by Mara

Summary: Henry McCoy brings a patient to Gregory House with a mysterious illness.

The young Asian woman lying in the bed looked healthy, House thought, just before she looked up at him. Then her eyes met his and he changed his mind. Her eyes were *old* and her expression said–

“Go to hell.”

“Usually it takes at least five minutes before my patients tell me that.”

“You’re a doctor?”

House looked around. “Wait, is this a test? The answer is…tachycardia. Right? How about bubonic plague? C’mon, tell me, did I pass?” He fluttered his eyelashes.

Jubilee rolled her eyes. “You’ve got to be that friend of McCoy’s. You’re just the way he described you.” Waving a hand at the chair, she closed the copy of Vogue she’d been reading. “Sorry about telling you to go to hell. I thought you were another social worker.”

“Another social worker?” House slumped into a chair, prepared to be entertained.

“Yeah, they keep coming by all earnest and trying to convince me that the school mistreated me somehow. The school didn’t do anything wrong, and if they take me away, I’ll run away again.”

House shrugged. “Okay. If you wanna stay at the school, that’s fine with me. I’m only here for the medicine.”

Frowning, Jubilee eyed him. “I guess you’re okay if Big Blue says you are.”

“Gee, thanks. I’m touched. So, what happened?”

She looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t know. I got the same headache every mutant did. Everybody was all freaked out, but we were basically okay. Then the next day I suddenly felt like crap and fell over and everyone was running around. Next thing I knew, I woke up in the lab with everyone hovering over me like I was dying or something.”

“You were.” House studied her. “I assume they’ve told you that you had all the hallmarks of a heart attack, right?”

“Yeah, but everyone says I’m too young for that.”

“What drugs did you do?”

“What?” She sat up straight and glared at him.

“Drugs. On the street. When you ran away the first time.” When she just stared at him, he rolled his eyes. “You said you’d ‘run away again,’ which implies that you did so a first time. So, tell me what drugs you did the first time you ran away.”

“I didn’t do any drugs!” She threw her magazine at him, and he batted it away with the cane.

“Prostitution?” he asked in his most bored tone.

“No way!” Her glare looked like it could bore a hole in his head.

“What’d you do on the streets, then?”

Her breathing was heavy as she continued to glare at him for a long moment. Then she held up her hands. “This,” she said. And a shower of fireworks erupted from her hands, filling the room.

“Nice,” House said, watching them in appreciation.

The door closed with a bit more than necessary force as McCoy entered.

“Jubilee.”

“Sorry,” she responded, not looking at all sorry. “But he got me mad ’cause he wanted to know what my mutation was and he figured I wouldn’t tell him.”

House’s eyebrows went up and he studied Jubilee, ignoring whatever McCoy was saying. It wasn’t often that a patient interested him as a person, but this Jubilee looked like she might manage it.

“Gregory!” McCoy said firmly.

“Hmm?” House refocused. “Oh, there you are. I was just asking some questions.”

“I’m sure you were.” McCoy gave him an especially long-suffering look. “I think perhaps I’ll stay here for the rest of them.”

“Whatever.” House shrugged. “Okay, so you were on the streets but not doing anything fun. And then you…”

* * * * *

The history took two hours, and House found himself vastly amused by the biting sarcasm of his patient. Jubilee was going to drive his team *insane* and it would be *fun*.

After the history was done, House dragged McCoy to the cafeteria and made him buy them both lunch. The cafeteria was full, which meant that the noise was bouncing off the acoustic tiles more than the designers had intended.

“What’s really going on?” House took a bite of his sandwich.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you know damned well she didn’t have a heart attack.”

“I know, Greg. That’s why I’m here.” McCoy spoke with exaggerated care. “So your famed diagnostic skill can determine why my young friend collapsed so precipitously and alarmingly.”

“Uh huh.” House took some french fries off McCoy’s plate. “And you came here without a single theory in your furry blue head.”

“If I knew what was wrong, we wouldn’t be here.”

“Right. So, what don’t I know about my patient that might help me diagnose her?”

