2:44 PM – Cuddy's Office, Clinic Wing
The sound of the first gunshot didn't ring like a TV pop—it cracked like a bone.
House had been mid-sentence, leaning on Cuddy's desk with his usual dramatic sigh when it happened. The second scream was real, followed by rapid footfalls. The door burst open.
Jason entered—average height, early 30s, wild-eyed but calm. The kind of calm that comes after you've made peace with doing something terrible. In his hand: a handgun, gripped awkwardly, like it wasn't meant to be there.
"You. Inside. All of you," he barked at the startled crowd in the hall.
House recognized the chaos instantly. A dozen people herded like cattle into the room: patients, one nurse, and Thirteen—her clinic coat half-buttoned, her hand still on a clipboard.
"Jason," she said, automatically reading his name from his hospital wristband. "What's going on?"
"I need a diagnosis," he said, and then everything turned sharp.
When someone moved—too fast, too close—Jason flinched, the gun fired, and Thirteen gasped.
House was already moving. She was on the floor, clutching her side, blood blooming red beneath her hand.
"You hit her," House snapped, kneeling beside her. "That's going to make this a lot more complicated."
"I didn't mean to—" Jason's voice shook. "She's still breathing, right? She's a doctor. That's good. You two stay. The rest… we'll see."
⸻
2:51 PM
"I've seen seven doctors," Jason said, pacing in front of the door. "They all said I was fine. I'm not fine. I'm dizzy all the time. My head burns. I forget words. My skin feels wrong."
House was wrapping gauze around Thirteen's waist, fingers stained red.
"Sounds like my average Tuesday," he muttered.
Jason turned sharply. "You're House."
"Unfortunately."
"Then you're going to figure this out. Every time you have a theory, you call it out. Your boss brings the drugs. And she—" he gestured at Thirteen—"takes them first."
House looked up, still crouched beside her.
"She's already been shot."
Jason's jaw twitched. "Then fix her fast. Or don't. Either way, you're both staying. You get a diagnosis, I let people go."
House didn't blink. "And if you're wrong and she dies before I'm right?"
Jason didn't answer.
⸻
3:06 PM
First drug: steroids. House muttered something about vasculitis. Cuddy's hand appeared at the door, holding the syringe. No eye contact. No words.
Jason released a teenage girl with a cast on her ankle. She limped out sobbing.
Thirteen took the injection herself. Her hands were shaking.
⸻
3:24 PM
Second drug: high-dose anti-seizure meds. "Could be atypical temporal lobe epilepsy," House suggested, scribbling symptoms on a whiteboard with blood on his fingers.
Thirteen swallowed the pill dry. Her lips were cracked. Her breath was shallow.
Jason let the nurse go.
⸻
3:42 PM
Third theory. Something rarer. House was reaching. Thirteen's head lolled slightly. Jason hadn't noticed.
"You're going to kill her," House said suddenly, louder than before. "She's not the test subject. I am."
Jason raised the gun. "You think I trust you to take your own medicine? She's the only reason I believe anything you say."
House clenched his jaw. "You want your answer? Then let me work, and stop trying to kill the only person here who's still willing to help you."
Jason didn't lower the gun.
Thirteen blinked at the ceiling. It was starting to pulse.
3:53 PM – Cuddy's Office
The fourth drug was an immunosuppressant. House pitched it with just enough arrogance to make it sound plausible.
"Could be paraneoplastic syndrome," he said to the whiteboard more than the man with the gun. "Rare autoimmune response to a hidden tumor. Most doctors don't catch it because they're too busy believing clean scans."
Jason didn't respond. He was watching Thirteen.
She was listing.
Her back had slid further down the wall. Her head lolled for a second too long before she blinked and forced herself upright again. Her fingertips were white from gripping the chair leg.
"You're running out of time," Jason said.
"You're running out of hostages," House snapped, not turning around. "And she's running out of blood."
He tossed the marker across the room and crouched beside Thirteen.
Her lips were pale. Her eyes unfocused.
"This one hits harder," she whispered. "Feels like my whole body's… slowing."
"Because it is." He pressed his hand to her neck, checking her pulse. "This drug's a sledgehammer. It's working—but not on what I wanted it to."
"I can't… stay awake much longer."
"You're not sleeping. You're monitoring. Big difference."
He stood and faced Jason.
"She needs a break," House said. "If she flatlines, you lose your test dummy and I stop playing."
