The boy who doesn't age

Cuddy was on the phone. An old classmate of hers she had only lightly kept in touch with had out of the blue phoned her.
'Please help me out, for old time's sake' he sounded exasperated. Cuddy sighed, 'What kind of favour are we even talking about? You want me to help you're niece find a residency? She should just apply like everyone else.'
'She has; believe me, but no one is going to take her, again, believe me.' Cuddy wrinkled her forehead but before she could say something or even politely excuse herself from this phone call he continued. 'you see, she's kind of an oddball, weirdo even… but she's smart, every year she's the top of her class, top of her year even.' Cuddy could hear him take a deep breath on the other side of the line. She realized the crux was about to come.
'You have dr. House don't you, I think she would be perfect for his department.' Cuddy's eyebrows left the atmosphere. 'Wha-'
'I really think it's for the best to put all the crazy ones together don't you, I mean, there I no reason why Jack should have to suffer having to put up with normal people stuff, and for normal people to have to deal with her antics.' He quickly cut her off.
'House is on personal leave' Cuddy put in dryly. Her initial surprise had subsided, and now worry took its place, someone fit for House? I don't even… but Cuddy was now curious 'Why do you think no one else will hire your niece, if she's as good as you say she is?'
'Oh you know, she ticks people of, unnerves them. It's really I knack I suppose. Oh and she tends to get into all kinds trou-' he cut himself of there. Cuddy could hear his silent embarrassment on the other side of the line.
'You want me to hire a resident for a department head that isn't here, because you fear she isn't going to get in anywhere else because she gets into a lot of trouble?' Cuddy repeated his request.
'um, yes please' It sounded like he himself thought it sounded cheesy. Cuddy sighed; she kind of missed having House rampage the hospital. She knew it was the pink-coloured glasses of Houses absence that made her miss it, not because she actually missed his antics.
'All right, I'll see what I can do, but since she seems like a huge pain in my ass already I want a probation time to evaluate what I'm getting into.' She could actually hear her old friend's relief.

Taub and thirteen where sitting in the conference room; Houses office was empty and dark. Foreman was technically the boss now, but even he didn't have the nerve to occupy Houses office, and so for close to four weeks now, it had been devoid of any human activity. The three of them had just solved a case two days ago, only sadly too late, and the mood had turned a bit sour.
Cuddy has told them the day before that a new resident would join them today. This had surprised all three of them because with House gone to a psychiatric hospital the future of the department of diagnostics was a bit unsure to say the least. And so Taub and thirteen were sitting waiting for either Foreman or the new resident to show up. Both were late.
Foreman burst into the room with a lot of movement, he dumped three file-cases onto the table and went to the coat hanger.
'Shouldn't you have four of these printed out?' asked Taub, he was referring to the still nowhere to be seen resident. Foreman looked a bit confused for a moment but then his face cleared, 'right' he spoke. 'oh well' Foreman actually wasn't looking forward to this new person, he'd have to deal with the inexperience of someone who'd just graduated from medical school when he clearly was having enough trouble just dealing with the job of diagnosing.
'Who even comes in late for their first day of work?' he wondered out loud. Taub and thirteen remembered the vicious battle they had gone through to get the job, this new person had just been offered it fresh out of med school, just like that.' Cuddy's friend had been right, she wasn't even there yet, and she was already pissing people of.

The door opened and someone walked in. All three Houses underlings looked up expectantly. And all three were immediately confused.
A seemingly young man, about 18-19 years old stood in front of them. Wearing a white short-sleeved dress-shirt tucked into a pair of black pants. His hear was short-ish and stood up in all directions, kind of like bed hair. He had light brown round shaped eyes, and as he stepped into a sun patch in the room, the light that hit his right eye lit it up to an almost amber-like colour. He grimaced and stepped out of it, his pupil shrunken to a needle prick. Taub had never known a person could be that beautiful without there being anything sexual to them whatsoever. The boy had a sort of feral feeling to him as he looked around the room. Unbeknownst to Taub, Foreman and Thirteen were struck by the same thing.
The second thing Foreman noticed was that this boy had the same taste for sneakers House had. His whole outfit was sober, cheap but durable, with no personalisation's whatsoever. He didn't wear any kind of jewellery, apart from a watch. But his sneakers were big and colourful Taub blinked as he too saw the sneakers, raising his eyebrows. Thirteen on the other hand smiled as she recognized the colour scheme of the ninja turtles in the boy's shoes.
'Sorry I'm late' the boy put his bag on a chair, Foreman got up in protest
'Who are you?' he asked, 'what are you doing here?' Adding 'we are working here' the boy seemed almost amused by Foreman's confusion. He just kept smiling until it dawned on one of them. Thirteen was the one who first realised. 'You're dr. Engelbrecht, our new resident' she stated. She had now also risen from her chair. The boys smile grew bigger.
Foreman and Taub stared at each other, this had to be a joke, Taub wanted to open his mouth but the boy was faster.
'I'm 26.' Taub shut his jaws together again. All three looked dr. Engelbrecht over again, Taub even blinked his eyes a few times to make sure, this kid seriously wasn't 18? He didn't have any sign of beardgr– oh. The coin dropped.
'You're a woman.' Normally a stupid statement to make, here it was necessary.
'Well, not on the inside anyway.' Engelbrecht responded. 'Call me Jack btw, It has three less syllables.' Jack sat down, while all of them were still processing the new information; also the casual way Jack had handled it was startling.
The entire exchange from entering the room till sitting down had only taken one minute, but information wise it should have taken longer. Foreman scraped his throat, 'so anyway… the case…'

