Author's Note: Another update so soon? The fanfic fairies must think you guys are awesome. Oh, and if you're liking this one, perhaps you'd like to take a peek at No Escape, another CollarVerse AU fic I'm working on.

Thank you again for all the support!

Disclaimer: Blah blah Fox blah blah. The CollarVerse is the creation of oflymonddreams; this is an AU to that 'Verse and isn't related to any other CollarVerse or CollarVerse AU story.

Firsts

Chapter Three

Sarah Cunningham had awoke, washed, dressed, and regarded the contents of her refrigerator with loathing. She was sick to death of fruit and yogurt smoothies and scrambled eggs. She wanted pancakes. She wanted cold cereal. She wanted to eat frozen waffles just like she had when she was a kid.

There was a time that Sarah would have considered herself to be in good health. She had suffered through childhood illnesses with no great trouble and, except for a couple bad ankle sprains while playing soccer in high school, she was never off her feet because of an injury. Good health had always come easy.

Then she had moved off to college. Suddenly her body rejected her favorite foods. She had stomach cramps at first, then later the more serious allergic symptoms set in. She'd never experienced allergies before; neither had anyone in her family. Sarah went to the free clinic at Princeton-Plainsboro hoping to find an answer. The clinic doctor she saw sent her for a skin test. A couple nurses had scratched her skin then rubbed a bit of liquid into each scratch. They explained to Sarah that each liquid contained a different allergen – peanuts, coconuts, ragweed pollen, pet dander, and so forth. The results all came back negative. A couple weeks later, she went back again and told the clinic doctor that she was still experiencing symptoms in response to something she was eating. He had suggested that Sarah keep a food diary, then come back for another test in a month or two. Sarah was unhappy at the lack of answers, but at least it gave her something to do.

The food diary had actually turned out to be a pretty good idea. She still had no idea what was making her sick, but she had identified a number of things that didn't. That was good, right? Fruits and vegetables were safe, but they had to be fresh or frozen, not canned. Meat was also okay, but she had to buy it raw and cook it herself (yuck). Eggs, canned tuna fish, milk, and cheese were fine; margarine and mayonnaise were not. To her great disappointment, her favorite bread had to be struck from the safe list. Now if she wanted bread, she had to buy the ridiculously expensive stuff that tasted like cardboard and even that wasn't entirely safe.

She wanted a sandwich. She wanted a sandwich for lunch, cold cereal for breakfast, and frozen waffles for dinner. In order to accommodate her increasingly picky stomach, she'd purged her kitchen of all the foods that gave her so much as a tickle in her throat.

"Fuck this shit," she mumbled to the fridge full of boiled eggs and leftover tuna.

Driving to the mall, she planned it all out a step at a time. I want a burger, she thought. Warm, toasted bun. Cool ketchup squeezing onto her fingers as she took a bite. Melted cheese clinging to the roof of her mouth as she rolled the food between her jaw. Yes. A cheeseburger.

In the line at the food court, her stomach audibly growled. Never had she wanted a meal as badly as she wanted this one.

Cheeseburger. French fries. Large soft drink. Hand the money over, carry the tray to a table.

Perfection.

For a single moment, her conscience reminded her of the little red food journal she kept tucked in her purse, handy just in case she needed to refer to it.

No. Salt, grease, cheese, and an icy drink was all that mattered right now. Tiptoeing around a ridiculous allergy had gotten her no answers. She was tired of obeying rules she didn't understand and complaining to doctors who could give her no answers. It was her life, why couldn't she live it on her own terms?

Fuck that shit.

The attack came suddenly. As she struggled for breath on the filthy mall floor, she heard voices calling out for help.

"Twenty-three year old woman suffered an allergic reaction in the mall, fell and hit her head, then was rushed to the ER. She was given a skin test last month for allergens but everything came back negative. The ER nurses asked her about allergies and she told them she didn't have any." Marten closed the patient file and handed it to his new boss.

"And yet she's experiencing an allergic reaction. Clearly she's allergic to something." Greg was again seated at the desk, glancing up now and again from a bit of paper he was folding. His long fingers creased and bent the shape between them. Marten ignored him.

"She's been tested for every common allergen. Everything came back negative."

