Even though quitting time for the rest of the world was hours past, Princeton-Plainsboro was still busy as ever. Chase was in the lab with Wilson, going over the blood samples to see if maybe there was a cause for the seizures within them. "How'd your thing with the psych go?" Wilson absently asked, still peering into the microscope while Chase glanced up. "I mean, productive?" Chase scoffed, and then Wilson raised his gaze from the microscope. "Or not. What'd he do, try and have you meditate? Talk about your feelings?" Wilson paused, sliding another sample under the scope. "Although, House could probably use that, much as he would never commit to it."

Chase took the used slide. "Anything?"

Wilson sighed. "It wasn't the cancer. But I think maybe it's the treatment. It's not common, but it does happen."

"The chemo?" Chase scoffed. He contemplated that for a moment. Either the body was rejecting it, or..."Allergic reaction?" Which meant that the previous doctor's prognosis just got curtailed. "Damn it."

"You want me to break the news?" Wilson asked, easing away from the microscope and resting his hands on his hips, like he really was some kind of superhero. Chase sighed, turning back to the samples. They'd still have to confirm it, but Annie deserved to know what might be going on.

"No. No, I'll do it. We'll do the test in the morning," he sighed wearily. He still hated the cancer cases, because every one just made him wonder about his father. Had he undergone chemo? Radiation? Had his father suffered?

"Hits close to home, doesn't it?" Wilson remarked quietly, interrupting Chase's train of thought. Chase glanced up, giving Wilson a dubious look. "You, your Dad..."

"I'm going to go tell our current patient about this," Chase announced suddenly, pushing himself up from the stool and leaving Wilson behind in a hurry, not looking him in the eyes.

He found Annie first in his exodus from the lab, standing outside David's room. Chase slowed his pace, but she still saw him coming, turning to give him a weak smile. She wiped away the tears from her eyes with her thumbs. "Dr. Chase. Hi."

Chase reached a stop beside her, glancing inside the room to find David asleep.

"John went to get dinner," she explained with a rueful grin. "Real food. I think he's sick of the hospital stuff." Annie had her arms crossed around her torso, like a shield, and she sighed wearily. "I'm just glad David lasted to the wedding. We hoped, but we didn't know if he would."

Chase wasn't sure if there were even any words of comfort that were adequate at this point. He just rested a hand on Annie's shoulder. "In the morning," he began, as gently as possible, "we're going to see if he's become allergic to the chemo. We'll know more then."

Maybe this was why his father never told him. He didn't have to listen to doctors awkwardly trying to rephrase, 'he's dying,' a dozen times or more and never succeeding in cushioning the words.

Cameron was perplexed.

Kevin was still experiencing violent intestinal cramps and had seized two more times since morning. She had managed to stitch up the wound again, but the amount of blood he had lost had surprised her. It just didn't add up. She was in Cuddy's office, having been summoned to deal with the potential assault charges. The hospital's lawyer sat in the corner, taking notes silently.

"I'm really not sure he'd charge assault, considering what we found on the knife," Cuddy said in disbelief, but she still sounded as though she were trying convince Cameron, the lawyer, herself, and the Western hemisphere with her words. Cameron was staring at Kevin's chart, ignoring Cuddy's legal worries and focusing on the problem; the problem that she hadn't solved.

"He's getting worse," Cameron sighed in frustration. "It was just a stabbing, but it's like something got embedded there with the knife."

"Complications?" Cuddy frowned. "Did you talk to the friend?"

"Not in depth," Cameron answered, leaning forward and clasping her palms together, as if some modern-day update of The Thinker. "But trust me. I will." She nodded to both Cuddy and the lawyer and excused herself from the room, taking the stairs in order to see to Kevin and have a little chat with his friend.

With every step up the stairs, she thought of her husband and how she'd been just as devoted to him at his bedside as Matt was being with his friend. But then, Cameron's husband had been dying and Matt's friend was hopefully not. But to watch with such puzzled concern didn't fit with the idea that he was the one poisoning Kevin.

Cameron cleared her throat to get Matt's attention. He was sitting nearby the room, on one of the benches. "Hey," she greeted casually, her hands in the pockets of her labcoat. "How're you holding up?"

"He's the patient," Matt reminded her, almost chastising. "I was the guy in the right place and at the right time to make sure Kevin didn't bleed to death on a crappy street." Matt rested his head in his hands. "I been clean for a year. No drugs, no gang crap. He asked me to come to the party for a girl. Next thing I know, they're doing E off some warehouse floor and pumping music loud enough to catch the cop's attention and then it's morning and those braintrusts try and jack a car and Kevin's hurt."

"And you were there?" Cameron clarified. "Did you see anything weird? Something that might have looked like poison?"

Matt scoffed, looking at her like she was crazy. "Poison? What? Hell, no. They're friends."

"Friends who stab each other," Cameron reminded him in a dubious tone, wondering at what kind of world out there she was missing and wondering what sort of person kept friends and just let things like assault slide by. "These reactions are pretty common with heavy metal poisoning." Matt seemed to pause and he looked at Cameron and for a millisecond, something like knowledge flashed over his features. "What is it? Do you know?"

