Chapter Seven: Power

"When can I see Candy?" Tritter asked, beginning to grow a bit more visibly nervous under Thirteen's gaze. Taub had walked off to the bathroom, leaving Thirteen in the unenviable position of being alone with the detective.

"Dr. Chase is giving her an MRI right now," Thirteen replied evenly. "But when she's out, you can see her if she wants." She paused, then hesitated, before asking, "So… what IS your problem with Dr. House? If you don't mind my asking." Tritter gave Thirteen a wry smile.

"We had a run-in about five years ago. Before you started working here, I suppose. Dr. House was rude to me, and things eventually got out of control," the detective said, and then sighed. "I'm not really proud of the way that I handled things back then. But I do feel that he could be more polite to the people who come into his hospital." Thirteen laughed.

"Well, House and polite are certainly not two things that really go together… at all… but, when it comes down to it, he really does have other people's best interests at heart," she said, smiling. Her smile faded as she thought of the debt that House had agreed to owe her, that he'd agreed to kill her if need be. A man who didn't care at all would never have agreed to such a high price, and someone who cared too much, like Cameron, perhaps, couldn't have agreed to it because they'd be way too emotionally invested to actually be able to follow through.

"Are you sure of that?" Tritter asked. "When I… knew him… It seemed as if he was hurting a lot of people… Dr. Wilson, for instance." Thirteen's look was unreadable, and she simply shrugged.

"Dr. Wilson would forgive him anything," she said quietly. "That's just the way he is… And Dr. Wilson's had a lot of stuff happen to him these last few years, so if you do decide to rev up this old grudge against House again, do not involve him… Please."

"Like what?" Tritter asked. Thirteen glared at him.

"How about this?" she asked brusquely, "If you answer one of my questions, I'll answer one of yours." Thirteen could remember House talking about using this method on an uncooperative patient, and she figured she could give it another go. Her patience with Tritter's interrogation of her as to House's personal business was beginning to give out, and her protectiveness of her boss – and, much as she'd like to deny it, her friend – was beginning to harden into defiance.

"That's a fair deal. Until I can see Candy," Tritter replied after a moment. Despite his assent, his body language indicated that he was not fond of the deal – not fond of the idea of being put on the spot. He gave Thirteen the sense of a man who was much more comfortable on the other side of the interrogation table, and more broadly, on the "right" side.

"Okay. So, was Candy exhibiting any strange symptoms in the days leading up to her collapse?" Thirteen asked. She moved her head slightly, meeting Tritter's eyes easily for the first time.

"I don't know," he admitted, "I wasn't home very much, I was busy working on a case…" He paused and seemed to consider the question, "She kept saying that her stomach hurt." Thirteen wrote it down as Tritter smiled – a strange sight, and seemingly not quite natural, as if the muscles in his lips didn't quite know what to do – and added, "My turn, now."

"Okay, shoot," Thirteen mumbled dryly, thinking to herself that maybe this plan wasn't as good as she thought it was.

"Why do you put up with House's crap?" Tritter asked, reaching up and scratching his cheek as he spoke.

"I wanted to work with the best," Thirteen replied, placing her hand on her chair absentmindedly. "You're willing to put up with a lot to learn that much… and House isn't so bad. Everything he does, well, most of it – it all has a reason. I don't think I could have gotten this kind of experience anywhere else, with anyone else." She shrugged. "Why do you see things in such black and white? … And that's not my question, by the way." She smiled, and to her surprise, Tritter smiled too, more naturally this time… And if she didn't know better, she would think that the look in his eyes was one of flirtation.

Maybe Thirteen's guess wasn't as far off as she thought it was, because a second later, Tritter looked away, unable to meet her eyes

"I'm a cop. It's what I do," he replied simply. "Everything is either right or wrong, there is no gray. There is no 'but'."

"But there is," Thirteen argued, "There are always exceptions. There's always 'buts'… Nothing is completely certain. How can you even operate that way? What about… what you told me earlier? About your sister?" She knew she was touching sensitive ground but couldn't stop herself from continuing – who WAS this man and what exactly was his deal? "You said she got shot by the police – you're IN the police. How is that black and white?" Tritter glowered, but shrugged.

"First off, that's at least three questions you owe me, now." Before Thirteen could protest, he continued, staring up at the ceiling and not seeming to connect any real emotion to the words as he began. "Fawn was a good girl for a long time. Then… not so much. She met a guy. He was a drug dealer. Ran off with him when she was eighteen or nineteen. He beat her up. She came back to stay with us – I was… in my early twenties when she came back, she must have been twenty three or twenty four. I was on break from Rutgers. She let him in, in the middle of the night, and let him rob us blind. She ran off again. Ended up getting shot when they held up a convenience store a month or two later in Connecticut, some worker tripped the alarm and they tried to shoot it out with the cops. He survived; got sentenced to twenty years, she got shot in the head and died." He finally met Thirteen's eyes. "It is black and white – there is no gray. There's only right and wrong and power, and if you have the power then you can make people do right."

"Sounds kind of like that quote from Voldemort in Harry Potter," Thirteen mused, "…There is no good or evil: only power and those too weak to seek it." Tritter smiled sadly.

"The problem is," the detective replied, "Those who seek power are the best and the worst of the human race."

"Which one are you?" Thirteen retorted.

"That's not for me to decide."