An hour and a half later, after getting Lindsey settled, Catherine left for work, resolving to do what she could to get out of doing any work today, so she could take care of the Grissom situation. She showed up at work and was heading in past Judy, the receptionist, when the diminutive woman spoke directly to her, "Excuse me, Catherine, but Detective Mac Taylor in New York is on line one wanting to speak to a supervisor."

"I'll take it in Grissom's office." She headed down the hall and saw Warrick leaning against the wall outside the door. "What's up, War?" He looked uncertain and shifted his feet as she unlocked the office door. "Come on, spill. I've got a call from Detective Taylor in New York to take."

"Would you . . . would you like to go out for a drink with me sometime?" His voice was hesitant and pitched low.

Catherine shuddered slightly at the sound of his voice, and smiled. "You mean like a date, Warrick?" When he didn't answer, she took his silence as acknowledgement. "Sure. I'd love to." Warrick grinned at her. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I really have to take this call." Warrick walked out the door and she picked up the phone, "This is Catherine Willows from the Vegas Crime Lab."

"I thought Grissom was the supervisor for the night shift, no offense. I mean, he's the one who sent me the package about Darren White."

"None taken. I'm the acting supervisor while my superior is in the hospital."

"Sorry to hear that. But, I've got news for you. Upon receiving the package, we went to the headquarters of Sonyo Cosmetics and found White trying to get into the corporate offices. He saw a badge and took off. We chased him for ten blocks, then lost him. I managed to convince the police commissioner to let me extend this offer. Would you send a couple of members of your criminalistics team out here to New York? You could assist us in the investigation and we would turn him over to you for return to Nevada."

"Sounds good, two of my criminalists will be out there within a few days. Thank you."

"Don't mention it. I'll see whoever you're sending in a couple days." He hung up the phone. Catherine also hung up the phone and grabbed the case slips for the day. She noticed only a few, excellent. She walked into the break room to see Nick and Greg deep in conversation, Sara leaning her shoulder against the wall, and Warrick sitting at the table eating an apple. Everyone looked at her when she walked into the room.

"Nick, you and Greg have a db in the desert. Sara and Warrick, a db in the marital suite at the Rampart." As the team stood up to receive their files, she turned to Warrick, "I want to speak with you real quick before you head out." He nodded and followed her to Grissom's office.

"What do you want, Catherine?"

"Remember when we went to Miami?"

"Yeah."

"Detective Taylor is extending an invite for a couple of criminalists from the night shift to go to New York on the Darren White case. I was wondering if you'd like to go with me."

"Why us?"

"You, Grissom, and I were the ones who worked the case. Grissom's comatose, leaving the two of us who knows the ins and outs of the case. I'm going to bring it up with Ecklie later tonight. I just want you to mull over the chance."

"I'd love to." He and Catherine grinned at each other, and he left the office. Catherine waited about five minutes and then grabbed her purse and headed out. She had to go talk to two different people. First, she drove to the Rampart and headed in to see Sam. She was let in without preamble.

"Mugs, are you here about the dead body in my hotel?"

"No. That's why Warrick and Sara are here. I need to ask you a favor."

His eyes twinkled at her words. "Best not let Grissom hear you say that. He thinks my favors come with strings attached. How can I help you?"

"I remember you saying several years ago that you had a private jet, do you still have it?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I want to take Grissom to New Jersey to be seen by a doctor there, but since he's comatose, they won't let him on a standard airline."

"New Jersey? You wouldn't by any chance be taking him to see Dr. Greg House would you?"

"Does everyone in the vice business know this guy?"

"He treated a former business associate of mine. A Joey Arnello."

"The mobster who entered witness protection?"

"That's him. Sure, Catherine. You can use my jet. You know that all you have to do is ask, since you're all I have left." She turned a bright shade of pink at his comment, thanked him, and left. She drove to Desert Palms Hospital to talk to Grissom's doctor. When she got there, she walked quickly inside and made her way to Grissom's room to check on him. He looked the same as he had for the past week. Then she noticed the figure sitting in the chair next to the bed and mentally kicked herself for not noticing her first thing.

"Heather, what are you doing here?" concern and curiosity warring in her voice.

"I turned the running of the Dominion over to Devon for the next month so I could go with him to New Jersey, then I felt so out-of-sorts in my apartments within the Dominion that I felt I ought to come here."

"Hmmmm. Has his doctor been in here yet?"

"No, but I'm afraid that they'll make me leave soon. I don't know when visiting hours are over and I'm not family nor am I even his medical proxy."

Catherine looked off into the distance for a minute, then focused back on Heather. "Do you believe the implications you were making when you humiliated Sara last week?"

"That he loves me, and I love him? Of course."

"Claim to be his girlfriend. It's not like he can refute it, and it'll allow you to stay here with him if you wish."

"You think he won't mind?"

"If he finds out, and he feels the way you seem to think he does, then no, he won't mind." Heather just smiled in response as Catherine left the room to go talk to Dr. Richardson. She walked into his office and asked without preamble, "Is Gil Grissom stable enough to fly across the country to New Jersey?"

