OH, WHAT A TANGLED WEB

Greg was having second thoughts. Dr. Remy Hadley was a decent person, but he rarely associated with his team outside of work. Occasionally he and Chase went bowling, but aside from that, he only meddled with his Fellows during work hours. He wasn't even sure why he reached out to her; he just knew that she could be objective when he needed her to be.

When she timidly entered his room, he knew it wasn't a mistake.

"This explains a lot."

"Only my absence from work."

"So did they arrest the woman who ran you down?" She did a cursory visual examination of her boss for injuries other than the obvious.

"Huh? Nevermind. Can't have any good drugs, so I'm on muscle thingies. My brain is foggy."

"Muscle thingies," Thirteen nodded in understanding. "I've heard of them. Yes, brain fog is a side effect. So I guess you're doing as well as can be expected." She wanted to reach out for his hand and offer some comfort, but with House that could backfire.

"In a little while…some medical person's gonna come in here and ask me questions." He gestured awkwardly with his hands. "What's so funny?"

Remy found it hard not to smile. It was like House was drunk. "Nothing. It's kind of cute when you're all mess up."

"Anyway," he said ignoring her comment, "I need someone to be here."

Thirteen's eyebrows arched in disbelief. "Why not Wilson…or Cuddy?"

"I want it to be someone who doesn't have a personal interest in my life. I don't need a babysitter; I need-"

"A friend?"

"Yeah, something like that. No personal judgments, just someone to offer sound advice on the treatment options I'm going to get."

"But House, you're one of the most brilliant doctors ever."

He held his finger to his lips. "Shhh. The only one who knows I'm a doctor is my orthopedic surgeon." He sneered evilly.

"How'd you manage to maintain this anonymity?"

"Long story," he chuckled. "But it would really humor them if you called me Double-oh-seven or Flash."

Remy just smiled along. Whatever they had given him was messing with his head. It was kind of nice to see him at ease; but at the same time, he wasn't House.

The door opened and in came Cindy, who was paying attention to her file. "So, Greg, a few questions…" she looked up and was surprised to find a visitor. "Oh, sorry."

"This is the medical person," House said as if making an introduction.

"Hi, I'm Remy Hadley, House's-"

"Thirteen's a friend of mine," he said quickly.

"Thirteen?" Cindy cocked an eyebrow curiously.

"She's bad luck."

"Gee, thanks." Remy gave him a warning look.

"Mind if I ask you a few personal, yet medically relevant questions?"

"No STDs. I haven't slept with Thirteen 'cause she's bi and I don't share."

"O-kay, then," Cindy blew out a long breath. "Not what I was going to ask."

"Sorry, whatever you've got him on is making him a little loopy."

"Yeah, sorry about that. We had to move him around a bit earlier for an MRI. He was in some discomfort so we gave him a little something to ease the pain."

"That's good. With his history it must be difficult to keep him comfortable."

"Oh good, then you know him pretty well?"

Remy nodded hesitantly.

"It's just because he's into his privacy. I don't think we've got a nearly good enough history outside of his addiction issues."

"I don't know how much help I'll be."

"Greg, is it okay if I ask you some questions while Thirteen is in the room?"

"I invited her, didn't I?"

Remy found herself in an awkward position. House had known he was going to be questioned about his medical history, and he chose her to be by his side when he answered. Why? She knew very little about his personal life, let alone his medical history - except for the fact that during her interviewing period she had taken a biopsy of ever one of his organs.

"Okay." Cindy raised her patient to a sitting position, pulled over the bedside chair and offered it to Remy, then sat at the edge of House's bed. "Let's start with the infarction."

She could feel the tension emanating from Greg. "What were you doing when you first felt pain?"

"I was golfing."

"Did any particular happen? Did a cleat get caught? Nobody took a pitching wedge to your thigh or anything like that?"

"Nope. Thought I strained a muscle at first."

"What did you do then?"

"The usual. Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevation. When it got worse I went to the ER."

"Smart boy."

"Hurray for me. Too bad I had an idiot for a doctor."

"When did they remove the clot?"

"Three days later, when they did an MRI and angiogram."

Cindy visibly winced. "Shit."

This was all new information to Remy. She was dismayed by the time delay in diagnosing. Had they found the clot sooner… She shook the thoughts from her head.

"Before the infarction, did you have any comparable pain anywhere else in your body?"

"The usual aches and pains. I was pretty athletic. But no, nothing like that."

"Before the infarction, did you suffer any serious falls, sports injuries or vehicular accidents?"

"None."

House caught Remy's attention. They were both thinking the same thing - Cindy had an agenda. She was fishing for something. House and the Team did it often. This time he was the patient and neither of them was privy to the differential diagnosis.

