next to her bed.
"I know," she smiled at him. "I also know that you are here to solve what's wrong with me. If you were given or really, even accepted my case then there must be something really wrong with me… and I already know what it is. By the way… where is Aaron?" I looked at her. She was such a well spoken women and she was only 18?
"The man who was with you said he had to go call out to his CO and he would be back as soon as he could." I replied and she nodded. For a moment she looked at me with unblinking, interested eyes.
"Do you have a brother? I can tell you're Japanese… but do you have an older brother?" I nodded, how could she have possibly known that? "And your name wouldn't happen to be Kaiba Mokuba… would it?" I nodded again. It wasn't that uncommon for my name to be known, but not outside of the medical profession. And she did not look like a doctor to me.
"Do I know you miss?" I asked, coming to stand at her side.
"Well you better! You haven't responded to my last three e-mails!" she crossed her arms at this and gave a small pout. "And I was really curious to see what you thought of that riddle… and how Seto was doing with his new VR project." This could not be happening… there was only one person who knew that my brother was working on a Virtual Reality project right now besides me and himself… and that was my pen-pal Kath.
"Kath?" I asked skeptically. She just smiled at me and nodded.
"-It's good to see you Mokie.-" and she even answered in Japanese! I immediately went and hugged her. She just laughed a bit before coughing. I moved away.
"Sorry sorry… oh my Kami… I can't believe that it's you! What the hell are you doing in the hospital?" she smiled at me a bit.
"Good to see you too… and I always thought that I would be the first one to fly over to see you… not the other way around!" she sighed and got right down to business. "I collapsed earlier this morning… I was staying at Aaron's house… he was the one who brought me in, he's my fiancée, oh yeah he finally proposed… he was going to go out for a while because he's on leave… and his friends wanted to see him dress up in his blues, so he got dressed and left me in bed. I was awake enough to hear him in the other room when a shooting pain went all throughout my entire body. It centered in my lower and middle abdomen and spread. I convulsed and collapsed… then I woke up here." I nodded. That had been over three hours ago.
"But you said you knew what was wrong with you…" cut in Chase. She smiled and nodded at him.
"And I do know… and I will give you," she pointed at House, Chase, Cameron and Forman "one week to figure it out… then I will give Mokuba here a day to figure it out… if none of you can, then I don't have to pay for my medical bills. Do we have a deal?" she looked at House and he gave her an inquisitive look but nodded his head. I just nodded at her. "Good… run whatever tests you want… I don't mind. You have 168 hours Dr House… use them well." And with that, she lay back in the bed and pulled the blankets up over her and proceeded to go to sleep. House stared at her for a moment before sending the other three off to do work and run tests. I decided to stay and wait till her fiancée returned to tell him what was going on.
It was only about an hour before Aaron returned to the hospital and came back into the room. Kath had been asleep for the whole time but as soon as he walked into the room she started to stir. She groaned and I looked up from my crossword puzzle. What better way to work on not only my English but my writing as well.
"Baby…" was his whispered word as soon as he entered the room. Kath slowly looked over to him and gave a faint smile.
"Hey…" she whispered right back. I smiled at the two. If I remembered correctly from Kath's e-mails, Aaron was 21 with one younger brother. He had joined the navy just over a year ago started going out with Kath just over 6 months ago. He'd been in love with her for almost 5 years now though so as soon as they started going out, he popped the question. With his line of work it really made a difference whether or not he was to get married early because he could easily lose his life.
"How are you feeling?" he came to sit by her side in the chair left there for him. He immediately took her hand and ran his thumb across it.
"'m fine." She gave him a smile and then looked over to me, probably just remembering that I was in the room as well. "Oh Aaron… remember the pen-pal I told you about? Well… this is him. Mokuba, meet Aaron, my fiancée." I reached a hand over to shake but he immediately stood up and bowed to me.
"Thank you for looking after Kate. I appreciate it Dr. Kaiba." I just stood and bowed right back to him.
"It's no problem… I would do this for any patient… but Kath's special." I smiled at her.
"Thank you Mokie." She signed to me in ASL. That was one of the first things she had ever taught me. Aaron's brother, Colin, was and had been since he was 5, deaf. Kath had learned sign language or ASL [American Sign Language] so that she could talk to him easier than having to shout at him.
"You're welcome Kath." I signed right back. There were just a few things that I had learned in ASL and the alphabet along with small words like please, thank you and you're welcome were the beginnings that I had bothered to master. I smiled as the two lovers spoke to each other in ASL to catch up. Some words I understood, like the ones they spelled, others looked like a flying of hands.
I sat there watching them as the day went by. The four other doctors who were working this case came in and out of the room throughout the day to get tests done and give results. So far, she seemed in perfect health. Her blood count was good, her blood pressure was fine, and her body seemed to be working perfectly. She just smiled at us all and told them that they needed to look harder.
About four days into the week she stayed there she had another "spasm" as she called it. Chase and Forman had to hold her down because she was thrashing so much. Aaron and I stood to the side with worried faces. It took her almost two hours to come out of the spasm. She had stopped thrashing twenty minutes in and just curled around herself. It was a frightening sight. Immediately after she was still and sedated, they began doing tests all over again to see if they could find something new after what had happened. It took a few hours to get all of the tests done but they finally came back. Kath was finally awake again and sitting up in bed, taking down some water and vitamin supplements.
