Chapter 4

"So", said House, pacing in front of the whiteboard, "What causes a heart attack, seizures, elevated platelet count, and sudden loss of consciousness?"

"A toxin?" guessed Kutner. "About a dozen known toxins can cause inflammation, seizures, and thrombocytosis, and a blood clot could have caused the heart attack."

"Still doesn't explain the loss of consciousness", said Thirteen. "Damage from the knife wound is more likely. It could have hit the spleen, and we wouldn't have noticed because of her lung."

"Why'd you have to use both types of irritants to provoke a seizure?" Foreman asked thoughtfully. "Either one – sound or visual – would have done. Why both?"

"Well, judging by the way this patient's physiology is looking, who knows if just one irritant would have been enough?" House deflected. "Where's that girl you were chasing, by the way?"

"I couldn't find her. You called us back for another differential before I could catch up to her."

"It could still be an infection. Her white cell count is elevated; if the loss of consciousness was caused by a small clot in the carotid artery, it explains everything."

Everyone turned to see who had spoken. The blonde Dr. Allison Cameron was standing by the doorway, arms folded.

"What are you doing here?" questioned House. "This is my differential. In case you've forgotten, you don't work here anymore."

Cameron was not the least bit concerned about that. "Heard about your patient. Sounded interesting."

"Yes, well, it would be for you, if you were still working for me." House limped toward his former employee. "But you're not, so shoo. My case, my interesting patient. We've got it covered." He used his cane to point to the glass door. "Door's right there; I'm sure you can show yourself out."

Cameron just smiled. "Is this the girl you were looking for?" she asked, as the slim, white-haired Luornu stepped out from behind the wall. House stared first at her, then at Cameron.

"Oh, very nice", he commented sardonically. "You know I want to talk to her, but you're not going to let me do it until I let you work the case with me."

"Fair is fair."

"And is your blond, peach-fuzzed boyfriend looking to join in too?"

"Not that I know of."

"Fine." House entered his inner office and beckoned for Luornu to follow. "Baby-sit the kids, would you? Get Foreman to play daddy with you." He closed the adjoining door after Luornu, and through the glass wall his team could see him begin the interrogation.

Taub was the first to pull his interest away from the questioning and back to the case. "I think the diagnosis has something to do with the anomaly we found in her blood."

Cameron leaned her arms on the back of a chair. "What anomaly?"

"Don't know", said Kutner. "When we tested it, it turned out to be an unidentified, unheard-of extra chromosome. Nobody knows what it is or what it's doing in our patient's blood."

"Does House know about this?"

Kutner shrugged. "He was the first to find out about the results, but he didn't say anything."

"Which probably means he's going to do something about it that he won't tell any of us about until he decides we need to know about it", Cameron concluded. "Great."

"The chromosome could be just a result of her genetic mutation", pointed out Thirteen.

"She's an albino, not a super-powered mutant", Taub countered. "The chromosome hasn't been found in any other patient in the history of medicine."

"So she's a one in a million. That's rare, but it's not genetically impossible."

"Let's just focus on her symptoms", Cameron suggested. "If it's a chromosome, it's probably been in her her entire life. It's probably not medically relevant."

"It could be, if it's a congenital defect that's causing her seizures", said Chase in his Australian accent, appearing next to Cameron.

"What are you doing here?" his girlfriend asked.

"I looked for you in the ER; you weren't there, so I came to the next best place."

"I disappear from the ER and the first place you look is House's office?"

"Was I wrong?"

Cameron ignored that.

"Can we get back to the medical stuff, please?" said Foreman, studying their patient's file intently.

"Says you; you're the only one who hasn't contributed to the differential", Thirteen said.

"Inflammation from the surgery to repair her lung", Foreman proposed promptly. "Explains the thrombocytosis, heart attack, and the sudden unconsciousness."

"What about the seizure?" inquired Taub.

"People have seizures for no apparent reason all the time. It was probably just a one-time occurrence."

Foreman's, Taub's, Thirteen's, and Kutner's pagers suddenly all went off at the same time.

"Or not", Thirteen said, seeing the code on her pager.

Kutner stowed his away in the pocket of his lab coat, already standing up. "She's having another seizure."

Luornu stood silently, watching the eccentric Dr. House twirl his cane about in his hand. She decided not to say anything until he did. Instead she watched the cane make one, two, three, four revolutions in the air as she waited for House to speak.

"So", he said finally.

Luornu said nothing.

Pretending he didn't notice, House continued, "I hear you gave my employee a run for his money. Literally."

"It was just a misunderstanding", Luornu said. "We –"

"You lied."

She said nothing to deny the fact.

"Why?"

"It was for a good reason."

"What reason?"

Silence.

"Well?" House queried.

"I can't tell you."

"Yes, you can. You just don't want to, for reasons which I am very interested in."

"I can't tell you."

House sighed in exasperation. "Fine. You don't want to tell me, don't. But I'm telling you, your friend's life could depend on you revealing whatever secrets you know."