“I–”

“Don’t bother. Everybody lies. My first job is to figure out what they’re lying about. And *you*,” he pointed one of the stolen fries at McCoy, “are lying about the circumstances of her illness. So is she. She might have gotten away with it, but you’re a terrible liar. Always have been.”

McCoy was thinking, so House went back to eating his fries, knowing the battle was half won.

McCoy opened his mouth, but House beat him to it. “I can’t diagnose her without all the data. You know that. You knew it before you got here or you wouldn’t have brought the highly anonymous data you did.”

Closing his eyes, McCoy was silent again. When he opened them, all he said was, “Not here.” He stood.

Grinning, House snagged one last fry and picked up his cane.

Without speaking, McCoy led the way to the elevator. The door shut behind them–empty, as the doctor, two nurses, and two family members about to board all stepped back at the grim look on McCoy’s face.

McCoy lifted his watch to his mouth and tapped a button. House was about to make a sarcastic comment when McCoy spoke. “Scott? I need clearance on the roof.”

“You’ll have it in two,” the voice of the man with the red shades said from McCoy’s watch.

House blinked. Okay, *that* was unexpected.

The elevator dinged while House was staring and he followed McCoy out into the nondescript blue-gray corridor that led to the roof.

McCoy strode onto the roof without even checking that House was following, and House’s surprise hit stratospheric levels. McCoy was the kind of guy who held doors for cripples even during an earthquake, so this was really serious.

His surprise entered orbit as he watched the way McCoy’s eyes swept the seating area. It was almost…military.

House opened his mouth to ask a question, but the look McCoy gave him…well, for once, it seemed like a good time to discover the wonders of discretion. So they stood just beyond the door and waited, kept company by the sounds of an approaching ambulance and the pigeons that nested in the corner.

Eventually, McCoy’s watch beeped and he hit a button. “Hank?” the voice said. “The Professor and Logan report you’re clear. Are you sure…?”

“Thank you, Scott. Yes, I’m sure.” He hit another button.

House limped over to a bench and lowered himself onto it. “This is going to be *good*,” he said with relish.

But McCoy remained unsmiling as he sank down on the bench next to him.

“Two weeks ago,” McCoy said, “agents of the U.S. government stormed the school and kidnapped several of our students. At the same time, they took Scott Summers and Professor Xavier prisoner. They would have taken everyone, save for our contingency plans.”

House sat up straight, all amusement fled. “One of the kids was Jubilee.” It wasn’t a question. McCoy’s strange behavior made sense now: He was angry. Angrier than House had ever seen him.

“Their ultimate plan involved using…” McCoy paused. “Using something stolen from us to destroy all mutants. The plan was discovered by a very powerful and dangerous man.”

“A mutant.”

“Yes.” McCoy scowled. “He also planned to use this item–”

“Which you’re not going to identify.”

“Which I will not identify,” McCoy affirmed, nodding his head, “to kill non-mutants instead.”

House waved a hand. “That part’s irrelevant. What happened to the kids?”

“We don’t know for certain.”

“What do you mean? She seemed verbal enough to me.”

McCoy’s expression got bleaker. “Jubilee is the oldest child who was taken. The others were substantially younger. They tell a jumbled tale of threats and guns and a cell, but we can’t be sure that their memories haven’t been tampered with.”

House started to ask if someone could *do* that, but changed his mind. The Henry McCoy he knew wouldn’t say it unless it was at least a possibility. His mind raced. “So for all you know, they turned her into a lab rat.”

“Yes.” McCoy sighed. “I’ve tested everything I can think of, but I can’t be certain.”

Bastards experimenting on *his* patient. “I didn’t even vote for this president,” House said as he considered how to move forward.

McCoy knew him well enough to ignore the non sequitur.

House banged his cane on the ground a few times. “Why you? I mean, why has your school got this *thing* that the government came after?”

McCoy shook his head. “I can’t tell you anything further, but I can assure you it’s not germane to this case.” He held up a hand. “And don’t presume you can lecture me twice on what you need to know.”

