A/N: Thanks to my two reviewers, Merlin71 and Nina. Thanks also to Great I'm Bored for putting this story on alert.

This chapter is where I get to really confuse all of you. But don't worry; after this, the next two chapters should clear everything right up. Or at least, mostly everything. After that happens, all who like House/Chase will please find The Gen Project, version 2. This will be up as soon as there is a difference between it and this one, and will be a complete House/Chase slash. This one will not be a complete House/Chase slash. (The Gen Project version 2 will have all the same scenes, modified slightly to allow for slash, plus a few more which simply cannot exist in a non-slash fic.)

That's really all I have to say. On with the fic!

---

Chase came in late on Monday.

It was unintentional, a tiny slip of a mere five minutes, but that was the day a new patient came in. A very interesting patient whose family would give a great deal to keep her alive. It wasn't a big deal, or it shouldn't have been. There were always new patients. It was a hospital, for crying out loud. But Chase had barely stepped through the door to the conference room when House was on his case.

"Where were you?"

Chase stopped, surprised. "I was running late," he said.

"Really. I hadn't noticed." House beckoned impatiently for Chase to sit down. "Now, as we were saying before Chase came in late—"

"Five whole minutes, what a crime," Chase muttered.

For once, House ignored him. "—The patient came in a few weeks ago with cancer. She came back last night with what appeared to be lupus."

"So, we test for lupus," Foreman said, which was apparently what he had brought up right before Chase arrived.

"Done. No autoantibodies. Did I not use the past tense?"

"So why did you bring it up?" Cameron asked.

"Because—" House had begun writing down the symptoms on his beloved whiteboard "—the patient has every symptom of lupus we know." The symptoms took up two columns and included everything from rashes to chest pain to fever to photosensitivity. "Now, assuming the patient only has one disease, what else could cause it?"

No one said what most of them were thinking, what lupus was remarkably similar to. Instead House went on.

"Which would mean she has more than one disease."

"Which would make this nearly impossible to diagnose, let alone treat," Foreman added.

"Thank you Commander Obvious," House said sarcastically. "Now. Who wants to go start testing for whatever's causing this?"

Cameron raised a hand.

"Oh, good, the girl. She'll trust you—maybe. Test for drugs first. If she's on something, it'll screw up our diagnosis."

Cameron frowned at the white board. "I don't think drugs could cause many of these symptoms," she said.

"You'd be surprised," someone else muttered. Cameron shrugged at House's look and left.

---

Hours later, a solitary figure stood by the wall in the patient's room. Another entered after a few moments and joined the first.

"She doesn't have cancer anymore."

"Wasn't that your goal? Terrafen is designed to, what was it… 'detect aspects of the user's physiology which differ significantly from that of a normal human and correct them.'"

"You make it sound so simple."

There was silence for a moment. Then the first said, "You know there's a gen here."

"I've known it longer than you."

"I doubt that highly."

"How long have you known about it?"

"Since I saw him."

"I was told before I arrived here."

"Hmm. I guess you did know longer."

"I should have bet money on that."

"No one said it…"

"If you had, I would have been dragged in for questioning and malpractice."

"…But everyone knows it."

"Knows what?"

"Come on. Knows it has to be Terrafen."

"I don't know what you're going on about, but Terrafen doesn't work that way. It cannot kill a person."

"You can overdose on anything."

"Not on Terrafen. If you OD, it kills itself off."

"Handy."

"Yes, it is, isn't it."

"Bad batch?"

"If it is, I didn't make it. And barring you, no one else knows how, except the people who are in jail."

"So, not Terrafen."

"No. Not Terrafen."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know."

"Hn. Well, I'd better get back to work."

---

Margaret Jane Harris woke up an hour later. Her chest was burning. She sat up, trying to get rid of the feeling of drowning. Her body was shaking, the veins in her legs bulging. She spat out something hard and saw a tooth on the blanket. Horrified, she ran her tongue around her mouth, only to find that none were missing.

She was shaking. Impossible, she thought. It's impossible… there's no way, it's not real, just a dream…

She was still trying to convince herself of that when blood fought its way up her throat and spilled out onto the sheets, and she passed out.