"Rachel?" her mother called.
"Yeah mom?"
"How was your day at General?"
"Fine."
"You're starting your residency at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching tomorrow, right?"
"Yup."
Rachel heard an audible sigh on the other end of the line.
"Do you know who runs the diagnostic department?"
"What?" Rachel had never heard of that before. It was never mentioned, and it didn't even exist in hospitals. At least, normal ones. This was the hospital Mom used to run. It was surely not normal.
"It's a department I created at Teaching. I never told you."
Rachel managed to squeak out an "oh" before Mom began to talk about other, mundane things, like the weather. Or something. Rachel wasn't paying attention. She was bored, and whenever she did, she always thought about the strange man that always lingered in her memory. He had a cane, which he used to walk with his limp, and a beard that was never cleanly shaven. And bright blue eyes. Not much else about him, though. Rachel never thought to ask Mom about this.
After the line clicked, Rachel threw herself into her chair and googled 'princeton plainsboro teaching diagnostic department.' She was curious as to what it was. An interesting result came up, with a plethora of names. Dr. Robert Chase, Dr. Chris Taub, and others. After scrolling through their pictures, she came upon one which matched her memory of the man with the cane. Dr. Gregory House.
Rachel's mouth hung open a bit, and decided to do a bit more digging. An obituary was held for his name. Died in a fire, apparently.
Her mind was restless enough already, so she shut off her computer to take a break and go to sleep for her busy day tomorrow.
Rachel was rushed down the halls, following her attending with the rest of her classmates like ducklings for her rounds.
"Patient presents with a sudden loss of smell, headache, fever, confusion, and neck stiffness. Let's go see the patient."
They all slipped into the room, which was quite crowded already, and stuffed themselves together shoulder to shoulder. A boy tried to push his way farther so he could see and he ended up right in Rachel's face. She could basically breathe his hair in.
"Hey, I'm trying to see."
"Oh, sorry." He shifted to his left.
The attending asked, "Any ideas?"
"Could be meningitis," The boy in front of Rachel piped up. "But the loss of smell-"
"It could still be meningitis, but more likely chronic than acute with that symptom," Rachel interrupted. Everybody turned to look at her, and Rachel shuffled her feet a bit when the attending, Dr. Leo, gave the tiniest hint of a satisfactory smile. The boy in front of her rolled his eyes and chuckled a bit. The other rounders called him Gunner, but Rachel wasn't sure why.
"What's your name?" Rachel whispered to him as they were moving to another patient.
"Jacob Wilson," he replied. "But since I'm the gunner of the class, you should call me Gunner."
Oh, no wonder why everybody looked at me weird when I corrected him. He's the genius one, Rachel thought. He was friendly enough, though, so it wouldn't hurt to get an acquaintance with him.
"How old are you?" Rachel asked. Did that sound weird?
"I'm twenty-five. You?"
"Twenty-two," Rachel lied. She didn't want Jacob to feel bad that she was so much younger than him. And he looked pretty nice.
"What med school did you go to?"
"I went to Harvard, but I used to live here in New Jersey before we moved to Massachusetts, and then back. My mom was Dean of Medicine here, when I was really young." Rachel had no idea why she was practically telling Jacob her life story, but after she did, she expected Jacob to reciprocate the gesture.
"Ya know, I never got your name. What is it?"
"Rachel Cuddy."
"Cool. I went to Harvard too, but I guess we had different class times, so…"
Gosh, he's smart, Rachel's mind said. Ask if you wanna study together.
"Do you wanna study after this? Together?"
"Sure, where do you plan on going?"
"We could study, like, in the morgue or something," Rachel smiled.
"How bout the big rooms near the Witherspoon Wing? They're empty, I think."
"Okay. Can I have your number?"