Authors Note: Out of curiosity, did any of you actually get the "Aliens" joke from chapter 7? Anyone? Has anybody actually seen "Aliens"? Anyone?

There was a moment of silence as once again the vampires were stunned into silence by House's uncaringly rude antics.

Surveying the crowd, House grunted in annoyance by their lack of immediate response.

Finally, Bella broke the silence;

"MRI?"

House looked at the scrawled list on the wall behind him,

"Yeah, that's what it says."

"I'm…I'm a coat rack?" Rosalie demanded.

"Mm-hm, only thing you're good for in this situation. Sorry, but the whole irresistible beauty skill of yours isn't as useful here as it could be." House cocked his head, "Why are you in here again?"

"I live here."

"You told us to gather everyone together." Emmet pointed out.

"No, I told you to make a list of everyone's scary little vampire superpowers so I could figure out if any of you might be more useful than an overdramatic teenage girl. Jury's still out on that one by the way. Now, back to the useful bloodsucker's question, you're an MRI because, and I quote…" House snapped up the pad of note book paper and read aloud from it "'When I use my gift it's like I become aware of the aura around the people I love. I sense them, their presence and shield them from harm.', oh isn't that just precious."

"But how does that help me to figure out what's wrong with Alice?"

House limped over to the youngest Cullen,

"Well, actually, it depends. Use that neat little trick of yours right now."

"What?"

"I said, use it… on Sulky over there." House pointed to Edward, "Block him off from all the nasty things the world can do to him."

"But why…"

"Now is not the time for self confidence issues, Bella! Do you want Alice to die or do you want to save her life?"

"Yes." Bella whimpered, surprised by House sudden change in tone; across the room, Edward bristled, his protective instincts flaring.

"Then close your eyes, and throw shield around Eddie."

"O…okay…" Bella closed her eyes and concentrated, letting her innate shielding snap out to enfold her husband, "I'm doing it."

"What do you see?"

"I see…I see…"

"Stop being dramatic!" House sighed, "Think of this as a chemistry problem or something. Be clinical, don't think with your emotions, think with your mind."

"This only works when I use my emotions." Bella snapped. But at the same time she doing her best to think, to see…she saw the magnificent point of light that was Edward when she reached out to enfold him with her shield.

"What do you see?" House demanded, his blue eyes narrowing as he watched the slight twitches on Bella's face.

"I see light. A tall figure made of light."

"I take it that's Galahad?"

"Yes."

"Focus. Try and see into the bright light." House said, wincing at his words as soon they were out of his mouth.

Bella concentrated and the pool of light became more defined, taking on the rough shape of a human(or vampire) figure. Within that form she could roughly make features…a face; eyes that shone with the light of heaven…lips that…lips…

Bella's eyes snapped back open.

"What? Did it work?" House demanded, leaning in close to her face,

"Um…kind of. I got distracted."

House's face fell and he let out a mournful sigh.

"Because you were thinking of lover boy."

"I think so."

House looked over at Edward and then back at Bella; even to him it was easy to spot the word being exchanged between the two, even though neither one was speaking; the love that bordered on obsession the two shared was as obvious as an anchor chain wrapped around their necks.

Destructive and beautiful, insane and glorious, it would, under most circumstances, be a thing of such wonder it could bring whole worlds to a halt; a fire that burned deep and fierce in their hearts. But here, as in everything, if one looks to close ugly details might surface.

How much of that fire that burned in Edwards soul might come from the yearning he'd had for her blood? How much of that all consuming obsession he'd acquired for Bella be chalked up to simple feeling of loneliness after decades of being alone and watching his parents and siblings bask in each others affection?

And how much could dear Bella's love be avarice for the perfect world of the Cullen family and the arms of the perfect man? How much could it have been the need for someone who, unlike her parents, could focus solely on her?

Such questions, in the end, do not matter.

The two still stand as pillars of that vexing and wondrous emotion that we all pursue and fear; love. Across a hundred years and thousand miles, they have found each other, and against all odds seem to live the cliché we, even with our modern armor of cynicism, all pursue.

Happily.

Ever.

After.

And none of that really mattered to one Dr. Gregory House, so he felt perfectly justified in knocking the pair of them ass over teakettle off of their pillars of undying love and back into cold hard reality.

As his blue eyes shifted back and froth between the two vampires, he reached into his jacket and pulled out the bottle of Vicodin pills.

He popped one in his mouth and inhaled sharply.

"Alright, that's it." House snapped, clomping across the room to stand between Edward and Bella, "If you two don't knock off the star crossed lovers act right the hell now I will beat you into submission with a copy of Sense and Sensibility!"

"I don't think you have your authors correct…" Emmet began, but he was silenced by House's merciless glare.

