What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about.
- Hippocratic Oath
*****
House stood before the roomful of fellows, twirling his cane, waiting expectantly for an answer.
"Neville Chamberlain?" guessed the one labelled 23 in reference to the large black and white photo displayed on the projection screen.
"You're fired," House said, despite the fact that seconds before he had said he wouldn't fire anyone just for getting a wrong answer. The one labelled 23 got up and left, a look of shock on his face. "Does this man look like he's ceding Czechoslovakia to a fascist dictatorship?"
"It's Buddy Ebson, the actor," said the one labelled 26, the oldest one among them, surpassing even Rossi. "He's dead. Why are we..."
House cut him off, "Buddy Ebson was the original tin man in The Wizard of Oz, for a day. He was diagnosed allergic to the aluminum dust in the make-up. His lungs failed, he nearly died, the question is why."
"Didn't you just say he was allergic?" asked number 11, saying what they were all thinking.
"You may not have legs, but you've got ears, I suggest you use them," House told him, referencing the fact that he was in a wheelchair. "I said he was diagnosed allergic. Since we are currently short exactly one interesting patient, we are going to figure out what really happened to Buddy Ebson in 1938. Now, on one hand, he's not getting any deader, on the other hand, your jobs hang in the balance. So..."
"House?" Cuddy snapped from the doorway.
"I want seven alternate diagnoses when I get back."
JJ cast a look of incredulity around the room, meeting Emily's identical gaze. House was honestly expecting them to diagnose a case that was over seventy years old? They watched as obviously heated words were exchanged between the Dean of Medicine and their 'boss'.
"Row D, you're fired," House's voice suddenly rang out.
Emily's gaze quickly snapped back to JJ's, disbelief on her face at the unexpected loss of her 'job'. But on second thought, she gave a sigh of relief, at least she wouldn't have to pretend anymore.
As she brushed past House, out the door, he flung out his cane to stop her. "Were you in Row D?"
"Yes," she said, wondering where this was going.
He not-so-subtly ran his eyes up and down her body. "My apologies, my boss says I'm being arbitrary and stupid." He turned back to the lecture theatre and called, "Row D is not fired, Row C is fired."
"Great, thank you," Emily said to him before returning to her seat. "Well, this is going to be fun," she whispered sarcastically to JJ on her way past.
*****
House hobbled back into the lecture theatre and everyone quickly returned to their seats. "The aluminum could have been tainted..." number 11 started to suggest.
Once again House interrupted, "Don't care. New patient. Thirty year old female with synaesthesia. New rules: you generate a lab report – you shred it, X-ray – you melt it. No notes, no records, nothing. As far as you're concerned, the patient is Osama Bin Laden and everyone not in this room is Delta Force. Any questions?"
"We're protecting Osama Bin Laden?" number 11 asked.
"It's a metaphor, get used to it," House snapped, rolling his eyes, "Any more questions?"
"And you're not even going to tell us her name?" Reid asked.
"You think her name might be connected to what's wrong with her?" House retorted. He limped to the door and opened it for the patient. "Here's Osama," he announced. "Now, you all have numbers, so we're going to do this alphabetically; 8, 15, and 5."
"Is the synaesthesia new?" asked number 39, from Emily's left.
"Yes," the patient answered.
"Any history of similar symptoms or psychiatric..." number 39 started to ask.
"No, nothing."
"Are you on any prescription meds or use any other drugs?" 39 asked.
"No."
"Should we trust her answers?" 39 asked House.
"What, you think I'd pull you off Buddy Ebson just for a junkie?"
"Can we trust your answers?" asked number 24.
"You have to trust someone, right?" said House.
"No," shrugged 24, "Has anyone close to you been sick lately? A family member, a co-worker?" she asked the patient.
"No, not that I'm aware of."
"You spend much time above twenty thousand feet?" number 13 asked.
"Why would you ask that?" House cut in.
"People who fly are immobile for long periods. Could be a leg clot that embolized to the brain through a PFO," 13 answered.
"That's an unusual choice," House noted.
"Well, like you said, you wouldn't interrupt Buddy with anything that wasn't."
"The patient is a frequent flyer," House saved the patient from answering. "13, 32, 39, get Osama an EEG, MRI, and an angiogram." The indicated numbers lead the patient away.
The team shared a stunned look over what had just happened. Their heads were still whirling from the speed of their first diagnostic session. They shared a look of mutual, 'Holy crap, we are so not gonna make it through this...'
"How many of you think that Oswald acted alone?" House asked.
Hotch and Emily raised their hands, along with several others. The one labelled 6 blurted, "If by alone you mean that he was unaware that the CIA..."
