A/N: This is my birthday. How about giving me a review as a present? :) Hope you enjoy this update, and thanks for reading. This story doesn't have much further to go, probably 4 or 5 chapters, but there are still some good scenes remaining, and the last chapter is one of my favorites, right up there with the meeting Ember chapter.

(H/C)

When House got back up to Diagnostics, Taub and the egglings weren't back from lunch yet. Well, he had told them he was taking a long lunch. Even so, he started timing. Meanwhile, after another call to the ICU to check on Kutner, he took out the FDR papers that Templeton and Hollingwood had written last night and started reading with his characteristic combination of speed and thoroughness.

The papers were much like them. Templeton's was more aggressive, openly challenging. He dismissed pretty much all alternative theories on Roosevelt's demise out there as unproven, but he dismissed them with thought given to it. His attacks might be pointed, but his ammunition wasn't blanks. It did make for fun reading. Hollingwood's contribution was, of course, less opinionated and steadier, but it was even more thorough. She thought melanoma that had metastasized to the brain was a good bet, though could never be known for certain, but she also included points against that as well as for it, and she wasn't just respieling the book, which she'd said she found. She considered all sides much better than House had thought she might, and he could well believe on finishing that she had been on top in her classes as her resume and references testified to.

He tossed the ball, thinking. Both of those two had potential, but they had a lot to learn. Templeton needed to discover the negatives of competition and learn to work together with a team, and Hollingwood needed to take that multipointed objective analysis she was obviously capable of and carry it over to real life. Face to face with actual patients instead of papers, she still tended to want to think the best of people.

And then there was Ramirez. Ramirez had taken the initiative to go back to the forums, but she still was missing things herself, and she worried too much about what answer he was looking for to any question. She also was very tense on the subject of family, including families of patients. Her past, whatever it held, was her biggest obstacle; instead of being merely challenged to overcome it, she was determined, far too determined, to keep proving it wrong, refusing to claim the victory and move on. It divided her attention. Still, he had to give her points for the Star Trek idea. It had lead to an interesting differential that morning as they dissected the posts.

None of them was anywhere near a finished product. On the other hand, that was the whole point of applying for a fellowship.

Templeton entered the conference room with a satisfied look around, glad to be first back. He noted House reading the papers, wondered, and made himself not ask. House told him anyway, standing and walking through the door. "B plus."

"Why?"

"Technically, that's a pretty good grade on the scale. It was thorough, and it had style. Lots of style. You might consider a career in medical fiction if you don't cut it as a doctor. I'll bet you could write a series about a nice soap-operaish hospital with some larger-than-life characters and a lot of sparks flying. People would buy stuff like that." Templeton didn't take it as a compliment. "Oh, you mean why not an A? Because you trip over your attitude sometimes. Also, there was somebody more thorough than you were. Less amusing to read, but she covered more medicine and did it more objectively. Yours was good; hers was better. You lost that round." Templeton's jaw tightened. "Sometimes we lose, Templeton. That's part of being a doctor, too. You need to learn to take it, learn from it, then let it go."

Hollingwood and Ramirez returned just then, and House mentally dissected their attitudes, trying to decide if they had been to lunch together or simply come back up in the elevator together. He settled on the latter. Ramirez, more of a lone wolf, didn't look as harassed as she probably would have by a full hour of Hollingwood's upbeat cheerfulness. He turned the white board around. Somehow, he didn't want to erase Kutner's side yet. The case was solved, but the real tests that would give the prognosis weren't yet run. For House, Kutner's case wasn't yet closed. In fact, Kutner was the reason he'd decided to wait until tomorrow to go examine the crippled kitten. As interesting as Jet might be, House didn't want to get too far from the ICU today. There were also other questions he wanted to ask Kutner, questions far beyond the neuro checks. Most likely the ability for that was several hours away at best, but he hoped he could ask at least a few of them before leaving tonight.

