I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
- Hippocratic Oath
*****
JJ emerged from the women's locker room, the men were solemnly waiting outside the door. "I don't know if Em is up for this..." she whispered to the others, "She's still blaming herself for what happened to the last patient. She's worried it will happen again."
"Why didn't she say anything?" Hotch asked, "She doesn't have to do this if it's too much for her to handle."
Morgan scoffed, "Have you ever know her to give up? She'll keep pushing on just to prove to herself that she can."
At that, Emily came out of the locker room, looking considerably worse for wear. She looked like she hadn't slept in weeks and her eyes still bore the appearance of recent crying. She looked at each of them in turn, daring them to say something, to tell her that maybe this wasn't a good idea. And though they were all thinking it, no one said anything, knowing that she had to work this out on her own.
They joined the other fellows waiting in the lecture theatre to see the latest case House had managed to scrounge. Everyone looked up at the sound of the door opening, seeing if it were House; Emily seemed shaken by the sudden attention, as if she felt like they were silently judging her, but she quickly masked whatever pain she may have been feeling and glared at them challengingly.
Waiting until she had taken a seat, Amber came over and took the spot next to Emily. Feigning concern, she softly asked, "How're you doing?"
"I'm fine," Emily said, a little tersely.
"If you ask me," Amber whispered conspiratorially, "It's more the guys' fault than yours. And House isn't blameless either; if he hadn't pitted us all against each other..."
Emily cut her off, "It was my fault, my mistake."
From the front of the room, a phone started to ring and everyone turned to look at it. "Was that always there?" Taub asked.
Brennan shrugged and answered it, listening for several moments before putting it on speaker and whispering to the others, "It's House."
"Good morning, Angels," House's voice emitted from the speaker, "As you will see from the file, we have quite the interesting case. Not often do you get a patient who sees dead people."
Everyone looked about in confusion. "What file?" Kutner asked.
"What the hell?" came House's voice after a second of silence, "I gave it to Bosley a half hour ago."
"It was not a half hour, it was ten minutes. And he made copies of the ER records first," Cameron's voice reminded, slightly more distorted as if she were farther away from the phone.
"When Bosley drags his ancient ass in there..." House started.
Dobson's entrance cut him off. "I'm here. Twenty-four year old funeral cosmetician suffered a grand mal seizure at work." He started to hand the files out to the others. "She had a vision of being raped by a cadaver before passing out. Seizure rules out psychiatric illness. No history of epilepsy, head trauma, or drug use."
"Could be a tumor to the temporal lobe," Amber suggested.
"Not with a normal CT scan," Taub reminded.
"You mean it appeared normal to the doc in the ER," Amber retorted.
"Funeral home prep rooms are filled with toxic chemicals," Rossi said.
"And cadavers," added Brennan, "Everybody in that place obviously died from something."
Suddenly Taub burst out, "I have a question, is he the one who's not a doctor?" He pointed towards Dobson as if House could see who he was indicating. The team shared a curious glance, wondering what would have made Taub suspect Dobson and why whatever it was hadn't also lead him to them.
Dobson ignored his implication. "Bullets aren't contagious. But infections, parasites..."
Taub interrupted, "You said one of us wasn't a doctor and you called him a fraud."
"He's not a doctor," House said, "Continue Boz." This time the look was mutual incredulity, the team unable to believe that there had been another fellow without an actual medical license. Not only that, but House had picked him out as the one fraud while they went on completely undetected. It was almost too good to be true.
"Could be an STD..." Dobson went on.
Taub once again interrupted, unable to move on, "Why isn't he fired?"
House seemed to either be getting irritated or losing focus as the sound of telephone buttons being pressed sounded throughout the room. "Oh, you're breaking up," he rasped, "I'm going into a tunnel." Then, regaining his focus, called for Cole, "Dark religious nut."
Cole looked up, annoyed by the jibe, "What did you call me?"
"I'm sorry, what do you people want to be called this week?"
"Cole."
"I'm never gonna remember that," House said, "Take Bosley, old guy number two, and the other visible minorities to the funeral home." Kutner and Morgan shared a look at the 'other visible minorities' comment. They stood, following Cole, Dobson, and Rossi out the door. House continued, "The rest of you young white people, the world is your oyster. Get an MRI with contrast, EEG, LP, and blood panel. And, Angels, be careful."