"Any major accidents since the infarction?"

"I was shot," House chuckled.

"Where?"

"In my office," he laughed.

Remy was mortified.

"No, I mean where on your body?"

"Once in the abdomen, once in the neck."

Cindy made many notes. "What hospital were you at?"

"Princeton-Plainsboro."

"No. As a matter of fact, I actually pain free for two months afterwards."

"How'd you manage that," Thirteen interrupted.

"Let me guess," Cindy offered. "Ketamine."

"How'd you find that out?" House was extremely curious.

"We've had a few patients who have tried it and failed. It seemed so hopeful."

"It was the best two months of my life," he said sadly.

Remy reached over and grabbed his hand giving it a squeeze. He squeezed back.

"Any other exciting antics? Fall down a well? Struck by lightning?"

"You did electrocute yourself - once."

Greg flexed the hand that had been burnt, remember the circumstances surrounding the stunt.

"How'd that happen?"

Greg continued to stare at his hand. It had been Amber who saved his life. Cut throat bitch that she was.

It was as if Remy was reading his thoughts. They were coming to dangerous territory. "Science experiment gone wrong."

"Any neurological effects?"

They both shook their heads negatively.

"Any other mishaps?"

House closed his eyes and swallowed hard. Thirteen watched him carefully. Neither said anything for quite some time. Cindy watched both of them, biding her time. A different tension had flooded the room. Their shared history was something distressing for both of them, not just Greg.

"It's important," she said softly.

"I'll tell her," Thirteen was more or less asking his permission.

His nod was almost imperceptible.

"There was a bus crash. He suffered a skull fracture, loss of memory and a laceration to the head."

"Sounds pretty nasty. No other injuries?"

"I got up and walked out the overturned bus into a strip club."

"So no apparent spinal cord injury. Any back or hip pain?"

Greg shook his head.

"I assume you had a full set of x-rays."

"He was distracted at the time."

"Hmm. A bus crash might do that to you. The ER docs may have overlooked something."

"Another friend was on the bus with him. She was missing. So he absconded before they could check him out completely."

"Hope that all worked out okay."

House's blue eyes were piercing through Remy, pleading with her not to speak of it.

"Aside from the heart attack due to a drug interaction and deep brain stimulation that resulting in a complex partial seizure leaving him unconscious for a while…"

"From the bus crash to yesterday, anything else?" Cindy looked from her patient to his friend. They're shared history no longer seemed obvious.

"Oh, let's not forget the motorcycle crash in Middletown."

"What, do you have a death wish?"

Greg didn't respond. Thirteen just shrugged.

"Greg, anything else you'd care to share?"

Hannah's face swam before his mind's eye. It wasn't that long ago. He was still coping with the decision he had made. He never thought about himself as he crawled through the destruction and dust to help her. And when the rubble shifted, dropping debris on him, he didn't feel it. He wouldn't have known he was injured if it weren't for the rescue workers helping to get her out. Nothing positive came out of that day.

"No."

Cindy and Remy could feel the forlornness in his voice.

"I'm sorry you've been through so much. The chronic pain only compounds things." She patted his good thigh.

"What did you find on the MRI? Greg was point-blank.

"To tell you that would be overstepping my bounds."

"If you don't tell him, he'll obsess until someone does," Remy jumped to his aid.

Cindy fidgeted a bit. She opened the chart to his MRI results and pretended to be reading.

"Before you even think of lying," House began, but she cut him off.

"Look, I love what I do. If I give you test results without my boss's permission, I could lose my job, my certification - everything I've worked hard for. I'm not going to risk it. Not for you, not even if you were the biggest donor to this hospital."

Greg actually managed to smile. She sounded a bit like Cuddy just then. "It's okay, I'll just stress myself out, have a hypertensive crisis, stroke or have a heart att-"

Remy put her hand on his shoulder to shut him up. He was giving away too much.

"You forget, I can give you a sedative."

"You're abusing your authority," he corrected.

"Only if I give you those test results," she said while dismounting the bed.

He grabbed her arm.

She looked at where he held her, then in his eyes. "I promise there's nothing life threatening or worrisome on the films. Just the usual junk."

He released her. The 'usual junk' could mean a lot of things. It was like a full body scan revealing at least three different things that looked problematic but were basically benign.

"I'll be back in the morning. You should try to get some sleep."

He nodded and watched her go.

"What was that about?" Remy let go of his hand.

"She's on an elite team of orthopods. They think they can help with the chronic leg pain."

"Wow, is that why you came here instead of Princeton-Plainsboro?"

"I came here because my ride came here."

"So what really happened?"