Luornu looked surprised. "Is it really that important?"

House looked at her in disbelief. "No! Of course not; I can easily treat a patient without knowing all the facts. Yes, you idiot!"

Luornu seemed to be thinking it over. "Let me discuss with it Imra and the others", she said. Then, before House could do anything to stop her, she slipped out the door and disappeared from sight.

When Luornu arrived back at Imra's room, four doctors and a nurse were all crowded in it. Luornu could just see Imra trembling violently through the glass before the nurse pulled the curtains shut. Worried, she ran over to where Garth, Chuck, and Tinya were standing anxiously.

"What's going on?" she asked in concern. "Is she having another seizure?"

"Yeah…it was so sudden", said Tinya. "One minute I was talking to her and the next she was shaking so bad the IV bag almost unhooked."

"You think they can figure out what's wrong with her?" Luornu asked.

"I don't know, Lu", said Chuck. "I really don't know."

The hard, grating sound of incessant rapping on wood alerted Cuddy to who it was before the door even opened. She therefore purposely found some files to be busy in, in the hopes that he would go away without bothering her.

The door flew open and House, preceded by his trademark cane, entered as if he owned the office. He was totally unfazed seeing Cuddy apparently busy reading several medical files.

"Ahem", he cleared his throat loudly.

Cuddy ignored him.

House looked around, not bothered in the slightest. "Okay, since you're so busy, I'll go pull apart my patient's DNA without your permission." He turned and stalked out of the room.

Cuddy debated with herself for just a few seconds before she went after him.

"Pull apart her DNA?" she said.

"Thought that might get your attention." House continued walking sedately along the corridor. "Taub and Kutner found an extra chromosome pair in the patient's blood work."

"An extra –"

"Chromosome pair, yeah. So instead of the usual 46, she has 48 chromosomes."

Cuddy was astounded. "Genetic mutation?"

House rolled his eyes. "Mutation results in the deformation or alteration of specific chromosomes – not a whole new extra pair."

Cuddy raised her hands. "It's a medical mystery. Go figure." She turned back to return to her office.

House watched her go in disbelief. "You're not in the least bit interested?"

Cuddy turned around to face him. "Go puzzle it out by yourself if you want to. I don't care. But you are not going to dig into your patient for more cells just to experiment with her DNA to satisfy your overpowering need to know everything. She's already pretty badly off." She resumed walking.

"This extra pair of chromosomes could be what's causing her to be sick! And it's never happened before in medical history!" House called.

Cuddy stopped, and, against her better judgment, twisted around again. She sighed, and House knew he'd won.

"What are we going to do?" Luornu asked worriedly, pacing around Imra's room.

The doctors were not around. They had all taken some more blood and gone to do more tests to try to figure out what was wrong with Imra. They had again asked for the name of the orphanage, and gotten even more suspicious when the Legionnaires had to avoid the question. Now, the five super-powered young adults were having a very serious discussion about what to do next.

"We can't stay here", Imra said weakly from the bed. "They'll find out soon, and that'll wreck the timeline."

"We have to", Garth said. "If we go back now, you could die. It's definitely a medical condition you have, and we need to figure out what it is so we can get you better."

"But the timeline…" began Imra.

"Forget about the timeline!" Garth cried. "We didn't come all this way just to give up. Let's review what we know. Maybe we can give the doctors something – anything – that'll help."

"We can't tell them anything more without revealing we're from the future", pointed out Chuck.

"Which brings me back to my original question", added Luornu. "What are we going to do?"

"Brainy might have some ideas", suggested Tinya.

"We can hope", said Chuck. He stood up. "I'll keep watch. You contact Brainy."

"House…I don't believe this", Cuddy said in astonishment as she looked through the microscope.

"I don't either." House was, for once in his life, really and truly amazed beyond belief. He and Cuddy had spent the night studying the DNA taken from previously drawn blood, and although having Cuddy keep an eye on him wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind, he couldn't care less about that fact now.

"This…is totally unpreceded and completely unbelievable", Cuddy continued, increasing the magnifying power of the microscope lens. "She really does have an extra pair of chromosomes with their own unique genetic structure, the likes of which have never been seen before." Cuddy raised her eyes and exhaled in complete wonder. "She's an alien."

House was wide-eyed himself, and he turned away from Cuddy to hide the fact. He looked into the microscope again.

"Yeah."

A/N: Aha! So House was right! She is an alien! Who knew? Lol, everyone, of course. And as I revealed in the last chapter, this fic is post Season 2 of LoSH. Now, leath pointed out that this means Garth would have his prosthetic, but I can guarantee that no one is going to notice it, and you'll find out why if you're observant enough in Chapter 6. For now, though.....Thank you to guardyanangel, The Violet Rose, leath, and Devilbunnyxox for reviewing (by the way, Violet, there will be nine chaps in total - unless I decide to write an epilogue).

Disclaimer: Aww, seriously? Me? Own these shows? Nope.