With the blank whiteboard now facing them, House went back to his desk to pick up the two papers, plus the printed out forum threads. "While you all were dragging your feet over lunch, I graded last night's homework." He tossed them out to the respective contributors. "B-plus. A-minus. A-minus." He gave them long enough for their eyes to settle on the first red-letter comment he'd added, then interrupted. "Read the feedback later. For now, we have email consult requests on actual patients. True patients should always be our priority."

"We spent thirty minutes this morning going over x-rays on a cat," Templeton reminded him.

"Yes, we did. And it took thirty minutes for any one of you to point that fact out. If you knew it earlier, Templeton, you should have said so, and we would have wasted less time." House picked up the first email from his stack of consult requests. "The patient is a 46-year-old with a history . . . nice of you to finally rejoin us," he commented as Taub entered.

"I went by to check on Kutner first when I got back from lunch."

The sharpness faded out of House's tone. "Any change?"

"Hasn't woken up again since that time about 10:30. He's not quite unconscious; I can get a reaction to nailbed pressure. Deeply asleep, though. Vitals stable, fever down to 99.8. I didn't try to wake him up."

House nodded. "Let him rest. Progress, though. He probably hasn't had a temp below 100 since early Friday."

"We do need to get some initial neuro checks and see where exactly we are," Taub said.

"I know." Surprisingly, House didn't snap at him. "We will. But let's give him a chance first to figure out thoroughly where he is, if he can. A little more time won't hurt."

Hollingwood obviously started to commiserate on poor Kutner and his several days of being stuck mentally with his parents' murder, and House glared at her. She thought better of it. "What does the patient have a history of?" she asked instead.

House picked up the marker, and they dove into the first consult.

(H/C)

Time had taken on a life of its own in the ICU, the seconds almost seeming to hang in between each tick of the watch. Julia thought that they must have been here forever, not only a day and a half. She stood by the bed, watching her son. Physically, he seemed to be getting better, but she couldn't forget the wild-eyed terror of early this morning as he looked straight at her and saw his other mother instead. And the gun. He clearly had been seeing the gun.

Richard's arm came around her shoulders. "He was better that last time."

"Yes." She grasped at the hope. "Maybe that nurse got through to him. I should have reassured him myself, but I never thought. . ."

He kissed her. "It's okay, Julia. I didn't think of it either."

"He must have been trapped back there seeing them get killed. For days."

There was no response that would make her feel better about that, and he didn't try, just squeezed her more tightly against him.

Their son stirred at that moment. Julia focused immediately, leaning over. "Lawrence?"

Richard reached out and hit the nurse call button, then drew his wife back a step. "Easy," he whispered. She nodded, trying to get a grip on herself, and backed up another half step so she wouldn't crowd him, but her grip on the bedside rails was leaving her knuckles white.

Kutner's eyes opened. There was a difference that time, Richard noted. He'd looked terrified from the first second of awakening the two previous times today. Now, he looked confused and a little wary, but the pure horror of earlier wasn't there. He looked around, too, not just staring at the ceiling. "You're in the hospital," Richard said.

The nurse whisked in, the same one as earlier. "Page Dr. House," she called over her shoulder. She walked up to the bed. Kutner was looking at Richard and Julia.

"It's all right," Julia told him, trying to keep her voice steady. "You've been sick, but you're getting better."

"Sick." His voice was weak, shaky, and somewhat hoarse. "I need to tell you . . ." The words trailed off, and he tried to clear his throat.

Sandra picked up a cup from the bedside table. "Would you like some water?" she asked. He turned to her and nodded, and she held the straw to his lips. "Just a few sips." She pulled it away herself after a moment.

Kutner rolled the liquid around his mouth, moistening it. He turned back to Richard and Julia, studying them. "Mom. Dad."

Julia let out a sobbing sigh and caught his hand. "It's okay, Lawrence. You're going to be all right."

"People need to know . . ." He stopped, working it out mentally. "I went . . . to India. Must have got sick . . . there. Tell . . . House."

"We know that already, son," Richard told him.

