Chapter Three

"It looks like we're meeting in here." A sharp English accent trickles down the corridor that leads to House's office. The accent is soon followed by a medium-build woman with her hair freshly done in cornrows, tiny clear beads woven into the intricate design. She's wearing dark blue jeans and a white button-up top, clearly dressed to enjoy a bit of holiday.

But House? You know, being House? His ears catch the sound and he sighs deeply then returns all his attention to the buxom blonde, the banana, and the burro.

(OMG That was too much fun to write!)

He does a double-take then lets his eyes run from her brand new white leather sandals up towards the little bit of cleavage he can see to her big, brown eyes that are now filled with questions, opens his mouth and sucks in a breathe and he says…

"Mmmmm…I've always heard em and ems melt in your mouth not in your hand, wanna come over here so I can find out for myself?" With that he smacks his lips and then licks them like the coyote used to do in those crazy melody cartoons, just as he was about to chase that annoying bird.

(Yes. Yes he did.)

From the corner, Sherlock raises his head.

Sally Donovan hisses between her teeth.

(Let's all remember there's no love lost between Sally and Sherlock. And as much as a misogynist our dear Sherlock has been all his life—and it's not because he doesn't you know, like women particularly, it's because he's never really understood them. Granted, he loves Mrs. Hudson like a second Mum, loves his Mum, and has grown very fond of a certain pathologist back in London…but he never goes out of his way to insult them just because they don't have…erm…the same bits and pieces that he does.)

(Truly.)

Like Raistlin protecting the little dwarves, Sherlock unfolds from his spot, whips his glasses off his face (lest Sally see them)(pun intended) and takes two steps closer to House.

"Back off, skinny boy. He's mine." Sally says grinding her jaw.

Sherlock figures this must be some sort of record, because it took him at least a month to get under her skin so bad she wanted to take a swing at him. He has to remember to ask John about that.

"Oooohhh…comin' over here to be my sweet chocolate?" House grins.

Sally stops directly in front of House's desk, reaches over the keyboard and shuts the monitor off. (Granted, the sounds emanating from the speakers really are quite revolting.)

"Let's get this straight right now," Sally begins, ignoring House's snort and eye-flick in Sherlock's direction. Sherlock raises his hand in the salute of brotherly love known around the world. House flips him the bird. Sally goes all honey badger and truly doesn't give a shit what these two are doing; she's not going to stand for being dissed like that by some stranger. It's different when the Freak does it. At least they have some history to fall back on. Besides, all the times Sherlock has put her down, it had nothing to do with her gender and more to do with who she picked to bed or the sloppiness of the way she did her job.

Point made.

House grins slimily up at her and Sally decides there's no point in talking.

(To borrow a phrase here, she's thinking that she's used to dealing with a better class of criminal.)

She cold cocks him with her left hand, the force of the blow snapping his head backwards and causing her to rock onto the balls of her feet.

Damn. Sherlock thinks.

House blinks.

From the doorway, three men whistle. John contemplates finding the security cameras and emailing himself and Mycroft a copy of that fight. Wilson contemplates selling hotdogs and popcorn and wonders how many people they could sell tickets to so they might view such a spectacular sights.

(And Wilson is House's BFF, so what does that say about him?)

The third man, well, he just closes his eyes and hopes that by pretending he saw nothing that it will be true.

(He's practiced this art a lot over the years…illegal military firearms for starters.)

"Greg!" Sally shouts, grabbing her hand with the left one and cradling it close to her breasts.

"Yes?!" House and the man now standing behind Sally answer at the same time.

"What the hell?" Sally asks, her head whipping between the door and the desk.

John pushes past DI Lestrade and sort of herds Sally into a chair at the conference table. "Jim, could you please get me an icepack?"

Wilson nods. "Sure, be right back." Before leaving the room, however, he goes out of his way to box House's ear. "House, you are an ass." House snarls and pulls away from Wilson, cautiously prodding at his now aching face.

John holds out his hand and Sally gingerly puts hers into it. He carefully pokes at her knuckles then smiles. "Wow, that must be some kind of record. You've never even actually decked Sherlock."

"Well, I did hit Philip once…" Sally mutters and frowns.

Meanwhile, Lestrade is being introduced and offered coffee. He is soon slumped in one of the other chairs, legs stretched out in front of him and looking every bit the exhausted copper.