House shrugged, knowing he’d reached McCoy’s limit. “Tell me everything about the conditions of this cell. Everything. Mold? Spores? Were any of the other kids sick?”

McCoy took a deep breath. “I’ll do my best.”

* * * * *

Cameron, Chase, and Foreman found House deep in thought in his office six hours later. “What’ve you got for me?” he asked as they stopped in front of his desk. He didn’t look away from the rubber ball he was tossing repetitively against the wall.

“Everything Dr. McCoy told us is confirmed,” Cameron said. “There’s no damage to the heart, no evidence that anything was wrong.”

“Except?” He grabbed the ball out of the air and threw it at Chase, who caught it. “Nice catch. Now tell me what you *did* find.”

“How do you know we found something?”

“Because a healthy kid keeled over with an apparent heart attack that promptly disappeared. You’d better have something or we’re all going to be consulting ouija boards.”

Cameron shrugged. “We’ve still got some blood tests outstanding, but so far, we’ve got nothing. No viruses, her heart looks good, all scans are clean and normal.”

Foreman broke in. “She has slightly elevated catecholamines, neuropeptide Y, brain natriuretic peptide, and serotonin, but that’s it, House.”

House frowned. “Catecholamines?”

“So she’s under stress. Big deal.” Foreman scowled. “It doesn’t mean anything. I’m sure we all have elevated levels these days.”

“You still think she had a heart attack?”

“No, I don’t.”

“What about pheochromocytoma?” Chase asked.

House paused. “Vascular tumor of the adrenal gland? Nice. And it certainly would explain the catecholamines.”

“Should I look for a tumor?”

“No.” House didn’t even pause to think. “It doesn’t explain any of her earlier symptoms.” Chase threw the ball back at House and he caught it, bouncing it off the ceiling a few times. “Get me some of the other students and teachers. I want to know what’s different about her.”

* * * * *

Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital had witnessed many strange things, especially since the arrival of one Gregory House, but the testing of a selected sample of teachers and students from the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters definitely ranked up there.

Not that most people in the hospital even knew anything out of the ordinary was happening, as one of the school’s requirements was secrecy.

Professor Xavier arrived first, masquerading as a wealthy donor. (McCoy pointed out later that the Professor *was* a wealthy donor, and Cuddy said she was glad House hadn’t known that in advance or he would have been rude. House stuck his tongue out at her.)

Summers of the red shades arrived later with a hulking youngster who House figured could probably heave all of them through a window. He made a note to have Chase draw their blood.

A striking woman with purple hair herded three young children in front of her a few minutes later. House eyed her low-cut blouse with appreciation until she turned and glared at him from across the crowded lobby. “I certainly appreciate the thought, but we’re a tad busy at the moment,” a sharp British voice said in his head.

House’s good leg slipped on the tile floor and he nearly slid off his perch. He imagined a row of fluffy bunnies hopping across a lawn. Foreman was getting her.

House was picturing bunnies so hard, he nearly missed the last contingent. At the last minute he glimpsed a man in a plaid shirt with odd hair and the kind of sideburns that went out of fashion in the ’70s, accompanied by two teenagers–one with a white streak in her hair, wrapped in a cloak. Huh, House thought as he mentally assigned them to himself. They looked intriguing.

* * * * *

With his usual blithe assurance, House appropriated a few temporarily empty rooms for the exams and he sent his fellows off–Cameron to continue testing Jubilee for everything he could think of, Chase and Foreman to test the new vict–er, subjects.

The paperwork they’d given him said his first patient was named Marie. “Okay, give me some blood,” he said as she slid into the room, gloved fingers plucking at the edge of her cloak.

She shrank back. “Pardon me?”

“Blood.” He waved peremptorily at the exam table. “That *is* why you’re here, unless you’re actually a candystriper taking a tour.”

“I was supposed to explain, my skin–”

“Is only of interest to me in a perverted sense. I’m not asking you to strip.”

“Glad to hear it,” a voice said from behind him, accompanied by a sound that sounded remarkably like a sword being removed from a scabbard.

