Retrospect

by GVBW

Summary: A last case, a last redemption. Wilson looks back and tells the final story of House. Set POST whatever Season proves to be the final one. PRIMARY CHARACTER DEATH.

3. Chapter 3

RETROSPECT

Part III

By GeeLady

Summary: A last case, a last breath, a last redemption. Wilson looks back and sets things right. (This is not a House's Head/Wilson's Heart related fic', it's something else altogether). Set POST Season 5 or 6 or 7 (or whatever number proves to be the final season).

Pairing: H/W slash implied.

Rating: Mature. Language.

WARNING! Primary character death - that means, yes, Gregory House! But please try it out anyway.

Note: Some of the medical terminology and situations are made up. Some of this story is set five years from now and some forty years from now, so I'm allowing myself the space to be creative in what I think might someday be.

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"First it was watery Diarrhea, then it was bleeding." Old Doc' Wilson explained. Maria's listened patiently while her stomach trembled with nausea at the chocolate pudding Doc' was pushing around in his mouth. "The bleeding could have been partly explained from the leukemia - multiple transfusions combined with compromised clotting factors, though none of that satisfied House."

He licked the spoon and dropped it into the plastic bowl. "The kid had so many things going wrong with him, it was impossible to sort out what was from the leukemia, the leukemia treatment or this mysterious preceding or underlying thing House insisted was there."

"But he was taken off the case?"

"Sure. Cuddy had to do what the parents wanted and they did not want House anywhere near their son."

Doctor Wilson sighed. "They were right."

Maria shook her head a bit. "I'm confused. If they were right -?"

"-Just because someone's right, sweetie, doesn't mean that they're not wrong. According to what they knew, to what they understood, to the evidence of their eyes and the medicine thus far, they were right. But to want House off the case because they didn't like his methods made them wrong."

"But House was reckless. It seems to me that he was inventing a mystery. That puzzles meant more to him than people."

"Solving puzzles meant more to him than catering to someone's feelings."

"But there was no puzzle."

"I didn't see one, Cuddy didn't. The parents sure as hell didn't. But House - that's what he did. He didn't just solve puzzles, he saw them where others didn't. House didn't care a lick about the parents or even the kid. What did it matter if he was fond of the kid or not? The parents loved the kid and it didn't save him. Cuddy respected the parents but the kid is still dead. For House, solving the puzzle meant saving the life. Can't you see that it's one and the same? He cared that the kid lived. To achieve that he needed to do whatever it took to solve the damn puzzle. To figure out what was wrong with him."

"But the kid is dead."

"I already told you, House didn't do that."

"If the kid is dead, the puzzle was un-solvable."

"That's what we all thought. Let the kid die in dignity, we said. Give the parents some peace . . ."

XXX

"What kind of peace is that?" House shouted at Cuddy and she stared back, used to his yelling and immune to it. "There is no dignity in someone dying if they don't have to. Has anyone asked the kid if he feels dignified that others have chosen death for him? Seems like it's their peace they're worried about, not his."

"Your personal feelings about this are irrelevant. The parents have their own court order now to keep you away from their son. And if you know what's good for you and your job, you'll obey it."

Instead of leaving House stepped closer to her desk. She was not surprised. "Cuddy. I know this underlying problem has to be from a transfusion or a treatment he received for the leukemia."

"You don't know that. You're guessing. You've suspended the transfusions since he's been here. Nothing has changed."

"Nothings changed because he's getting no treatment."

"Treatment for what? What is it - do you have any idea at all so I can treat him?" She stood, throwing her arms out. "Come on, House, tell me what's wrong and I'll order up the medicine. We'll cure him!"

House sighed, staring at her desk, leaning his hands on it.

She saw. "Your leg hurts. Go home."

He took a deep breath. "The watery Diarrhea has responded to nothing. Now he's bleeding from his bowels and nothing we do is slowing it. These two symptoms are happening even though I suspended the transfusions and his own blood is testing normal for clotting factors. The kid is not a hemophiliac, so there's something else going on besides the leukemia."

"You want there to be something else."

"Right! I'm a selfish bastard! I want a million dollars. I want a free hooker with every beer. I want my leg to stop hurting. I know something's wrong with this kid. He's losing weight despite a uninterrupted feeding tube along with anti-diuretics. Will someone other than me please see this is not normal."

"He's had leukemia almost since he was born! There's nothing normal about him. People lose weight after chemo'. Their bodies' go into shock, they get bleeds sometimes days after when someone elses' blood is put into them. None of these things are out-of-the-ordinary."