"How did you get involved in this?" John asks and he nods his thanks to Doctor Wilson for the icepack. He places it on Sally's hand then drops into the chair next to Wilson, casting his eyes about his husband, who seems to be frozen to the spot.

"Uh, Sherlock?" Wilson asks, interrupting the flow of the conversation.

"He's fine, Jim, just rebooting." John offers.

Wilson looks from Sherlock to John and back to Sherlock. "Alllllright…" he says, rolling the letter 'l' because he can.

"No, seriously. He's fine." Lestrade tells him. "So, Sally, what's with the kay oh?"

Sally shrugs. "He seemed like he needed it."

Wilson chuckles and Greg laughs.

"Oh man, Sally, I could almost kiss you right now." John snorts, giving her a pat on the upper arm.

Sherlock thaws, spins on the spot and narrows his eyes at her, everything about his expression saying ewwwwwww.

"Sherlock, none of that." John says without turning around.

Sherlock's eyes widen. "Got to give you credit where it's due, Sally, I had no idea you could hit like that." He tells her as he crosses back over to the corner by the bookshelf. Within seconds he's back in the same position he started in, glasses perched on his nose.

(Notice how everyone is pretty much ignoring House at this point. He hasn't moved much, still rubbing the sore spot on his jaw. The last time a good-looking woman punched him it cost him two hundred bucks…)

"Well, got a call from Mycroft about eighteen hours ago saying you two," here Lestrade points to Sherlock and then John, "were over the other side of the pond working on a case and had a bit of trouble, then there were some airline tickets emailed to me and well, here we are."

"And you brought Sally as your muscle." Sherlock quips.

Sally frowns but a half-smile graces her lips. John and Greg pretend not to see it. Wilson is completely lost but now House is getting really pissed that no one is paying him any mind. As the others continue their conversation, he silently seethes.

(Just outside the window at House's back, a small raptor comes streaking down from the sky, apparently in pursuit of some small prey animal on the sidewalk five floors down. As it passes the window, it opens its beak silently then disappears as quickly as it appeared.)

Chapter Four

(And so back to this happy little scene we return. Got your refreshments handy? Good. Shall we do this then, o reader?)

House has had enough. He takes a deep breath and braces his arms on the sides of his desk. There's not a single person in this office right now that cannot see that some scathing retort is coming out of his mouth. They all brace themselves (except Sally, she's been filleted by Sherlock so many times over the years that she's pretty numb to dumb shit like this.) So, like the great grey dragon that he is, he opens said mouth…

…at the very same moment Thirteen appears in the doorway, wearing a white lab coat and a stricken expression.

"House, it's Mr. Thompson, he's in respiratory failure. We need you stat!" She exclaims then turns on her heel; they can all hear her running back down the corridor.

"How the hell can he be going into respiratory failure? The man has a broken toe!" House growls, raising his hands towards the ceiling as if looking for an answer; he eyes each of the newcomers in turn then follows in Thirteen's path.

Out of morbid curiosity, John follows him. Sherlock looks up from the tome he's holding, gives Lestrade a nod then completely tunes everyone else out.

(Poor Mister Thompson, he goes to the hospital because he broke his toe tripping over a tool in his own garage…then falls into respiratory failure while he's being bandaged. Now how House knew who this guy was and why he's here has to do with House's clinic hours that he somehow assigned to Thirteen. The point is: the patient is probably better off for having been on Thirteen's watch instead of House's, because a broken toe is really no mystery at all. As Sherlock would say, dull!)

Mister Thompson is about fifty-five years old, white, still broad across the shoulders but the paunch from too much beer in his younger days is moving into 'spare tire' territory. The skin of his face is already tinged blue and his brown eyes are open wide. John can see that he is clearly terrified; he grabs the man's hand and tries to talk to him as House shouts orders for a crash cart.

Mr. Thompson is opening and closing his mouth like a gasping fish. John takes a closer look between the man's lips.

"Stop!" He shouts, holding both hands out towards the nurse holding an intubation tube. John doesn't wait to see if she is going to listen before reaching out towards Mr. Thompson's face. The man tries to pull away from John, but since he can barely breath, it is a weak gesture.

