I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.
- Hippocratic Oath

*****

"What the hell are you doing?" Foreman demanded, storming after Morgan.

"Clearly, there's nothing I can do here since all you're doing is killing time. If I have to stand back and watch as my best friend dies, I sure as hell won't be spending those last few minutes down here with you!"

"I sure hope you're talking about the skinny kid, because if you're talking about my girlfriend..."

"She's not your girlfriend! She's just interested in you to spite me!"

He narrowed his eyes into a dangerous glare. "You're being irrational. You can't go onto the ward, it's under lock-down."

"I don't care," he retorted, each word slow and weighted. "You're the one being irrational! You said you love her and you're worried about procedures and rules? You're going to stay down here while she's alone and dying?"

"No! I'm staying down here so I can find the answer and cure her so she won't die!"

"You don't love her and you never did!"

He had been expecting a snapped reply of, 'Well, she doesn't love you!' Instead, the next thing he knew, a fist came sharply into contact with his jaw.

******

"So what do you guys know about Dr. Brennan?" Garcia asked. It was clear that she was wondering how, after all the time they spent working with him, they had failed to identify him as the unsub sooner.

"Not much, actually," JJ admitted, "He worked with Doctors Without Borders."

"For eight years," Garcia qualified.

"He moved back to the city and applied for the fellowship because he got engaged," Rossi added. That was more or less the extent of their knowledge.

Garcia added on, "Graduated from Johns-Hopkins, specializing in epidemiology. He spent most of the eight years practicing in Africa. He appears to be one of the more vocal members, actively speaking out against the lack of care many third world people receive, despite having been told to tone it down. He was also one of the major players behind the establishment of the Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines."

"Yeah," Hotch commented, "He was constantly railing against the way developed countries waste drugs while most people still suffer from diseases that have been cured and eradicated from the first world."

"Did you also know that he has an outstanding arrest warrant?"

"For poisoning a patient," Rossi finished.

"Yeah..."

"He was giving a patient thallium because its symptoms mimic polio and he wanted to prove that vitamin C can cure polio in order to make companies do research to find a cheap, alternative cure that can readily be used in third world countries," JJ explained for Garcia.

"And, for bonus points," Garcia continued, "While he was working in Sierra Leone, he and several of the other doctors in his corps were held hostage by a radical militant group."

"Well, PTSD would explain his psychosis," Hotch noted, "But it doesn't explain why he would want to kill House."

"Garcia," JJ asked, "Is there any record of Brennan being connected to someone who died in House's care? A relative or a girlfriend, maybe?"

They waited with bated breath as she searched House's patient records. "A gold star for JJ," Garcia said brightly, "Fourteen years ago, House treated Ester Doyle, Brennan's grandmother, who died within twenty-four hours of being admitted."

"That's got the be the stressor," Rossi said, "He stews over his grandmother's death for fourteen years, gets held hostage and suffers a post-traumatic break from reality and decides to exact revenge on the doctor responsible for her death."

"I've also..." Garcia started to say, but was interrupted by shouts.

"Help! He's seizing!" Emily yelled, then started coughing heavily. She tried to shout for help again, but couldn't because of the coughing fit, so she repeatedly pressed the call button to attract attention from the nurses.

"We'll call you back, Garcia," JJ said quickly as she ran to suit up.

"Wait! What's going on?" But her words fell on deaf ears as JJ set the phone down, thinking she had hung up. But in the clamouring to put on the prophylactic suit, she had missed the button and Garcia listened on in horror to the drama unfolding in the isolation room.

"What happened?" Hotch demanded.

"He just became unresponsive. His eyes rolled back in his head and he started to seize..."

"We need a dose of clonazepam," Rossi said as he attempted to stabilize Reid. JJ sprinted over the the crash cart to get a dose of the anti-seizure drug.

They finally managed to get his seizing to stop, his vital signs slowly started to stabilize, but he remained unconscious. Only when Emily spoke did they remember she was there. "Is he alright?" she asked through shallow, labored breathing.

They all turned to look at her to see her clutching at her chest, each breath clearly an immense struggle. "Emily, are you okay?" JJ asked.

"I... I can't breathe..." she rasped out.

"It'll be okay," Rossi reassured, though he was sure of no such thing, "Just lay back and we'll put you on oxygen."

As they prepped the oxygen, her heart rate started to climb exponentially. "One-eighty," Hotch called out, "Two-twenty! We need an amper-vepi! She's going to stroke out!"

"Get the crash-cart!" JJ called, "She's crashing!"

******

The next thing Foreman knew, he had his back against the wall, Morgan's hand around his throat. "I'm going to make this real easy for you..." Morgan said slowly, dangerously. "You leave Emily alone and I won't have to hurt you. After this case is over, you never speak to her again, you never even think about her again. Do I make myself clear?"

Foreman struggled against his grip, trying to push him away. "You can't tell me to..."

Morgan cut him off, "I suggest you think long and hard about your answer..."

"Is that a threat?"

"Yes," he said simply. "Now, are you going to leave her alone or are we going to have to do this the hard way?"

Shooting him the coldest death glare he had ever seen, Foreman spat, "Fine! Nothing's worth this."

"That's what I thought." Morgan pulled his hand away and Foreman had to grip the wall to stop himself from falling to the floor. As he started to walk away, Morgan called after him, "You're wrong. Emily is worth this. And if you really did love her, you would know that..."

A/N: Remember Ester? Just in case you don't, she was the woman alluded to in the episode "All In", where House treats the young boy who has the same symptoms as an elderly woman he treated many years ago (it was twelve in season two, but the fellowship occured in season four). I thought that would be a good way to have Brennan have a pre-existing connection to House. And, obviously, I had to make up much of the back-story for Brennan because we knew so little about him.