Thirteen and Taub had gone to give the patient an infuse and gone for some lab tests based on their ddx. Jack was flipping through the case file looking bored. Or maybe that was just how his face looked if he was focussed. Foreman didn't know for sure, Jack didn't seem to on the same physiological level the rest of them were. Jack looked up into the ceiling. He hadn't added anything to the ddx a moment ago. He had just looked kinda bored and flipping through the file the same way he was now, every now and then he looked at the white board with an odd glance. It worked on Foreman's nerves. This man or woman, or whatever he was, Foreman paused his own thoughts, he referred to him as a he, so that probably said all that was needed. He, Jack was so different from House, and yet already equally annoying to him.
Jack suddenly got up, 'gotta check something' he simply said. And gone he was.

Jack was very sensitive others body language and very good at reading group dynamics and situations; maybe as a payment for that skill he was oblivious to how he himself impacted a group or how he came across to others. Not that he had time to consider such nonsense. His life was surprisingly like watching a television show where he was around all the time and saw everything that happened, but wasn't an integral part of it.
The patient Foreman had brought on was a bit of a mystery case, it wasn't something Jack felt he could immediately contribute to. There wasn't enough information available and so Jack had decided to go to the room the patient was kept in. After walking down the wrong hallway a few times he managed to get there just in time to see the boy being wheeled out of the room by his colleagues. Jack made a calculation and decided they must have taken their sweet time to get ready, but it wasn't really of concern to him.
The boy in the hospital-bed was pretty young, which contributed to his case being so weird. Normal six year old didn't have this many, and diverse ailments, plus no matter what anyone had done so far he didn't get better, only worse.
Still inside the patients room was his mother who was resting her head in her hands. Her son suffered from epileptic attacks and was losing more and more of his consciousness. The chart had also mentioned sore joints, light sensitivity and red rashes. The rest of the team had thought of systematic lupus erythematosus. Foreman had wanted them to start a prednisone and mycophenolate mofetil via infuse to halt the infections.

Foreman was going to explain to the mother of the boy what they thought the diagnosis was and what they were going to about it. As he walked down the hallway to the room the boy was in he was surprised to see that the "thing" Jack had gone to check out turned out to be the patient room. No not the room, Jack was staring intently and, quite frankly, rudely at the distraught mother. As he got closer to Jack, the spell of his stare was broken as he now turned his completely expressionless face to Foreman. Without saying anything he got up and hands in pocket started to turn.
'Wait a second' Foreman hadn't meant to snap, he usually only snapped at House when he was about to do something terrible to a patient. Jack half turned, and immediately Foreman felt exasperated, this dude was really working on his nerves. 'Oh, whatever', to Foreman Jack was someone he didn't want to put any energy into, just leave him be, and he would soon either drop out or be fired for doing absolutely nothing. Jack seemed to take his "whatever" to heart and Foreman could almost see his annoyance glide off of Jacks sleeves. He turned to the room and took a breath changing gears. He walked into the room as the mother stood up.

A two more days passed as they continued treating the boy for the lupus. But his healing process was not great, he would get a bit better, and then get worse again. The test results for the antinuclear antibodies and the antibodies against double-stranded DNA got back negative. And so all of them held a new ddx in the conference room, this time Jack was well on time arriving before any of the others.
To all of their annoyance (which Jack seemed oblivious to) Jack had spent most of those two days lounging on the bench outside the room, at one point even snacking on a bag of chips. The mother had complained, and Cuddy had to send him away. This had only caused Jack to become more inconspicuous. He had been back on the bench completely unrecognizable. Taub had gone for a check-up when he noticed a young woman sitting gracefully outside looking in with a sympathetic look on her face. He couldn't help but stare as he passed and went into the room. As he turned to face the patient he felt his cheeks lit up with fire, that sympathetic young lady was definitely Jack, what the f* was he doing?!
As Taub arrived at the conference room he could barely look at the now male again Jack sitting stoically at the head of the table.