"But all of them at the same time are. You can't just point to lukemia as a catch-all because you don't know the answer."

Cuddy sat back down and yelled back. "And you can't ignore it because you don't have an answer."

"I'll get one." House countered. "You can bet on it."

"These parents are not interested in you finding your answer to your weekly puzzle. They're interested in their child getting well."

House held out his hands palms up. "Hmm. Maybe you're right. Sick child. Parents bring him to a hospital. The hospital has a doctor who solves sicknesses. I guess that is too much like a puzzle." House said. "Tell you what. When you figure out a way to make it into just a medical problem, you know where I am."

"House-" Cuddy called after his retreating limp, but he did not stop. Cuddy thought for a moment. The Parks were very important people. They owned half of the downtown core and made huge, and needed, contributions to the hospital.

But House was the one who figured medical mysteries out when no one else could. He did, in a way, solve puzzles. And to be fair to him, he did not just do it for the puzzle. If it was just the puzzle, there were plenty of unsolved (meaning dead) medical cases recorded in the medical journals every year House could chew over.

Working with a living patient was where House wanted to be. "I can make him walk. I can make him talk!"

Houses' words from two years before.

And he had made the father and husband walk and talk.

Cuddy went to Houses' office and found him pitching his ball against the wall. He looked at her when she entered but didn't say anything. He was intelligent enough to know she was capitulating. She would have no reason to be there otherwise. "What do you suspect it might be?" She asked him. "Can you tell me that much? Do you have an educated guess at least?"

House caught the ball and swivelled his chair to her. "I think it's genetic. Somehow this kid has a second genetic disorder. We've eliminated every other reason for the bleed and the Diarrhea."

Cuddy could see he wasn't finished. "Which genetic disorder?"

"Microvillous Inclusion Disease."

"MID?? That only affects babies. Infants in fact. Children under six months old."

"We know that only because no one's ever seen it in anyone older. That doesn't make it impossible."

"No, but it does make it highly improbable."

"That's even better than not impossible." House answered.

Cuddy watched him. He looked so damn self assured. But that didn't mean he couldn't be wrong. "If, and that's a big "if" this is MID, what treatment is there? Every case of MID has eventually proven fatal."

"Fatal with babies. Difficult to perform a bowel transplant on a baby with compromised immunities who's weak from hunger and fluid loss. A seven year old boy-"

"-He's nine."

"Again, even better. A nine year old-"

"-a nine year old who's suffering leukemia and who is weakened from the treatments for the leukemia. That is not a winning recipe for a dangerous transplant operation."

"I was thinking more along the lines of epidermal growth factor injections."

"Those are experimental only. And then only in rats. And they kill the rats to check the intestinal progress or lack there-of."

"But it's not more dangerous than watching him bleed to death or dehydrate until his tongue splits. My team was barely keeping him hydrated. Now, under the tender care of Doctor Kassab, his red count is dropping. He's shedding huge amounts of mucosa epithelials, a text book MID symptom. How much more deadly is that? Deadlier than dying? 'Cause a dead kid is what the rich Parks will have if we don't do something right now."

"Supposing I convince the parents to try this treatment under Kassab, how long until the treatment takes effect?"

"Three or four days."

"And what do we do with this maybe genetic improbability if it doesn't work and the child starts dying?"

"He's already dying. But to answer your question, we cool him. Slow his heart and perform a large intestine transplant. Let him heal from that for a week. Then genetic therapy follow-up."

"Genetic therapy is in it's infant stages."

"Actually, it's more like toddler now that they've mapped the genome and now they're even onto the genes controlling the genome. Busy little bees, those researchers."

"This is crazy."

"The transplant will buy him time. Even if the gene therapy doesn't work, he'll have a few more years with rich mom and dad. They'll get to see him graduate Elementary school and find out what girls are. They'll get to hear his voice change and buy him a polo pony."

"Or the transplant won't take and he'll die without ever waking up."

"He'll die anyway."

"IF this is MID."

"It's MID."

"You can't be one hundred percent positive."

House threw the ball away angrily and stood, thumping his cane down, his equivalent of a stomping foot. "No!I'm not friggen' Merlin. I can't guarantee anything, but I'm here because you know I know my craft. So I'm doing my damn job. No, I don't absolutely know. But this is what I think."

Cuddy thought for a few seconds. Houses' outburst did not influence her decision, but his experience and knowledge did. That plus his record of having so often been proven right about a case when everyone else, including her, had been wrong. "I'll talk to the parents. They're going to have full disclosure every step of the way."

