While writing my other fanfic [Another Life - go check it out!] I got this idea for a story. This one is even close to being as AU as the other one, and it has medicine in it. Now, I'm a medicine nerd [I'm hoping to be accepted into the early admit program at Northwestern University], and I worked so hard to try to get the terms and everything right. It was going to be a lot more complicated than it turned out, because I gave myself a headache trying to connect everything, so this story focuses less on the medicine. But I tried to get it right!

I hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I do not own House M.D, characters, or storylines.

Copyright: Except mine.

Read, review and enjoy!

A young girl sat in the clinic waiting area, tapping her beige heel against the clinic floor. She tousled her long raven black hair, feeling the humidity from the hot summer already starting to make her hair expand as the doors opened and closed, patients checking in and out. She was looking around the clinic, fascinated by the people and the doctors, and leaned past the desk to look into the office of Dr. Lisa Cuddy, Dean of Medicine, who was calmly filing papers. The girl smiled, wondering what it would be like to one day work in a big hospital such as this one. She coughed into her elbow, not wanting to spread germs by coughing into her palm. She leaned back in the uncomfortable chair, twitching around to find a comfortable position.

Cameron, who was tired of being in the ER all afternoon with only a broken arm in a car accident and a nose that wouldn't stop bleeding, decided to catch up on some clinic duty. She flipped through the patient files, deciding which clinic patient to treat.

"Is there an Alexis Tanner here?" Alexis looked up, grabbing her purse off the chair next to her and standing up.
"That's me," she said, following Cameron into Exam Room Three. Alexis sat on the table, swinging her feet off the side.

"Runny nose, coughing, wheezing, difficulty breathing... It sounds like…"

"Bronchitis, right?" Cameron looked up at the girl, stunned for a moment by her piercing blue eyes.

"Wow, you really know your stuff." Alexis blushed, heat creeping up her neck to her face

"I've wanted to be a doctor since… I don't know, five, maybe. I love all things medicine." Cameron smiled, scribbling a few notes down in her file.

"There was also some blood in what came up this morning and that's when I decided to drive here." Cameron nodded.

"You made a good choice. I'm going to give you some Amoxicillin and it should go away –," Cameron was cut off by a persistent coughing coming from behind her. Cameron rushed over to her, putting her hand on her small back. Alexis looked at the friendly doctor, fear resounding in her eyes.

"I … can't… breathe!" she wheezed, coughing some more.

"16 year old girl presents early symptoms of acute bronchitis," Cameron said, holding out the file to House. House looked up at her from twirling his cane and looked at her with his bright blue eyes, ignoring the file.

"There. Diagnosis: Bronchitis. Done," he said, rolling his eyes and pushing the file away. Cameron shook her head.

"I think it's something else. We had to give her an oxygen mask just to keep her O2 stats stable."

"Well then keep her on an oxygen mask for the rest of her life. I'm sure it won't be too difficult." Cameron rolled her eyes at her former boss. She bent down to his level, putting her hand on the arm of his chair.

"Either you can take this case, be done in a couple of hours and go home early, or you can take a case I'm sure Cuddy has already for you and be here until midnight," Cameron said, raising her eyebrows, knowing how to please him. House pouted like a small child, but reluctantly grabbed the case file. Taub, Kutner, Foreman, and Thirteen watched the humorous interaction, covering their smiles.

"Could be asthma," Kutner said. House glanced at him with a look of disgust

"It could be anything. Go do get a CT scan of her lungs," House waved them off, bored already. Cameron watched him with a smirk on her face.

"What do you want?" House asked, rolling his eyes, getting up, limping away. Cameron snickered, heading back to the ER.

He headed into his office and began to play toss his grey and red ball with his cane. Cuddy burst into his office, holding a stack of case files.

"I have at least six cases and you're in here just sitting!" She complained, fanning out the cases on his desk, placing her hands on his desk, leaning down to eye-level. House raised his eyebrows suggestively as the tops of her breasts came into view. Cuddy rolled her eyes, but didn't move from her position, quietly pleased by the attention that he was giving her.

"In case you haven't heard, I have a case. Cameron just brought it in," he said, unphazed by her obsession about his work. He put his feet on top of the desk, twirling his cane around as he watched Cuddy glaring intensely at him.

"Is it a real case or one of your obsessions where you think that someone is sick, like the soap star last year?" Cuddy rolled her eyes, pacing around the room, looking for an excuse to stay.

"That's a bad argument… considering I was actually right about that one… but it's a real case," he said, watching every curve of her body, the way the light shined on her hair and body. Cuddy was beautiful in every way and there were some feelings of a sort inside her, but he was sure she just saw him as the misanthropic brooding doctor.

Alexis, have you ever been in one of these before?" Thirteen asked, as they wheeled her down to the CT scanner. Alexis shook her head.

"But I know you have to use contrast to get the best picture and I could develop a reaction, such as kidney failure." Thirteen and Taub exchanged a look and Alexis blushed again.