"Oh, shut up," House snapped. "Split yourselves into two groups, test her blood, test her stool," he instructed as they stood to leave. "Who likes the designated hitter?" was his next question.
Rossi and Morgan were both among those that raised their hands.
"You're wrong," House told them, "You're lucky you're not fired. Two more groups, LP and cultures. Who doesn't know what a designated hitter is?"
Reid sheepishly raised his hand along with three others.
House scrawled something on a piece of paper and handed it to number 26. "Okay, here is her address, I want you to break in and find out what she's hiding."
There was a moment of silence as if he had forgotten about the remaining fellows. Number 11 cut in, "What do you want the rest of us to do?"
******
JJ wavered in and out of the heated conversation going on between the other fellows as she attempted to scrub a persistent layer of dirt off of the hubcaps on House's car. She didn't bother to look up to see who was speaking, instead trying to match voices and personalities to numbers.
"Thirty people for three openings and I want you to wash my car..." 11; always complaining.
"Work is demeaning? You're too good for this?" 18; the voice of reason.
"... We all went to med school so we wouldn't have to do an honest day's labour." 24; bitchy. "... I'm out of here. Who's with me?"
JJ gritted her teeth involuntarily as 24 and several others stomped off. There was just something about her that she didn't like already. She looked up at the sound of a heavy sigh. Only her and number 18 remained. "Well, she's pleasant..." she joked to lighten the tension.
18 rolled his eyes and shook his head, apparently working under the 'if you can't say anything nice...' clause. I'm Jeffery Cole, by the way."
******
Reid looked skywards, towards the window of the patient's apartment, while the one labelled 10 climbed onto a dumpster in an attempt to reach it.
"Are we sure he wasn't joking? Maybe this is just a test," number 2 suggested.
"Everything's a joke and everything's a test and he wants us to do it," number 10 insisted, extending a hand to help number 26 up.
"Well, I could try, but I pulled a muscle back in 1987..." number 26 shrugged.
"I didn't waste two years repeating medical school to be arrested and deported," number 2 hissed.
Reid's heart started to pound. What if the police did show up? He didn't have his badge on him... And even if he explained that he was a federal agent undercover, he'd blow his cover to the other fellows. Not to mention that no one was likely to believe him. Oh God, an FBI agent getting arrested for breaking into a medical patient's house while undercover... he was so going to get fired.
Number 10 impatiently waved a hand in front of Reid's face to get his attention. "Hey, bean pole, are you gonna help or not?"
Rock, meet hard place. If he didn't help, the other numbers would tell House and he would get 'fired'. The whole undercover operation could be in jeopardy because he didn't help the others break into the patient's home. What if his eye alone might have picked out a detail that all the others missed and the patient died? Stupid moral conundrums...
He awkwardly heaved himself onto the dumpster while number 10 pulled a screwdriver from his bag.
******
Morgan and Rossi sterilized the equipment while numbers 15A and 15B prepared the patient for the lumbar puncture. Rossi handed the needle to one of the twins. "I think I almost envy Reid right now," he whispered to Morgan.
"It could be worse," Morgan replied, "You could be the one stabbing the patient in the spine with a huge needle..."
"Or the patient..." came the distant retort as Rossi very carefully studied the procedure, just in case House ever insisted on observing him performing an LP.
******
"There's a reason I didn't go to med school..." Emily huffed as she struggled to get the micropipette to work. Several test tubes of blood sat in the rack before her, waiting to be transferred to the centrifuge.
"Don't talk so loud," Hotch cautioned, "People might overhear..." He watched as she accidentally dropped the pipette tip into one of the samples when she tried to suck the blood up. "Here, let me do it," he said.
"Hey guys," number 6 said, bursting into the lab, "Are the samples -"
"No, we're still waiting on the results," Emily cut him off, brushing hair out of her eyes with her wrist, "The centrifuge is acting up," she lied.
******
JJ laughed as number 18 told an anecdote about his daughter, accidentally splashing water out of her bucket as her concentration wavered. The sound of clicking high heels against the pavement made them stop and turn. Instantly, the amiable air had vanished as they identified the source of the noise.
"Change your mind?" JJ said, voice icy.
"No," number 24 replied, not bothering to explain any further.
"Then why are you here?" Cole asked.
"Never intended to quit..."
"Then why did you -" Cole started.
"Intended to get everyone else to quit." JJ and Cole exchanged a look, clearly sharing the same thoughts likening her to a female canine. "Get off the car."
"I need to clean it," Cole snapped, "We need to clean it."
24 jangled a set of keys in her hand. "I stole his keys. We'll take it to a car wash." Noting the unsure look that passed between the others, she justified, "He's got people breaking into a woman's apartment, obviously respecting personal property isn't one of the rules."
