House watched appraisingly as the young Allison Cameron turned and walked away. She was definitely attractive. She wears a coat of colors/loved by some, feared by others/she's immortalized/in young men's eyes . . . He shook his head, attempting to banish such thoughts from his mind and failing. He decided that he'd help her out. She was extremely intelligent, just lacking in the confidence category. He turned back to his bookcase deciding what he was going to read today. Perhaps Leroux . . .

Allison walked into the diagnostics department with only a few minutes to spare before her boss walked in. Her friend and colleague Eric Foreman was already sitting at the table, drinking a cup of coffee and working on a crossword puzzle. He looked up as she entered the conference room and raised his eyebrows at her. "Where have you been? I knew you were here because you made fresh coffee and your laptop is on the table, but you weren't."

"I was just up on the roof, thinking and getting some air."

"You sound troubled."

"I think Dr. Dare's diagnosis is wrong."

"What, again?"

"Yeah. I don't think Ms. Ellison has small-cell lung cancer. I think she has lupus that has started threatening her lungs a little earlier than it ought to."

"You know, that fits, except she already wrote the diagnosis on her chart with treatment recommendations. You would need to get her permission to perform the biopsy you need to confirm the diagnosis."

"Not necessarily."

"Cameron, you need a department head's signature to perform an invasive test like a lung biopsy."

"True, but it doesn't have to be this department."

"Wait a second . . . you're not thinking of talking to Dr. Wilson about this, are you?"

"Why not? Ms. Ellison's going to be transferred to Wilson's care, so I'll just ask Wilson for permission to perform the test."

"Dr. Dare's going to be pissed."

"That's too bad, Ms. Ellison doesn't need to die due to doctor incompetence." Both doctors looked up as their superior, Dr. Dare, breezed into the conference room to put down her bag and make herself some herbal tea.

"Good morning Dr. Foreman, Dr. Cameron," she spoke perfunctorily as she stirred the tea bag in the hot water. "Do we have any new patients?"

"No," Dr. Foreman answered her, "though you need to talk to Wilson about transferring our current patient to his care."

"I'll do that after the staff meeting this morning. Dr. Arthur called one for all department heads in half an hour," with that, she walked into her office to drop off her jacket and bag before she headed back downstairs.

Cameron looked at Foreman out of the corner of her eye as Dr. Dare left the office to head to the stairs. Foreman, still looking down at his crossword puzzle, finally spoke up, startling her, "Want to tell me what's really bothering you?"

"How did you . . . ?"

"Cameron, please. Give me a little more credit than that. I'm your friend and colleague. I've worked with you and spoke with you for a year now. Hell, we've gotten drunk together and I've crashed at your apartment because it's closer to the hospital than mine. I think I'd be able to tell if you were nervous about something."

"Okay . . . well, you know that grated door at the bottom of the east wing staircase?"

"The one that I don't think anyone has a key for? Yeah."

"You ever wonder what's back there?"

"Yeah, but I've never been able to get in. None of the maintenance guys I've spoken to know what's there."

"I found out what's down there, Foreman."

"What? When?"

"This morning. I couldn't sleep and my apartment at 4:00 in the morning is exceedingly boring, so I came here. I had to go up to the roof to think and gather myself, because this wordless tune is playing through my mind and it's keeping me from being polite to the boss. Anyways, I was up there, standing alone, looking out at the lights of Princeton, when I heard strange music. I knew that it wasn't the tune in my mind, it was entirely different. It was Baba O'Reilly by The Who. So I followed the sounds, thinking I'd find one of the maintenance guys or a couple orderlies or something. Instead, I found that grate and door unlocked and open. Inside, there was this large chamber with columns everywhere, probably to take the weight of the hospital above. I was walking through this chamber when I heard this strange thumping noise coming from my left, and all of a sudden there was this man, dressed in blue jeans, Nike Shox," at that Foreman looked down at his own feet, and Cameron laughed, "yes, just like the ones you're wearing today. He was also wearing a suit jacket over a dress shirt and he walked with a cane."

"Did he give you his name?"

"No, he introduced himself as the hospital's resident ghost. He said that people don't want a sick doctor."

"That's true. I don't want healthy patients."

"He seemed to know a lot, like my name, your name, our boss' name, and the dean's name. Also, he claimed to have saved a few of the patients that survived past Dr. Dare's ministrations."

"We don't know if that's true," Foreman's face looked troubled.

"I did say he had claimed to be their savior. Anyway, I'm wondering who he is."

"Be careful, Cameron. He sounds like someone you shouldn't mess with.

Author's note: I challenge anyone to guess what music is working its way through Cameron's mind in this chapter. I will give you one clue, but I only will recognize your first guess, I want to see how many get this right. The clue is: the song is from the musical Wicked.