His brow furrowed. "You know?"

"Dr. House found your passport."

Kutner smiled faintly. His eyes drifted back closed, and Sandra touched him. "If you could stay awake for a few minutes, Dr. Kutner, Dr. House is coming. They've paged him." She picked up the water. "Here, have a few more swallows." He sucked it down greedily.

Sandra looked back toward the door briefly, then turned to her patient. Kutner looked awful, of course, as anybody after a few days in ICU would, but the eyes were definitely more focused this time. So weak, though. Conversation was an effort. She pushed on tentatively for a few questions herself, in case he passed out again before House could arrive. "Do you know where you are?"

He looked around the room. "ICU. That bad?"

Julia shuddered in memory. "Yes. You've been very sick," Sandra said. "But Dr. House worked it out."

"How long?"

"This is Wednesday afternoon," Richard said. He looked at his watch. "It's almost 2:00. Dr. House found you Monday when you didn't show up for work. He thinks you've been ill since Thursday night or Friday morning."

Kutner nodded. "Didn't think it was anything. Not at first." And later, by the time it was obvious that it was something, he hadn't been able to help himself. His eyes closed again.

House limped into the room as rapidly as he could, and Kutner's eyes reopened at the sound of his off-beat triple gait. Sandra moved away, yielding her side of the bed to him. Kutner looked at his boss in clear recognition, and House let out the breath he'd been holding all the way across the room. "You're an idiot," he said sharply.

Kutner grinned weakly, and Julia protested. "Dr. House, he just woke up."

"Ever hear of anti-malaria pills? Great invention. You take them when you travel to places like India."

Kutner's grin widened at the tone. "I'll . . . remember . . . that."

House switched firmly into medicine, tracking eye motions, asking questions, having Kutner move various body parts on command. He didn't get clear through the tests. Kutner was fading out again, and House stopped his efforts and let him drift back into sleep. He turned to the Kutners, who had been watching closely. "I think he's going to be okay," he told them. "Just let him rest. There are more tests I need to run and more questions, but for now, sleep is the best thing for him."

Julia had tears in her eyes. "Thank you, Dr. House."

House turned to leave the ICU, jerking his head at Sandra. She followed him. "Good job on the parents," he said softly, rare praise from him.

"They just needed to know how to react to him," she said. "It's hard to think when you're worried."

"People ought to be thinking all the time," he grumbled. "You don't stop just because something tough has happened. Let me know if anything changes. I'll be back later."

He limped out of the ICU and down the hall. Once in the thankfully empty elevator, he leaned against the wall of the car, letting himself react for a moment. The kid was going to be okay. It was over. But there were still those remaining answers he needed. Hopefully tonight. He'd give Kutner as long to rest this afternoon as he could, then kick the parents out for a few minutes and try to really talk to him, even if briefly.

Back in the conference room, all conversation stopped as he entered. He'd left Taub leading differentials on the email consults, not wanting to inflict the full assault team of all of them on Kutner when he was just waking up. Both Taub by the whiteboard and the egglings turned quickly to look at House, asking the silent question. "I talked to him that time," he said. "Very weak but oriented. We got through some of the neuro checks, and as far as we went, he was checking out okay."

Hollingwood smiled, and Taub relaxed. House sat down at the table, suddenly more aware of his leg hurting and how bone weary he himself was. "Go on. Might as well keep driving long as you've got the marker," he told Taub, "but you're responsible for any increase in insurance rates if you crash." He sat there quietly, surreptitiously rubbing his leg under the table and listening, sizing up the egglings - and also Taub - as they ran through the remaining consult requests. Not that these were hard ones, of course. He watched and absorbed data, plugging it in, sorting and comparing.

Taub wrote down the diagnosis on the last one, looking to House for confirmation. House nodded. "So much for the consults. Boring, as usual. I'll email the answers on those in a few minutes, but first. . ." He paused, drawing the moment out until he had every eye in the room and the tension was building. "I've made my decision on who gets Hadley's position."