"I… want to be a doctor. And I think Patrick Dempsey is really cute." Thirteen smiled and laughed, as they helped her onto the CT machine. Taub went back into the imaging room and sat, ready to watch the screen.

"Injecting contrast material," Thirteen called, flipping the switch on the IV.

"Just try to lie as still as possible, Alexis," Thirteen called, as she flipped the switch on the CT scan, and Alexis took a deep breath as the machine rolled her in. Thirteen headed back into the imagining room and sat on the chair with Taub. The machine started rolling and they watched the images flash on-screen.

"I don't know why Cameron was so convinced there was something wrong, I'm sure she just caught germs from kissing or something. You know how kids are," Taub said, looking at the images. "Looks okay…" Thirteen looked at Taub, mouth agape.

"You're so cynical, Taub. Not all teenagers have sex and do drugs. I mean, she's so smart… she just doesn't seem like that." Thirteen sat up straighter in the chair.

"Look at that," she said. "Her lungs are slightly swelled. And granulomas – on both lungs."

"Sarcoidosis, maybe?" Thirteen stood up and pressed the intercom on the machine.

"Thanks, Alexis, we have what we need." Thirteen smirked at Taub, who held up his hands in surrender. She opened the door and got Alexis out of the machine. Alexis looked up at her.

"Does it look bad?"

"It looks like sarcoidosis -," she paused, wondering if Alexis knew. Alexis nodded, prodding her on. "We're going to check with our boss to make sure." Alexis breathed a sigh of relief.

"Sarcoidosis isn't life-threatening." Thirteen smiled and nodded.

Thirteen handed the image over to House, who held it up in the light, trying to get a better look.

"Lungs are swollen with granulomas all over the place. Looks like sarcoidosis." House nodded in agreement.
" Go start her on prednisone and if she seems to be getting better on the meds in 12 hours send her home with a prescription." Thirteen nodded, walking away.

"You took a patient voluntarily?" Wilson asked, leading House through the cafeteria line, not making any notice to the large stack of food that House was piling on top of his own meal. "And one that didn't even have interesting symptoms?" House shrugged, grinning as Wilson paid for the ridiculous amounts of food on his plate. House limped after him, seating himself at the first open table he saw, rubbing his thigh.

"Cameron was wasted on being a doctor – she should have been a saleswoman – if I took this case, I can keep Cuddy off of my back about clinic duties and other cases." Wilson nodded – this sounded more House-like than actually taking a case for goodwill.

"Why did Cameron think it was something worse than bronchitis?"

"You know Cameron, latches onto every moving thing – I'm surprised her apartment isn't filled with lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!" House exclaimed, ignoring his food and reaching over, tearing off a piece of Wilson's sandwich.

Cameron had been extremely busy all morning, but her thoughts kept going back to Alexis, wondering if she was all right or if House was performing useless tests on her just to avoid Cuddy. On her and Chase's lunch break, before they headed down to the cafeteria, Cameron begged Chase to stop by with her to see Alexis.

Alexis looked up from reading and smiled to see Dr. Cameron looking through the glass at her, with another extremely attractive doctor. A blush crept up her skin and she put down the book. Chase glanced at the title.

"Anna Karenina? Summer reading?" he asked. Alexis shook her head.

"No, it's my favorite book," she said blushing again. "Your accent… Czech with about 30 years of Aussie thrown in, right?" Chase and Cameron exchanged a glance.

"Yeah… How did you know?"

"I've always been able to hear things really well… my 'dad' said that was the one good thing I could do," she said rolling her eyes, taking a drink from the cup of water on her beside table. Cameron wrinkled her eyebrows at the quotations around the word dad.

"I was adopted when I was a few weeks old… but then my adoptive mom died and then my father started drinking… They told me I was the product of a mistake… but I've always wanted to find my parents," Alexis spoke freely and openly. Cameron's mouth dropped open a little bit and Chase noticed the "abandoned-puppy" look on Cameron's face and shook her shoulder.

"Cam, we only have fifteen minutes to eat… we really need to go." He turned to Alexis. "We'll stop by later. It was nice to meet you," he said, ushering Cameron out of the room

"How are you doing Alexis?" Thirteen asked, coming in to check her stats and put her through another round of prednisone. Alexis smiled.

"I don't know if it's the placebo effect, but I feel a lot better," she said, bending her knee to itch at something on her shins and ankles. Thirteen noticed and pulled back the sheets and immediately swatted her hand away.

"You have skin lesions over your shins and ankles," Thirteen asked, looking over her for more. Alexis looked at Thirteen, horrified.

"Does this mean that you were wrong?"

"No, it's called erythema nodosum, they are a common side effect of …," Thirteen stopped talking, hearing the beeping on her machine start to go faster. She pressed a finger to her pulse.

"She's going into v-tach; get me a crash cart in here now!" She yelled as the nurse wheeled in the cart. Thirteen hurriedly put gel on the paddles and pressed them to the girl's chest.

"Charging… clear! Charging… clear!" The beeping stopped and Thirteen looked at the stats and breathed a sigh of relief.

"She's stable."