A/N – I've decided to make my "Jail" story a series. This is "Solitary", the second story in the series. It picks up where "Jail" left off. Be forewarned, there are spoilers for the season premiere. There is a little bit of canon mixed in with this AU.

The cell was small. Actually, "small" couldn't really come close to describing it. "Small" was his 7' x 10' wheel chair accessible cell on the first floor in gen pop. "Cramped" was his old 5' x 9' cell on the second tier of gen pop.

"Claustrophobic" could perhaps better describe his current living quarters. The cell was still 5' x 9'; same dimensions as his first cell on the second tier of gen pop.

But this cell was different. It was either too dark or too light. There was no natural light because there was no window to the outside. The lighting consisted of a single very bright fluorescent light which was on all day whether he wanted it on or not. It went off every night at 9 pm whether he wanted it to or not. When the light was on it was too bright; when it was off it was too dark. The cell was either too hot or too cold. The temperature was never right. He wasn't allowed a mattress, at least for the first day here, because it could be torn up and used to hide weapons. He would get a mattress after the first 24 hours. For now, he had to sleep on a bare concrete bench. Other than the food port which, like the other cells, opened, closed and locked from the outside, he had no connection with the outside world.

This was nothing like the wheel chair accessible cell. It was solitary.

That's what you get for bucking the rules. Nobody gave a damn about the fact that the rule he bucked was asinine and had he followed it, would likely have been fatal to someone else. Nobody cared that he saved a life. Nobody except Dr. Jessica Adams, one of the clinic doctors. She'd been fired because of her part in his rule-breaking.

He saved a life. During the few days he'd been waiting for the loan from his 401k to be issued, a fellow inmate came to him with symptoms that kept coming and going. The guy had heard that House was a doctor. House got him to go to the infirmary. The nurse was the same one who had been so good to House. Things got worse for the guy because nobody could figure out what was wrong with him.

House recalled what life must have been like for that doctor in Japan; the baraku, the doctor whom nobody would listen to until they absolutely had no other choice. Here, the prison medical staff had no idea what was wrong with Lupus Boy and they had to listen to this scum of the earth inmate. House had taken to calling himself a degenerate who didn't belong with "normal, nice" people. Now the prison medical staff had no choice but to listen to a degenerate because the degenerate was right.

House's interest was piqued but the clinic doctors wouldn't allow him to see the case file, so he didn't have any of the lab results or the other pertinent information in the file. All House could go on was his observations and assessment skills. In the end, House suspected it was mastocytosis and told the prison clinic staff that. House recommended five aspirin for the guy in order to confirm what was really wrong with him, knowing that aspirin is a known trigger for a mastocytosis attack. Hell, he really saved the guy's life the day before when he did an emergency tracheostomy and saved the guy from suffocating.

But the clinic medical director, an asshole if ever there was one, decided that rules were rules and saving a guy's life wasn't worth breaking one rule. No, he'd rather have House manhandled, bodily thrown face down onto a clinic bed by three big brutes, handcuffed behind his back, thrown into solitary confinement, and have his bail revoked.

Never mind the fact that Wilson had already deposited House's bail check. House's bail money would have been available for him today. Wilson, in fact, was planning on coming in with the money today. Now, bail was highly unlikely because House was in solitary. He'd have to have another day in court, no doubt, because now it seemed apparent that more time was going to be added on to his sentence. The prison had been ordered by the courts to release some inmates due to overcrowding. Not only did House already have his bail ready to post, his name had also been added to the early release list. Either he could have posted bail today or he would have been released today anyway due to overcrowding. Well, technically he wouldn't be released; he would still be confined, but he'd have an ankle monitor on and be confined to house arrest at his home.

Now, however, with time added on in solitary confinement, any hope of getting out (at least today) was out of the question. No doubt the court would have revoked his early release and probably revoked his bail too. All because he had a gift for saving lives and used it.

