2

Distractions

Thirteen, with eyes wide, one hand on the doorknob, one on the chart clipboard, both gripping the contents of her now shaking hands tightly for support, slowly closed her mouth and swallowed minutely as she struggled to maintain her composure.

Marissa mirrored Thirteen's image—eyes wide, mouth slightly open, one hand clenched inside her leather designer jacket, and the other gripping the exam bed's cold metal side rail.

"Oh my God," Marissa said, her voice a whisper.

Thirteen, having never imagined to see Marissa again after she left Orange County, panicked in her head as she sifted through her clouded mind for something—anything—to say.

"Hey," was all she managed.

"Hey," Marissa, who was standing nearest to the door of the small room, said back to her, as she, too, tried to pull herself together. She was finally able to force her eyes to leave Alex's long enough to steal a quick look at a lab coat-clad, purple hair-free, more mature-looking but still gorgeous-as-ever Alex Kelly.

"Alex," a blond heavy-built man sitting beside the examination bed stood up gingerly from his seat, placed his hands on his pants pockets, and nodded politely at Alex. Thirteen could tell that he was shocked to see her, too, but he obviously recovered faster than Marissa did.

"Ryan." Thirteen nodded as well to acknowledge Ryan Atwood.

And then she saw it. She saw her. The thing that broke her heart into little pieces. Again. She hadn't thought it was possible, because after everything that she had gone through in Newport with Marissa, she had picked up the tiny broken pieces of her heart and superglued them back together with careful, calloused hands, built a wall around it, making sure it was impenetrable to anyone other than the sick, dying people that she had sworn to treat and do no harm to. She had promised herself to never let her heart—or at least what was left of it—to break again. No repeat performances, no commitments, no complications, no heartbreak.

But she had failed, apparently. Because when she saw the beautiful little light brown-haired girl sitting on the table, she felt her heart break once again, and she hated that she felt that way.

The air smelt of tension, and Marissa could not stand it anymore. As she opened her mouth to speak up, desperate to relieve the tension that had filled the air, a small voice spoke up.

"How much longer?" The little girl on the examination table pulled on the hem of Marissa's jacket.

"Um, sweetie, uh…" Marissa turned her head to the girl's direction and then to Alex as she thought of the most rational way to handle the situation.

Thirteen stepped forward, glad for the distraction, and set down the chart on the crash cart on the corner of the room. She grabbed the common stethoscope lying on top of the cart and stood in front of the girl.

Thirteen cleared her throat. "What's your name?" she asked the girl curtly.

"Sarah."

"Hi… Sarah." Alex flashed her a quick, forced smile. "I'm a doctor. You can call me Alex. How old are you?"

The girl held up eight little stubby fingers, all five on one hand and three on the other, to show the doctor how old she was.

Thirteen nodded. "Okay, Sarah. I'm going to take a look at you to see what's wrong. Tell me if something hurts, okay?"

"Okay."

She began auscultating the child's chest, and then her back, noting adventitious breath sounds, validating the nurse's findings. She removed the earpieces from her ears and hung the instrument around her neck as she proceeded now to palpate for lymph nodes.

Thirteen went on with the examination as if on auto-pilot, checking for inflamed nodes, looking inside her mouth using a penlight and a tongue depressor, observing her lung expansion, and percussing for hyperresonance on her lung fields.

She could feel eyes on her—both his and hers. She clenched her jaw and told herself to focus and do what she was there to do.

She asked Sarah to cough and then collected a sputum sample into a small cup. "Greenish… bacterial, prob'ly," she muttered to herself.

When she was finally done with the examination, she turned around and saw that Ryan had moved from his seat and took place beside Marissa, one arm draped loosely around Marissa's shoulders, his hand on her shoulder. Thirteen pulled out her prescription pad and pen from her lab coat's pocket, meeting neither Marissa's nor Ryan's eyes.

