author's note: while transcribing this, I considered adding a scene where Foreman and Logan are sitting in a room, neither one talking, both staring at one another, neither about to be the first one to say something.
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Title: The Mystery of the Locked Room Woman (bad title?)
Author: Rodlox.
Crossover: House M.D. / X-Men & X-Men2 (not the 3rd film, haven't seen it)
Summary: Marie has a surprise, and its up to House and the Ducklings to figure out how its possible.
Rating: T
Disclaimer: None of the canon characters are my own.
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"But however did you know?" Pike asked, astounded.
"It was simplicity itself," Longstreet said. "I knew it was
Allison Cameron stared at the computer screen, willing the sentance to finish itself. I work with Greg House, she said to herself, I see baffling cases on an almost weekly basis. In the course of my work, I've seen some pretty strange people. So why can't I finish a simple whodunit? The story had sat in her computer for the better part of a year now, having undergone a dozen re-writes and twice as many rough drafts. And the damned thing still wasn't finished. Die, she thought at it, all the venom she refused to spit at her coworkers being thought at the laptop. Let me put 'The End' to this, and I'll leave you alone. Promise!
The rattling of a soda can going down the machine barely impinged anymore, even though it was only ten feet away from where she sat here in the lounge. "Trouble?" Dr. Hsu asked, plucking the soda and opening it.
"Nothing unsolvable," Cameron said, "thanks." And that's just it. The whole thing isn't unsolvable -- I just have no idea who committed the crime or how. The initial idea had been so attractive: the classic closed-room mystery. A murder is committed, but the victim was alone in the middle of the room, and there was no way in or out of the room...and it wasn't suicide. Maybe I should've started with something simpler...like an homage to the works of Conan Doyle. Or House's biography. Anything but this.
Fortunately, her beeper chose then to go off, sparing her from hitting her computer with more invective. "House," she said to herself, shutting her laptop and stowing it securely.
"Hope to see you again," Hsu said as Cameron left.
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"I'm Dr. House," the newly-arrived-to-the-room House said to the four guests to the Princeton Plains Teaching Hospital: one patient and three men standing watch -- standing guard around where she was seated on the hospital bed. "You've already met Dr.s Foreman and Chase."
"Hey," said the younger of the men. "I'm Bobby Drake, this is Logan, Kurt Wagner, and this is Marie," nodding to the patient.
"Great, now that we've got introductions out of the way, what's the problem."
The guys were silent. Finally Marie said, "It shouldn't be possible...but it is. Can you help me?"
"That's what they pay me the big bucks for. We'll just need to run some..." and the word 'tests' died on his lips as he stepped forwards and was intercepted by Logan. Logan didn't touch House, but between his size, posture, and the six sizeable blades emerging from his knuckles, House opted to preserve himself and his cane. "Foreman, you're up."
"Look, if we can just..." Chase said, as he'd been closest to the bed already, one hand reaching to take Marie's pulse...and stopping in mid-reach when something wrapped itself around his wrist. It was a blueish-black triangle, or, if you believe that DaVinci crap, a blue-black Sacred Feminine, connected to a tentacle -- no, a tail of the same colour. What the hell? his eyes following the tail to its owner: the guy in the robe. "Do you mind?" Chase asked, trying to be his usual calm, polite, unflappable self...but it was tough when somebody had their tail on your wrist.
"You must not touch her," the robe guy said.
"Excuse me?"
"Guess they don't understand," said the big guy, "people with an accent," to which House chuckled.
Laugh it up, House, Chase thought to himself.
"Look," Foreman said, "you guys brought her here. That in itself says you want her to have medical treatment."
"Yeah," Logan said. "But no touching her."
"Fine,we'll wear gloves."
"What thickness?"
"Why?"
"If its not thick enough," said Drake, "it might as well not be there."
"Well helpful as that almost was," House said, "it doesn't tell us anything. What's she got?"
"A mutation," the big one said.
"I figured that much out already. Between your little trick with the metal detectors downstairs, your friend here's tail, and your other friend turning Chase's mocha into a frappachino, it was a pretty safe bet that she was a Mutant too. Now the question is, what's her Mutation?" Leaning on his cane, "And before you say 'need to know,' I'll point out that, as her doctors in potentia, we do need to know." Chase and Foreman nodded, and just then, Cameron arrived, walking in the door. "Just in time," House said.
-----
An Hour Later:
"And Cameron makes 3," House said. "So what did the amniotic tests tell us?"
"Less than nothing," Cameron said, the shock of this sort of an impossibility only slightly lessened by going over it again and again in her mind the whole way up from PPTH's labs.
"And this didn't tell you the test was shoddily-done?"
"It didn't because it couldn't," not reacting to his jab. "The amniotic fluid was full of nucleated cells, every one of which was devoid of DNA," and dropped herself into a chair, not brushing her hair back behind her ears.
"Did you check the mitochondria?" Chase asked.
"There wasn't any."
"No mitochondria? That's just not possible."
"Neither are people who can do Edward Scissorhands impressions without duct tape," House said. "And what does this tell you?" he asked Cameron.
"Nothing," she said. When House's only response was to tap his cane against the floor, "That we may need to run a DNA test on the fetus itself?"
"You don't sound too sure, Doctor."
"House, this is the first case of a pregnant Mutant. Do you want the list of precedents?"
