Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds, House MD, or Silence of the Lambs. All original characters belong to me. Any similarities to real life persons, in name or description, are strictly coincidental.

4.

"Have you ever seen Silence of the Lambs?" House stood next to Wilson in the cafeteria line, tossing a bag of chips onto the oncologist's tray as he spoke. Wilson looked at his friend in confused amusement.

"Yes. Where are you going with this?" he asked, fumbling with his wallet as he paid for his lunch.

"My patient is a real-life 'Clarice'. Taub told me what she does for a living before he ran off to help with the tests." Wilson looked surprised.

"Really?"

"No, I'm lying," House shot back sarcastically, grabbing half of Wilson's sandwich as they settled at a nearby table. "She's a 'profiler'."

"You know, I would've paid for another sandwich."

"Yet, somehow, this tastes better." Wilson muttered something under his breath about stealing from friends, but made no indication he wished to argue about ethics at the moment.

"House!" A shrill voice cut through the chattering of the cafeteria, and there was the sound of heels clacking on the linoleum floor before Cuddy appeared, looking flustered, with her hands on her hips.

"Did Foreman tell on me again?" he asked through a mouthful of sandwich. "No one likes a tattle-tail."

"House, you cannot treat a patient that has pneumonia just because you think she's interesting," she spat, "Not when you have a stack of files of patients with real problems sitting on your desk! And, I got a complaint from the doctor in the ER as well."

"Woah, House; you took the case because she's in the FBI? She's not sick with some rare disease?" said Wilson, incredulous.

"She has a neurological problem as well. An unexplained neurological problem," House challenged.

"That's not what Foreman said. And he's a neurologist." She dragged out the last word for emphasis. "FBI agent or not, give her antibiotics and discharge her before-"

"House!" Thirteen arrived at Cuddy's side, breathless, as if she had hurried there. "I've got the test results- Oh." She saw the angry expression on Cuddy's face. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Not at all," said House, taking the folder from her hand.

"The patient has a pleural effusion."

"Which could be a symptom of pneumonia," said Cuddy, tapping her fingers impatiently on the table.

"Or," countered House, "it could indicate a problem with her heart. What about the MRI?"

"It came back clear."

"And is her headache getting worse?"

"She didn't mention anything about it, but she now has a fever as well." House sat for a moment, chewing on a bite of sandwich as he mused.

"Do both a resting and an exercise EKG to see if the problem is in her heart or her lungs." He twisted to face Cuddy. "Is that alright with you, boss?" She narrowed her eyes, contemplating for a moment.

"You have 24 hours to prove it's not pneumonia." She tapped her watch as a warning, before turning to leave.

"Sounds great!" he shouted to her as she made her way through the bustle that was the lunchtime rush in the hospital. He peered at Thirteen out of the corner of his eye. "Well, what are you waiting for? And make sure Foreman helps this time."

"Rossi."

"Hey, it's Hotch." The unit chief sat around the corner from Emily's room on an empty bench, his elbows resting on his knees as he spoke into the phone.

"Hotch! How's Prentiss? Is she alright?" He had expected Rossi to be anxious to hear about their colleague's condition; no one had heard from either of them since Emily had arrived at the hospital.

He sighed. "Honestly, I don't know. The ER doctor said it was pneumonia, but then she was admitted by a Dr. House, who said that her headache means she has neurological problems-"

"What? That's insane."

"-I know. And now she has a fever, and they're doing more tests."

"Damn. She was just in the hospital, too." Rossi paused. "Unfortunately, I have some bad news as well."

"What is it? How's the case going?"

"Tyler Beckman is definitely not our UNSUB. Morgan and Reid went back and checked out his house, and I talked to him. This guy does not fit the profile at all."

"So why was he running?"

"Turns out he has a stash of dope in his basement, and thought we were after him for that."

"Great. Well, at least we managed to catch someone that needed to be caught, just not the right guy." He stood up, and began to walk back towards Emily's room. "I'm going to head back to be with you guys."

