boo...not as long as i hoped... oh well.

i can't believe i have to say this... PLEASE REVIEW! let me know what's going on in your pretty little heads!

Ruby

Chapter Seven

Jessica stood in the middle of the sidewalk, watching Nicole scale the fence in front of the patient's house. Nicole motioned to her accomplice, opening the gate from the other side. "You'll want to wear pants next time." She laughed, pointing to Jessica's pleated skirt.

Her spine stuck up pin straight as Jessica now stood in the middle of the patient's driveway. Nicole walked though the snowy lawn, and began searching for a key on the porch of Kie's upperclass home. "What exactly are we looking for?" Jessica asked, shuffling her feet in a nervous fashion.

Nicole ignored her and continued scouring the surrounding for something capable of harboring a key. "A key." She mindlessly mumbled, confirming it to herself more that answering Jessica's question. Her search was hopeless. Nothing under the mat. No false stones in the landscaping. There were no window ledges reachable form where she stood.

"We're going inside?" Pretending to be looking in some flower boxes, Jessica's eyes darted around the neighborhood for anything resembling a police car.

Nicole had given up her search. "The damn kid doesn't have a extra key around!?" She sighed, wiping some sweat from her forehead. She jiggled the handle to the front door one more time to confirm that she was going to have to find another way in.

Jessica brushed several curly ringlets out of her eyes as she fought the winter wind while trying to keep up with Nicole. They headed towards the back of the house, where another door was located. "Isn't this breaking and entering?"

There was a large tree in the backyard reaching up to the roof of the house. "You mean technically?" Nicole asked back, kind of getting annoyed at all the questions. She measured the tree, wondering if she should climb it to find an open window. Thinking better of it, she tried the first floor window's first. None of them were open, but one was loose enough to possibly open. She took some rubber surgical gloves out of her bag, slipped them on, and wiggled her fingers under the window frame. Once she managed to crack it open, she slipped her arm under and unhooked the lock. "Don't breath." She instructed, yanking the rest of the window open.

Jessica's cheeks puffed out, full of air, as Nicole searched her bag for two face masks. She handed one to the intern, then slipped hers over her head. Jessica let her air out, then followed suite. "What was that for?"

"Could be something in the air that made him sick."

"I thought he only had...horns?"

"Do you sprout extra appendages every time you have a fever? I don't think so." Nicole shook her head, wondering how this girl was so incredibly special. She hoisted herself through the window, then landed firmly on the polished wooden floor inside. Leaning out the window, she offered to help Jessica. "I don't have any extra gloves so don't touch anything."

"Do you do stuff like this often?"

"Uh...when House asks." Now it was getting really annoying. Did this girl really need to know all this? She brushed it off, starting her search. "Whatever looks useful, point it out."

"You and Dr. House have quite a relationship, don't you?" There was a tinge of jealousy in her voice.

"You could say that."

"He listens to you. He backs down from you." She followed Nicole from the hallway (where they broke in), into the kitchen. "How can I make him do that."

Nicole stopped her search, turned to Jessica, and brought her brows to the center of her forehead in a confused, and suspicious, manner. "Why?"

"All I want is for him to teach me." She sighed, looking all innocent and childlike. Truthfully, it was just mostly pathetic.

"Well, that is easier said than done." Nicole turned back to her search, opening and closing cabinets and drawers. "In this business you need to learn to be an asshole if you ever want to get anywhere. Or so House says. Really, it's not that far from the truth, what with all the malpractice suites these days. If House'll teach you anything, it's that you have to learn to fend for yourself. At least that's what I've learned from him. That, and that everyone...EVERYONE...lies."

Jessica paused awkwardly, stopping in a doorway to the living room. She stared at her feet as she folded one foot over the other. "Does...Cuddy...know about all of this?"

"She has a clue but...wait. Why do you ask?"

"You just said yourself that I have to look out for myself. If Cuddy knew that you were doing all this stuff...having an affair with her boyfriend...breaking into houses...forcing Dr. House to give medical care...being legally insane while working with sick patients...there'd be more room for me without to get into Dr. House's good graces."

"Woah! Are you...are you bribing me?" Nicole began to laugh, almost pulling her mask off for more air but then thinking better of it. "Are you kidding me?!"

"You just said..."

"Sweetie, forget what I just said!" Nicole grabbed her sides to keep them from splitting, crouching into a ball until she regained her composure. "If you're going to blackmail someone...please...learn your shit, okay."

"What do you...?"

"I mean that almost everything you've said was dead WRONG!" She stood straight, wiping the tears from her eyes with her forearm. "One: Cuddy is NOT dating House. Two: We've all broken into a house so far...Cuddy doesn't even know about it. Even if she does, she yells at House then overlooks it. Three: I am NOT and never will, have anymore than a relationship with House than his ASSISTANT! The man saved my life, and I owe him big time, plus I'm dating Chase. Which leads to four: I have Wilson's disease. The copper deposits shifted to the frontal lobe of my brain, making me a little temperamental when I don't take my meds. Not insane. Five: He backs down to me because he knows that I won't take his bullshit and he can't fire me. Six: I'm not a doctor, I can't force medical care on anyone. Seven: House can't fire me, and Cuddy never would. I'm her niece. I'm staying put." She managed to stifle her laughs long enough to realize that she found the whole conversation extremely insulting. "Please, don't become a detective because you suck."

Jessica continued to stare blankly at her feet, completely embarrassed of the entire situation.

- - - - - - - - -

Chase stared at the monitor in front of his, staying alert for any signs of change in the patient's vitals. It was close to midnight, and the team hadn't gotten any closer to a diagnoses. The whole thing didn't make sense to any of them. How did horns, which were concluded not to be cancerous or anywhere near a tumor from the test he and Foreman had run this afternoon. It seemed he had meningitis, but all the tests had come back negative.

Kie had started coughing worse within the last half hour. He had started vomiting, and was complaining of nausea and a headache, and his fever had spiked several times. All common symptoms of meningitis.

Nicole slowly entered the room, seeing Chase's head fall from it's upright position to the middled of his chest. She ran her fingers gingerly over his shoulders, waking him gently. "You should go home." She whispered, looking at an also snoozing Kie. "Cameron said she's going to stay until they get the results of his skin graph and all the labs on the things she found at the dorm. I can ask her to watch over him."

Chases nodded sleepily. Rising from his seat, Nicole placed herself under his arm. They left together that night.