House sat at the microscope and glared through the eye piece. "Here birdie, birdie." he said as he slid the specimen slide across the tray. Then, he saw that he was after. "Feathers and all." he said with a snort. Getting up he started to walk out only to come face to face with Hadley.

Seeing the look in his eyes she asked "You found something?"

"I did. Meet me in my office. Get the rest of the team."

He brushed past her and headed to the one place he knew he'd get the desired reaction. Cuddy's office. Her door was closed and it seemed as if she was on the phone long distance. So, House being his naturally pleasant self, opened the door and walked in uninvited.

"I'm busy, House. Not now." she hissed as he slid into her office. House said nothing but he tossed the test results onto her desk. She scanned them as she listened to whoever it was was talking to her. Saying "Uh-huh", and "I see." every now and again. When she saw what the labs revealed though, she interrupted her conversation. "Uhm, listen, something has just come up with a patient of mine and I need to check into this. I'll call you later and we can finish. OK. Alright. bye." She looked up at House. "Is this saying what I think it's saying?" she asked, looking down at the paper again.

"Yep. It seems like your little friend Joaquin used this poor little girl as a human guinea pig for his bird flu. Same as Tritter. Only this girl was special to Jesse so he didn't waste any time in treating her with the correct vaccine. Only trouble is.. when he 'cured' her, he also woke up a dormant gene in Amy. The same gene that's convincing her body that she'd dying. I have no way of telling if this is fixable. I need Joaquin's papers."

"House, you know I can't give you those, it's still under investigation."

"Then that girl will die!" he yelled at her as he pointed in the general direction of Amy's room.

Put in this hard place, Cuddy had not choice. A patients life took precedence over paperwork. "Alright." she said defeatedly. She removed a key from her desk drawer and walked over to a file cabinet. Unlocking the metal cabinet she pulled out a large blue file folder. "This is all I have." she said as she handed it to House. I expect all of it back. Every piece of paper."

"Thankyou." House said as he took the folder and turned to go. "You know, you probably saved her life just now."

Cuddy smiled. "I know."

House marched, as well as a man in his condition could march, into his office where Hadley had assembled the team. "Well, what is it?" asked Foreman as he walked in.

House tossed the file onto the table. "I want you all to go comb this file and find anything in it that might be able to reverse this degeneration."

The team dove into the files. "This is about Avian Flu." Taub said.

"Very good." House said acidly. "Would you like a gold star? Yes, this is about the Avian Flu that blew through here a while back. It would seem that Amy came into contact with it and the vaccine used to treat her is what caused the dormant mutation of become active. It's up to us to find out how to turn it off. Start reading."

"What are you going to do?" asked Foreman untrustingly."

"Me, I'm going to tell Elizabeth and Amy what I know. I'm a doctor, that's my job."

After House left Foreman muttered "This isn't good."

"What isn't good?" asked Kutner.

"House calling his patients by their first names. He never does that."

"Yeah, but he did with that one doctor, the south pole girl." Kutner replied.

"But he was infactuated with her." Hadley put in. "You mean he's got an attachment to this patient?"

"Yes, exactly." Foreman said. "Which is why we have to be especially careful. If he gets too involved with this, it may cloud his judgement."

"No, I don't think so." Taub said from his seat. "Dr Sullivan will make sure that he stays on course."

"Yeah." Hadley concurred. "The patient is her sister."

"Her what?!" Kutner asked. "Her sister?! I thought they were just old friends. Man! No one ever tells me anything."

"Focus, people." Foreman said gruffly from the opposite end of the table. "We need to figure this out before the patient gets worse."

Walking into the room and seeing Liz and Amy together he had to grin. "You know, you two are starting to look alike."

Liz snorted and popped off with "Yeah, the same thing is said about people and their pets.. so how come your staff doesn't resemble you?"

"Touche." House replied. "I still like you." he said to Liz. She shrugged. "This is what I have. Dr Cuddy, it seemed, had a file. A file all about Joaquin's pretty bird flu. My team is pouring over it as we speak. Either that or they're arguing about something. But- There's still a few holes.." He looked to Amy. "Do you remember which vaccine Joaquin gave you?"

Amy shook her head. "You mean like a name? No.."

House swore. "Alright, then I guess I'll have to call in a favor from Jess."

"No." Liz said. House gave her a look. "Don't bother Jesse with this. She's got enough on her mind trying to sort out her school and keep things peaceable between her family. Let me figure it out." She smiled suddenly. "Teach owes you a favor? What kind of favor?"

House gave Liz a dirty look. "Brat." He cleared his throat and coughed loudly. "Well then, what do you want me to do?"

"4-1-2-8-b." Amy said suddenly.

Both House and Liz answered with "Huh?!"

Amy blushed. "I saw it on a bottle by my bed while I was sick. I didn't know what it was and Joaquin told me it was nothing."

Liz sighed. "Please tell me Amy, that Joaquin didn't do this to my nieces either. They could get sick too if he had."

Amy shook her head. "Oh, no. They were all with Dan visiting his folks in Maine. They don't like me so I stayed behind."

"Lucky for them." House said as he scribbled the number down. "I'll see what this conjures up." he added with a wink to Liz.
House walked out of the room and drummed his fingers on his clip board anxiously. Liz, walking out after making sure Amy was comfy, saw it and asked "What are you thinking?"

"I think I need to speak with Jesse."

"She's kinda on the other side of the world right now, House. That's not an easy thing to do."

House looked to Liz and grinned deviously. "You have her number."

"Yeah...." Liz said. Then she added, with a grin of her own "And?"

"Either you call her or you give me the number and I'll call her." He leaned on his cane and raised an eyebrow at Elizabeth.

"You're an ass." Liz retorted. She started to walk away but said, as she rounded the corner. "I'll call her... I guess."

House smiled as the girl disappeared around the corner toward her office. "She'll call me." He started to whistle as he strolled down to the White board room where the others were sure to still be tossing ideas around.