Disclaimer: I don't own House.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews…

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'Yellow!' House tossed his red tennis ball in the air and caught it again. 'Not my favourite colour, but hey…'

'His liver's enlarged and his spleen as well.'

'Hepatitis could be doing this to him,' Chase said.

'You know, I like those better when there's a letter of the alphabet attached.' House took the bottle out of his pocket and popped a Vicodin. 'Sounds cooler.'

'Fine. Hep B.'

'What've we got so far?' House studied the whiteboard with a tilted head.

'Well,' Cameron put in. 'He's still got the fever and it's spiking, he's constantly vomiting – '

'Still blood in it?'

'Nope,' Chase answered. 'It was a Mallory-Weiss tear in the esophagus, we patched it up.'

'Now he's yellow,' Cameron continued. 'He still got the headache as well and his neck is stiff. Struggling with breathing, but we had to take the tube out, because of the vomit.'

'Photophobia,' Foreman added.

'And he's losing red blood cells very quickly.'

House turned to Sam, who was sitting on a chair, watching and listening to the procedings.

'You're looking very comfortable. Too comfortable. I think better when I have caffeine in my system.'

She got to her feet and went over to the coffee-maker. While she busied herself with making it, Cameron was shooting House accusing glances and House was looking at Sam's back as if he was trying to decide what precisely her defect was. He motioned for them to go into his office.

'I think we should do an MRI of her brain. Something's off with her reactions.'

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Sam was on her way to the Oncology ward when her beeper went off. She groaned. She didn't need this right now. What she needed was Liam laughing at her and getting her to put things in perspective.

It was Jerry.

She changed direction toward his room.

He was using an oxygen mask now. The pallor of his clammy face was tinged with yellow and his eyes were bleary. He removed the mask wearily.

'Couple of months ago,' he gasped. 'Went skiing, cut myself. Had to get some blood. Didn't think it mattered, was only a little.'

She returned his tired smile with one of her own. From where she was standing she could feel the heat radiating from his body. He was obviously feeling horrible.

'We're gonna get you better, Jerry.' She gave another small smile and went out into the hallway, trying to figure out a way in which she could convice House to give the malaria medication. Her usually creative brain had bailed on her for the moment. Jerry needed the medicine and he needed it fast. Soon he would need a new liver and his fever was causing frequent convulsions.

She paused to get herself a packet of peanut M&M's. With a frown of concentration she tore it open and made her way to the office.

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Wilson walked down the hallway, checking each room until he found his friend, sitting next to a comatose patient and watching TV. He took a seat on the other side and they watched in silence for a few minutes.

'How're things with the new resident?' Wilson asked with well-masked glee.

'She's still here.'

'Ah yes, rumors of you success, or rather lack thereof have reached me.' He stifled a grin at his friend's expression. 'She came to see me earlier.'

House's blue eyes focused on him for a moment. 'It must've been pretty all right news from the way she was carrying on.'

Wilson frowned. 'The opposite, actually. He'll be lucky to see the end of this month.'

'And she knows?'

'Yep.'

House gazed at the wall. 'Maybe it's a tumor somewhere…'

'What?'

'A very tiny tumor in her temporal lobe. Something's messing with her reactions.'

Wilson laughed shortly. 'Right, I forgot. Smiling is a bad sign for you.'

'You know what happened to Foreman when he started grinning.' He popped a tablet into his mouth and rolled it around with his tongue before swallowing. 'How did her face look when you told her?'

'Like a twelve-year-old expecting good news. I almost cried.'

'See? Since when is that normal? Not the part where you bawl, the part where the patient's family doesn't…'

'Some people are tougher than they seem,' Wilson shrugged.

'Yeah, right.'

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Sam balanced her chair on two legs and sucked the chocolate coating off of the M&M.

'He's in pretty bad shape,' Chase said as he entered the room.

'Where's Foreman?' Cameron asked.

'Checking the liver sample we just took.'

Cameron checked her watch. 'I'm gonna get something to eat. Anybody else?'

They nodded.

Half an hour later they were ambling along the hallway, munching sandwiches and discussing movies they wanted to see when Sam's beeper went off. The other two waited expectantly and groaned when theirs followed suit.

When they reached the room, everything was seemingly under control. Upon closer inspection, however, they saw that Jerry was throwing a fit of some sort. He seemed to be angry about something.

'They beeped us for a temper tantrum?' Chase asked incredulously.

Suddenly Jerry threw himself halfway over the side of the bed and retched violently, shivers racking his body all the time. The three doctors stood and watched while two nurses tried to restrain him. Once he stopped throwing up he started screaming.

'What the hell – ' Chase breathed.

The man writhed and clutched his left side, sobbing in agony. 'It's his spleen,' Sam said. 'He must've ruptured it going over the side just now.'

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Chase and Cameron were sitting at the table when Foreman walked in.

'No go on the hepatitis.'

'The guy's dying and doing it very quickly,' Chase said. 'He's not gonna last another hour at the rate he's going.'

'What if it is malaria like Sam said?'

'Typical,' Foreman said. 'You're only saying that because House is mistreating her a little.'

'You call eight hours of clinic on you first day a little?' she wanted to know pointedly. 'The guy had a blood transfusion…'

'Yeah, almost a year ago,' Chase reminded her. 'D'you know what the odds are that he kept it in his system all this time?'

'After working here this long you're still counting on odds? All I'm saying is that Sam might be right on this one. It can't do more harm if we treat him for it than if we don't treat him for it.'

Foreman looked around. 'Where is she, anyway?'

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Sam stood looking down at Jerry. He was only barely conscious, not enough to care about her presence. Taking a deep breath, she extracted a vial and a syringe from her pocket.

She closed her eyes for a second.

'Please don't let me lose my job over this…'