Disclaimer: I do not own House MD. I make no profit from this.

Notes: I actually planned on having this chapter be a bit shorter. I went into more introspection with House then I had originally intended. I usually don't do so good at the introspection stuff. My writing is more plot and action driven, then the thoughts and feelings behind it all.

I'm trying to keep a buffer of at least two chapters, so if I get a bit of writer's block I'll still have a little something to post. At this point, at least chapter five and six are done and when I have the seventh written, I'll post five. It'll go like that until I get closer to the ending.

Edit 9/23/06: I changed the paragraph right before House leaves the hospital. What Cameron says, I realized, conflicts with a conversation in a later chapter. Plus, it made the plot move along too fast for what I have planned. It's been changed now.

Chapter 4 – Freyja

The rest of the day went by in a blur. House remained locked in his office with the curtains drawn. Only opening the door to let Cameron in when the test results had come back and the patient was put on the donor list for a heart.

He skipped lunch and stayed to the confines of his office. Rolling one of the oversize, colorful tennis balls back and forth against his palms. The strange behavior of Foreman and Chase had merely been shrugged off, until Wilson had shown the same behavior. He wondered if they were connected. If this was some sort of plot that the ducklings and Wilson had devised to throw him off or if, perhaps, they had lost some sort of bet.

As he delved further into the churning thoughts in his head, he realized that Wilson and the others weren't the only ones to have acted strangely flirtatious at him. The intern that had exited the elevator before he had gotten on had winked at him. That took away the connection between them, since the intern was someone he had never seen before.

Cuddy and Cameron hadn't acted any differently then they normally did. Except for Cuddy pushing him to take a boring case, there hadn't been anything out of the ordinary. Cuddy's reasoning for wanting him to take the case was still a mystery, but he figured it was unrelated.

So far, he had only noticed the flirtatious remarks and shy looks from males at the hospital. The attention was odd, coming from his ducklings. Well, odd coming from his male ducklings. He always found it annoying when Cameron made the googly round eyes and aimed them at him. It was also worth a chuckle watching Foreman get soft around him and for Chase to blush all the reds of a sunset.

It had given shivers down his spine when Wilson had pulled out his best 'I'm-currently-single-and-flirting-with-all-the-nurses-in-the-oncology-ward' smile and aimed it at him. It wasn't the creepy crawly shivers you get when you know something is just wrong. It wasn't wrong. It was... charming. Something fluttered in his stomach as he recalled the smile that had spread across Wilson's face as he had departed his office. That was hours ago and House could still feel his heart skip a beat.

House had batted the idea around of Wilson being something more then just a confidant, conspirator and best friend before. The ideas never got very far. Like many people, he was just as afraid of change as the next. Wilson was one of the very few constants in his life and he wouldn't risk the normalcy between them for a far shot at something more.

At five, House pulled his Vicodin from his pocket, his fingers slipping against the the cool-to-the-touch gems of the necklace. He opened the lid and popped one of the pills, gathered his things and made a hasty retreat through the front door of his office. He was stopped shortly down the hall by only Cameron who merely reported that their patient was still in a stable condition. House nodded at her and told her to page him if anything changed drastically with the patient. He then headed out the front corridor of the hospital and out to his death-on-wheels motorbike.

-

As soon as House made it into his home, he dropped his backpack on the couch and made a beeline for his computer. Watching quietly as it hummed to life, he logged in and brought up a browser window and began his search.

The flirting from his co-workers had begun after he had the necklace in his possession and, though he thought it to be a waste of time and practically impossible, he searched the Internet looking for the necklace. He wanted to kick himself for even thinking that this necklace could have some mesmerizing power over the same sex. He didn't believe in myths or in magical-somethings that could hypnotize people into thinking you were sexy. Things like that couldn't be physically proved and when they were, there was a reasonable explanation behind it.

Within an hour, he had looked up everything from 'antique amber necklace' to 'old, shitty piece of amber colored jewelry with magic powers' in Google's wonderful search engine. He ventured to other obscure search engines entering the same thing or variations of, but he hadn't even come across a vague reference or picture to the necklace he had.

It wasn't until he hopped onto Wikipedia that he got an answer. In it's search box, he typed in 'amber necklace' and though it didn't give him a definitive answer, he was given several other links that mentioned an amber necklace in it's explanation.

He clicked on the first one and was surprised to see a picture of a beautiful goddess and the amber colored necklace on the page.

Brisingamen is said to be the (principally amber) necklace of the goddess Freyja from Norse Mythology. When she wore it no man or god could withstand her charms...

House skimmed the rest of the article on the necklace. Broadening his search to the mythology surrounding the item. He smirked at the thought of Freyja having to sleep with four dwarves just to obtain the necklace from them.

He bookmarked the page, closed the window and shut down the machine. Grabbing for his cane, he made his way over to the couch and flopped down onto the worn leather. Reaching down to the coffee table, he snatched the remote and channel surfed until he stopped at some light night rerun of an old British comedy and then muted the TV.

He sat back into the cushions of the couch and smirked to himself. If he had not seen the effects himself, he would never have believed he was in possession of such a necklace. It explained the lovey-dubey remarks and 'I-want-to-get-down-your-pants' eye stares he had been receiving from the male populous all day. Considering that he'd only ran into four of those males today, the legend behind the necklace did seem to explain those four males' behaviors.

He would be having fun running into the rest of them tomorrow.

End Notes: Wikipedia page that House was looking at this chapter can be found here:

http/ en dot wikipedia dot org/ wiki / Brisingamen

You'll have to do the usual editing of the link. I'll probably post the link up on my profile as well. Under a resources section or such.