"You two have all the time from here until the planet is sucked into the sun to get all googly eyed over each other and make out, so can we focus please? I know at least one of you has a vested interest in keeping little old Alice alive and kicking…" House sent a meaningful glance at Bella.

Edward cocked his head and frowned, and house whirled and snapped his can up and into his face like he was aiming a .45 automatic,

"And no reading my mind, Obi Wan." House set the cane back on the ground, "She-Hulk, you keep working on the life sign idea with Call Girl." House pointed at Rosalie to show who he was talking about, "Let me know if there's any progress."

"Why didn't just start out with Rose then?" Bella angrily demanded,

"Because if you can't handle doing your thing with lover boy, what makes you think you can handle it with Alice, surrounded by your desperate family of annoying vampires?"

Before Bella could answer, he clumped over to Jasper, who sat in corner, visibly distressed about being away from Alice's bedside.

"Calm down, Defib." House snapped; he took the bottle of Vicodin back out of his pocket and offered it to Jasper, who stared back stonily, "Fair enough." House said, tucking the bottle away again, "Have you ever brought the dead back to life with that neat little talent of yours?"

"What?" Jasper demanded,

"I'll take that as a no. You know how your trick works, right?" with out bothering for an answer, House went on, "You stimulate the release of hormones in the body. Hormones cause emotion, emotion causes moods and voila, you're a walking psychotropic." House turned and limped towards the stairs, with the suddenly even more confused coven of vampires in tow. He started his slow limp up the winding stair case, but before his foot touched the second step, he found himself lifted quickly into the air and carried to the top of the steps before he could blink.

Back on his feet again, he turned to find Emmet standing behind him and smirking.

"Thought you could use a lift…" the massive vampire began, but he was cut off by a loud snarl from the bottom of the stairs; Leah was not taking the hulking vamps manhandling of her imprint very well.

She dashed to the top of the stairs, already visibly trembling as she prepared to phase.

"Stop!" House shouted, and Leah froze; Emmet snickered, and house pointed a finger in his face; "Shut up." House barked, and Emmet's face froze. House turned to clump down the hall, ignoring the vampires and werewolves that followed in his wake.

Squaring his shoulders in outraged dignity, House limped down the hall, moving even slower than before.

"This isn't over." Leah hissed at Emmet as she moved to catch up with House.

House stopped outside of Alice's room and pointed at Jasper;

"You, in. Everyone else, wait here."

Jasper followed House inside,

"Now, let's begin treatment number one." House said, turning to look at Jasper.

The blond vampire was staring back blankly at House. His eyes, House suddenly noticed,

were darker than the rest of his family's. House thought for a moment, then cursed loudly and stormed back out of the room.

"When was the last time he ate?" House demanded.

"What?"

"When was the last time he ate?" House repeated as Jasper followed him out of the room.

House pointed at Jasper's dark eyes, "That's what happens to your eyes when you haven't sucked down some A Positive, right?"

"Yes…b-but how did you know that?" Carlisle asked, flabbergasted by the human doctors sudden supposition.

"World's Greatest Diagnostician, remember?" House glowered over Jasper, "I can't really work if my 'equipment' keeps thinking about ripping my throat open."

"I'm fine." Jasper barked, but a slight twitch on his face when House's scent hit him showed the truth.

"Jasper, maybe you should hunt." Esme said, stepping forward to stand next to Carlisle.

"I'm not leaving."

"Jasper please. If you lose control and attack House, we might lose our best chance to save Alice…"

"I'm not leaving." Jasper said again, moving back into the doorway.

"Or, you could lose it, attack the jerk and then have to deal with killing a Quileute's imprinted." Emmet added.

Jasper froze.

"And then the treaty would pretty much be null and void. After that…what do you think would happen?"

Jasper blinked and looked uncertainly at his family and at Leah and Jacob; the two wolves looked steadily back, both seemed ready to strike if he made a move towards House.

"Jas, dude, come on." Emmet stepped forward and set a hand on Jaspers shoulder, "I know you want to stay here but if you can't concentrate, if you lose control…"

"If I lose control…what about him?" Jasper demanded, pointing at House, "He's been running amok since he got here!"

"Oh would you leaches please cut it out?" Leah suddenly growled, "You need to feed. If you don't, you probably lose your only chance to save Alice. Even if you suck it up, House needs you at your best. Which is not where you're at right now; so go out, hunt, get your thirst under control and show up here when you're ready to save Alice instead of mourn for her."

The silence after Leah was finished spoke volumes.