"No, Hotch. We've got it under control. We have the profile, we just need to find our UNSUB. Stay with Prentiss."

"I'll send Reid or someone to be with her. But, right now there's nothing I can do here, and it'll be for the better if we can catch this UNSUB so we can all focus on Prentiss." He hung up before the older agent could try to dissuade him any further.

Truthfully, he was going a bit stir-crazy. His anxiety over Emily's condition, as well as the case, was too much to bear. He couldn't voice his worries to Emily; he didn't want to scare her. And, it would be a better use of his time to go back to the station to work on the case, rather than pace the halls here.

Pocketing his phone, he headed back into Emily's room to say goodbye.

"Hello again." Thirteen entered the room, this time with Foreman trailing along behind her. "This is my colleague, Dr. Foreman."

"Nice to meet you." Emily sounded tired, and the bags under her eyes certainly didn't prove this fact wrong, though she did seem unusually lethargic.

"We're just here to do a couple more tests."

"Whatever you have to do." Foreman immediately set to work readying the EKG. Thirteen looked around for a moment.

"Where's your boyfriend?" This got Foreman's interest, as he looked up from what he was doing with curiosity. The word had kind of slipped out, although it seemed that the pair were more of a couple, or at least very close friends, rather than just colleagues.

"Boyfriend?" repeated Emily, her eyebrows raised. "Agent Hotchner is my boss. We're..friends. And he left to call the team to check up on the case." Although she denied a relationship with her colleague, both doctors noticed a slightly pinker tinge to her cheeks at Thirteen's accusation, although it could've just been from her fever.

Foreman slid on his chair to Emily's bedside. "We're going to do an EKG, which monitors the electrical activity in your heart so we can check to see if there are any problems."

"Wait, I thought the problem was in my lungs?"

"The chest x-ray we took showed that you have a pleural effusion in your lungs, which is when excess fluid accumulates in the pleural cavity of the lungs. While it can be caused by pneumonia, it can also be caused by a problem with the heart. We just need to cover all the bases first, before we can work up a diagnosis." She seemed satisfied with this answer, and the two doctors were ready to start the procedure when the glass door to the room slid open.

Hotch was an unfamiliar face to Foreman, so he introduced himself as the agent walked inside. "Eric Foreman. I'm one of Agent Prentiss's doctors. We were just explaining that we discovered she has a pleural effusion in her lungs, so we're going to do some tests to determine the cause of it."

"Aaron Hotchner." He turned to Emily. "I just spoke with Rossi. I think I'm going to need to head back to help with the case for now, but I'll send someone else to be here with you."

"No, Hotch! I'll be fine by myself, and the team is already down one agent; you don't need to have the disadvantage of being without two." Hotch shook his head.

"Prentiss, I'm not going to leave you here alone."

"But-" He put up his hand.

"Don't argue with me. I will be back here as soon as I can." Before Emily could oppose his wishes any further, Hotch said a quick goodbye before heading out of the door as Foreman and Thirteen exchanged an amused look.

"Sorry I took so long to get here." Hotch strode into the conference room where Rossi, JJ, Reid, and Morgan were currently spread around the table.

"How's Emily?" said Reid, hopeful for some good news. Rossi had told them Hotch was going to head back to the station to work on the case, although no one was very happy that it seemed that Emily would then be alone at the hospital. Rossi also hadn't explained how Emily was doing; only told them that Hotch would have news when he arrived. No one really knew why Emily had to stay at the hospital.

"Originally she was diagnosed with pneumonia, but another doctor had her admitted because he thinks there might be something more to it. She has a fever now, and right before I left I was told she has a pleural effusion."

"What's that?" wondered Morgan aloud, then looked to Reid, who sat up in his seat as he began to excitedly explain,

"A pleural effusion is a buildup of fluid in the lungs. It's normally caused by cirrhosis, or an infection in the lungs such a pneumonia or tuberculosis, but it can also be caused by congestive heart failure, as well as many other things." Everyone else in the room was slack-jawed.