"I was thinking it may be just a common cold; it's quite common in this type of weather. But it's probably not. It could be a pneumococcal or streptococcal infection, which would mean she has pneumonia, but in the early stage anyway… or some other bacterial infection. It doesn't look viral, but I couldn't tell for sure. I already took a sputum sample for testing. Somebody will be calling to tell you the results." She scribbled down prescriptions on the paper, as she talked in a casual tone, yet in a formal manner. "Regardless, just give her this—" she ripped the piece of paper off of the rest of the pad and gave it to Marissa, careful not to make skin contact, "—antibiotic. That ought to make her better in a week or so. Just make sure she doesn't miss a dose."

"And then she's gonna be alright?" asked Marissa.

"She's gonna be fine, no need to worry."

Marissa nodded. "Thank you."

"Yeah." Thirteen started to leave, but Marissa's voice stopped her.

"Hey, Alex…"

Thirteen turned around, hoping for—ugh no, just… expecting—the obligatory how-are-you-long-time-no-see chat from an old friend.

"It's good to see you again," Marissa said honestly.

Thirteen nodded quietly. "You, too." She gave her and Ryan on final nod, opened the door and left, her head still spinning and her heart pounding madly in her chest.


"Oh my God," Marissa said after she let out a breath she was previously too preoccupied to realize she was holding. She sat slowly on the chair that was previously occupied by Ryan.

"Yeah," Ryan said.

"Alex is a doctor," she said, her gaze fixed on a single spot on the wall.

"Never saw that coming either," Ryan agreed.

She looked up at Ryan's face, her eyebrows knit together. "Alex is a doctor," she said again, still finding it hard to believe it.

"Alex is a doctor," Ryan repeated, nodding solemnly.

"Are you friends with her?" Sarah asked, looking at Marissa.

"I…" …Don't know, she thought sadly.

"Yes, baby, she was a friend. We knew her from back in our high school days," Ryan told Sarah when Marissa failed to answer.

Sarah nodded, and then tugged at Marissa's jacket again after a while. "Can we go now? Justice League is in ten minutes."

Marissa nodded, although half-heartedly. "Okay, sweetie. We'll go now."


"You're not wearing your lab coat," House said, eyeing Kutner as the young doctor entered the conference room.

Kutner opened his mouth, about to explain when Cuddy opened the door and strode in almost immediately after he did.

"Neither are you," Cuddy said, apparently hearing.

House, who was standing nearest the door before the table still wearing his leather motorcycle jacket, a pair of shades and a backpack slung across one shoulder, ignored her, as did Kutner.

"Sorry I'm—" Kutner started.

"You aren't late," House said.

"You are," Cuddy said, referring to House.

"—Where were you?" House continued, still ignoring her.

"Why do you say I wasn't late?" Kutner asked.

"I saw your car in the parking lot when I came in."

"I probably just arrived a few seconds before you did, for all you know." Kutner shrugged.

"I walk with a cane and I've been standing here for about forty seconds now."

Kutner groaned inwardly. It was better to be late because of some kind of accident than be caught skipping work intentionally.

"I walked to the diner nearby. Breakfast with my parents," he finally admitted.

"Sit down, mama's boy," House ordered sternly.

Kutner obeyed and walked towards the chair beside Thirteen. House limped to his office, Cuddy following.

"He sure is cranky today," Kutner muttered.

"Crankier," Taub corrected him. "He's always cranky."

Kutner snickered as he took a seat. "Thanks, by the way," he told Thirteen, who was staring into space, her elbow on the table, hand on her neck, and lips drawn to a tight line. He nudged her when she didn't answer. "Hey, you okay?"

"Hm?" She turned to him.

"I said, thank you."

"Oh… yeah. Sure," she said distractedly and then went back to staring at nothing.

Kutner scowled and looked at Foreman, sitting on the end of the table farthest to door, wearing a business suit as usual, and at Taub, who was sitting across Thirteen. Foreman shrugged, and the look Taub gave him a look that said he didn't know either.

All of them—or at least all of them but Thirteen—watched through the glass partition as House and Cuddy talked inside his office. The conversation seemed to be more one-sided than usual.

Soon, House walked towards the room where they sat, followed closely by Cuddy. They could see he was talking, but they couldn't hear, until he pushed the door open.

"…I've already told you," they heard him say. "If you're happy, I am." He went to the white board and began writing on it with a marker.

Cuddy's mouth was slightly open, as if she was about to protest. She looked confusedly at House and then closed her mouth a few moments later, looking defeated, and let herself out of the room.