Jason's mouth twitched, unsure. "Fine. What else could it be?"
House turned back to the board. Everything was crossed out except:
•Carbon monoxide exposure
•Psychogenic illness
•Paraneoplastic syndrome
•Endocrine?
He stared at the list. Then at Jason.
"You said your skin feels wrong."
Jason nodded. "Like… buzzing. Like I'm vibrating inside my bones."
House spun. "Thirteen, what do you feel?"
She blinked slowly. "Hot. But cold, too. Like I'm feverish but can't sweat."
House turned back to the board.
"Check the nails," he muttered.
Jason frowned. "What?"
"Your nails. Half-moons near the base—are they missing?"
Jason looked. "Yeah. I guess."
House's eyes narrowed. "And your heartbeat? Ever notice it racing for no reason?"
"Sometimes."
House grabbed the marker, wrote one word in huge letters:
Thyrotoxicosis.
He turned back to Jason. "Overactive thyroid. Could explain the neurological complaints, the heat sensitivity, fatigue, even the skin crawling. You've probably got a thyroid adenoma—hormones flooding your system."
Jason stared at him.
"You're serious?"
House nodded. "Beta blockers first. If they work, it confirms the diagnosis."
Jason looked at Thirteen.
"She'll take it first."
"She's already half-dead."
Jason's voice turned sharp. "Then you better be right this time."
⸻
4:07 PM – Minutes Later
Cuddy's hand reached through the door. One vial. One pill.
Thirteen tried to lift her arm but couldn't.
House took the cup, cradled her head, and helped her swallow it.
Jason stared, waiting.
One minute passed. Then two.
Jason didn't vomit. Didn't seize. Didn't faint.
He blinked. "The buzzing. It's… fading."
House watched him carefully. "Then we've got our answer."
Jason slowly lowered the gun. Just a few inches.
Then, without warning, Thirteen slumped fully to the side, her body going limp.
"Thirteen?" House dropped to her side, panic cracking his voice.
4:09 PM – Cuddy's Office
"Thirteen?"
No response.
"Remy!"
House was on the floor, already checking her airway. Her lips were pale, her pulse thready. His fingers dug into her neck as he cursed under his breath.
"She's not breathing right—get me an Ambu bag! Now!"
Jason backed away, stunned. "I didn't—she took the same dose I did—she didn't—"
"I don't care!" House barked. "Move!"
He yanked open a drawer, found a dusty emergency crash kit, and ripped it apart.
Cuddy's voice blared through the intercom. "House—what's going on in there?"
"She's crashing!" House snapped. "Call the damn code team, now!"
He tilted Thirteen's head back, started bagging her manually, one hand on her chest. "Come on, Remy," he muttered. "Don't quit on me now."
⸻
Thirteen
Somewhere beneath the surface
Everything felt underwater. A thick, slow kind of dark.
She wasn't in the room anymore. Not Cuddy's office. Not even the clinic.
The lights had dimmed.
She was in her car. Parked outside the hospital. Just sitting there. Cold.
A memory. Or something shaped like one.
Wilson had once asked her how it felt—to know she had Huntington's.
"Like being aware you're standing on a fault line," she'd said. "And waiting for the ground to move."
Now the ground was moving.
Her hand drifted to her side. No wound there. Not in this space. No pain, just heaviness. Her fingers twitched.
Then: a voice.
Distant, sharp, but familiar. "Remy!"
Another tug. A flicker of pain in her chest.
"Stay with me."
⸻
Back in the Room – 4:11 PM
"She's bradycardic," House snapped, sweat on his brow as he fumbled with the defibrillator pads. "Cuddy, tell your team to hurry the hell up or she's not going to make it!"
Jason was sitting against the far wall now, gun abandoned, knees pulled up to his chest. "I didn't mean to kill her," he whispered. "I just wanted answers."
House ignored him, pressed the pads to her chest.
"Clear."
The jolt made her body lift off the floor.
Nothing.
"Again. Clear."
Thirteen gasped.
Not much—but enough.
Her eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused.
House leaned over her, his voice quieter now. "That's it. Breathe. Don't you dare check out before I get to say I told you so."
She managed the faintest eye-roll before fading again.
4:20 PM – Princeton-Plainsboro Clinic Hallway
The SWAT team moved fast once the door was breached.