House sat again. "I expected nothing less. Tell Kassab he's welcome."

XXX

"Was House right?"

Old Doc' Wilson wiped cookie crumbs from his mouth. He certainly liked to eat, Maria observed. He'd been drinking and snacking the whole time since she'd arrived.

"Maybe, we thought. That was the trouble with Diagnostics - with any doctor diagnosing some conditions - the conditions themselves did nothing to help out. Symptoms, treatments and responses to treatments vary so widely. It isn't always so easy to tell from symptoms what was going on. Any one of a dozen things could have been wrong with that kid. He could have been allergic to his own intestinal epithelials."

"Really?"

"Well, probably not. But some people are allergic to sunshine . . . " He shrugged.

"So House was wrong?"

"Eventually we were given reason to think so. We were inclined to disagree with House."

"You make it sound like everyone was against him."

"Not against him. Just against his diagnosis."

XXX

"You want to use my son as a lab rat?" Tall, rich Mister Parks asked, eyeing up House as he would a potential under-educated future employee.

House had, to Cuddy's infinite annoyance, joined the meeting going on in her office uninvited. The Parks had stormed in when Kassab had proposed the treatment. Mister Parks had smelled House all over it.

House was non-plussed. "No, trusted researches have already experimented on rats. I want to inject your son with the same stuff they used on the rats."

Parks was done with House and turned to the Dean of the hospital they so generously supported. "What's this "stuff" supposed to do?"

"We hope it will effectively boost the efficiency of your son's intestinal track."

"My son has leukemia. Why isn't he being treated for that? Our doctor said there was nothing wrong with his intestines." Misses Parks assured Cuddy.

But House countered. "So your doctor believes his diagnosis was right, and so sent him here - why? - to make sure?" He asked the distraught, tight collared parents who had little patience for Houses' flip attitude or rumpled clothing - a sure sign, Mister Parks' expression seemed to say as he looked House up and down once - of a shoddy workman.

"Your son," House explained for, he decided right then, the last time, "is dying. We do nothing, he continues to bleed and lose fluids. We give him transfusions, he continues to bleed and lose fluids - only faster. We treat him my way, maybe he stops bleeding and losing fluids. Maybe he lives."

"I've had enough of your brand of treatment." Mister Parks commented.

"I hope your son feels differently." House answered.

"Why can't you just give him blood and fluids faster than he's losing them?" Misses Parks asked in her sincere but motherly ignorance.

"Because the human body regulates itself rather carefully." House said. "There's a reason we can only hold so much urine in our kidneys and bladder or why when it's hot we sweat and get thirsty, or how much beer a football fan can drink in four Downs. We can't over-fill a body just like a barkeep can't over-fill a beer glass. Human physiology says No."

The Parks looked over at Cuddy for her assurance that House wasn't insane and to see her confidence in him. They looked to her because, despite their hastily obtained court order to keep House away, they were blindly reaching for hope and wanted her medical confirmation of that hope.

"I think you should trust Doctor House." She had nothing better to offer them but their son's assured death.

Mister Parks placed a comforting hand on Misses Parks sharp, tense shoulder. "Fine." He said.

XXX

"Houses' team began the injections and the kid was monitored. After three days of forcing fluids into Jason, a biopsy of his intestinal epithelials showed a slight thickening of his large intestinal wall but virtually no other change. The results were poor at best and made no difference in the rate of the kids deterioration."

Maria listened to Doc' Wilson describe the medical events as though it had happened yesterday. Where his profession was concerned, his mind was as sharp as a tack. "So House was wrong?"

"I didn't say that." He gave her an irritated scowl. "Stop putting words in my mouth."

"Sorry."

"I said the treatment wasn't working. House could still be right, we thought. Everything he had said made sense." Doc' adjusted his backside. "Damn chair needs more padding. I put in a request a month ago. See? Nothing gets done if you don't do it yourself."

"I can find you a cushion." Maria offered.

"No, no. I'll have Roma get me one. I have to go to the men's room anyway. She can scare me one up while I'm in there."

Maria waited patiently as Doc' took his time in the washroom and Roma scrambled around trying to find a soft pillow for her charge - one that wasn't being used elsewhere. Finally she re-appeared with a thin feather filled square of material that looked like it had seen better days. It was stained and here and there feathers poked their sharp ends out into the wide world. "Here you are, Doctor Wilson."