House stopped writing momentarily when the door closed, the marker's tip in mid-air, half an inch away from the board. He clenched his jaw, and then started writing again.

"Wilson..." he continued writing what appeared to be symptoms in all caps on the board. "Jaundice, fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea," it read.

"…found you good doctors of the world…" He studied what he wrote and replaced the marker's cap after a moment. "…a case."

He turned around to face them. He gestured towards the board with a nod. "Go."


They sat in the car outside Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, Ryan in the driver's seat, Marissa beside him in the front seat, and Sarah in the backseat.

"You guys hungry?" Ryan asked.

"Nope," Sarah answered absently as she turned the pages of a comic book. "I'm good."

Ryan turned to Marissa, his eyebrows raised in question.

"We had breakfast before coming here," Marissa chuckled slightly. "You're not hungry again, are you?" She smirked.

Ryan grimaced, ignoring her question. "Fine. I'll eat at work."

"Can you please just take us home? I'm kinda… tired."

Ryan nodded and started the engine.

They rode in silence, Ryan taking his eyes off the road every now and then to glance Marissa's way. She was staring blankly out the window, seemingly lost in thought.

"You okay?"

Marissa didn't answer. Ryan reached out his right hand and placed it on her left shoulder, slightly squeezing it.

"'Cause you don't seem okay," he commented.

A few seconds too long had passed before he finally got a response. Marissa turned her head to look at Ryan's worried face, and then shook her head. "I'm fine."

Ryan studied her expression. She was smiling, but the way it didn't reach her eyes just worried him some more. Despite not being convinced, he smiled back and nodded in concession, nonetheless.


"Serum titers are normal. It's not hepatitis B," Kutner said as he set down the test tubes he was holding on a rack.

"Which means it's not hep D either," Taub said, not taking his eyes off the oculars of a microscope.

"Found anything yet?" House walked into the laboratory.

"She's anemic," Taub declared as he removed his eyes off the oculars of the microscope.

"Hemolytic?" asked Kutner.

"Looks like," Taub answered.

"Any family history of blood disorders?" House looked at Thirteen who was standing by the centrifuge, staring at nothing again.

When she didn't answer, House threw Kutner and Taub a questioning glance.

"We don't know. She took the history," Taub said.

Kutner nudged Thirteen and caught her attention.

"Sorry?" She looked at House, who was looking at her suspiciously.

"Is the patient hot?"

"Oh. Yeah. Temp's one-oh-six."

"No, I meant, does she make you feel all warm and tingly inside?"

"Will you ever get tired of digging through my personal life?" Thirteen snapped, annoyed.

"Sure, but probably not anytime soon. I happen to find bisexual girls who don't date men very fascinating."

"Okay, well, do my sexual preference and mating patterns have anything to do with the case again, by any chance? Because, if they don't, I'm not going to humor you anymore this time."

"No. It's just that you're distracted—more distracted—than usual today. Have you fallen in love with a dying patient again?"

Thirteen rolled her eyes.

"You look like you're in deep thought about something, and that's great if it's the case you're thinking of, because you would be doing what you're being paid to do," House went on. "But if you're just daydreaming about how you're gonna spend your time with your hot, dying girlfriend whose last days, by the way, are gonna be coming way too sooner than yours if you keep on being useless, it's not going to make me any pleased about your behavior. Unless of course you begin thinking out loud. Facial expressions, big hand gestures and all."

Thirteen sighed, clenching her jaw and crossing her arms. "Sorry."

House nodded minutely. "So, does she—"

"He," Thirteen corrected. "Just because I don't like to date men doesn't mean I choose not to treat them, too."

"Noble," House said, nodding. "So does the patient have family history of bleeding disorders?"

"Not that his mother knows of. He was adopted when he was four, but he doesn't know."

"Adopted? And you don't think you could've told us that earlier?"

"You never asked."

"Oh my, I'm sorry. I had to ask, didn't I? Of course, silly me," House said sarcastically.

"Hey, you're the one who's too insistent on this doctors-treat-diseases-not-people thing. You don't even think it's important to know what the patient's name or sex is!"