House’s eyebrows shot up and he turned toward the now-open door. The man with the sideburns was leaning in the doorway, but nobody could have confused his pose with actual relaxation…especially since his hands had very shiny, sharp-looking metal peeking out of the knuckles.

“And you are…?” House asked.

The man stepped in and shut the door behind him, the metal sliding back into his knuckles. “I’m the guy that’s gonna kick your ass.”

“I’m so scared.” House rolled his eyes and glanced at the charts. “Since you’re here, you can give me your blood too. You must be Logan. Although I suppose Kitty wouldn’t be a bad name for you, what with the claws and everything.”

Behind him, the girl snorted.

Logan glared at both of them. “Oh yeah, laugh it up, Rogue.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, still snickering, “but you have to admit it was funny.”

Logan actually *growled*.

“Good kitty kitty,” House said, waving a syringe. “Now c’mere and give me some blood.”

* * * * *

House was glaring at his computer, which was being exceedingly unhelpful, when Wilson ducked his head in.

“What’d it do to you?” Wilson asked.

“Huh?” House looked up. “What do you want?”

“I was going to buy you lunch, but if you’d rather commune with your computer, I could ask Cameron instead.”

“She’s busy running bloodwork. Or batting her cleavage at the lab to finish it faster.” House heaved himself out of the chair with a stifled groan. “Don’t think you’ll get out of feeding me that easily.”

Wilson coughed. “Never,” he said, holding the door open.

As House stepped past, he said, “But you owe me something better than cafeteria food.”

“I owe you? I know your logic is not like our crazy Earth logic, but how exactly do *I* owe *you*?”

House snorted as he ogled the buxom blonde walking past. “Well, you’re about to ask me about my latest patient, so I figure I at *least* deserve Chinese.”

Wilson shook his head as the blonde glared at House. “Why would you think I would ask about your patient? You usually talk about them no matter what I want.”

“No, I talk about the case, not the patient.” House glanced at him sideways. “*You* talk about the patients.”

“So why would I be particularly interested in your patient?” Wilson smiled at a gaggle of pretty nurses huddled around the nursing station.

“Keep it in your pants,” House said, pushing the elevator button.

“Stuff it, House.”

“Back to our original topic, you think my patient is right up your alley: plucky young girl, bravely facing an unknown fate, a mutant, sick and alone in a world that hates and fears her.” His voice lowered, turning into a parody of the 11 o’clock news.

“Assuming that those things interest me, what’s the problem?” Wilson’s smile was ironic and charmingly self-deprecating.

The elevator door opened and House pushed past the people trying to exit. “Cripple here, get out of my way.” Once Wilson had managed to sidle his way in and the elevator was descending, House told him, “The problem is that I, to my deep surprise, find I rather like the patient.”

Wilson grabbed at the elevator wall. “What? Quick, somebody call Ripley’s Believe It or Not.”

“She’s intelligent, cranky, and a smartass. It’s refreshing.”

Wilson politely refrained from making any of the obvious replies.

“So I won’t–” House stopped as the elevator door opened and they were assaulted by noise. “What the hell is that?” He smacked his cane against the door as it started to close again. Gesturing grandly at Wilson, he said, “After you.”

“What a gentleman.” Wilson stepped out and House followed.

“Huh,” House said as he stared at the lobby full of milling reporters and the crowds gathering outside the glass doors.

“What are you doing here?” Cuddy said as she grabbed their arms and dragged them toward her office.

“Oh, honey, I didn’t know you cared.” House fluttered his eyelashes. “But do we have to bring Jimmy along? He’s such a spoilsport.”

Cuddy pushed them both into her office, slammed the doors shut, and lowered the blinds so fast, House was ready to ask if she had the X gene herself.

Cuddy whirled and glared. “You were supposed to stay in your office. You didn’t answer your pager or your phone.”

“I saw it was you, so I ignored it.” House slumped down on the couch. “I take it this means I don’t get Chinese for lunch.”

“I think so,” Wilson said, sitting next to him.

“Lunch is the least of your worries,” Cuddy said as she dialed her phone. “Right now, we’re going to figure out what we’re going to tell the press.”