Like the previous time Jack kept quiet during the ddx. He contrary to his looks and to what he told himself had a bit of social anxiety. Speaking up in a group was not his strong suit. He would find "valid" reasons as to not say whatever was on his mind. And he might not have looked it, but he did have a lot on his mind, but he knew that what he had on his mind was potentially risky. And so he kept his mouth shut and instead listened while doodling on a piece of paper. He would instinctively draw eyes and sometimes add faces and before long the paper was filled with eyes of different style and expression all staring up at him.
It was weird but Jack felt confronted by the thirty something pairs of eyes accusingly looking at him, he looked up quickly. He realized too quickly as he was now being looked at by his three colleague fellows, they looked at him expectantly, and he found himself having to decide what to do more quickly that he had looked up.
'We should put him in the pressure tank.' He decided on. He felt nervous saying something in a group, but no one would notice that, he made a point of not "uhuming" of stammering, instead his voice steadily and confidently spoke out his thoughts to the outside world.
The three looked at him rather surprised. This frankly annoyed him; he pulled a face, and then turned his gaze to Foreman.
'I'm pretty sure he'll get better if we do that.' He elaborated. Clearly though, judging by the looks he was given, his elaboration was not good enough.
'Look, I have a hunch but it's not something I'm willing to share just yet.'

Foreman looked Jack in the eyes, he was sure, and annoyingly, he had the same "I'm sure" face House did. It was somewhat frustrating that the moment he was freed from all the whims House subjected them all to, he was presented by someone else with the exact same tendencies; so different, yet so the similar.
Jack's gaze had not wavered a single moment during Foreman's train of thought. He sighed, and conceded.
'I suppose it can't hurt him.' and it wouldn't really bother him either Foreman added in private. The boy's consciousness was decreasing with the hour, they could continue looking and thinking while he was in the tank. With House they had done much weirder and worse things to their patients. This wouldn't even reach the top twenty.

And so the boy was put into the pressure tank. Mystifying everyone Jack didn't want them to change the pressure though, just have him lie in there for twenty-four hours. That was all. He got a pocketbook from his bag, and sat on a chair in the room waiting for who knew what.
Just as Jack was about to start a new chapter someone touched his shoulder; it was the patient's mother. He looked at her questioningly.
'Why does he have to be in there? Are you sure it's helping him?'
'Sure it will'
'Why?' she asked sounding hopefully, voice almost breaking
Jack ignored her question, unwilling to answer her, or anyone for that matter, and not feeling like lying.
He dealt with her increasing anger at him ignoring her up till the point Thirteen arrived and took her apart, essentially covering for him.

'So he's getting better?' Cuddy sat behind her desk. Foreman stood in front of it. The boy with the mysterious illness was indeed recovering. He had been kept in the pressure tank, no pressure, and was steadily improving; prognosis was if he continued like he was, he would completely recover from all his ailments. Jack had been right so far. And now Foreman stood in Cuddy's office because people were not supposed to get better just by laying in an unused pressure tank. Presumably Jack knew why this had happened to this particular patient, seeing he had been the one insisting on them doing it, but he was nowhere to be found.
'When Jack turns up I'm sure he will explain.' Was all Foreman could manage. Arguably no one was more irritated at Jacks disappearance then him. After all, he had no clue as to why Jacks idea had worked. Why the f* did that work of all things?! He stood stiffly looking at Cuddy hoping to be released. She did.
Once outside the office he closed his eyes, if House had taught him anything it was that when hiding, one should hide where no one would expect it. He sighed and started walking.
In the middle of the waiting room of the clinic Jack sat on one of the chairs looking interested at all the different people coming and going. Of course he was.
'We're all looking for you, he's getting better.'
'I know, I was there' Jack replied curtly. Foreman felt like strangling him.
'I was thinking how I should explain' Jack then continued before Foreman could speak again.
'You know, I was hoping my idea wouldn't work' this put Foreman on his guard, that sentence was never a good sign.
'Why?'
'Because this means the Phenytoin is leaving his system' Jacks statement landed like a bomb in Foreman's brain. He had basically just proclaimed that the boy had never been sick, only poisoned. Foreman's brain raced.
'The mother?'
'Yeah.' Jack got up, cracked his neck and suddenly pulled his face into a weird grimace. 'She's got Munchausen, only she's smart enough not to hurt herself.' It was a harsh statement resembling something House might have said. Jack's voice was cold, he started moving down the hallway ignoring the fact he was in the middle of a conversation. Foreman could see the horror of the case glide off of Jacks shoulders down his sleeved as he moved his mind onto something new.