"I do if there was at least even a fiber of chance that it's medically relevant."

"I just didn't think it would matter since it doesn't seem to be a hereditary disease to me."

"Nothing in diagnostic medicine is always just what they seem to be."

Thirteen let out a small sigh to calm herself down.

"From where is he?" House asked her.

"Pennsylvania."

"No, I mean, where did his parents adopt him from?"

"Oregon, I think," Thirteen said.

"You think?"

"Okay, no, she did say Oregon, but I didn't ask where exactly. She didn't look too comfortable talking about it. I didn't want to pry."

"A patient with herpes comes in, but she refuses to talk about her sex life because she's not comfortable with the subject. Would you really just back off?"

"Okay, look, I'll go ask her now," Thirteen answered, getting tired of arguing with House. She started towards the door but turned back around just a few steps away. "Wait, why does it matter so much anyway?"

"It matters because he's gonna die if we don't find out what he has, and we will find out faster if you've taken a decent comprehensive history."

"I did take a decent history. The mother said he was adopted from an orphanage in Oregon, okay? I didn't think it matters where exactly in Oregon she—"

"It doesn't."

Thirteen's face scrunched up in confusion. "Wha—?"

"Has it ever occurred to you that she could be lying?"

"I don't think a mother whose son is dying would."

"Everybody lies."

"She already told me that he was adopted. Why would she lie about something so trivial like from where?"

"For the obvious reason that it must not be trivial."

"I don't—" Thirteen shook her head, not following.

"The patient Caucasian?"

"Yeah," she answered, still confusedly.

House paused, his eyes unfocused, as he worked out the possibilities in his mind.

"Blood works done yet?"

"We're working on it," Kutner replied.

House nodded and began limping out of the lab. "You do your job," he told Kutner and Taub. Throwing Thirteen a brief sideway glance, he said, "I'll go visit the patient and do hers."


Marissa sighed for what she swore was the tenth time in at least half an hour. She had been lying in bed over the past half hour. Ryan had gone off to a meeting with a client, and Sarah was downstairs watching TV. She was grateful for the silence, yet frustrated at the same time that she had no one to talk to about her thoughts. She finally sat up, her mind set on calling Summer, when she heard the familiar voice of Chris Carrabba belting out "So Long, Sweet Summer".

She quickly grabbed her phone from her dresser and received the call.

"Hey, Coop, how was—"

"Alex is a doctor."

"What?"

"Adoctor. With brown hair."

"Sorry? Who is?"

"Alex."

"Alex… who's a doctor…" Summer said slowly, having no clue as to what Marissa was talking about.

"Yes."

"…With brown hair…?"

"Yes."

"The doctor who checked up on Sarah at the hospital this morning?" she guessed.

"Yes."

There was a few seconds of silence.

"Okay, I suck at this game. I give up."

"Al—"

"Hold on. Before you tell me, how's Sarah? Is she gonna be okay?"

"Yeah. She only needs to take some meds. I already gave her the antibiotic. She's gonna be fine. Her fever's down, too. She's downstairs watching TV right now."

"Alright, good. Now onto the topic of Alex the doctor. Care to elaborate?"

"Summer, I saw Alex this morning. At the hospital. In Princeton."

"Alex who?"

"Alex Kelly."

"Alex Kelly…" Summer repeated, searching her memory for the name. "Alex Kel—Huh? Bait Shop Alex Kelly?"

"Sum, how many Alex Kellys do we know?"

Summer ignored her question. "Like, your Alex Kelly?"

Marissa let out a small sigh. "She isn't mine," she mumbled quietly. Not anymore, anyways.

"Eh, you know what I mean. 'Cause, well, she is your ex."

"Yeah, I didn't forget."

"I'm sure. But still, I mean, she was your friend, more than anyone else's, in Newport at least. But anyway, that's besides the point. I mean, seriously? Punk bartender Alex Kelly from back in our high school days is a doctor?"

"Yeah."

"Wow. And I thought I've heard it all when I found out that Luke is now a priest."

Marissa chuckled.

"So. You saw her at the hospital, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Wow. What's it, ten years?"

"Eleven."

"Well d'she talk to you?"