******
Once again, they conversed with House over the speakerphone. "Cadavers were clean, so is her food. It's all organic unprocessed crap. It's gotta be the embalming fluid, ethanol can have psychoactive effects," Cole said into the phone, sharing their findings.
"Bosley!" House said loudly, "Tell whoever's talking he's an idiot." Dobson stood there waveringly, looking between Cole and the phone. House, not hearing someone being called an idiot, repeated, "Bosley, either tell him he's an idiot or tell me why I'm wrong."
He turned to Cole and apologetically said, "You're an idiot."
"You actually think that I'd take a patient who had a seizure in a funeral home if the ER hadn't already ruled out embalming fluid?" House explained.
Dobson cut in, "I found something in the mortuary's files from 2005. A forty-eight year old male's cause of death was listed as pneumonia, but the symptoms in the autopsy report didn't fit; confusion, memory loss, depression..."
"Mad cow," House said, his curiosity piqued, "Very cool."
"She's a vegetarian and only ate organic vegetables at that..." Morgan reminded.
"Tell him he's an idiot," House once again ordered Dobson.
Dobson turned to Morgan and explained, "The disease can be spread by brain tissue."
"Which is very cool," House added, "Run with it."
Hotch piped up, "So, because the answer might be 'cool', you want us to do a brain biopsy on a twenty-four year old woman?"
"No," House scoffed, "Because the answer is something cool, I want you to do a brain biopsy on a forty-eight year old dead guy."
The fellows all exchanged astonished looks. "The guy's already been buried," JJ reminded.
"We dig him up," Kutner said excitedly. Amber glared at him, looking particularly non-plussed.
"I am not digging up a body without a court order," Taub said firmly.
"Don't think of it as digging up a body," House suggested, "Think of it as keeping another one from being buried."
******
From the top of the grave, several flashlights shone sickly jaundiced cones of light into the muddy pit. Hotch pulled himself over the ledge then reached down and offered a hand to help pull JJ out; from the depths of the hole, Morgan leaned on his shovel, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead with a muddy hand, and asked, "Alright, who's up?"
As if wanting to emphasize the macabre event, a suitably eerie storm was brewing in the distance. Ominous grey clouds bubbled on the horizon, cooking up a denizen of a storm. Thunder hammered angrily, punctuating the flashes of lightning illuminating their work.
"Not me," Taub said. As of yet, he remained the only fellow whose skin and scrubs remained dirt-free.
13 glared at him, angrily denouncing, "You haven't done any digging yet."
"I'm a surgeon," he justified, "If anything happens to these hands, I'm screwed." Then, he threw Dobson under the bus, "Let Bosley do it. As long as he can keep folding laundry, his career won't..."
Dobson urgently silenced him, "Shh! Someone's coming!"
Everyone tensed, turning in the direction of the footsteps, a palpable air of fear and suspense. The sound of shifting dirt in the pit stopped, but the flashlights continued to flicker, shaken by nervous hands. "Shouldn't we be running?" Reid half whispered, half squeaked.
Kutner, considerably more calmly, replied in a whisper, "If it's a cop, run. Security guard, I say we take him down." Reid said nothing, only giving a second nervous squeak in reply as the shadowy figure continued purposefully towards them.
Then, the shadows vanished, along with the suspense, as the figure came into focus, revealing itself to be Amber. She smiled apologetically and said, "Sorry I'm late."
"Where the hell have you been?" Taub demanded.
"Oh, I got lost," she shrugged.
"Been here over three hours," Kutner said, rolling his eyes as he leapt into the grave.
"Really lost," she emphasized, adding, "I brought coffee and donuts."
From inside the grave there was a loud clank of metal hitting something other than dirt. Kutner looked up and dramatically announced, "Honey, I'm home." He used his hands to shift away a layer of dirt from the surface of the coffin.
"Get the crowbar," Brennan ordered.
"No," Kutner quickly refuted, "There's not enough room to maneuver a crowbar down here." With that, he sharply brought his pickaxe down on the coffin. There was a collective intake of breath from the others as they looked on in pious shock.
"Oh, God help us," muttered Rossi, crossing himself.
Kutner peeled the splintered wood away to make the hole larger. Peering in, an expression of confusion crossed his face, "What the hell?"
"What is it?" JJ asked nervously.
"Ankles, they buried the guy the wrong way around." Again, he swung his pickaxe and made another hole in the coffin, eliciting much the same response as the first time.
