Is House getting any closer to finding the meaning of his life? We'll see.

Thanks to all of you who are reading my story.

Chapter 104.

"Chase is running more tests," I told Thirteen. "I don't know where your former lover's gone."

"Foreman?" She sneered.

"What, do you have another I don't know about?"

"None that work for you." Only she could deliver that line with a deadpan face. "I have no idea where he is."

Just then, the man in question entered.

"Your ears must be ringing."

He ignored my quip and joined us at the whiteboard. "Billy?"

"That's the only patient we have at the moment."

"I didn't know he had a heart problem." He pointed at that line on the board.

"Neither did the gazillion doctors he saw before his parents brought him to us." But my mind was focused more on the combination of symptoms rather than any effort to impugn the reputations of the kid's previous doctors. "Which of these things is not like the other?"

"Huh? Oh." Thirteen squinted at my writing, as if it would make more sense out of what it meant. "To tell you the truth, none of these symptoms go together."

I made a buzzer noise with my lips. "Wrong answer. The bluish skin and heart defect could be related, and the failure to gain weight could be tied to the frequent infections, but the two sets of symptoms could have only a tenuous connection."

"Where does the calcium deficiency fit in?" Foreman asked.

I'd seen that in the blood workup, but it hadn't seemed important. "Maybe with the failure to gain weight." I skimmed through the file again. "No one did any developmental tests on him, did they?"

Thirteen shook her head. "If they did, it's not recorded here."

"Go tell Chase to add that to his list."

She nodded, then went to find the Aussie.

"Where's the short one? I haven't seen him all day."

Foreman took his eyes off the board and looked at me. "Huh?"

"I asked what Taub's doing."

"Oh, he had to go out of town for a couple of days. He'll be back tomorrow." His eyes narrowed at me. "You think you're the only one who can take off to do God knows what whenever you feel like?"

"As a matter of fact..."

Foreman rolled his eyes. He didn't notice that I was staring at what I'd written earlier.

I sat at the conference table and went through the file again, this time much more slowly. Something didn't fit, and yet all the symptoms had been observed and confirmed. What was going on with this kid? It was time for me to get a look at him in person.

Taking the file with me, without another word to Foreman, I limped out of the conference room and down the hall to Billy's room. He looked so small in the huge hospital bed. Even for a toddler he was tiny.

In a corner of the room, Thirteen was talking to a pretty young woman with curly brown hair and a taller man with horn-rimmed glasses and black hair, presumably the little boy's parents.

I approached the bed and the boy looked at me, then his mouth twitched. He rubbed his running nose with his right hand. I handed him a tissue from a box on the table next to the bed, but he didn't seem to know what to do with it.

I hadn't heard the man approach, but suddenly he was at my shoulder. "Who are you?"

Thirteen answered for me. "He's Dr. House, my boss. He heads the team working on your son's diagnosis. House, these are Mr. and Mrs. Collins."

"Does he speak?" I indicated the child with my chin.

"Well, no. But he's only fifteen months." Billy's mother was quick to make excuses.

"What about feeding himself? Trying to put on or take off his clothes? Does he like to empty cabinets?" Fifteen-month-olds should be doing all of those things.

She shook her head.

"Can he at least sit up by himself?" Maybe there was a motor problem.

Mother brightened. "Yes, of course."

Well that was something. "Does he ever try to stand?"

"Well, he tries. Mostly he crawls." She walked over to her son and put a protective arm around him.

He stared up at her without much expression, and rubbed his nose again.

"And you don't think that's strange?"

"He's been sick, most of his life," the boy's father pointed out. "He hasn't had a chance to learn to do those things."

"Billy's an only child, isn't he?" They didn't have another to compare him to, so they couldn't know how behind he was.

They both nodded, but only Mr. Collins looked at me questioningly.

"His development is slow and may be another result of what's wrong with him, another symptom." I turned to Thirteen. "Did you ask Chase to arrange the tests?"

"Yes. The psychologist, Dr. Hamill, who administers them is out today. She'll be back tomorrow."

