Hello my faithful readers! This story is nearing its end, but it's not quite there yet! Again, sorry for the late updating, this week I was auditioning for a musical! God I'm so nervous. But, anyway, this chapter has one complete diagnosis, and one incomplete diagnosis. Read on to find out :]

Thirteen and Kutner are sitting on opposite sides of Marissa's bed. Thirteen is checking her charts; Kutner is adjusting her anti-seizure meds. House bursts in.

"Well, ducklings, what is the difference between a conscious girl and a comatose girl?" he leans on the end of the bed.

"Oh, I don't know," says Thirteen, "eyes aren't open, less brain function, unresponsiveness; any of these ring a bell?"

"What else?" House says slowly, staring her into her eyes. "What can't a comatose patient do on her own?"

She looks down. "She can't go to the bathroom, she can't speak, she can't eat—"

"Yes. She can't eat," House says, walking around to Kutner. He grabs the IV bag out of his hands. "Instead, we pump her up with calories from one of these things. Inside, we place milk and nutritional supplements. Milk is made up of butterfat molecules and lactose, among other enzymes and…stuff. Lactose."

He walks over to the trash can, where the remains of Marissa and Cameron's lunches sit. He reaches his hands in, prompting a disgusted look from Kutner, and pulls out a crunched up juice carton.

"This, on the other hand, is the cheap garbage that this lousy hospital provides with every patient meal. Not 100% juice for 100% kids—or even adults, for that matter. This contains a different kind of sugar. Fructose." House examines the nutrition facts and throws it away once more.

"Okay?" Thirteen gesticulates. "So what? Now if she becomes overweight we know why. What does that have to do with anything? A little bit of unhealthy sugar never hurts anyone."

"Well, only if you believe those stupid 'public service announcements' from the Corn Farmers of America," House replies. "Good old high fructose corn syrup can, however, be extremely dangerous if you have a condition known as Hereditary Fructose Intolerance."

The two fellows look at each other in thought.

"Normally, the body isn't picky. Sugar is sugar and is digested as such. Usually, the worst thing that can come from it is a little sugar high, a little obesity, and a little diabetes. But in patients with HFI, the reaction is much worse. The enzyme fructose-1-phosphate aldolase that normally help process the sugar only works at maximum 10% of what it should. At first ingestion, i.e. the first lollipop that damned pimp gave her; the symptom is simple enough to ignore—a little vomiting. A few more and you start getting tremors. A little more, you seize and go to the hospital. And if your ridiculous hospital keeps on feeding it to you, you fall into a coma, which could lead to death if you get there one too many times. But, once they stop shoving poison down your throat, the symptoms clear."

House stares at Marissa's face, softened by the power of sedation. "Technically, every nurse that's ever brought her food is liable for assault and attempted murder."

Kutner jumps in. "But if it's hereditary, how come there's no family history?"

House sighs. He so badly wants to jump down this guy's throat for being so slow. Good thing he's likeable, he thinks to himself.

"First of all, it's recessive. The parents could both have been carriers and never shown a single symptom." House sits down on the windowsill and stares out into the dark night sky.

"However, if you stop to think for a moment, 14 year old girls usually wouldn't pick prostitution over a foster home. Something screwed her up. My guess is that Mommy and Daddy weren't very good to her—probably locked her in her room all day. In all probability, they fed her scraps—not candy. Otherwise, she would've been hospitalized and diagnosed with HFI years ago."

House gets up and begins to walk out. "Wake her up, get her some dinner. Check the labels. Then biopsy her liver and check for fructose-1-phosphate aldolase. When she's done, call Cameron in so they can have one of their famous heart-to-hearts."

Wilson walks into House's office with a flabbergasted look on his face.

"Waiting for a flea to fly in there Jimmy, or do you actually have something you would like to say to me?"

Boy wonder oncologist groans. "You screwed it up with Cuddy again, didn't you?"

House leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling. He starts calculating in his head just how much force he would have to apply to his cane to promote the exactly velocity necessary to knock this pesky doctor over in his seat.

"Screwing up is a relative term. It's possible I did exactly what I intended to," replies House.

Bullshit, thinks Wilson. "Bullshit," says Wilson.

"James!" House exclaims, feigning shock. "I do not condone such vulgar language in my place of study."

"Why, House, why can't you just act like a human being? You're smart, you're around them enough, and can't you pick something up? Just a few words and you'd have her at your beck and call," rambles Wilson.

"But pushing Mommy's buttons is so very fun. This way, I get to test her," explains House sarcastically.

Wilson, missing the humor, replies, "You don't need to push them anymore. You've tested her so much that the College Board's got nothing on you. Something is keeping you back, House. What is it?"

Two big, deep blue eyes staring into two wise, knowing brown eyes. The blue eyes avert themselves to avoid giving anything away. Four eyelids meet to shut the window to the world out of sight, so that for just one moment, everything can go away and the brain can have its space to think.

No such luck.

"I don't know, Wilson."

Wilson sighs again. He walks out slowly, without turning around to face the bemused doctor.

I haven't got a diagnosis yet, he muses. But I might have a theory.

Foreman walks in a few minutes later. "Liver biopsy was positive for the enzyme deficiency. The great Dr. House does it again," he reports.

"Big shocker, isn't it? Every time, I think he's been stumped, but then WHAM-O! Gets it at the last second," House responds. Foreman rolls his eyes and chuckles.

"I've paged Cameron. She should be in the patient's room momentarily. Oh yeah, and she's fine, by the way," says Foreman.

"Well, I'm peachy keen that Cameron's doing well, but—"

"House, I meant Marissa. The patient?" Foreman is a bit confused.

House stares into space for a moment with one foot out the door. "Yeah, of course." He makes his way towards the elevator.

"Here goes nothing."