And I mean sporadically. One year later, I'm gonna add another chapter. I can't promise anything consistent, mostly due to my attention span, but I'm bored so, here we go!


Chapter 2:

That One Disease

"It was caused by a garrote." The bunny-ears doctor announced that with a hint of glee in his voice. After studying the scar for a fair amount of time, this was the conclusion.

"You can't be serious? She's a teenager." Cameron, always looking on the bright side, found it rather hard to believe that such a young girl could possibly have been strangled in such a brutal manner for any reason.

"A Japanese teenager at that! You know how crazy that place is. Maybe it's some kind of weird fetish over there," House retorted with sarcasm.

The woman gave up trying to reason with him. Obviously anything she said was just going to be shot back at her with that obnoxious wit. Foreman didn't give in.

"Being Japanese doesn't automatically make someone an asphyxiophiliac. You're sure it wasn't a surgery? Even a half-assed one?"

"It shows all the telltale signs of wire strangulation. Whoever did this to her was going for the kill. How she survived is anyone's guess. Maybe she's like the James Bond of of Japan or something."

Backing off of his investigation of the scar, House returned to an upright position, a thought occurring to him. "She got a name? Seems a little inappropriate to call a Japanese girl Jane Doe."

Foreman passed him the only possible source of that information; her student I.D. "That's the only form of identification she had on her."

"Yuumura Kirika..." House dictated with a flawless accent. He skimmed over some of the other information, but most of it was either useless or a part of the language he just didn't know.

"So this Miss Kirika is-" Chase found himself interrupted.

"Miss Yumura, or Kirika, I'm sure she'd prefer." After a confused look, the only fluent doctor elaborated. "Their names go backwards in Japan."


Light filled her vision. It was strong, probably caused by a fluorescent bulb. Where was she? What had happened? This feeling...it reminded her of that day when she had first awoken remembering nothing at all...

It frightened her.

Kirika tried to sit up, but her muscles weren't listening as well as she had hoped. That was very strange considering the amount of time and effort she had put into honing them. After a few minutes of adjusting as best as she could, the young girl started noticing more and more about her surroundings.

First of all, she was in a hospital bed. Had she messed up the last job? Surely not. Yet, here she was, recovering as it were from some unknown incident. She didn't feel very well rested, which was odd considering how long she must have been sleeping. The clock in the room told her it had been quite a few hours since she had last checked it in the...

That's where she was! The office building! She had messed up. Marco had gotten away. It was the last thing she remembered before everything had gone dark. What on earth had happened to her? She would not have a lot of time to contemplate this alone, however, as a number of footsteps had stopped outside her door. Naturally, her trained hearing could easily detect the minute differences in paces and footfalls. Presumably, the ones about to enter were medical practitioners of some form or another, but Kirika knew better than to let her guard down at any time. In the event that the ones who would enter were there for her life, she could think of at least ten different ways off the top of her head anything in this room could become a makeshift weapon.

Much to her relief, the first few to enter were dressed in clothing typical of those in the medical profession, though the fourth in still had her on alert.

"I see our little rising sun is awake." He had a limp. The man would probably not be much of a threat even if he was somehow in the assassination business. Still...with Les Soldats you never really knew. One of the doctors approached her with a friendly demeanor. Kirika wasn't quite ready to be examined before she had her grasp of the situation, but it probably wouldn't do to start a ruckus either.

She began in a quiet voice; it could almost be mistaken for the wind, but she raised it so as to be heard. "Could you tell what I'm doing here?"

"We were hoping you might be able to help us figure that out." He paused for a moment after noticing something. "Your English is surprisingly good for someone who attends school in Japan." It wasn't an overly suspicious note; in all appearances, she was a foreigner on vacation. Yet her accent was flawless, as if she had spoken the language as her first. The young girl had reacted to his statement, and only House caught the subtle emotion – or lack thereof – on her features. Interesting.


"Alright minions, let er' rip." He whipped out his trusty marker and wrote down a number of symptoms. Many of these clearly fit a certain auto-immune disease, but nobody would even try to submit that idea.

After their patient had woken up, the team had done their best with an examination and medical history, but there was virtually nothing in regards to the latter. That would be a problem, but hopefully not an insurmountable obstacle. The girl was reasonably forthcoming with how she was feeling, willing to provide any information necessary to shorten her stay.

The list of possible ailments was getting progressively shorter, as they narrowed down their field of searching. Almost an hour later, the witty lead of Diagnostics would have to break the silence. "Really? Nothing else?" Met with blank stares he relented.

"It's Lupus!"


Right then, so after getting a number of Story Alerts in my email I've decided to take a crack at this for another chapter. It's a little short, but I feel like adding too much too soon would break the flow.

As I mentioned previously, I will be avoiding medical jargon like the plague. It has its place in the show, but unfortunately, not in this work of fanfiction. To make up for it, I will mostly be focusing on the implications of the diagnoses.

Finally, any constructive criticism would be welcome; my story writing skills are rather undeveloped, and any helpful advice can go a long way.