A sigh escaped me as I walked down the hall of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, my twin brother, Aidan beside me. The two of us were going to start a new job and we had completely different opinions about it, as usual.
Aidan and I were as different as twins could be. Even at our age now, the only thing we agreed on was our profession, medicine. Aidan was incredibly sombre about this opportunity, whilst I was over the moon. I had been an enormous fan of Dr House's work for many years and now I was finally going to be able to work for him.
"Bella, I don't know what you're so excited about. He's just a person." Aidan said to me.
"No, you're just a person." I retorted.
Aidan carried on like I hadn't spoken. "And a total ass. I don't know why you would want to work for a person who treats people like that."
I didn't know what to tell him. Dr House intrigued me. His mannerisms were peculiar and his style was very strange. But he was a brilliant diagnostician and I would look past his outside and be able to see the amazing man inside him.
Being the man he was, I had never seen Dr House give a speech or a conference. I had only met him once before, when my husband had been diagnosed with cancer. He had referred me to his colleague, Dr Wilson who declared that it was untreatable. My husband died two months later and Dr Wilson and I had struck up a friendship. I was also incredibly happy that I was working with such a wonderful man.
Aidan and I stopped in front of a glass door with Dr House's name carved onto it. Inside there was one dark skinned man who I remembered had been a friend of Aidan's in university. Even our choices in University were different. Aidan had chosen John Hopkins (House's alma mater) and I had chosen Columbia. I had flown all the way to New York to go to University when Aidan had stayed in our home-town, New Jersey. Aidan and I had remained in contact and I soon found out that he had chosen a major in Intensive Care. I chose Immunology soon afterwards.
Aidan hesitated before he opened the door. We both walked in. I had warned him about House's apparent bedside manner.
"Dr House?" Aidan confirmed. I looked at this man. He looked exactly as I had pictured, for I had never seen so much as a photograph of him at this age.
"Sorry. Wrong door. Down the hall." House pointed out the door.
"Oh, so I guess the sign that says 'Dr House' is no indication." I replied, surprised at my cheek.
House just stared. I don't think he thought there was anything to say.
"You're the twins I hired?" he asked, obviously looking for resemblances between Aidan and I. It wasn't hard. We shared the same chocolate brown curly hair and eyes roughly the colour of celery.
"Yeah. I'm Aidan and this is my sister Bella." Aidan answered.
"Ah. Twin A and Twin B. Perfect." House said.
I couldn't believe it. I had been in this room for thirty seconds and I had already been lied to and been given a nickname. This was bound to be an interesting job.
"So, lets begin. Twenty nine year old female starts speaking in tongues. What do we do?" House quizzed.
Aidan and I sat down at the desk and prepared to diagnose our first patient.