Dr. Richardson looked at her, shocked. When he finally spoke, his voice cracked slightly. "You—you want to take a comatose man with a disease that we don't know about from here to New Jersey? May I ask why?" Instead of answering immediately, Catherine looked around the office and noticed the man's diplomas. She noticed that his medical degree came from Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

"In order to answer your question, I'm going to ask you a couple of irrelevant questions and see if that helps. I see you got your degree from Princeton Plainsboro. Did you—"

Dr. Richardson cut her off, "You want to consult Dr. House on Grissom's case. You're flying Grissom to New Jersey because you've heard about House's ego and bedside manner. Most of the rumors aren't exaggerations, I worked alongside the man for a couple of years. I wish you the best of luck. I'll even formally submit a consultation request. That might help."

"Thank you, doctor," Catherine shook her head how easy that was, just as soon as she mentioned Princeton Plainsboro. She wondered about this Dr. House, how he managed to garner influence and dread simultaneously. She was looking forward to meeting him.


Dr. Cameron looked up from her computer screen, her eyes tired after four hours of working on the same patient. That's how it was here in Diagnostics. One case that was exceedingly complicated. Their acerbic boss didn't help sometimes either. Then again, he had the most adorable baby-blue eyes and sometimes she found herself getting lost in them. She was jerked out of her reverie by the whirring of the fax machine. A single sheet of paper came out of the machine and she picked it up and read it. Her eyes widened as she realized what it was. A consult request from Nevada. This was unprecedented. She sat back in her chair stunned, then jumped a little when Chase and Foreman came into the office, laughing and talking.

Foreman's voice was slightly deeper from the laughter, "Oh, man did you see the look on that intern's face when House was called into Cuddy's office?"

"You kidding? I had an elderly man next to me nearly hyperventilate and I thought I'd have to provide aid because he'd pass out there on the floor."

Cameron spoke up, "What happened?"

"Cuddy paged House while we were in the clinic. I don't know where he was, but he wasn't on the schedule for the clinic, so that couldn't be it. Anyway, he comes into the clinic to get to her office when Brenda, the head nurse, told one of her underlings to mark this day on the calendar. House asked why, she told him because he never comes into the clinic without bribes, trouble, or threats from Cuddy. He then asked her if the rubber tourniquets and tubing were still stored in the clinic area, when she asked him why, he said . . ." what Foreman was about to say trailed off as he collapsed into chair in a fit of laughter.

Chase picked up the story where Foreman left off, "House told the nurse that he needed to fashion a makeshift cat-o'-nine-tails from rubber tubing because he left his riding crop at home and Cuddy had been a naughty girl." Chase staggered over to the wall and laughed just as hard as Foreman. Cameron rolled her eyes at her boss' antics. Then she saw him come into the conference room and say one word that had everyone paying attention.

"Ticks." Everyone looked at him incredulously.

"What do you mean, ticks?" Cameron asked.

"Our patient has Lyme Disease."

"What?" Foreman's incredulous tone made it clear he thought House was playing a trick on them. "She can't have Lyme Disease, it's January! The ticks are dead or hibernating."

"True, if she had gotten the disease in a natural setting. But she didn't. She got it in her own home, in fact the night after she slept in a bed that had been shipped here from South Carolina made of untreated wood."

"So you're saying the tick lived in her bed and then came out the night it was shipped here and just decided to bite her?" Foreman was having trouble buying House's explanation.

"Sure," House explained it like he would to someone who was significantly dumber than himself—which is how he viewed the majority of the world, anyway. "The company she used keeps their items in cold storage. They claim that it keeps the wood smelling fresher when it's sent. That alone would have kept the tick within the wood. Then, it spent a couple of days on the road, again within a refrigerated truck. Thus, the first time it was exposed to warmth was in her house. It would have felt the difference and come out to investigate. And, what do you know, all of a sudden there's this nice warm buffet just within reach?"

Cameron rolled her eyes, "I wish you wouldn't call our patients names."

House eyed her, finally noticing the paper in her hands. He gestured at it with his free hand, "What's that?"

"A request for you to consult on a case."

Foreman looked shocked. "Someone wants you to consult on a case? What, you haven't terrified all the doctors on the eastern seaboard out of doing such a thing?"

House threw Foreman a disparaging look. "Who's the requesting physician?"

"Dr. Richardson."

"Useless."

"What?"

"The guy worked here for two years. He's about as much use as that wedding ring on Wilson."

Cameron looked back down at the letter, then back up to House, she focused on his nose, because to look into those eyes of his would cause her to swoon. "He writes in that this is a formality, a way of going through the proper channels. He says that the patient's proxy was going to come to you anyway. He also says that they're willing to fly out here."

Chase looked shocked. "Someone's willing to travel from wherever this Dr. Richardson is now to consult with House about a case? They must really be desperate."

Foreman's eyes widened at what Cameron had said. "Speaking of which, where is Dr. Richardson practicing from?"

Cameron met Foreman's eyes briefly, then shifted back to House. "Las Vegas."

House's eyes widened perceptibly. "The Las Vegas? America's playground?" Cameron simply nodded. "What's the patient's name?"

Cameron looked back down at the letter, "Gil Grissom."

House nodded, "Alright, send a response to Dr. Richardson. We'll be happy to take the case. Foreman, I want to know who this guy is, do some research. Cameron, I want you on it, too." They both nodded. "I'll be in the clinic, page me if something interesting happens, or even if it doesn't." House turned and walked out the door. Foreman looked at Cameron.

"That was way too easy."

"I think it's because the patient and his proxy are willing to travel all the way to Princeton from Las Vegas to see him." Foreman looked skeptical at Cameron's comment but said nothing.