Doc' was slowly shuffling slippered feet across the short space of floor back to his wheel chair. The effort for him was great and the relief at once more being seated caused him to let out a great whoosh of air. His oxygen tank hummed to greater life, trying to nurse his weakened lungs. "Whew. Now I know how House felt. 'Had to reach ninety to really appreciate what a pain in the ass it to be crippled up."

Maria waited, pen in hand while Doc' settled himself comfortably again.

"That's better. My old ass can't take a hard surface anymore."

Maria smiled at the crudeness of the doctor. "Were you always so outspoken?"

It was his turn to smile and a wide toothy grin peeked out between colorless lips. "No. I was a tight-ass back then. Always afraid of what others thought. Hardly knew how to have fun. Repressed in almost every way. Except for Gregory - I never felt that way around him. I took to him like . . .well like a shy, awkward kid takes to the class clown. House made my life . . .come to life! Many things about me started to change after I met him."

"How did you meet?"

"He came to me with a problem." He chortled. "Imagine! The great ingenious Doctor House coming to simple, baby-faced Wilson with a problem."

"What was the problem?"

"A man's problem, dear." He looked at her, apparently deciding she was old enough. "Testicle!" Doc' almost shouted it. The nurses in the hall, Maria guessed, heard it and the two people passing by the Doc's room clearly did as they stopped and stared curiously at the half opened door.

"One of his balls was off. Wasn't doing right." Doc's voice returned to normal, which, due to a small hearing problem was still a register above anything she was used to. "House was worried it was cancer."

Maria thought that might be an interesting tale but she had only another few hours to hear the rest of Doc's story and reluctantly led the conversation back to the memories at hand. "Tell me more about Houses' diagnosis of the Parks boy."

"Yeah. The kid. Well, the parents agreed to let House try his highly experimental epithelial injection treatment but it didn't do any damn good. Not enough by the medical judgement of most of us. But enough in Houses' eyes to give the kid another round. Damn kid suffered like hell. Long goddamn needles jabbed into his abdomen and up his kazoo. Painful as hell. Couldn't afford any anesthetic because his BP was dropping like a rock due to the bleeding and fluid loss. He damn near went hypovolemic on us once. House got the BP up again by an injection of saline mix and by our collective prayers maybe."

Maria had heard some of the terms Doc' was using. Like, BP was blood pressure and hypovolemic meant blood loss to the point where the arteries and veins are so reduced in their blood volume they collapse. Collapsed arteries means no blood flow no matter how hard the heart is beating. No blood flow so no oxygen delivered to the brain and body cells and that translates into a rapid death.

"So the epithelial idea was out the window as far as the kids parents were concerned. They wanted Jason back on the transfusions for his leukemia and would broker no argument about it."

"So that was it? The kid died?"

"No. I'm getting there. The parents had a meeting with Cuddy to let her know of their decision and that how right they had been in court ordering House off the clock on their son, which she went right along with. In those days, most times parents still out-ranked doctors when it came to choosing treatment for their children. House argued too. He insisted further treatments would buy him time to find out what else might be going on."

"So it wasn't Micro . . .villan-y? Inclusion Disease?"

"Micro-villous Inclusion Disease. That was still Houses' contention but I could see he was starting to have other thoughts along with it. Even if somehow something had delayed the onset of the disease, it was still genetic and both parents would have had to carry the defective gene. So House asked, sort of as a last request, if he could have them tested to make certain of his diagnosis."

"You'd think that would have been the first step."

"You'd think. But even geniuses make mistakes. And we were under tremendous strain and fighting the clock. The kid was bleeding. The parents were screaming. Cuddy was beside herself on the one hand trying to calm them, on the other trying to convince them that House was her best doctor and on the other other hand trying to control House in such a way that the Parks didn't find out what a nut he really was." Doc' paused to appreciate his own wit.

"Seems like House was loathe to obey a court order, or abandon a theory."

"You figure huh? That's where you're dead wrong, sister. House didn't give a damn about saving face or his score card. He wanted to solve the damn puzzle. He wanted to save the kid. The parents went along with the test I think mostly because they were by then curious as to whether they were responsible after the fact for their kids secondary illness and maybe just to shut House up once and for all."

"Okay. So was the kid sick with Microvillous Inclusion Disease?"

"No." Doc' finally told her. "Bloody too bad, too."

XXX

"It isn't MID and they don't want you anywhere near their son." Cuddy explained to a incredulous House. She was often startled by his shock that some parent or family member one might want to keep a raging lunatic, even if he was a doctor, away from their dying loved one. That they might even insist he obey their hard argued court order to do so.

