CHAPTER 1

…a week earlier…

"Hey Wilson," Gregory House limped to James Wilson, an oncologist and one of House's few friends. Wilson sighed a half-satisfied smile, "Ah, the wonderful sound of someone going to clinic duty."

House made a pained look, "Wow, I come to have a civilized conversation and instead I get cut down. I expected better from you, trying to take my job like that."

"So it's your job to cut people down?" Wilson raised and eyebrow.

"It's what I do best." House turned away and began to limp towards the elevator.

"Well, let me make your day," Wilson followed him to the elevator. "You have a patient waiting for you."

"Oh, thrills and chills," House rolled his eyes as the elevator door closed on Wilson's face.

X x X

"Our patients name is Janice Rand, a 25 year old scientist who is currently experiencing dizziness, nausea, and chest pain." Dr. Robert Chase, a young Australian shuffled through the diagnostic papers. "And a rash on her arms and legs, tests came back inconclusive on that."

"Is she on any medication at all?" House pulled the papers out of Chase's hand and glanced at them. "Any allergy medicine, anything like that?"

"Nothing recently," a pretty brunette, Dr. Allison Cameron frowned. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I thought we could give ourselves a break and just assume she ate something that she's allergic to," House shrugged. "But I guess that would be too easy, wouldn't it?"

"You think its something she ate?" scowled a skeptical African American doctor named Eric Foreman but House mostly knew him as Pain in the Ass.

House shook his head, "That would be too easy, huh? If stuff happened like that we'd be out of a job." He paused a moment, "Actually, things should happen like that more."

"Well, not today," Cameron flipped through the diagnostic papers. "There aren't any listed food allergies in here."

"At any rate, I don't think food allergies would cause anyone to frequently lose consciousness for long periods of time," Foreman added smugly.

"So she's fainting?" House sighed in exasperation. "See, that would have been great to know in advance." He turned to the whiteboard that was always leaning against its stand. "Okay, what have we got?"

"Dizziness," Cameron responded, glancing at the papers in front of her."

"Chest pain and rash," Chase followed, pausing to let House scrawl the board.

"Nausea and fainting," Foreman finished.

There was a moment of silence broken only by the squeaking of the marker on the whiteboard as House finished writing. When he was done, he stepped back and sighed, "Any theories?"

There was a pause, then Chase spoke up, "Well, due to the rash, it may be an infection, like staph."

"Any objections?" House paused, waiting for any objections from the other two, but none came. "Okay then, put her on antibiotics for staph infection and see what happens."

As everyone got up to leave, House spoke up, "Hey, why am I stuck with this girl? There are a lot of doctors, why me?"

Everyone looked surprised at the question, "Well, she's a brilliant scientist who's on the verge of many breakthroughs that will affect the scientific and medical world as we know it," Forman answered, wary as to where this might lead.

"So why do I get her? Because I'm loving and caring? Because Cuddy thinks I'm hot?" House was getting at something, but nobody knew what.

"Well, she needs the best treatment that this hospital has to offer," Foreman sighed reluctantly. "So I guess you would qualify as the best. I suppose."

"Aw, thanks Foreman," House adopted a smug smile. "I love hearing you say that."

Foreman rolled his eyes and murmured under his breath as he followed Cameron and Chase to the examination room where the patient, Janice Rand, was waiting.