******
The team grabbed a quick cup of coffee from the cafeteria on their way to the lab to test the brain tissue taken from the previous night's grave robbing adventure. At the sound of heels on the tile, clearly at a quick pace, Reid wheeled about nervously to locate the source, earning him several raised eyebrows and questioning looks. "Jumpy much?" Morgan said.
Reid sighed, seeing it was only Cuddy, "I thought it was Amber looking for me..."
The looks became more questioning. "Why would Cut-throat Bitch be looking for you?" JJ asked, a not so well hidden tinge of resentment in her voice.
"She cornered me on the last case, asked if I wanted to have dinner with her," he explained.
There were several simultaneous sounds of coffee being choked on. "Say what?" Morgan asked sharply.
"She said she wanted to," he hooked air quotes around the statement, "'discuss the case'."
JJ's face scrolled through several emotions, switching from shock to jealousy to anger to resentment. "What did you say?"
"No," Reid scoffed.
He was about to justify himself when Morgan added, "Because he's scared of her."
"I am not!" Reid said, wounded, "I'm just..."
"Shh!" Emily cut him off, "I want to hear this..." she said, seeing that Cuddy was about to reprimand House for something. Had she wanted to, she would have came up with a perfectly reasonable justification for eavesdropping on the person they were supposed to be protecting, but it seemed that everyone else was piqued enough not to refuse.
"The doctor's lounge is covered in mud..." Cuddy said, waiting for an explanation.
"13 and Cut-throat Bitch had a disagreement and the cafeteria was out of jell-o," House shrugged, giving her a 'what else could we do?' look.
"There were pickaxes," she added, "Either you had them dig up a body or you're building a railroad."
"A little tiny piece of his brain," House justified, "Seemed a waste, he wasn't using it anymore."
"That's your defense?" Cuddy asked incredulously, "'We just dismembered him'?" He shrugged again and she snapped, "Get that mess in the shower area cleaned up."
"I know just the guy..."
House met the fellows in the lab shortly afterwards, pushing a mop and bucket before him. "You guys don't wipe your feet when you come in the house?" He parked the mop in front of Taub. "Doctor's lounge, let's go."
"Why me?" Taub asked, scandalized.
"Well, I can't ask the black guys or one of the chicks to do it, that would be insensitive."
"And you can't ask Bosley because that'd look like you only hired the non-doctor to do non-doctor stuff," Taub snapped.
"You keep stalling, you're still gonna clean up, but I won't let you have the mop," House told him. Taub gave in and snatched the mop, leaving the lab with a scowl on his face.
******
"You've already done everything," the patient said.
"We may have missed something," Hotch told her, prepping her for another test.
"I just want to go home," she insisted, "I'm sure I'm fine now."
"Reena," her mother said gently, "The doctors know best."
"You had some serious symptoms," 13 told her, "The seizures..."
"If I have another one, I'll come right back, okay?"
"If you have it while you're driving..." her mother argued.
"You can drive me," the patient said to her mother, "Make sure I take it easy."
Hotch and 13 exchanged confused glances. "Who can?" 13 asked.
The patient looked between the doctors and her mother, "My mother."
"Your mother's here?" Hotch asked.
"What are you talking about?" the patient asked, "She's right there." She indicated where her mother was sitting, following her gaze, Hotch and 13 see nothing and share a worried glance.
******
Amber and Emily were once again running tests, getting vials of blood to run gel electrophoresis tests for genetic conditions that might explain her hallucination/delusion. "Now what are you testing for?" the patient asked, "Or should I ask what you're not testing for?"
"Well, we could narrow it down if you could remember what your mother died from," Amber told her.
The patient snapped, "My mother is not dead, she's sitting right there."
"Do you think we're lying to you?" Amber snapped.
"Leave it alone," Emily said softly, "Convincing her that her mother's dead isn't gonna make her better, just miserable."
"You lose your mother?" Amber asked. Emily looked at her with an 'I can't believe you just said that!' glare. Amber refused to acknowledge her, turning back to the patient and asking, "Do you think we're trying to trick you? Why would we do that?"
"Because you're mean," the patient snapped, "And you're not good at your job."
Her mother said gently, "Reena, stop, you're being cruel."
"They're wasting time," she said to her mother, "Doing exactly what the guy in the wheelchair said they'd do."
Emily felt her blood freeze in her veins, turning to look at the patient with shock written across her face. "A guy in a wheelchair was here?"