"Now you're taking me off the case?"

Cuddy sat at her desk, grateful for a few minutes to rest her feet and gather her nerves. House made that problematic. "They took you off the case. Wilson will be supervising the kids transfusions for his leukemia."

"Supervising? Great." House shot back. "Wilson can write down numbers and the kid will have a full tank when he bites it."

"His bleeding has eased back. He's getting plenty of fluids . . ."

"And pissing them out at the same rate they're going in. And his bleeding had eased because I suggested to Wilson he plump up the units with synthetic heparin."

"You did not."

"Ask him."

Cuddy saw the belligerence in his eye. It would be just like House to circumvent a drawn line by tossing the ball to someone else. And just like Wilson to cave under that belligerence and catch the damn ball.

House followed her to her desk. "But that's a stop gap that won't last."

"It's not MID. You were wrong. This isn't one of your theoretical differentials, this is a child. He needs treatment for his leukemia. You had more than enough time."

"I can't sure people by a time card. He needs treatment that will keep him alive. I can't do that without-"

"You won't be doing it at all."

House sat in the chair opposite her desk. "Yes, I was wrong about the MID. It was a long shot. But leukemia is not causing this kid to bleed from his rectum. Give me twenty-four hours. I'll get the team back here, we'll go over everything again. We'll draw new blood, biopsy his intestinal wall - this time we'll get a sample from the cecum and a cutting from his appendix. We'll put his submucosa under the scope-"

Cuddy was very tired. "House." He stopped and looked at her, his eyes were expecting her to agree to it. To let him do what he needed to do as she so often had done. If it was her child, she would. But Jason belonged to someone else who not only had the right to say no to House but a court order to back him up. And he was a man of power who paid part of Houses' salary through his generous monetary donations to the hospital. "House. You will do nothing. Go home. Let those poor parents celebrate their living son while they still can."

House closed his mouth and raised himself slowly to his feet. He was tired too, Cuddy could see. "If it were up to me . . ." She offered lamely.

He nodded, accepting that her hands were tied. She had a whole hospital and hundreds of patients to think about. She couldn't ignore rules and law, risking the hospitals license and all her other practitioners and their patients care, just because he thought he could maybe save just one of them.

XXX

"So the kid died?"

"No. House went home, drank a few beers. I called him. We talked and I said something that must have lodged in his brain. It stayed there and stewed for a while like it sometimes did."

"What did you say?"

"We were talking about the kid of course. The case, the puzzle. With House it was: Solve the Puzzle and maybe the patient lives."

"Maybe?"

"Medicine isn't like swapping out a new tranny'. Even with treatment, people often die. Sometimes because the treatment comes too late or it's the wrong dose or the patient refuses it for some reason. Sometimes the puzzle is solved but there is no treatment. Like that fucking Gun!" Doc' looked at his guest. "Sorry." He blushed a little and it was the first time Maria had seen any color to his cheeks.

"Anyway. We talked about the kid and then I remembered that my birthday was coming up and I invited House out for a few drinks. Figured it might cheer him up a bit."

"Did it work?"

"No. All he talked about was the case. I mentioned that the parents had come back early from a trip to Newfoundland. They owned land and a big house up there and House . . .House got this look in his eye."

Doc' smiled at the memory that was obviously so vivid in his mind but which Maria could hardly see. "House would get these looks, see, whenever he had a breakthrough idea. He was like a kid who finishes a jigsaw - when he puts that last oddly shaped piece in its right place and smiles up at you like he just won the biggest prize at the fairground. Only House didn't smile or laugh. All he did was what he usually did when he got that look - he got up and limped from the room like a three legged dog with a bone."

"Is that what happened? Did House figure it out?"

Doc nodded emphatically. "Yup. House had an epiphany."

"And was he wrong about the MID?"

"Yes. It wasn't MID. And, sweetie, it wasn't even leukemia."

XXX

"Then what the hell is it, House?" Cuddy held the receiver in one hand and her schedule of a dozen things in the other, paying far more attention to the second item. House had called her, voice tight and fast with what she recognized as a new pitch. House had a last ditch theory of why his former patient, Jason Parks' illness, had stubbornly refused to bow to his diagnostic skill.