******
"The high pressure and oxygen will flush the carbon monoxide from your system," number 6 explained to the patient as Emily, Cole, and number 24 prepared the hyperbaric chamber. "This much oxygen for too long can have some toxic effects, so we'll do this in cycles." He pulled the mask over the patients mouth and nodded to Emily to turn the oxygen on.
Things seemed to be going fine, until the shrill beeping of the pulse ox sounded. Emily looked anxiously to the source and scanned the PQRST wave momentarily before deciding she could learn nothing useful from it with her lack of knowledge.
"I think she's having a heart attack," number 6 called to the other numbers.
'Think? That's not something reassuring for a doctor to say,' Emily thought to herself. She looked to the patient just in time to see her pass out. The other fellows started calling orders and she struggled with what to do to maintain the semblance of looking like she knew what she was doing. She decided to start CPR, compressing the patient's chest, while they waited for the defibrillator.
6 arrived shortly thereafter, paddles in hand. "Clear," he called as he went.
"Are you crazy?" Cole shouted, "You can't use those, we're in a hyperbar..."
"Clear," he said again, obviously not one to be reasoned with.
Emily jumped back from the patient while Cole quickly turned off the oxygen. The paddles buzzed with charge as he shocked her. Flames leapt from her chest and Emily stepped back further, shielding her face against the heat.
"She's on fire!" Emily heard little else as the panic bells started going off in her head. This day was off to a terrible start, she'd been 'fired', quite possibly screwed up a blood test, and lit a patient on fire, all before lunch... It couldn't get much worse. She did, however, catch the lament of, "We are so fired." And she whole-heartedly agreed. So did the sprinklers apparently, she thought to herself as she got drenched.
******
"Is anyone else bothered by the lengths we're going to in order to lie to the government?" Reid wondered aloud as he and the others ate a hurried lunch.
"I'm bothered by the fact that we're going to have to take more of this torture," Morgan snapped.
"At least you weren't there when we set the patient on fire," Emily replied. She glared at Morgan as he covertly snickered at the mention of the incident. "It's not funny," she insisted, "She was literally on fire, not just smoldering."
"Why didn't you stop him when he brought the charged paddles into the oxygen rich environment?" Reid asked.
Emily rounded on him, her gaze icy. "Because I didn't know that would happen," she hissed, "And if you say a word about how you would have known, you're going to be our next patient."
"I'm sorry," he squeaked nervously. He instantly brightened, "I don't think this is all that bad, it's actually quite fun seeing what life would have been like had I decided to go to med school. How many chances do you get at a real-life 'through the looking glass' experience?"
JJ aimed a kick at his shin under the table. "You're really annoying when I'm sleep deprived and stressed out."
******
"Getting a patient drunk is not a medical procedure," JJ hissed to Hotch and Emily as they moved through the hallways towards the patient's room.
"It's not like we have any say in the matter," Emily reminded her, "We don't have any jurisdiction."
"It's things like this that make people send death threats," JJ insisted.
"If you have such a problem with it, then why did you agree to be a part of the test?" Hotch asked.
"Someone responsible needs to be there," she snapped, "God knows House can't be trusted."
"It's things like that that are going to get you fired," Emily told her. JJ scowled as she slid open the door to the patient's room where House and a bottle of tequila were awaiting.
House smiled when he saw her, pouring the liquor into four shot glasses, and sloshing just as much onto the table in the process. He started half-singing, "Tequila; goes down easy, Lord it'll sneak up on you fast. Tequila; great big buzz in a little bitty glass."
******
"Who needs a coffee?" Morgan sighed, stifling a yawn as he and the others left the lecture theatre, amazed that all of them had made the first major cut.
There was a simultaneous echo of affirmation. "It's almost 9:00 at night," Hotch reminded.
"Yeah," Emily piped up, "And I'd like not to die in a fiery car crash on the way back to the hotel when I fall asleep at the wheel..."
The case wrapped up with a breast implant surgery to disguise the scars from the surgery to cut lesions out of the patient's lungs, a diagnosis of von Hippel-Lindau, and lying to the patient about having informed NASA of her condition. Not to mention lying to the head of the hospital, lying to House, lying to each other, and lying to the government. And getting drunk at work. And getting the patient drunk. And breaking into private property.
"I think, right now, I'd actually prefer that," Rossi quipped.
A/N: Okay, now, I was honestly never planning on rewriting the original episodes in which House tested the fellows... But, in order to set up some things that will be coming up later in the story arc, it was necessary. More like this are to follow, so please excuse the liberal artistic license I've had to take to make these work. Oh, and House's song about tequila is the aptly named "Tequila" by Brooks and Dunn.