"Can't be helped, I guess." I did a quick calculation in my head. If they were busy testing the kid, I could slip away and go to Trenton again with Jess and Nina. "She'll just confirm what we suspect, anyway." Turning back to the parents I said, "Did Dr. Hadley tell you that we found a heart defect that none of the other doctors noticed?"

Mrs. Collins gasped, but her husband only took a deep breath. "What else will you find that's wrong with our son?" he asked.

"If I knew that, I wouldn't have to do any tests."

"So you're just clutching at straws?"

"We've already uncovered more than any of the other doctors who've seen him. And he's been our patient for, what, three or four hours?"

His shoulders slumped and he nodded. "We just want to know what's causing all of his problems and what you can do about it."

"That's what we're here for."

Foreman and Chase joined us. It was getting crowded in the room, but I wasn't ready to leave.

"Thirteen says Hamill can't test him until tomorrow."

"She's seeing a patient in New York City, but they've put Billy on her schedule, listing his case as urgent. She'll test him in the morning." Chase handed me a readout from some of the kid's blood tests.

The parents watched expectantly as my eyes skimmed the data. "At least most of his blood chemistry is normal. We already knew the calcium level was a little low, but even with the other problems, the blood cell counts are within range."

"That's good, right?" the mother said.

"It means one less thing to worry about. We've started some genetic testing."

Mr. Collins nodded. "Yes, Dr. Hadley and Dr. Chase explained that."

The creases in the mother's forehead multiplied. "But if you find something, will that mean it's our fault he's sick?"

"No one can help their genetic makeup." Now, since when did I try to make parents feel better? "It's something you should consider the next time you decide the world needs you to have another child." There, that was better.

I didn't have to look to know either Thirteen or Foreman, probably both, were rolling their eyes at me.

"We'll leave you alone with Billy for a while," Chase said. "And we'll come back when we know anything more. Meanwhile, rest assured we're doing everything we can for him."

The four of us left, but once we were outside the door I turned to Chase. "Wasn't that laying it on a little thick."

"It doesn't hurt to calm their fears."

"You don't want to give 'em false hope, either," Foreman said, taking my side for a change.

That wouldn't do. Maybe it was time for me to take a new position. "Of course, Chase was spouting the truth."

Foreman glared at me, and I grinned back.

I loped down the hall and the three of them struggled to keep up. I thought about increasing my pace, but didn't think it was worth it.

"So what do you think the symptoms add up to?" Thirteen asked when we reached the conference room.

"There are still too many possibilities. We're missing something." I glanced at the white board, and walked over to add 'probable delayed development. "Maybe the tests will give us an answer, or at least another clue."

"And maybe not." Foreman was still glaring. He stood with his arms crossed as the other two took seats at the table.

"I kind of feel sorry for the boy and his parents." Ever since Chase started hanging out with Ellie Giordano and Christopher he'd become much too sensitive about sick kids.

"Well, there's nothing you can do about them, or for them, until we get some more results. What's taking the lab so long?"

"You know most of the tests you ordered aren't instantaneous," Thirteen said. "Why don't you go get something to eat?"

"You might be right." I left them and headed for the cafeteria, wondering why she'd made the suggestion. Wilson was waiting for the elevator when I reached it.

"Nice of you to show your face around here."

"I'm sure, if you could, you'd be with Nina now rather than tending to your bald-headed dying kids."

He ignored the remark, as he always does when he didn't have a comeback. "I hear you have a patient."

I nodded. "Intriguing case."

"Do you take any other kind?" The elevator arrived and we got on. "What about the Locarno-Molino connection? Any progress there?"

"Not much. I let Nina tell you about it. Give you two something to talk about."

We reached the ground floor, and headed together for the cafeteria. We each got coffee and a piece of pie, and I let Wilson pay for it all. He didn't even complain about it.

"House, Nina's very different from most of the other women I've dated." He stuffed his mouth with a forkful of pie. "I don't want to screw this up."

"Isn't that what you're always warning me that I'm going to do?"