"Kid, do you read medical textbooks at night for fun or something?" Reid just shrugged.

"Thanks for the explanation, but we should really get back to the case." Hotch clasped his hands together. "Let's go over the profile again."

"Because our UNSUB rapes the victims, and then chokes them to death with his own hands, we know he gets off on power," began Rossi, glancing over the crime scene pictures of the last three victims. "Fingerprints and DNA were found on the bodies, although none of it matched anything in our databases, so he doesn't have a criminal record."

"Because we haven't found any evidence of a blitz attack to initially subdue the victims with a hit to the head, or anything of the sort, we think he may be tricking the victims into going with him," added Reid. "He's not the type of guy that you would feel nervous around. He seems charming, but is really a sociopath. We know he's not impotent because of the rape, and it is possible he has a girlfriend or wife, and perhaps children as well. He's probably around his late twenties or early thirties, because his kills are incredibly organized, and he has enough strength to subdue a fully grown woman as he rapes her without the aid of rope or another type of restraint."

"We know he holds his victims for one full day, and he would need privacy to do that," Rossi said. "He doesn't have that privacy in his own home if he has a family, so it is possible he may have a truck or an empty building he is taking his victims to."

"The stressor may be that he is going through a divorce his wife, or a fight, or he may have been demoted in his job, or even fired. This is why he rapes his victims; he needs that feeling of control in his life, and this is the only way he can get it," said Hotch, flipping through the file. Beckman had fit the profile; he had a large van he used for work, and he had recently begun a divorce with his wife. Also, he had been in contact with the first victim through work, which made him an even more likely suspect. But it turns out he had just been a dead lead.

"Is it possible this guy works in a bar or something?" questioned JJ, leaning forward on her elbows.

"What would make you say that?" said Morgan.

"Actually, JJ has a point," Rossi murmured. "We think the guy probably has a successful job, right? Well, if the stressor is his loss of job, then it is possible he picked up work at a bar. That could also be how he's finding his victims."

"I'll call Garcia," said Hotch, pushing his chair away from the table as he brought his phone to his ear. "We need to update all the officers and the detective working on this case on the profile. And Reid-"

"Yes?"

"-I want you to go to the hospital and stay with Emily for the time being. I don't want her to be alone. It's Princeton-Plainsborough Teaching Hospital." Before Reid had a chance to say anything, Hotch had already left the room. The younger agent wondered why Hotch had chosen him to go be with Emily at the hospital; JJ or Morgan, or even Rossi, would've been equally as suitable. But he didn't mind, because he knew Emily would do the same for him.

"You are speaking to the omniscient Penelope Garcia." The technical analyst's cheery voice greeted Hotch as she picked up the phone.

"Garcia, it's Hotch."

"What is it you need, my lovely boss?" He couldn't hold back a quiet chuckle before he continued,

"I need you to look up anyone in the area that has recently lost a job, and cross reference it with people that work in any bar that's located in the town."

"Will do. Anything else?"

"Yes, I need you to look up another name."

"Whatever you need, sir."

"I want a full background check on Dr. Gregory House."

"A doctor? Is he a suspect?"

"No, he's Prentiss's doctor."

"Oh god, Emily's in the hospital?" Hotch had forgotten Garcia hadn't known, although he assumed Morgan or another one on the team would've told her beforehand. "Is she alright?"

"She's been under the weather for a few days, and she, Morgan, and I were chasing down Beckman when had trouble breathing. I took her to the ER, and she was admitted to the hospital," he explained, attempting to summarize the whole day's events in a couple short sentences.

"Oh, god."

"Garcia, she'll be fine. I need you to focus."

At least, he had to hope she'd be fine.

Author's Note: Hope you guys liked this chapter. It is a bit unsettling to me, though, that as the number of chapters increase, the number of reviews decrease. It went from five reviews for the first chapter, to two for the third. Are you guys losing interest, or what? Please let me know if you are, and what you think of the story so far.

It's only going to get more intense from here.