"Previous blood tests show abnormal levels of calcium," Cameron said, sitting in House's office, well after midnight. "Severe deficiency means hypocalcaemia, means low Vitamin D or even kidney failure."
House tossed a ball with his cane.
"Maybe certainly something with electrolytes. I don't know."
House stopped tossing the ball. "Vitamin D sounds interesting. Might mean loss of bone mass. We would need to do tests."
"We? You would need to have a patient and I would need to be working here."
"You are working here now," House said. "Consider yourself hired."
"Well, thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. If you can't help me solve this, you're going to be quickly unhired."
Cameron looked put off. She stood up and walked to the end of the room, then looked back. "I've read about you. I've tracked your cases, your studies. I just-
"Just what? Never thought you'd see genius up close?"
"Never thought you'd be as much of an ass in real life as you seem on paper. That's what I was going to say."
House bit his lip. "Still more flattering than half the things I want to say to you. Why are you still here, anyway? Good doctors should be all tucked in by now. It's like one o'clock." He grabbed his cane and ambled past her out into the hallway.
"Hypovitaminosis wouldn't account for her inability to do math," Cameron said as House walked toward the elevator. "Or yours." House stopped.
"You're going to need more than two doctors, Dr. House."
The hallway was empty except for the young Dr. Cameron and the aging Dr. House. He breathed and looked at her honestly as if to say, 'I know.' But he never did.
-
"I'll take it," House said to Cuddy as she went over some papers on her desk.
"You already took it. I seem to remember a midnight phone call from a well-off, world-renown diagnostician who said that he'd take a certain case if I gave him a hundred dollars."
"It's for a bet," House said and sat down. "I'm betting on my patients now. There's this New Age remedy called 'luck.' I'm going to try that for a while."
Cuddy looked up. "So who is it?"
"Who is what?"
"Who is your team? Time's running out." She tapped her watch and stood up to close the blinds. The morning sun shone through the rear window.
"I'm leaning heavily toward Dr. Cameron."
"Sure, the pretty one. Why am I not surprised? Did you even-
"She's a good doctor," he said. "Maybe not fully realized yet but she'll be good."
Cuddy closed a folder. "Annie's being transferred in this afternoon. I guess you'll just need two more doctors by then."
"Because you know picking people to save someone's life, that's only a two-hour ordeal," House said and tapped her desk with his cane.
"You seemed just fine with that deadline last night."
House looked up in thought. "Wait, I don't remember coming over last night. Wait. You mean. Ah."
"Dr. Cameron called me this morning to confirm her new position. Congratulations. You have an immunologist."
-
House dropped Dr. Cameron's file on Wilson's desk. "Congratulations, you have an immunologist."
"You actually hired her?"
"I actually hired her," House said. "Now you can 'hire' her, too. Is that the euphemism we're using today?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of getting to know her, asking her out on a date and then 'hiring' her, but I think we're on the same page."
House looked perplexed.
"The thing that worries me," Wilson said, "Is that you seem to actually have a tough case, tough for you, tough enough that you've hired a helper in less than 24 hours without a proper series of interviews and practical jokes."
"The practical jokes come later. Always time for that."
Wilson handed the folder back to House. "So now the inevitable."
"What's the inevitable?"
"You get visited by the CIA."
House left and headed to his office where he found a fruit basket signed, "Thank you for your time and the position, Dr. House. Signed, Dr. Allison Cameron." He looked around warily. "Who sends a fruit basket?"
"Excuse me, Dr. House," a man's voice said from the doorway. "I'm Jonathan Heller. I'm Annie's father."
"And her Big Brother, so I hear," House said and sat down. "Have a seat."
The Director sat across from House. He was a stout, if not short man, with graying hair and a small scar high on his cheek. His eyes darted from object to object, as if he were taking notes on everything in the room.
"So, she's sick," House said, looking pleased with himself.
"Look, they say you're the best. They say you're an asshole but they say you're the best."
"I'm guessing, by 'they,' you mean, 'it,' meaning some file you have on a computer that has pictures of me lounging around outside near an adult toy store or some of my correspondence from my al Quaeda days."
Heller did not look amused but he still didn't stop looking around at the objects in House's office. House kept trying to catch the man's eye but couldn't.
"You always been so jittery?" House asked. "Stupid question. I suppose with your line of work-
Heller fell out of his chair onto the floor. House looked down in disbelief and then went to the door. "I need some help in here!" he shouted while the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency for the United States of America lay convulsing on his office floor.
-
"Well," Wilson said, standing next to House outside the Director's hospital room, "Not only did you NOT cure his daughter, but you managed to work her father into a fit as well."
"I was being amiable," House said. "He did this to himself. Or his body did this to himself."
"And you're thinking, 'Oh me, oh my. I'm going to have to admit that I need a team now that I have two cases, one of which seems impossible on its own merits.'"
"No," House said, "I'm thinking, 'Man, I have to welch on another hundred dollar bet? Oh well.'" He looked at Wilson.
Cuddy walked out of the room and stopped next to the pair. "He's stable for now. But something tells me that we're going to hear army boots stomping down that corridor any second." She looked at House. "Whether you keep this case is up to you. Government doctors are going to want to take care of their own but if this is tied to the daughter's case at all-
"Then we'll only have a short amount of time," House finished.
Wilson looked back down the hallway. "So by the time the camo gets here, they may already be dead."