Jason didn't resist—didn't speak, even as they shoved him face-first against the wall and clicked the cuffs shut around his wrists. The gun was already discarded, forgotten on the floor beside a knocked-over chair and a half-empty med tray.
"You're being charged with unlawful imprisonment, criminal possession of a weapon, and attempted murder," one officer barked as they hauled him out. "Let's go."
Jason didn't argue. He just kept muttering the same sentence, over and over:
"I just wanted to know what was wrong with me."
House didn't watch him go.
He was too busy watching Cuddy storm in like a wildfire in heels.
"You stayed in that room." Her voice was quiet—but it cracked like glass. "You let him keep you in there, you let him use Thirteen like a lab rat, and you played along."
"She volunteered."
"She was shot."
House didn't blink. "And still more coherent than most of my fellows."
Cuddy's jaw clenched. "You gambled with her life. Again."
"I saved her life."
"No," she snapped, stepping in closer. "You risked her life to solve a puzzle. There's a difference."
House didn't respond. The code team was stabilizing Thirteen behind them—oxygen on, IV pumping, her vitals climbing slowly back into range.
"She lived," he said, finally. "And I was right."
Cuddy looked at him for a long moment—like she was seeing something sharp and broken just beneath the sarcasm.
"Next time, when someone pulls a gun in my hospital, you don't stay. You don't negotiate. And you don't sacrifice your team."
She turned and walked away before he could answer.
⸻
5:02 PM – Recovery Ward
The lights in the ICU were low. One monitor beeped in slow, steady rhythm. Another hummed quietly with a drip.
Thirteen lay still, eyes closed, oxygen cannula looped over her nose, the edge of a bandage peeking out from beneath the blanket on her shoulder.
House sat in the chair beside her bed, leg outstretched, cane balanced across his knees.
He hadn't moved in twenty minutes.
He hated hospitals. Hated this wing. Hated the antiseptic smell and the way time moved like sludge when there was nothing left to diagnose.
But he stayed.
He watched the monitor rise and fall. Watched her fingers twitch once in a dream. Watched her breathing slow and steady.
"You don't get to leave," he murmured, voice low. "Not before me."
There was no answer, but she didn't crash either.
That would have to be enough.
ICU – 5:48 PM
The world came back in fragments.
First, sound.
A distant, rhythmic beep. The soft whirr of air through a tube. A voice, low and indistinct—like someone speaking underwater.
Then light.
A pale wash of fluorescent white against closed eyelids. Too bright. She flinched instinctively, and something tugged near her ribs. Pain followed. Dull, deep. Not sharp like before—more like the echo of it.
She wasn't dead. That much was clear.
Then she tried to move.
A mistake. Her arm felt heavy, her mouth like sandpaper. She let out a quiet groan before she meant to.
"Don't do that," a voice said. "It'll ruin the suspense."
She blinked.
Blur, then color, then clarity.
House was slouched in the chair by her bed, legs crossed, cane resting lazily across his lap. He looked like he'd been there for a while—but he also looked like he'd never admit it.
"You're alive," he added. "Which, statistically speaking, ruins about half the bets placed in the ER."
Thirteen let out the ghost of a laugh. "Damn. Sorry to disappoint."
Her voice was hoarse. Scratchy. He reached behind him and held out a small cup of ice chips, which she accepted with a weak, trembling hand.
"SWAT stormed the place. Jason's in custody. Cuddy's considering sacrificing me to the board. Standard Tuesday," he said casually, as if listing lunch options.
She shifted slightly. "How long?"
"You were out for a few hours. Seizure, bradycardia, impressive lack of self-preservation."
"Was I right?"
He raised an eyebrow.
"About the diagnosis," she added, lips twitching upward.
"Oh, that. Technically, yes. You were the first one to rule out psych, so I suppose that earns you a gold star and a bullet wound."
She exhaled, eyes drifting toward the window where the sky was starting to darken.
"Thanks," she said softly.
House didn't answer right away. He tapped his cane once against the floor, then stood.
"You scared the hell out of everyone," he said finally. "Even me."
She blinked up at him.
"You going to be okay?"
She nodded slowly. "Eventually."
He looked like he might say something else. But then he turned.
"I'll let Cuddy know you're back among the mostly living. Don't die while I'm gone. It'll make me look bad."
And with that, he limped out of the room.
Thirteen watched the door for a long moment before letting her eyes drift closed again—only this time, it was just sleep.
Not escape. Not fading.
Just rest.