Smiling, he nodded.
Cameron groaned.
"Maybe we're looking at this wrong," Foreman said.
"Et tu, Foreman?" House said. "You just stole my realization."
"We could always come to bury Caesar."
"Ooh."
"How should we be looking at it?" Chase asked Foreman.
"Maybe the lack of DNA is an extreme," Foreman suggested. "You were there when one of her guards healed himself in seconds."
Cameron nodded, recalling when House'd managed to get in a good whack on the tall guy -- Logan.
"Except," Chase said, "that even stem cells have DNA. They're undifferentiated, but they aren't what Cameron described."
"Then what?" Cameron asked. "The cells're really mobile ice crystals?"
"If the glove fits," House said.
"No," Cameron said. "They were cells, no doubt about it. Composed of proteins, lipids, and encased in a membrane."
"Sounds like soup."
"But how does the body make cells without DNA?"
"Harvesting," Chase said abruptly.
"Oh God," House muttered, "here come the sheep jokes."
"Remember when they warned us not to touch Marie?"
Nodding, "They said her mutation was to absorb the life from anyone she comes into contact with," Foreman said. "You're suggesting that each time she does that, she takes some cells too, strips the hijacked cells of their DNA, and uses them to grow a fetus?"
"It fits the facts as well as anything else."
"And that's scarier than anything they could do," House said. Heading back over to the whiteboard, "Let's review. We have a patient who can -- so we're told -- drain the life from someone; a guy who heals faster than spit dries; a guy who gives new meaning to 'cold shoulder'; and...what does guy numero tres do?"
"He didn't say," Chase said.
"Hmm. I doubt he'd be called a Mutant just because he's got more melanin than Foreman. And I doubt his tail's his Mutation. So..." and headed for the door.
------
Over An Hour Later:
How do you solve a closed-door murder? That age-old riddle was the only thing that came to her mind. Cameron stared at her sandwich, trying to resolve an answer from it; nothing. The door was still locked, the deed still done -- but how? How did an egg get fertilized without any lingering evidence of the act which --
Wait a minute. Mutants didn't always exist in perfect compliance with the laws of physics and biology; she knew that as well as anyone possibly could. And Marie had said that her only Mutation was the power-draining of anyone who came into skin-to-skin contact with her. Hence the insistance on gloves. So either it was a lie -- in which case, the obvious question was Why? -- or Marie was unique among Mutants for having two talents. The power of virgin birth.
Cameron sighed. As much as all the evidence pointed to it, it wasn't a conclusion she wanted to broach to House or Cuddy -- not yet. "There's still one weak link," she said to herself, picturing in her mind's eye the least talkative of Marie's friends: the one with the cloak. She headed for the door.
"I know she wasn't talking to me," House said to the other two Ducklings. I made sure of my motorcycle's security system this morning.
"Maybe she forgot something," Chase said.
"Maybe."
"Or maybe its none of our business," Foreman said.
---
Deep breath, deep breath, Allison told herself just before opening the door to the waiting room. "Mr. Wagner?" she asked.
Kurt paused in mid-prayer, looked up to her. "Yes?"
"I have a few questions for you," thumb soundlessly tapping the clipboard she held in that hand.
The boy -- Bobby Drake, she recalled -- stood up and said, "I'm going to check the cafeteria; you want anything?"
"Danke, but no. I am fine."
Drake nodded and left, the door shutting behind him.
"Are you?" Cameron asked.
"Fraulein?" Kurt asked.
"Are you fine? Are you well?"
"I am, danke."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"Hold out your hand."
Now he looked at her warily, yellow eyes watching her from under the cowl of his hood. "Why?"
"I want to check your pulse."
He considered that and finally nodded, raising his hands -- sleeves dropping -- as he brought his hood down to his shoulders. Only then did he hold out one hand; a hand with two pairs of fused fingers. There were many raised lines on his arms and face. Not welts from being beaten, but rather ridges from scarification.
Laying all your cards on the table? That's fine by me, Cameron thought as she crossed the narrow room to him, and rested her hand on his wrist, thumb and first two fingers in the proper places. Abruptly -- BAMF! and he was gone, a black cloud where he had been.
BAMF! by the door in, and there he was, standing in a fast-disappearing black cloud. O-kay, so he had one more card to play. And everything clicked. How do you solve a locked-door murder? How do you explain a virgin's pregnancy? "It was you," Cameron said, double-checking that she'd added everything up correctly. So far, yes.
"Fraulein?"
"You're the father."
"I have never -"
"Maybe not, but between Marie's ability and yours -- can you pass through walls?"
Resting one hand on the door, "I have to be able to see where I'm going," Kurt said.
Makes sense...otherwise he might appear in the middle of a really thick wall. So he didn't...but the physics of it made perfect sense. "Do you want to tell her, or would you like me to?" wondering Why do I only grow a backbone when House can't find out about it?
Kurt's hands dropped to his sides and his head went down, chin touching his chest. "I shall." Not moving, he was quiet for a long while. "I was rescuing her at the time. She had fallen from a torn-open plane. I moved -" BAMF! BAMF! to the middle of the room. "She survived."
"...thanks to you," Cameron aid. "You saved her life."
Kurt nodded. "I will talk to her," he said, promising.
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the end.