“Nothing,” House said, head leaned back as he stared at the ceiling.

“Nothing?” Cuddy hung up the phone. “You’re seen what’s going on and–”

“We’re not going to tell them anything.” House sat up, focusing all his attention on Cuddy. “There’s a kid upstairs who was kidnapped from her school by the U.S. military, stripped, and dumped in a cell. We don’t know what else happened, but now she’s sick and she’s my patient. And nobody’s going to get near her or invade her privacy until she’s no longer my patient.”

Cuddy and Wilson were frozen in place.

“As far as I’m concerned, the reporters and the demonstrators and the morons can all go fuck themselves. We’re not telling them a goddamn thing about Jubilation Lee.”

Cuddy let out a slow breath, putting the phone carefully back in its cradle. “Are you done?”

House slumped back in the sofa, feeling drained and a little stupid. “Yeah.”

Wilson and Cuddy exchanged meaningful glances and House groaned to himself. Great. Now they were going to expect him to give a shit about every snot-nosed kid who came through the clinic. Like *that* was going to happen.

“So,” Wilson said, “how are we going to deal with the press?”

Cuddy smile was evil and sexy. “Oh, I have a few ideas about that.”

House fought down a wave of lust. “What does that mean?”

“Well, I could go out and self-righteously explain that HIPAA prevents us from giving details about our patient’s health.”

House snorted. “If that’s your plan–”

“Please.” She gave him a disgusted look. “I was actually thinking of that congressman who caused a stink over his daughter’s care, when it was actually his own idiocy that didn’t get her treated.”

House started to grin and Wilson covered his face with his hands.

“A leak in just the right place…” Cuddy smiled. “Now sit tight while I clear the lobby and get things rolling.” She strode out, heels clicking and gorgeous ass wagging with excitement.

“You’ve had a bad effect on her,” Wilson said.

“Oh no,” House said reverently, “she was always like this. You just didn’t notice. It’s what makes her so hot.” He sighed happily.

* * * * *

Leaning against the wall eight hours later, House balanced on his good leg, absently rubbing at his other thigh. He mentally ran through the test results for the eighty-fifth time, coming up, as always, with a big fat nothing.

Across the hallway, on the other side of the nurse’s station, he could see Jubilee leaning back against her pillows, idly using the remote to change stations.

“Where are the others?” Wilson asked, leaning against the wall next to him.

“I sent them home.”

Wilson nearly fell over. “You *what*?”

House glared at him for a long moment, found he couldn’t come up with a single plausible lie, and shrugged. “I ran out of ideas for tests. When I suggested a third 24-hour catecholamine urine sample, Cameron told me I was full of shit and walked out. Chase and Foreman followed her.”

“So you didn’t *send* them home. They left.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t stop them.”

“How generous of you.”

House ignored him, staring across the hall at his patient, willing his brain to come up with something new.

“Why don’t you go talk to her?” Wilson asked quietly.

“What?” House turned to stare at him.

“Go talk to Jubilee. Standing around outside her room is stalkerish, even for her doctor.”

“I’m not stalking her. I’m…waiting for inspiration to strike.” Scowling, House stared at his recalcitrant patient.

“Uh-huh.” Wilson’s eye-roll was practically audible. “Look, the world won’t come to an end just because you don’t despise your patient. Some of us even manage to survive while *liking* most of our patients.”

“And see where *that* got you,” House replied automatically.

Wilson threw his hands in the air. “There’s no talking to you in this mood. Stand here and mope if that’s what you want, but your patient looks bored. Maybe giving your brain a rest will jar something loose.” And he strode off down the hallway, muttering something that sounded profane.

Tapping fingers on the wall, House looked at Jubilee. She *did* look bored. With a shrug, he pushed off the wall and headed toward her room. When he slid the door open, Jubilee grinned at him as she turned the TV off. “Finally decided to join us?”

He couldn’t help grinning back. “Guess so.”

“Yay,” muttered the room’s other occupant, the guy with red sunglasses. What was his name again? Oh, Summers. The one with the hot dead fiancée.

“And a good evening to you,” House said, bowing ironically. The other man just sighed.