"Help me!" John calls. In an instant, Thirteen is at the other side of the bed holding Mr. Thompson's head still. "Thank you." John mutters as he pries apart the man's lips. He scissors the first two fingers on his hand and slowly draws something from the patient's mouth. Even House is surprised when the object keeps coming.

(I could make all kinds of innuendos here, but I feel sorry for Mr. Thompson; the poor man's got enough problems without a perverse narrator making fun of him!)

John pulls the long, black thread-like thing as gently as he can under the circumstances. Mr. Thompson is beginning to sputter and cough around it until finally John is holding a sopping wet pile of something.

"Someone go and get Sherlock, NOW." John backs away from the patient after giving him a cursory pat on the shoulder. Two nurses rush forward; they and Thirteen take over dealing with the patient.

(Later on, Sherlock will be upset that he missed Captain Watson. Captain Watson will happily reappear when they are alone, just for him.)

"What the hell is that?" House finally asks. John turns his back to the patient and shrugs as he unravels the object. It is made of black material that could be satin or velvet and has a neatly folded flower at the end of it; obviously to keep it from being swallowed. There's something vaguely familiar about it, but at the moment John cannot place it. He looks towards Mr. Thompson who seems to be doing much better.

Sherlock is there at this shoulder before he can say another word. He takes the end of the rope (that's what John's calling it in his head and so that's good enough for me) and pulls it away from John's hands. All stretched out, it is about a foot long and the origami-flower-looking-end is about four inches in diameter.

"That's a lotus." Sherlock states, probing the wet mass with his index finger then bringing it up closer to his face; John notes with no little irritation that Sherlock's glasses have disappeared again.

Recognition floods John's senses. "House, could you look at Mr. Thompson's feet, please?"

House frowns but decides that's too weird a request to ignore, so he moves to the side of the bed and without any type of hi-howdoya-do he pulls back the sheet. The soles of Mr. Thompson's feet are relatively normal with lines and old scars: no tattooing of any kind at all. Sherlock steps in for a closer look: there's nothing between his toes, either.

"What the hell?" Mr. Thompson asks from the bed. He's thinking that the next time he breaks a toe, he's going to splint the damned thing himself and be done with it. Weird enough that one doctor is looking at him like he's a bug under glass, but to have this tall, skinny man with the crazy hair doing it, too?

"It's fine, Mr. Thompson." Thirteen croons, patting the man's hand. "Can you tell us how that object got into your throat?"

"Well, I know for damned sure it wasn't in there when I got here this morning!" Mr. Thompson is shaking from the fight his body had just gone under as well as irritation.

John tugs Sherlock's arm towards the door. "Come on guys, let's go discuss this elsewhere."

House begins to argue but Thirteen shoots him a look that plainly says you are no help whatsoever in this situation, as soon as I get answers, you'll have them, too. He raises his eyebrows at her and follows John and Sherlock out of the room.

o-o-o

It is practically no time at all before all of the men and Sally are standing around the conference table in House's office staring down at the bedraggled, sodden ropey-thing stretched out over the plastic. They are all staring at it as if it is suddenly going to sprout legs and walk out of the room on its own.

(They all look ridiculous.)

At some point, they have all asked each other what they think. Even Sherlock has nothing to say…yet.

Doctor Wilson pokes Lestrade in the arm. "How do you think he swallowed that thing so far down his esophagus before someone noticed?"

"Dammit, Jim, I am not a doctor! There are three of you here, how the hell would I know how the man swallowed that much bloody rope or whatever the hell this is..." Lestrade is as exasperated as the rest of them. He throws his hands up and yanks out a chair.

(Good lord, will someone take all these men out of their respective mind palaces?)

"Okay, so really, why are we all here?" Sally asks, pointing at the mess on the table. "Does it have anything to do with this?"

Sherlock steps away from the others, does a flouncy little turn and begins pacing the length of the room in measured strides. House returns to his desk in order to ignore them all and everyone else settles at the table. John watches Sherlock, Greg watches John watching Sherlock and Jim just looks confused.

"I'm not sure what is happening at the moment, though I do believe you'll all be glad to find out why I called you all here." Says a politely clipped accent from the doorway as there's a dull thump against the industrial carpet.

Sherlock's entire body snaps to attention and he growls at the man standing on the threshold.

"You!" John and Sherlock accuse at the same time.

(Cue the drum roll…because, of course you all know who that is, don'tcha?)