House smiled and pointed at her while looking around at the various vampires,

"If there are no other speakers, I'll rule this debate in favor of the bitch." House winked at Leah, "You see what I did there?" without waiting for a response he turned back to Jasper, "I'll have Sulky keep monitoring her condition while your gone, so stick close. If anything changes, I'll set fire to something to signal you."

House turned to look back at Alice; the small vampire was lying in the same frozen, ridged pose she'd been in earlier.

"There's no hurry. The first treatment never works anyway." he muttered

"What?" Jasper asked, sharply

"Nothing. Run along and start slaughtering the little animals."

Jasper reluctantly took a step back and edged further down the hall, moving like an unseen force was holding him back.

"Perhaps we should all go out." Carlisle said, trying to ease Jasper's tension.

"Bella and I can stay." Edward insisted, "We just…ate. We'll be fine. Besides, we need to keep an eye on House"

House snorted in amusement and Edwards back stiffened before he went over to sit next to Alice. House turned to leave without a word.

The vampire coven looked for some word of explanation but House just put on a self satisfied as he limped back down the hallway. Edward stared stonily at the wall, staying silent.

"The hell with it, we'll figure it out later." Emmet growled, before dashing down the hallway, vaulting the stairs and heading out the front door. The rest of the Cullen's followed closely behind him.

"Well…alone at last." House said looking over at Leah, "I suppose at some point in time we're going to have to deal this whole you being wholly-and-unconditionally in love with me thing, huh?"

Leah smiled happily, "I think we do, yes."

"I think it'll wait until I've had a sandwich. I'm starving."

"Oh. Alright."

House froze for a moment and inhaled slowly.

"This is dangerous. Very, very dangerous."

House half turned, a far off look on his face,

"Walk with me. Let's have a chat…"

"Of course. What did you want to talk about?"

"Tell me everything there is to know…about being a werewolf."

Meanwhile, in P.P.T.H.;

"This is ridiculous. This is completely asinine." Dr. Taub whined as he set up a line of plastic 88mm cannons on top of Dr. Cuddy's desk

"I notice you're down here with the rest of us." Thirteen snapped back, as she carefully set up an array of green toy soldiers behind a wall of plastic fortifications.
"I think those are supposed to be American soldiers." Chase pointed out as he set up a fleet of landing craft on the carpet.

"So?"

"So last time I checked, the Americans were invading Normandy, not defending it. You should be using the German toy soldiers."

"What does it matter?"

"Fine. But if House gets back and doesn't like what he sees, we're all going to pay for it."

Foreman laughed from were he stood by the clear glass wall leading facing the hospitals main floor; the Doctors had pulled the blinds shut and he was keeping watch.

"House doesn't have anything on us. Our 'deepest, darkest secrets'?" Foreman quoted, rolling his eyes, "He's just screwing with us in a way that's even more juvenile than normal, if that's possible."

"Apparently it is." Cameron muttered as she used fishing line and duct tape to hang model aircraft from the ceiling, "Does anybody else feel that we're taking this just a little too seriously?"

"No." Chase returned, "One thing I've learned over the years working here is to never take any threat House makes lightly." he glanced up at Thirteen, who was now carefully arraying plastic German soldiers in Whermacht grey inside a concrete bunker with a self satisfied smile, "Are you…enjoying this?" he asked.

"Yeah."

The room came to a halt,

"What? This is actually…kind of interesting." she looked around and shrugged, "It sucks that we're being held hostage to do this, but let's face it; we're playing with toy soldiers instead of working right now."

"Our work, of course, being helping sick people. I can see how setting up plastic incarnations of violence in just the right way is a more worthy goal." Taub scoffed, "That's secretly what I wanted to be doing through all those years of med school."

"No, you wanted to rake in tons of money doing tummy tucks on fat rich people." Chase replied, going over to the stack of cardboard boxes by the door to retrieve more materials.

Before Taub could reply, Wilson slipped in through the door, checked behind him and closed it quietly.

"Are you sure you weren't followed?" Foreman asked, looking at Wilson dubiously.

"Wait…I thought you'd decided to be the bigger man and not get involved with this idiocy?" Wilson asked.

"I did. But I also wanted to come down here and make sure no one catches them making morons out of themselves in the Dean of Medicines office."

"Oh…that's big of you."

"He just wants to say he was here in case House comes back and it turns out he wasn't just screwing with us." Chase pointed out, "Where have you been, anyway?'

"Setting up my alibi."

"You think that's going to save you?" Thirteen asked,

"No, but I like to at least make the effort." Wilson looked around before speaking again; "I just got off the phone with Cuddy. House is still missing."

The room stopped again as all eyes turned to Wilson.

