Chapter ten: Unknowns

Foreman stood in the doorway to Thirteen's hospital room, watching her sleep. Of course, he should've been home hours ago; as far as House knew, that was where he was. Instead, he had gone to talk to Thirteen about the case. They had ended up chatting for an hour or two.

Foreman had made a horrible mistake when he had fired Thirteen. He was still in love with her. Nothing could change that although she probably didn't feel the same way.

Shaking his head, Foreman shut the clear glass door and walked away.

"I can't wait to get out of here," Ritsuka told Soubi. They had been moved to a different room from the previous day. The room the two were currently in felt somewhat more comfortable. The walls were actually painted non-pastel colour, a medium brown and also had a few paintings hanging on them. There was a couch on the right wall, which gave Soubi a place to sleep, along with a lamp on a nightstand and a coffee table. Natsou and Yoji had brought a bag that contained most of Soubi's stuff.

"Why is that, Ritsuka?" Soubi smiled at him as he towelled off his hair. He'd just showered and had come back out to find Ritsuka sitting on the couch, reading through his assignments that Yuiko had brought.

"I hate being kept up in one place with a bunch of people poking needles into me. What are in these things anyways?" Ritsuka raised his hand where an IV needle branched off to a couple different medication bags.

Soubi came over to his bed and looked at the labels on IVs. "One of them is an anti-psychotic drug called Lithium and the other is an anticonvulsant to stop your seizures and a corticosteroid to help the inflammation of your brain."

"Anti-psychotic drugs?" Ritsuka laughed coldly. "God, I sound like my mother."

Soubi sighed, "Ritsuka, you're nothing like her."

"Really? I was hallucinating just like her! Nothing could've made me realize it wasn't real! I even hurt you, dammit!"

The older man moved beside him and captured his lips with his own, preventing him from saying anything more. Ritsuka had forgotten what he was going to say, anyways, so it didn't matter. He went limp and placed his arms around the other, giving in.

"Are you suicidal? Soubi said after they broke apart.

"No, but I-!"

Soubi put a finger to his lips silencing him once again, "You're a pacifist, correct? Therefore, you don't use violence, am I right?"

Ritsuka nodded.

"Would you normally mistake me for your mother?"

Resting his head on Soubi's shoulder, Ritsuka shook his head and he started to see what Soubi was trying to make him realize.

"You are nothing like your mother. You may have tried to jump off a building, but you were hallucinating when you did so. Its called delirium, I looked it up. Delirium is a temporary state of psychosis that is a symptom. It doesn't mean you're crazy."

Ritsuka and Soubi sat for a moment, Ritsuka in Soubi's arms, and Soubi gently stroking the boy's head. He leaned down and whispered those three sweet words that Ritsuka had needed to hear. He hung on those three words like it was his life. He used to hate it when the Fighter said them but now, now he felt something else too.

"Ritsuka," Soubi was whispering in his ear again. "What were you trying to say to me before Natsou and Yoji interrupted?"

Ritsuka looked him in the eyes, mustering the courage to say what he was feeling. He had just opened his mouth to speak when the door swung wide on its hinges.

House twirled his cane as he sat in his office, alone. He stared at the board again and bounced his tennis ball off of it. This had to be the strangest case he had taken on yet. That is, not counting Minami Ritsu's case…

For the first time in years, House recalled Ritsu's case. It had been around seven years ago that the case had been handed to House. He had been traveling to a medical conference with… who had it been? House had to think for a moment before he remembered that it had been Wilson and Cuddy.

The head speaker of the psychological portion of the conference had collapsed during the middle of a presentation about the similarities between butterflies and humans. House had been one of the best doctors called to the conference and therefore, he had to take the speaker's case . Wilson and Cuddy had insisted on helping him.

When running Ritsu's DNA through the hospital's system, the system went haywire. House told them to run the test again and the same thing happened. This time, he took a look at the DNA code that had crashed the system and found a word consisting of letters not normally in a DNA code. Later that night, House had gone into Ritsu's room and demanded an explanation. Ritsu had grudgingly obliged after some pressing from both House and Cuddy. All three of them had been there, House realized. Cuddy and Wilson had come looking for House and found him in the patient's room. That had been a part of the case that had previously escaped from House's memory.

With this part restored, House went out onto the balcony that connect his and Wilson's offices and banged at the other's door with his cane. He was with a patient, most likely his last of the day.

Wilson glared at him from the inside and House entered, took one look at the 'poor helpless' patient and said, "Get out."

This received yet another dirty look from his one and only friend, but Wilson turned to his patient and brought out his schedule. "I have another opening for you tomorrow at three. It's getting late and I think we should wrap this up for the day."

"I'll be back tomorrow at three then," She agreed, gathering her stuff and leaving.