Jubilee hid a grin as House slid into a chair next to her bed. “So,” she said, “I’m assuming you’re not here to tell me I can go home.”

“Not a chance. Not until I know what’s wrong.”

She sighed. “That’s what I figured.” She turned off the TV. “So, what’s next?”

“I have no idea,” House said, tapping the cane on the floor irritably. At a strangled sound from the other side of the room, he turned and glared. “What? You want me to lie to her?”

“No,” Summers said with a sigh. “But it might be a bit more inspirational if you didn’t admit you had no idea what was going on.”

“Do you want to be inspired?” House asked Jubilee.

She grinned. “Oh, I’m not getting in between you two. Fight it out yourselves. Entertain me.”

Summers’ look was long-suffering, but House got the impression that he’d kill anyone who got near her with bad intent, so that made the Summers kid not a total waste.

“What do you think is wrong?” House asked her.

“Me?” She blinked. “I’m not a doctor.”

“Yeah, but you’re the one who’s experiencing the symptoms. What do you think is wrong?”

“I don’t know.” She stared down at her hands for a little while. “I just want to go back to the school and have things get back to normal, you know? Arguing with Bobby, and trying new nail polish with Marie and stuff.” She grinned and looked at Summers. “Hell, I’m even ready to go back to class.”

“You won’t say that when you see my midterm,” Summers said with a ghost of a smile.

Jubilee glowed under his regard and House upgraded his opinion of Summers once again. “We’re missing something,” House said, leaning on his cane. “And that pisses me off.”

“Yeah, Hank’s like that too. Not that he’d say it pisses him off. He’d say–”

“That he finds his inability to access the correct answer to be indubitably frustrating.” House grinned.

“Yeah, that.”

“Tell me about the school,” House said. “Maybe there’s something there.” Summers opened his mouth, but House beat him to it. “I already know it’s a school for mutants, remember? What else could she give away?”

Summers’ mouth twitched in what House would swear was amusement, before he leaned back in his chair and waved at Jubilee. “Go ahead,” he said.

Jubilee was stifling a giggle when House looked at her and he wondered what he was missing. Maybe he could get it out of McCoy later…

House took a nap in Coma Guy’s room, grabbed yogurt in the cafeteria, and was back in his office before the others arrived. He didn’t bother to shave, figuring making them feel a little guilt about leaving him alone was never a bad thing.

They didn’t look particularly guilty, but they did look discouraged as they filed in and grabbed coffee. Conversation was stifled.

House limped from one end of the room to the other, feeling their eyes on him.

“We’re missing something,” he said when they’d stopped trying to discuss the weather.

“Maybe she’s perfectly healthy,” Foreman said. “That’s what all our tests say. Maybe this once they’re right.”

“Then what about the apparent heart attack?” Chase asked.

“Maybe it doesn’t exist. There weren’t any of the tell-tales, so maybe she just fainted.”

Chase snorted. “You think *Dr. Henry McCoy* misdiagnosed a fainting teenager as something more serious?”

“He *was* under a lot of stress, what with everybody keeling over,” Foreman said, dropping his pen on the table with a final-sounding thunk.

“McCoy knows a faint,” House said, kicking Foreman’s chair as he walked by. “If he says there was fluid in her lungs and suppressed breathing, it was there.”

“I’ve gone over the results from the other students and teachers with a fine-tooth comb.” Foreman shook his head. “I’m not seeing anything different.”

“What about Jubilee’s catecholamines?” Cameron asked.

“That,” House said, stopping in his tracks, “is the question. There’s something about them…” He trailed off as his beeper chirped and he grabbed it, barely noticing as his three fellows looked at their own pagers. “Damn it,” he said.

Cursing his slow speed, he stomped after them, each twinge of his leg a personal affront.

By the time House reached Jubilee’s room, the area around it looked nearly as bad as the front of the hospital. But because he could see Jubilee through the glass sitting up in bed and talking to someone, he decided he had a moment to stop and take stock.

Okay, those nurses in the corner he could ignore–they were in the middle of hubbub to watch the new hunky guy from Security. And the two doctors from Radiology were here to watch the nurses.