"I thought he was just skipping out on his speech?" Taub asked,

"That's what I thought to. But apparently she's found his IPod, PSP and wallet in his room, so unless there's a magical place with lots of distractions, where bourbon and strippers are free…"

"He's in the hotel bar something, charging everything to his room." Chase dismissed, walking over to the German lines around Cuddy's desk with an armful of plastic Panzers.

"She's already checked the hotel form top to bottom. And all of her credit cards and cash are still in her purse."

"So he took cash and went out to a different bar." Chase said, shrugging his load of toy tanks unto the floor.

"When has he ever had cash?" Cameron asked, worried.

"Once again, he's screwing with us." Foreman opinioned.

"I think…" Wilson began, but he was cut short when the phone on Cuddy's desk began to ring.
"Who is it?" Chase asked Taub, who was still closest to the desk.

"Planning on answering it?" Taub griped, leaning over to check the display "Private name, private number."

"That's odd someone could get Cuddy's private office line without…" the voicemail suddenly kicked on, coming out over the phones speaker.

"You have reached the desk of Dr. Lisa Cuddy, Dean of Medicine…" Cuddy's voice spoke, "Unfortunately I'm out of the office right now, if you need to contact me immediately, try my cell or pager. Otherwise leave a message after the beep. Good bye."

"Pick up the phone!" a voice barked after the shrill beeping tone had sounded, "If you guys are in there, and you had better be, pick-up-the-phone."

"That's House!" Thirteen said, surprised.

Taub reached down and snatched the receiver off the cradle, knocking over a few German artillery crews in the process

"Hello…yeah…put you on speaker? Hold on." Taub hit a button on the phone, switching the call to speaker.

"Good morning Angels." House growled, "I hope we're all enjoying our little history exercise?"

"This is inane." Chase said, "And when are you going to call Cuddy? She's looking all over for you."

"As much as I'd like to give Dr. Mommy a hug and cuddle up with her for the night, I've unfortunately been kidnapped by vampires."

The room went silent again, and then the assembled doctors burst out raucous laughter.

"That is the dumbest excuse I've ever heard you come up with." Wilson gasped, "Seriously, where are you?"

"Outside the window."

The laughter ceased as the doctors looked over at the blind covered windows behind Cuddy's desk.

"I'm not, really, but I needed you to shut up." House said, leaning on the countertop of the island in the Cullen's kitchen and facing the window. He took a large bite of the sandwich he'd managed to put together form the unsurprisingly sparse amount of food in the Cullen's kitchen, "Hope you don't mind, I'm kind of multitasking here." House said, speaking around a mouthful of sandwich.
"Would it matter if we did?" Foreman asked over the speaker phone,

"No. Now what I need is for one of you to call Cuddy and have her call off the search before she gets the FBI involved. Tell her that I was spirited away by a rich family to help their sick daughter."

"You think she's going to believe that? Or forgive you for skipping out on your speech?" Wilson asked,

"Probably not. But the truly massive amount of money I'm going to squeeze out of these people should shut her up." House looked around at the opulent kitchen and smiled, "Actually I should even be able to pay you back, Wilson."

"Really?"

"I didn't say I was going to. Just that I could." House took another bite of his sandwich.

"Wear are you, really?" Thirteen asked.

"Like I said before. I've been kidnapped by vampires and I'm sitting in the kitchen of their mansion and eating a sandwich."

"And these vampires that have kidnapped you are letting you use the phone because…" Foreman asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Oh they seem to be a bit distracted the werewolves."

"So there's werewolves now?"

"Yeah. One of 'em is in love with me, actually. It's cute." House washed down his two bites of sandwich with a swig of Pepsi.

"Ah. I see. What are you on?"

"Nothing but the usual. Which is more than enough when you think about it."

"And the vampire are distracting the werewolves…how?"

"Well there was a bit of a misunderstanding, I suppose. This other pack of werewolves heard that the vampire coven was holding a human hostage, which is apparently something their not supposed to be doing. So they got a bit pissed off and came running over to the vampires mansion, which, if you'll remember, is where I am. Now their out in the back lawn squaring off."

"Sounds…interesting." Chase said, his confusion apparent even over the phone.

House looked out the window at the two groups of Cullen's and Quileute's as they circled and snarled at each other while Jacob and Carlisle tried to calm things down "Not really. It's a lot like West Side Story; lots of singing and dancing but absolutely no action. Anyway, just checking in to make no one worried about me. And by the way, I have a professor of military history stopping by the hospital in three to make sure you guys did a good job. Wouldn't want our diorama to suffer from any historical inaccuracies, would we?" without waiting for a reply House hit the end button on the phone.

He took a few minutes to finish his sandwich and soda before standing up and limping through the open sliding glass doors and unto the Cullen's back deck,

"Hey!" He shouted at the top of his lungs, "Are you gonna hurry up and kill each other soon?!?"