"Well?" she asked. "What did you not find?" she had a smile on her face, as if she knew their answer, and considering the way she phrased that last sentence, she probably did.
"We found nothing." House growled out. He seemed really angry with the tests, his team but mainly, himself. He stormed out of the room and I decided to follow him to his office.
"You have three days you realize." I stated as I came into the room behind him. House sighed and practically collapsed into his chair.
"I don't understand… there' just nothing wrong with her. There has to be something wrong! But there's nothing…" House then started muttering to himself instead of shouting, popping back a few Vicodin. I shrugged a bit as I exited the room and headed back to Kath's hospital room. Aaron was sitting in the chair besides her bed and Chase was going over some files, Cameron was looking at her stats and Forman just wasn't there. Kath looked to me as I came into the room and smiled a bit weakly.
"Hey Mokie… think we can call Seto? I'd really like to talk to him." I smiled a bit. Seto and I had been talking back and forth before I went to bed and when he was just starting the business up for the day. I nodded and walked over to a bag that I kept stashed in the corner of the room and reached inside. I pulled out my laptop and booted it up, immediately the video chat came up. Chase looked over to us in confusion.
"I thought she said call… not instant message." I rolled my eyes at him for a moment before taking my laptop and placing it on Kath's lap.
"You know his number?" I asked as she adjusted the technology comfortably in her lap.
"Yup." She smiled and put a sequence of numbers into the computer. Suddenly a ringing was heard coming from the speakers and then a video picked up, showing Seto sitting at his desk.
"-Oh Good Mokie, I was just about to…-" Seto cut himself off when he realized it wasn't me sitting on the other side of the laptop. "-Who the hell are you?-" he asked, getting instantly suspicious. I was desperately trying not to laugh from the other side of the screen. Kath just smiled.
"-It's nice to meet you Seto, I'm Kath.-" as soon as he heard the name a realization passed over his face.
"-So you're Mokuba's pen pal… I was wondering when I would get to meet you face to face. Oh, thank you for that insight in my last project. Sales are through the roof and have doubled the price of my stock. I'm gracious.-" she just smiled at him. Aaron looked at Seto from the side of the screen and then to Kath.
"He doesn't look nearly as scary as people put him out to be…" I stifled a laugh and Kath straight out chuckled. Seto just glared at the offending voice just out of webcam view.
"You realize," came Seto's voice. "I am a business man and do speak English as well as Japanese." Aaron's cheeks went instantly red and Kath laughed harder. Just then there was a ringing from the computer and Seto apologized as he had to take a very important call from a client. We all waved good bye and I closed the laptop again.
Things were slow for the last three days of House's observation. As the time came to a close he was nowhere near closer then when she had come into the hospital a week previous. As soon as my time started, I immediately started tests but was getting the same results that House had. At about 10 that night, right when I was losing hope that I could solve this medical mystery, Kath was thrown into another spasm. Instantly I was struck by an idea and I had her restrained to the bed. We transported the withering and twitching woman to get some tests done… while she was in the spasm. I ran all the tests over again, and found some very interesting things in them, that had not shown up while she was out of the spasm. I finally finished all the tests and was just about to look them over when I realized… the clock had just struck midnight… and I was out of time. She calmed down and did not pass out after this time. We took her back to her room and I handed her the paperwork that had all the information on it that I had just gotten. She looked it over with a weak, weary smile and noted the time.
"Let's call Seto again." She said and pointed to my laptop. I gave it to her and she called my brother. He recognized her instantly and started speaking in English.
"Good to see you again Kath. How's the bet going?" he had been previously informed about the bet going on between the PPTH and me against her. She smiled a bit.
"I won," was her simple answer. "But I'd like… if you took a look at my test results and tell me what you think Seto. We quickly faxed over the paper work and he took a look at it. As soon as he had finished, he gave her a slightly devastated look.
"You're dying…" came his first words and she nodded. Seto then sighed and spoke a little louder so that everyone who was in the room, which was everyone on House's team, could hear him. "The patient is suffering from a genetic disease called Anatomical Internal Degenerative Disease, also known as AIDD, there is no cure, just medication to let the patient suffer less. Head researcher on this disease is one Damien James VanSet who just happens to be the best friend of one Kathryn Marie Evans." Kath smiled a bit sadly as he explained and everyone looked to her in shock. She had known that she was dying? She had known? And she didn't tell me? Aaron broke down crying, devastated.
"You can't die on me! You can't leave me here alone!" she just chuckled.
"Don't worry, I have a while still, I'll die at a mostly natural age so I still have years to spend with you love." He looked up to her with tears in his eyes but nodded at her. House walked over to her and handed her a card. She looked at it, and I snuck a glance. It seemed to be a series of numbers.
"That's the hospital's bank account numbers, send all your medical needs purchases there and don't worry about it." She smiled and nodded at him understanding. I was still in mild shock when she looked over to me with a big smile on her face.
"Kath?" I asked, looking saddened.
"Don't worry Mokie… things are just fine." I nodded and smiled back to her, trusting that what she said was true.