A/N: So , thanks to the observant eye of my beta I have fixed some serious issues in this chap, and hopefully you all enjoy this next part. -Bryn/Taru

Chapter 2

It Doesn't Look Good

Both House and Mrs. Walton jumped a little as the door to the exam room opened, but Kelly appeared not to notice. Dr. Tellson walked in and gave the woman a smile and House a glare. He wasn't a very remarkable man. His hair was short and graying, he was average height, but there was a softness in his face that led people to trust him.

"Dr. House. Cuddy said that you needed me?" He asked.

"Yes, this is Kelly, I don't think she's deaf, but she doesn't talk. I need your help." He replied. "Unless that's too hard for you."

The only response House got was a glare. Dr. Tellson looked at Kelly, and squatted down so that she could see him.

His hands moved in a kind of aerial ballet, and after a moment he stood up.

"She doesn't sign." He sighed.

House looked at the girl and then back to the other doctor. He shrugged his shoulders and sighed.

"Well it was worth a shot." He glanced over at Kelly once more and saw her hands moving in a repetitive pattern. "Wait, what's that mean?" He asked the other doctor.

Dr. Tellson looked over and watched for a moment before sighing. "Nothing, it's just the letters "k" and "h" over and over again. It doesn't mean anything." He turned to Mrs. Walton. "Sorry I couldn't help." He turned and exited the room.

House watched the other doctor leave and sighed again. He seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.

"Ok, I want to admit Kelly, at least for overnight observation. The fact that she has had a high fever for over 24 hours worries me. A nurse will be in with the paperwork." He turned and left the room without looking back. Walking though the reception area of the clinic he didn't even spare a glance at the pile of files.

When House arrived in his office, he saw that Chase and Foreman were missing. Cameron was over on the computer typing and didn't notice his entrance.

"Where are Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum?" He asked, smiling slightly when he saw her jump. "I have a patient being admitted. Go check it out."

Cameron gave him a scathing glare and left the office without a word, purposefully not answering his question. House smirked again as she left and then turned serious. He headed over to his desk and grabbed the ball off the right corner. He turned it in his hands a few times and then picked up the phone. "Yeah, I need a page for Chase and Foreman. Tell them they needed to be in my office five minutes ago." Placing the receiver down he picked up the ball again and tossed it up into the air a few times. 'What was it about that girl that just didn't fit?' He ran over her behavior in his head again. He didn't think she was deaf, but was the abuse the only thing making her silent? 'Of course!' He placed the ball down with a loud thwack. 'Deaf and retarded, right, whenever you hear those two things together you think autism.'

House was stirred out of his thoughts by the arrival of Foreman and Chase.

"Glad you two finally decided to show up." House barked at the two doctors who now stood before him.

"We don't have any cases right now; we went to lunch." Foreman rebuked.

"Well, now we have a case, so I guess it's good you're here huh?"

"Yeah, guess so." Foreman sighed. "What's the case?"

"16 year old female, suffering severe abuse and now has an infection of unknown origin." House said quickly, trying hard to keep emotion from entering his voice.

"Symptoms?" Chase asked.

"Cameron will be back in a minute. You can wait." Giving Foreman an evil smirk House stood up and went over to the larger area of the Diagnostic Medicine office. Foreman and Chase followed closely behind.

The duty nurse had directed Cameron to the fourth floor when she had asked about a patient whom House had admitted. She glanced at the chart in her hand and noted the patient's name. Unlike House, she didn't like having to ask over and over again for the patient's name. 'Kelly. Nice easy name. Maybe House will be able to remember this one.' Entering room 413 she saw the thin form sitting in the bed. 'Sure doesn't look 16; she barely looks like she's 12.' Cameron thought with a bit of alarm. The girl was extremely skinny, and her paleness didn't help the air of sickness that pervaded the area around her. Turning to the wall of windows, Cameron saw who she assumed to be the foster mother. With another glance down at the file in her hand, Cameron softly cleared her throat to gain the attention of the woman, who was staring out the windows. The woman looked up. Kelly looked away. "Mrs. Walton?"

"Yes?" Cameron could feel the woman's gaze sizing her up. She hated when people questioned her competence as a doctor simply because of her looks.

"I'm Dr. Cameron. Dr. House asked me to come see about Kelly." She said shortly, giving the woman no chance to question her presence.

"Right. Fine. Look, I really hate to do this, but I have two other kids at home who need stuff. Would you mind if I left?" The woman looked around nervously, as if she expected DCFS workers to come popping out of the glass at any second.

"No, that's fine. There are three of us on the case now, not counting Dr. House, so she'll be looked after," Cameron replied, with an obviously forced smile. She really didn't like this woman.

"Great, I'll be back tomorrow then." With that, Mrs. Walton scampered out of the room and disappeared around a corner.

Cameron turned her attention back toward Kelly. The girl hadn't moved since Cameron had entered. Kelly's gaze was fixed on the large windows, and seemed to be looking though the sky itself.

"Hi Kelly," Cameron said lightly "I'm Dr. Cameron, but you can call me Ally if you want."

Kelly flinched a little at the sound of her words, but was otherwise motionless. Cameron saw the flinch and smiled a little 'House was right, she isn't deaf.' Cameron finished her exam quickly. She jotted the stats down in the file and hurried back to the Diagnostic Medicine office. When she entered, she saw that Foreman and Chase were seated across from House, who had his legs propped up on the table.

"So what can you tell us?" House asked as she entered.

"Well, it's not good. Her fever hasn't responded to the anti-pyretics, and so far we've been unable to bring it down any. It's stayed at 104 this whole time. Also, there's a lot of tissue damage from the uh…abuse, and a lot of the area around the wounds is infected. I'm sure that the infection that she's fighting now is from her injured back." Cameron replied, laying the file down on the table so that Foreman and Chase could read it as well. Cameron then turned to House. "Also, I think that you were right, she's not deaf."

"I know." He replied. "She's autistic. Whoever diagnosed her as deaf was obviously lazy and didn't feel like doing the full evaluation."

"Well, it is extremely difficult, sometimes, to come up with a concrete diagnosis on the autism spectrum. Some kids go for years without a firm diagnosis…" Foreman began.

"No, it's not. It just takes a little more work. Work that some other doctor didn't feel like taking the time to do. Foreman, get the consults set up ; I want her fully evaluated for autism. I'm thinking Asperger's. Chase, run another CBC and Chem-7 and take some blood cultures; we need to know what kind of infection we're dealing with. Cameron, schedule her for an MRI. I want to be sure there are no other injuries that we aren't aware of. Well, why are you still sitting there? Go!" House limped off to his desk and thoughtfully watched the team scatter.