"Then can we test her for every uncommon allergen?"

"There's hundreds, thousands, of uncommon allergies. We can't test for them all. She needs help now."

"Then I suggest we stop wasting time. What can you tell me about her?'

Marten shrugged. "Like I said, she's twenty-three; Caucasian, both parents alive; we've been trying to contact them but so far they haven't returned our calls. She's a college student."

"Has she traveled anywhere? Been out of the country?"

"I didn't ask."

"Go do a thorough patient history. I need to know where she's been living, what she does on her free time, her sexual history, anywhere she's traveled, what she likes to read."

"Anything else?" Marten was skeptical; no diagnosis could be made based on hobbies and choice in reading material.

"Yes," House said. "Find out what her favorite foods are."

Cuddy had resisted calling Dr. Wagner but she knew she couldn't put it off forever. Though she prided herself on being a progressive, forward-thinking administrator, she couldn't entirely shake her bias against the "soft" science of psychology. Wagner's work was admirable, but she considered Greg's management to be a pragmatic concern. The new slave required food, clothing, somewhere to sleep, work to do. What was there, aside from that?

She was beginning to see that she hadn't thought this through in a realistic manner. No, scratch that. She had made decisions based upon the information in her possession at the time. That Greg would arrive at PPTH as not much more than a trembling husk of a human being was not something she could have foreseen. She also couldn't have known that setting up the Diagnostics department was proving easier than setting up the Diagnostics slave. Cuddy needed to know that the valuable equipment she had acquired was going to function in the manner she required of it. In the past two months, the shrinking, cringing slave that had initially been delivered to the hospital had receded and a confident, well-spoken professional began to emerge. Still, Cuddy needed to know more.

Making sense of emotional matters had always proved difficult. Cuddy's skills lay in knowing how to pair the right person with the right job. So, she made a phone call to who that right person was most likely to be.

Dr. Wagner had distinguished himself by spending the last fifteen years studying slave psychology. As he would tell anyone unlucky enough to be cornered by him at a dinner party, slaves were not monolithic beings, interchangeable in their sameness. In fact, there was considerable nuance and variety among slaves. He would then explain at length the marked psychological changes a slave underwent over the period of their enslavement. In fact (he would add after another glass of champagne), there was clear developmental stages of what he called the slave personality. Cuddy didn't really care one way or the other about the psychology of slavery or anything else Wagner had to say about developmental stages or personality indicators or behavioral analysis. But she needed his insight, longwinded as it apparently was.

When she couldn't take it any longer, she interrupted Wagner. "Yes, that all makes sense. But Greg is a special case. It's not in the hospital's interest to rely solely on physical disciplinary measures since he needs to be able to work. Since he's been here, he's had nightmares, he's been fearful, withdrawn. When he's not being stubborn and insubordinate, he's anxious and jumpy. That's fine for a maintenance slave, but –"

"- But Greg isn't a maintenance slave," Wagner said. "He is, as you put it, an expensive piece of hospital equipment. And you are wise to notice that this particular piece of hospital equipment requires a level of upkeep unlike most of our other 'tools'." He began musing into the air. "A finely tuned machine requires careful handling."

That Greg required handling beyond that of a normal slave made Cuddy impatient; he had cost her enough time already. She was too busy to pay attention to Greg's maintenance, but she had already taken on the task. Giving up on it now would mean that she couldn't control him. That would mean that her experiment had failed. She grit her teeth.

"That's why I've asked you here. I need to know what Greg needs to keep him as functional as possible for as long as possible."

"It's a tricky situation. Most slaves can be made dependent upon their routine and mundane tasks. They quickly become reliant on the routine imposed upon them and lose their ability to make complex choices for themselves."

"But I need Greg to – "

Wagner interrupted. "Yes, yes. Just hear me out. Like I said, most slaves become dependent upon their routine. However, occasionally you get a slave that is too smart for their own good. These personalities are considerably harder to force into line. If they can be put into a position where they receive some measure of mental stimulation, they will thrive. If, oh, they're given cleaning detail for the rest of their lives or kept as sexual playthings, pretty soon you will have trouble on your hands. Simply put," he concluded, "a smart slave becomes a bored slave, and a bored slave becomes a problem slave."