"No, not really," she said sadly. "I mean, she did talk to me, like, about Sarah. But she didn't talk to me talkto me."

"Oh. And was Ryan there, when you saw her?"

"Yeah."

"And the hospital people didn't have to call security, did they?"

"Summer, it's been eleven years. They barely even said a word to each other."

"Well, that's a good thing, right?"

"Guess so… You think she's mad at me?"

"Why would she be?"

"Duh, Sum."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, but you guys' breakup was mutual, wasn't it?"

Marissa sighed. "I wouldn't say mutual, exactly."

"Hmm… I guess you're right. But, I mean, you were on good terms before she left, weren't you?"

"We were, we were. But you said it. She left. She didn't even keep in touch." Marissa paused. "I still wanted to be friends," she said quietly.

Summer sighed. "Her loss, Coop, not yours."

Marissa smiled a sad smile. "Thanks, Sum."

"It's true."

A pause on both ends of the conversation.

"So… Why not be friends now?"

"Hm? With Alex?"

"No, with Jerry Garcia. Yes, with Alex!"

"Sum, she hardly even looked at me!"

"Hmm… well, yeah, I guess you're right. Anyway, why would being friends with Alex Kelly matter now after all these years? You've moved on, she's moved on. You've got friends, she's got hers. End of story."

Silence.

"Coop? Coop, you still there?"

Marissa fell back on her bed and stared at the ceiling of her bedroom. "Yeah, yeah, I am..." she said finally. "You're right. It was a long time ago. Of course she's gotten over it now. I mean, I still want to be friends with her, but, I mean, I've got you. And Seth. And Ryan."

"Exactly. Why do you need Alex when you've already got us?"

Marissa sighed somberly as she closed her eyes and clenched her jaw in apprehension, but didn't let Summer notice.

"I don't," she assured her friend, though not necessarily herself.


The team, along with Foreman now, walked toward the patient's room just as they saw House leaving from it.

"We've finished the blood tests," Kutner said. "He's got—"

"G6PD deficiency," House finished for him.

Kutner, Taub, Foreman, and Thirteen looked at each other, and then at him.

"I've talked to the patient and the mother. Separately. Redid the history, worked my magic, appealed to their conscience."

"What'd you find out?" Kutner asked.

"She was lying."

"About the kid being adopted?"

"No. About where she adopted him from. She found him in an orphanage in Sicily when he was four, but the adoption wasn't legal. She used fake papers in immigration when she brought him into the US."

"Favism," Thirteen said suddenly, her eyes wide not because the revelation shocked her but because she thought she was too stupid not to have figured it out earlier. Her colleagues all looked at her with similar expressions on their faces. House simply nodded in silent confirmation.

"But he didn't have any intake of fava beans. How could a favism attack be triggered without a trigger?" Thirteen asked, bewildered.

"He did. He was eating Egyptian last night when it happened. Go figure."

"But—I asked the man who brought him in last night before he left. He never said anything about Egyptian food, or even just food. He said the patient had just come in to the restaurant when it happened. And besides, if he did eat the beans, he couldn't have shown symptoms that fast. He would have had to eat a lot of fava beans for his liver to fail like that."

"I've been reminding people so often even I am already getting tired of saying it. Everybody lies. I really should get a shirt that has that written in big bold print on the front, don't you think?"

"Why would he? He cared enough to bring a complete stranger to a hospital."

"He wasn't a complete stranger. Not in the literal sense, anyway. He was the patient's father. But we would have known that in the first place if you've just dug deep enough and quit assuming. They met for dinner for the second time since the patient found his father after years of searching for his real parents. He hasn't told his adoptive mother yet. Actually, she doesn't even know that he already knows."

"And the father doesn't have allergy to fava beans?" Kutner said.

"Obviously not. He was probably a carrier, though. Or his wife is. It's pretty rare, but there are a lot of incidences among Southern Italians," Foreman said.

Thirteen bit her lip, her eyes downcast. How could she have missed it? Favism. It was too easy. It fit perfectly. This was probably the least time they had taken before making a final diagnosis. It would have taken them even less time if she had just been able to push Marissa goddamn Cooper and her beautiful little freaking family out of her mind and paid enough attention to the history and differential.

Damn it.