Work for Dr. House was bouncing a ball against the wall in the conference room adjacent to his office while occasionally glancing over at the new hire. Dr. Cameron was young, much younger than one would have expected in such a prestigious position. She was beautiful and House had hired her on a moment of weakness for mostly that reason. He really had no idea how she would perform as a doctor. So he gave her probationary status for their first case.

Work for Dr. Cameron was rereading Annie Heller's file, placing next to her father's and trying to draw conclusions. While House's ideas bounced around mostly in his head and against the wall, Dr. Cameron searched for similarities, subtleties, something weak and barely noticeable: a clue. She did so mostly in the range of her own expertise, which was immunology. The body fought intruders. Sometimes the body overcompensated; sometimes it couldn't respond at all. But someone had to speak for it. Someone had to help it along if it couldn't help itself and reign it in when it threatened to burn the village, so to speak.

Work for Dr. Wilson meant termination. It meant the end of people. He saw the end of lives, the impassioned last grasp at something meaningful. He saw people die alone, die surrounded by family, die fighting, die peacefully but he never truly saw anyone die nobly. He had to call it 'right,' call it a reason or purpose and he didn't know how fast it would happen to someone he loved just a few years down the road.

Work for Dr. Cuddy meant juggling. She helped the helpers but she had to deal with the giant, which was House. She had to determine how much genius was too much genius, how out-of-line was too out-of-line and then again, when to let the lunatic run the asylum. She was single. She was busy and she was focused. Her job also meant playing liaison when a priority case came into her possession. Jonathan Heller was such a case. As important as his daughter was to him, it was the Director's own sudden collapse that drew national attention. From the moment Mr. Heller hit the floor, it wasn't forty minutes before the men in black and the men in green made their presence known at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

-

In the movies and on television, the government locks down a building with a lot of busy men and women talking into radios, carrying guns, using code words and basically scaring the crap out of everyone around them. People look around confused until one of their friends or colleagues nudges them and says something like, "It was the CIA Director." "It was House's case."

In reality, it was three people: one in army fatigues, one with a suit (though, not a black suit) and a woman. The one in fatigues was a captain in the US Army. The one in the suit was Richard Chambers, National Security Advisor to the President of the United States. The third was Heller's wife.

"Mother was conspicuously absent when the daughter got sick," Wilson said to House as the trio approached them from across the lobby.

"Dr. House," Mrs. Heller said, offering her hand. Wilson looked at House curiously.

"Madeline," House replied.

"Excuse me, Doctor," Chambers said impatiently. "What room is-

"I'll show you," Wilson said. He, the captain and Chambers headed toward the elevator.

"Johns Hopkins was a long time ago," House said, looking down at the short woman.

"Johns Hopkins was a lifetime ago. What happened to your leg?"

"What happened to your husband?"

She looked up at him. "More pressing matters, I suppose, unlike fixing your worldview."

"As long as it doesn't get in the way of me saving people, the hospital has no problem funding my inflated ego. Or so I hear."

"I hear a lot of things," Madeline said as she stepped to House's side and looked him up-and-down. "You stay fit for a limper."

"Only you would use a word like limper. Aren't you worried about your husband?"

"He's in your hands? I'm not worried about him." She looked straight at House's face for a moment. "But you are worried about him."

"I find it odd. Well, Wilson, Dr. Wilson found it odd - You have a daughter?"

"I have a daughter."

House looked over Madeline. "Let's go see her."

"Let's."

"After you," she said. Neither person would budge.

-

"Parathyroid," Cameron said as House and Madeline walked into the room. "Governs calcium levels. Vitamin D absorption."

"But you're forgetting that our patient can't add." House leaned on his cane.

"Could be infection. Could be degenerative."

"And I'm guessing since you're so new and eager to impress, that you've already started testing for both."

"She's new?" Madeline asked.

"It's ok," House said. "Came highly recommended by my fairy godmother." He looked at Cameron.

"I've already started testing but to test for degenerative brain function, we'll have to get a neurologist. Since you don't have one on your team.."

"We get to go shopping," House said. "I leave her in your able hands, Dr. Cuddy. Let's go see daddy."

-

"Daddy," House said, "Presents with nothing but a seizure. Risk of infection? Risk of genetic degenerative disease that times itself to hit family members on the same day of the year?"

Cameron pulled out her clipboard, obviously frustrated. "Heavy metal toxicity leads to seizure?"

"But you're forgetting calcium."

"Heavy metal stress can weaken the body's ability to absorb calcium but that's as far as I can go without getting outside my own expertise."

House looked at her and smiled. "Your expertise is saving people. You know that. That's why you haven't run screaming out of that doorway just yet."

Cameron looked at Madeline Heller and back to House.

"I know," House said. "We could have this conversation anywhere else but here but for amusement purposes, I'd rather have it here."

"I can't be your whole team."

"But you are being my whole team."

"But people's lives are in danger, Dr. House."

House stopped smiling, stopped looking amused altogether. "You'll come to learn, Dr. Cameron, that peoples' lives are always in danger. Whether they're walking down the street sucking on a soda that will build up their sodium levels and kill them in ten years or whether they're having a happy romp with an ex that gives them an STD that will kill them in twenty years, people are always in danger. But most of the time, they've already crossed the threshold into the danger zone. What's killing them is always with them, something they've inherited, ingested or lost in their epidermis. What's endangering Annie and her dad right now is inside of them, working in scientific, measurable ways that leave clues and evidence, waiting for the right person to find them. That's why you can do this. Because you're a doctor and you know how bodies work. You also know how they die."

"I'm sorry," Madeline said, "But could I interrupt your pep talk?"

"Just prepping for the big game," House said and turned toward Jonathan. He lay asleep in the bed.

"Jonathan is a sports fan and I hate sports analogies," Madeline said.

Her husband started to shake.

Cameron grabbed his arm to keep it from hitting the monitors. "He's seizing again."

House's pager beeped. He grabbed it and clucked his tongue.

"Is it Annie?" Madeline asked.

Instead of going to Jonathan's side or rushing to Annie's room, Madeline grabbed House's arm. He looked at his pager again and then up to the clock, then back to Jonathan whose nose had started to bleed. He was flinging blood all over the room.

Cameron looked at House and House looked at her. "Game on."