"You know who I'm talking about. He's been hanging around ever since they brought me in, complaining about how incompetent everyone is. Said you killed his dog." Emily scrubbed a hand through her hair, obviously shaken, before excusing herself from the room.
******
Emily sighed aggravatedly as once again she wound up treating the patient with Amber. Doing her best to ignore her, Emily turned to the patient and explained, "When your retina sees something, they send electrical signals to your brain. This machine will pick up those signals, if the signals are misfiring, it will confirm that your hallucinations were caused by..."
The patient cut her off, "They're not hallucinations. Tell her, Mom."
Her mother told her gently, "Honey, they're doctors, they must know what they're doing."
"If they know what they're doing, how'd they kill that poor man's dog?" she snapped.
Emily shut her eyes and turned away, taking several steps further into the sight lab. Amber followed after her, attempting to bait her, "Come on, this has got to be freaking you out a little bit."
"I appreciate your concern," Emily said, slightly sarcastic.
"There's nothing to be ashamed of here. If the ghost of a man you killed doesn't screw with your head, there's something wrong with your head." Emily sighed and gave Amber a glacial glare, she started to push past her to return to the test when she noticed a blue dog collar sitting on a table nearby. Slightly hesitant, she picked it up. Amber shrunk back, "See, that freaks me out..."
"Someone must have left it here," Emily rationalized.
"Oh, absolutely," Amber said, voice dripping with sarcasm, "That makes sense. The dog was in here getting his eyes checked and forgot to put his jewelry back on."
******
Another wrong turn. The fellows struggled to come up with a diagnosis while House and Cole debated religion and science, House baiting him, purposefully pushing his limits. "But the book is inconsistent with science!" House argued, "You know how many epileptics were tortured because they were 'possessed'? How many teenage witches were stoned to death because they took mushrooms?"
Suddenly the light went off in Reid's head. "I know what she has!" Amber turned to him, a smile on her face; the others wore looks of incredulity that he had come up with the answer before them. "Mushrooms weren't the only thing that got people stoned to death, jimson weed, belladonna, mandrake root, and moldy bread. It's ergot poisoning."
"You'd need damp grain that had been..." 13 started to argue.
Cole cut in, "...Completely unprocessed and untreated like what's in that organic rye bread she's been eating."
Amber clicked in a missing piece, "It's why she got worse on the bromocriptine, it's an ergot derivative."
"There hasn't been a case in fifty years," Brennan pointed out.
"She kept asking for milk," Amber added, "Dairy products counteract the effects."
The team smiled, surprised that he had gotten the diagnosis, but not all that shocked. Reid himself managed to look a strange combination of pleased at his own brilliance and a little surprised that the others had agreed with his diagnosis, but also a little alarmed, seeing the look Amber was giving him.
******
House entered the lecture theatre, a large bunch of flowers in his hands. "As you know, there are thirteen of you and..." He paused and counted the flowers, dumping several onto the desk when there were too many. "...Only six roses."
"Those are peonies," Kutner pointed out. House threw him a threatening glare and he quickly added, "But I'm sure they're part of the rose family."
"Now, I would love to keep all of you, but not enough to do anything about it," House said, "So, according to my arbitrary schedule, one of you has to go." He looked from one fellow to the other, seeming to revel in watching them squirm.
Finally he settled on Amber. "You're kidding," she said. He continued to look at her, a deadly serious on his face. JJ smiled, thinking that Amber was finally gone and not at all sorry about it. Amber angrily jumped from her seat. "I was right on the last case about something still being wrong, I robbed a grave, I..."
"...Planted a dog collar in the procedure room just to screw with my head," Emily supplied.
Amber turned to House, "No, I never..." He handed her a flower and she instantly clammed up. JJ could barely hide her disappointment.
Emily turned to House and incredulously asked, "What, you don't believe she did it?"
"I'm sure she did," House shrugged, "That's why she's getting the flower, it was beautiful." Amber smiled victoriously. "She just overreached. She got into your head."
"No, I..." Emily started to argue.
House cut her off, "She owned you. Planting the idea was good, letting it fester was good, leaving the collar was stupid. Well known fact, ghosts don't leave things lying around."
"So am I gone then?" she asked, a hint of hopefulness in her voice. The team could tell that she was still struggling and would have been glad of an excuse to leave this assignment because she would never give up under her own duress. House smiled and handed her one of the flowers and she took it gratefully, but once he turned away, she sunk into her seat with a sigh.