Which left some random bystanders, gaping like hungry baby birds, the head nurse, three guys from Security, Cameron, Chase, Foreman, the mutant named Logan, and several of the morons who’d been hanging around outside the hospital. (Somehow House doubted they were on this floor to get Jubilee’s autograph.)

The morons were doing a lot of yelling and one was bleeding from a small laceration in his shoulder.

The shouting escalated and House strode forward until he stood directly between the security guards and the unwashed rabble. Before anyone could move, he smacked the idiots on the knees with his cane, turning their shouts into yelps of pain. “Shut up,” he said to them.

Turning to the head nurse–Irma, an older woman who was tougher and more sensible than any three doctors he knew combined, not that he’d admit it to her–and asked, “What the hell is going on?”

She gave him a look that he suspected meant trouble later, but crossed her arms and answered. “Those three yahoos snuck up here and–”

One of the yahoos opened his mouth, but when everyone glared at him and House thumped his cane meaningfully, the man shut up.

Irma sniffed. “They got past me while I was dealing with a crisis down the hall. Next thing I knew, they were hollering and shouting and this guy,” she pointed at Logan, “was waving knives at them. And who gave him permission to have knives on *my* ward?” She glared at House, assuming (with some justification) that it was somehow his fault.

The security guys shifted restlessly. “Uh, shouldn’t we–”

“You,” House said, turning to the yahoos. “What the hell were you doing bothering my patient?”

The two men and a woman exchanged wide-eyed looks. “We’re–” one started.

“Leaving right now,” Cuddy said from behind House, “before I have you arrested for trespassing.” House turned to watch her as she stalked down the hallway, looking seriously hot as she scowled at everyone indiscriminately.

Everyone except Irma looked abashed.

Cuddy crossed her arms and said very quietly and very seriously. “Leave. Now.”

The three people took off at a dead run for the stairs, with the security people following at a more sedate pace.

House tried to decide whether to be amused at their reaction, or annoyed that he didn’t get to interrogate them. When Cuddy turned her glare on him, he settled for looking innocent.

“Better you than me, buddy,” Logan muttered as he walked by, back toward Jubilee’s room.

House started to lean nonchalantly against the nurse’s station, but when Irma took a step toward him, he changed trajectory and followed Logan toward Jubilee’s room, calling to Cuddy over his shoulder. “Must check on my patient.”

Behind him, the crowd began to disperse. Cuddy stopped Cameron, Chase, and Foreman, and House wondered what she was saying to them, but not enough to tangle with her in this foul a mood.

He ducked into the room and slid the door closed behind him with a thunk. Logan smirked at him and House shrugged. “Hell hath no fury,” he said.

“She didn’t look scorned to me,” Logan said. “She looked pissed off and ready to take it out on you.”

“Well, it’s only because she loves me so.”

“Uh-huh.” Logan leaned against the wall next to Jubilee’s bed, watching the goings-on through the glass. He looked entirely relaxed, but House was sure that any aggressive move made in their direction would dispel that illusion pretty quickly.

House turned to Jubilee and Kitty (who he hadn’t seen since drawing her blood), who were watching them with some amusement. But there were definite signs of strain on Jubilee’s face, he thought, and he cursed Cuddy for chasing the morons off before he could castigate them. It would have been nice to get some vitriol out on a truly *deserving* target.

“So, what’d those refugees from the circus want?”

Jubilee glared and crossed her arms. “Don’t say anything mean about the circus. We’ve got a friend who was in the circus.”

House opened his mouth to say something snarky, but he noticed Logan using one of his claws to clean under a fingernail, and he reconsidered. “Riiight,” he said. “Getting back to the point…what did they want?”

“They wanted to preach,” Kitty said, scowling with an expression nearly identical to Jubilee’s.

“Mutants are against their religion,” Jubilee said, leaning her head back against her pillows.

Kitty was looking at Jubilee now. “Well, people like that are against *my* religion. So there.”