"Maybe," Matt said considerately. "I can get you a sample."

Cameron went through a wide chain of reactions. Did she trust the guy not to run? Would he abandon her and leave her without a sample and a theory? She had to have faith, didn't she? With a long, deep breath, she nodded. "Hurry. The sooner we know, the sooner we can treat him."

Matt nodded once and didn't say a word as he went, brushing right past House in the hallway. House watched him go, slowly approaching -- every step heavy as he seemed to lean on his cane more than usual for support. Cameron furrowed her brow and turned away, ready to make her own quick escape.

"And where's he going?" House asked, mock-politely. Cameron stopped and sighed, her escape thwarted. She turned, watching House pop two Vicodin pills in one fell swoop. "Field trip? I hope you told him to bring us pack a souvenir." Cameron rolled her eyes. "He is a suspect, you realize. For assault. That's not a crime that gets you a slap on the wrist."

"I'm sure you know all about assault charges," she muttered under her breath.

House gave her a conspiratorial smirk. "Oh-ho. A burn."

Despite herself, Cameron stifled a proud smile and managed to steel herself to look at House again. "No one's been charged yet. And he may be able to help us."

"You have way too much faith in humanity," House accused her.

Cameron raised a hand in the air. "Guilty. Can I go run tests now?"

"What, need permission? Like I'm some kind of boss? Oh, wait..."

But Cameron was already walking away, House's diatribe fading away into the distance with every step she took.

Foreman stared at the latest test results. Bobby's organs were shutting down. Some infection. His white count was completely normal, but his organs looked to be closing off due to sepsis. This kid was going to need a donor within days at that point. Foreman had stopped the treatments in a vain attempt to keep his kidneys from getting boxed.

"How are his stats?" House's grim voice pierced Foreman's reverie.

"Not good. Blood pressure is way down," Foreman said, tone dire. "He's a kid who scraped up his knee. This shouldn't be happening."

They sat in silence for a long moment. "What's the scrape look like?" House finally asked. "And is there a puncture?"

Foreman paused. "You think he scraped himself at the hospital, not the playground." He considered that for a second, wondering if someone might have left old medical debris lying around a sandbox. It was possible. "Father's always been in the room when I ask questions. The kid might be lying out of fear."

"Isn't everyone terrified of Daddy?" House said after a moment. "Find out. Check for a puncture from a needle or any kind of contact with medical substances."

Foreman nodded, excusing himself and heading to Bobby's room, only to find it to be his lucky day. Bobby was lying in bed, looking at a children's book while his father dozed in a chair in the corner. Foreman worked to keep very quiet as he approached Bobby and noted that the book was an explanation in child's terms of why people got sick. Bobby glanced up at Foreman, lanky hair in his eyes. "I don't feel better," he admitted. "I'm trying, for Daddy, but I don't feel better."

Foreman felt a slight pang of sympathy and guilt. "Getting you better is my job, not yours."

Bobby didn't smile at that; just kept reading.

Foreman grasped the stool by the bedside and sat down slowly, keeping careful not to wake Dr. Gordon. "Bobby. When you went to wait for your Dad, did you touch anything you weren't supposed to?"

Bobby continued looking at the pictures, flipping the page and shaking his head slowly. "No," he whispered.

"Was there an accident? It's very, very important Bobby, it might save your life." Foreman watched Bobby glance from his father, then back to Foreman, fear expressed on every one of his diminutive features. "Your Dad's asleep, he doesn't have to know."

Bobby reached down, fighting and swatting away at the blankets, his eyes cloudy and filled with tears. His breathing sounded pretty bad and Foreman worried about needing to intubate again. "I pricked myself," he admitted in a tiny whisper, staring at the scrape. "There were needles and p-pills and...and blood," he continued, chin lifted high as he spoke with trembling words. "But I tripped and the needle got...it got stuck and I got bumped 'gainst the wall."

They were getting somewhere. "Bobby, how much?"

The boy made a measurement with shaking fingers. Looked to be about 30 milligrams. "Didn't mean to," Bobby promised, crying now, eyes worriedly tracking to his father. "I didn't mean to," he sobbed, voice returning to the normal volume.

"Bobby, this is very important." Foreman's nerves were on edge. He was so close. "What did the label look like?"

"It..."

"Robert!" Dr. Gordon's voice seemed to boom and echo in the room, though, it was merely concerned and not angry in the least. Bobby promptly rolled on his side, away from his father, rocking back and forth. Dr. Gordon hurried over and brushed his hand over Bobby's hair. "What's the matter?"

"I'm sorry, Dad, I'm s-so-sorry."

Dr. Gordon raised his gaze to Foreman. "He accidentally came into contact with a medical solution," Foreman explained hurriedly. "But we need to know which one."

They both turned their attention to Bobby, but his labored breaths had become worse and he needed to be intubated again.

They wouldn't be getting an answer just yet, then.

tbc