Lupus Boy had mastocytosis. Any idiot doctor knew that mastocytosis, also known as mast-cell disease, is difficult to diagnose by just drawing a blood sample. The type of protein that is elevated in mast-cell disease is very specific and you have to know what to look for. You have to know to look for mast cells. In House's mind, any idiot doctor would know that mast-cell disease can (but doesn't always) manifest itself with a skin rash. If the patient has a skin rash, you biopsy the affected skin. If there is no skin rash, you biopsy whatever other organs might be affected. The disease is often mis-diagnosed because the symptoms mimic other conditions. Mast cells release histamine. Too many mast cells can mean too much histamine so the person has signs and symptoms of an allergic reaction, just like Lupus Boy had. House knew that common triggers can include heat (especially food that's too hot), bug bites, bee stings, aspirin and ibuprofen. There are other triggers too.

This is a jail, after all. House knew that the chances of Lupus Boy dying alone in a cell after another attack, with no doctor nearby, were very high. Hell, he'd already cut a hole in the guy's neck after one attack. Idiot Clinic Director Doctor wanted to try to confirm it with a blood test. House knew better. This being a jail, the chances of Lupus Boy getting a good biopsy were next to nil especially since they really had no idea specifically which organ to biopsy and double especially because Idiot Clinic Director Doctor wouldn't let House see the chart long enough to get all the information he needed. The best, easiest and fastest way to confirm the diagnosis was by using a known trigger that the prison would have on hand: aspirin.

Give the guy five aspirin. Crush them up and mix them in water to make them easier to take for someone with an already sore throat. Yeah. Idiot Clinic Director Doctor wasn't willing to trigger an attack just to confirm the diagnosis. What were they going to do, just let the guy rot there in the bed? It wasn't like anyone even offered or suggested transferring Lupus Boy to a hospital (preferably one with a good diagnostics department) where the diagnosis could be confirmed by biopsy. Nope, they just let him rot there in the bed while Idiot Clinic Director Doctor argued with his employee and inmate House, driving home his point that he wasn't willing to take the risk. House rightly pointed out, of course, that the risk wasn't Idiot Clinic Director Doctor's risk to take; it was the patient's risk, and the patient agreed to the aspirin knowing the consequences. All they had to do was give Lupus Boy the consent. He'd sign it, they'd have their informed consent, and they could do what needed to be done.

But no, Idiot Clinic Director Doctor wouldn't do it. House had often been accused, on the outside, of not following any kind of recognizable code of ethics. The concept of establishing a diagnosis by "ruling out" other conditions is a well-established practice. When the patient's symptoms come and go, like Lupus Boy's did, it's also a well-established practice to diagnose the condition by determining what the triggers are. That's what allergy testing is all about. You administer small doses of different allergens until you get a reaction; that's how allergies are diagnosed. The concept of administering aspirin to trigger a mastocytosis attack, in order to confirm the diagnosis, was obviously risky but no more risky than doing any other kind of allergy testing. Lupus Boy was in a clinic equipped with emergency resuscitation equipment should it be necessary. A reaction from the aspirin not only confirms the diagnosis but is easy to treat with an injection of epinephrine to stop the reaction.

But apparently things didn't work this way in jail. Apparently an inmate's life was expendable. House never saw lives as expendable. In House's mind, an ethical doctor didn't let a patient wither away and possibly die, undiagnosed and untreated. An ethical doctor did what was necessary to diagnose and treat the patient. In many of House's difficult cases on the outside, treatment was often the fastest way to confirm a diagnosis. If they responded to the treatment, it was easier to rule in a correct diagnosis. Since prison officials would not do the obvious thing, which was to get Lupus Boy transferred to a decent medical center for proper care, House knew he had to take matters in his own hands. He had to do the right thing. And the right thing was to use his gift to diagnose and fix the guy.

As a result of saving Lupus Boy's life twice, he was now stuck in solitary confinement.