"His parents took the kid to Canada, didn't they? Right? A vacation to celebrate? That's what you meant when you said celebrate? Not the last few days of life but the kids birthday. I'd put money on that they ate raw clams while they were there. Probably had a hell of a time convincing the restaurant to serve them that way - Canadians don't eat clams and oysters raw. They very wisely cook them. It helps them avoid picking up those nasty little inconveniences like Vibrio bacteria-"

"-You're telling me you think this kid has a simple molluscan infection?" Cuddy asked. She tucked to the phone between her ear and shoulder while her assistant entered with more priorities typed up in neat, bullet-style columns. "It would have shown in his blood work."

"Unless it was a very rare molluscan infection like Vibrio cholerae Non-O1, Non-O139."

"Are you serious? This kid doesn't have cholera."

"Screen him for Vibrio C' and we'll know. This might even be a contributing factor of what his doctor thinks is leukemia"

"Now you think he doesn't have leukemia??"

"Pernicious anemia would account for almost all of his symptoms, including the pathology of his bone marrow. The kid can't produce Vitamin B12. He's deficient in

his parietal cells - he can't absorb it from his food, and he's infected with Vibrio Cholerae."

"Anemia almost always presents with jaundice. He's pink."

"By now I'm betting he's white. Prior to coming here, he was getting three blood transfusions a week. Because of that he was getting just enough B12 through the donor blood to pass for healthy."

"Wilson administered a transfusion only a day ago."

"Fine. So he'll be pink for a few hours. Stop the transfusions and watch his color go from normal to bleach to daffodil."

"House. Take a few days off. Go see your parents. Take in a movie."

"Cuddy. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, but if I'm right! If I'm right, all we need to do is pump him full of high dose B12 for the deficiency along with an intramuscular prochloroperazine series plus intravenous ciprofloxacin for the cholera."

"I'm hanging up now."

"Ask him if his parents fed him raw clams."

"Goodbye House."

"Just ask him!"

XXX

"Did she ask?"

"No. The parents were satisfied with the treatment their son was getting. House was grasping at straws - was what Cuddy thought. House hated to lose, not because it would mean he was wrong but because it would mean he had failed. Failed to cure where he could have if given more time."

"Was House wrong?"

"I'm getting to that."

Maria was tiring of that particular phrase.

"House knew Cuddy couldn't fold on his side. So House did what House often did. He went behind her back. He went back to the hospital and began the intramuscular injections of prochloroperazine himself."

"And you allowed it?"

"Of course not. House slipped into the kids room at night and bull-shitted him about how it was treatment for his leukemia and just routine. House was betting the kid would roll over, go back to sleep and not mention it the next day. And it probably would have worked. Hell - House could have administered the whole series and the ciprofloxacin with no one, not even the kid, the wiser."

"But he was caught."

"Yeah. A nurse came in to check the kid's color."

"A nurse did? But I thought Cuddy-?"

"Cuddy mentioned Houses' theory to me and I thought, well. . .I couldn't go against the parents but what would it hurt to monitor the kid's color? I thought if maybe House was right . . ."

"So you . . .?"

"I was the reason House was caught. I'm the reason, the first reason, House lost his license to practice medicine. So I'm also the first reason he ended up where he did."

"Was that why you were so desperate to save him from the street? How could you have known?"

"Right. How could I have known? How could any of us had known? Hire a genius to diagnose people where all others fail and instead of supporting his genius, we tell him he's wrong. We tell him we know better, even if we don't. We tell him these things because rules and laws exist to protect the rights of parents and the rights of hospitals to avoid law-suits where-ever possible. All good laws. All necessary rules. Except there was no law or rule that protected that kids' right to live and decide for himself. And no law or rule that let House do the job he was hired for."

"Without protective measures-"

"-I know, I know. There has to be a breakwater. Doctors just can't charge in trying every conceivable treatment that pops up in their head because it might be right. Even if a doctors' record proves he almost always is right.

"Cuddy, me, the hospital, even the parents did all the right things for, medically, all the wrong reasons and thereby achieved the very worst result. And House did all the wrong things for all the right reasons for the very best hoped for result."

"Put like that, it sounds like you regret those safeguards are in place."

"What good are they when your patient is dying? What use did they serve us that time but to collar a brilliant diagnostician just because he believed in his perhaps unlikely but perfectly medically plausible theory?"

"So was House right? Did the kid have cholera and B12 deficiency?"

"I'm getting to that."

XXX

Part IV ASAP. Off to Mexico until July 10th.

See the story Spermotacele and a Rubber Nose for my take on the explanation behind Doctor Houses' testicle problem and his first meeting with James Wilson - Oncologist.