"What is just so important that it couldn't wait until I was done telling her when she is going to die?" Wilson's voice held slight anger in it.

House didn't sit down like usual, instead he came to stand in front of Wilson's desk. "My case. That guy I was telling you about-"

"Complaining to me about," Wilson muttered.

"Yes him. He's a Fighter."

"A what?"

"Come on Wilson, you remember. The Minami case. Minami Ritsu. Remember him?"

Wilson looked to be thinking for a moment and then looked back at House with sudden realization. "He's that guy from that school. What was it…? Seven Voices? He called himself a Sacrifice, right?"

"I knew you'd come around. Do you remember how when he thought he was dying he talked all the time about a boy named Agatsuma Soubi?"

Wilson nodded slowly, "He even showed us some pictures. How did he say that kid was? Thirteen? Fourteen?"

House smiled a devious smile, "Come with me."

"Where are you taking me?" Wilson pressed as he followed House down the last long corridor.

"More like who."

"I don't like surprises," Wilson retorted.

"I'll make sure to never throw you a birthday party," House replied blandly ( as they reached the room. The blinds were pulled shut, marking that the two inside wanted their privacy. Ignoring Wilson's protests, he opened the door without even knocking.

"You should really learn to knock," A deep voice sounded to House's right, which was followed by a soft question asked in Japanese by the black haired teenager. Soubi responded with a glance at Wilson. "Who's he?"

"Wilson, this is Agatsuma Soubi and Aoyagi Ritsuka. Fighter and Sacrifice," House explained while ignoring the Fighter's question.

Wilson looked like he was trying to say something but instead whispered frantically to House, "I don't speak any Japanese!"

"I speak English! Who is this idiot?" Soubi insisted hotly.

"I'm James Wilson, head of Oncology here," If Wilson was offended by being called an idiot, he sure didn't show it. "I apologize for my friend's…uh, arrogance. So you're Soubi?"

"Can I ask how you already seem to know everything about me?" Soubi's tone was defensive and he grabbed onto Ritsuka's hand protectively. Ritsuka flinched a few moments later, catching House's eye.

"I worked with doctor House on the Minami Ritsu case. When he thought he wasn't going to make it he talked constantly about you and showed us some pictures."

Soubi's expression suddenly turned to disgust, "Of course." He muttered something else in Japanese that House barely caught as 'that nasty son of a bitch rapist'.

Wilson said something else but House wasn't listening. He limped forward, picked up a pen off the coffee table and threw it at Ritsuka. It hit him right in the face. At first he didn't move but after a few seconds he flinched and rubbed his face.

"What was that for?" Ritsuka asked after cussing loudly in Japanese.

"Did you see what I just saw?" House asked Wilson, "Or am I hallucinating again?"

"Hyporeflexia," Wilson told him, "delayed reflexes."

It was hard for Soubi to hear. It was terrible for him to know that Ritsuka was getting worse. The cause was unknown. If the cause was unknown, the cure was unknown, and the outcome was unknown. Unknown was bad. It meant that there was a fifty-fifty chance the outcome would be bad. With Soubi's luck, there was an even higher chance.

As if on cue, Ritsuka groaned in pain and rubbed his temples. He started to fall forward but Soubi caught him.

"What's wrong?" Soubi questioned quietly.

"Its just my head…and my stomach…"

"Are you going to throw up again?"

"no, no."

In the background, Soubi could hear House talking to Wilson, probably translating. He wanted them out. He didn't know why, he just did.

"Get out. Now. If you've got nothing new to tell me about Ritsuka's condition then get out of here."

House nodded at Wilson and the two of them left in a hurry. Soubi turned his attention back to Ritsuka, who was still holding his head. "I need to get you into bed," He said to the young Sacrifice. "You need to sleep. I'll talk to one of the nurses to see if they can give you something to help your headache." He picked him up and deposited him on the hospital bed.

"This isn't a headache. It's a migraine…"

"I know, Ritsuka, I know," Soubi pulled the covers up to the teen's chest.

"Don't leave me…" Ritsuka was beginning to fade in and out of consciousness.

"I won't. I love you," He pressed his lips to Ritsuka's forehead.

"And Soubi?"

"Yeah?"

"Get some sleep or you'll get sick too."

Soubi laughed, "I will." He made sure that Ritsuka was asleep and then laid down on the couch, finding it quite comfortable. He thought about what Ritsuka had said and smiled to himself again. He'd been right; Soubi hadn't slept since he'd nodded off a couple days ago. Maybe a good night's sleep would take his mind off the mystery of Ritsuka's diagnosis.

Hello everyone!

Sorry this took so long! The next updates will come very quick, I promise!

Special thanks to my beta summer-flower-girl Thanks for all your hard work!

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I seriously love you all,

Wolfie