“I’m sure that argument was very convincing,” House said absently, watching Jubilee as well. He flicked a glance at the monitors beside her bed and took a step closer.

“You,” he said, waving a hand at Logan. “Get out there and get my lackeys in here.”

“Why?” Logan said, looking suspicious.

“Well, I thought it might be helpful to have some other doctors in the room when the kid collapses.” House was beside the bed, hand on Jubilee’s arm.

“What? What are–”

The alarms in the room were loud enough that Logan’s claws shot out of his hands and he snarled.

“Clear the room,” House snarled back. “And get my team in here. Now!”

Jubilee was gray and unresponsive, looking like any heart attack victim he’d ever seen, except that that was *impossible*.

Foreman, Cameron, Chase, and Cuddy ran in, and House handed the oxygen mask in his hand to Cameron.

“Chase, get the ECG in here. I want to see what the hell’s going on while the rest of you keep her alive.” He looked at Kitty, who seemed frozen in shock. “And get the kid out of here.”

House stepped back and allowed the more fleet-of-foot to take over, although it galled him as much as ever, and he gritted his teeth. Cuddy came to stand next to him. “House,” she said, her expression softening.

“Quiet.” He wanted to listen to what was going on.

“Right.” She sighed, patting his arm and stepping out just ahead of Chase, who was barreling in with an ECG machine, followed by McCoy.

House slapped on the leads, ignoring yelps from his team as they tried to work. He flipped on the ECG, and he and McCoy hovered over the paper as it scrolled out of the machine, expecting…well, expecting useful data.

“What’s *that*?” Foreman muttered, peering over his shoulder.

McCoy growled quietly. “I don’t know. Greg?”

“I have no idea.” Scowling, House stared at the pattern he was seeing, trying to figure out why it looked familiar. It wasn’t normal, but it sure as hell wasn’t a heart attack.

“That’s not an MI,” Chase said, standing on tiptoes to look at the paper.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” House elbowed Cameron. “I’m assuming our patient is stable, so take this and get everyone in the hospital to look at it. Someone must recognize this pattern.”

“On it.” She tore off a lengthy section and jogged out of the room.

“Foreman, I want a TTE. I want data while it’s fresh.”

Foreman nodded and grabbed the phone to get the necessary equipment.

Chase raised his eyebrows. “What about me?”

“Stay here and help McCoy talk to her friends. They’re going to want someone to be reassuring or something. Oh, and if she wakes up, find out what symptoms she had before she collapsed.” House didn’t wait for a response, just turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” McCoy asked, already seated at Jubilee’s bedside and holding her hand.

“To think, damn it.”

* * * * *

Cameron found him an hour later in his office, sitting with his leg up on a stool, accompanied by a tired-looking Chase and Foreman. She tossed the now-crumpled EKG strip at them and leaned against the glass wall.

“Well?”

“Most people had no idea what it was, but five said it looked familiar, although they couldn’t place it.”

House asked, “Which five?”

Blinking, Cameron thought for a second. “Chin, Reilly, Gifford, Feiler, and Weiss.”

“You went to Psychiatry?”

“You said to ask everyone.”

“True.” He pondered. “Three cardiologists, one intensivist, and one psychiatrist.”

Foreman shrugged. “We’re still nowhere. We’ve got an EKG result that nobody recognizes and that disappeared almost as soon as we saw it, the TTE showed a perfectly normal left ventricle and a weakened contraction in the middle and upper portions, which *also* disappeared. And we’ve got a patient who went from mostly dead to healthy almost as quickly.”

“Mostly dead isn’t totally dead,” House said. “That’s something.”

“Not unless you’ve got Miracle Max on speed dial,” Chase said. When House raised his eyebrows, he shrugged. “You started it.”

House tapped his cane on the floor. “I’m going for a walk. I need to think. Somebody get me the heart biopsy results.”

They scurried around him and he stomped off down the hall, turning the data over in his mind one more time.

“A perfectly healthy mutant teenage girl is kidnapped and held by the military,” he mumbled. “She’s fine when released, doesn’t collapse until later, *after* everyone else.”

House turned the corner, nearly tripping over a little old lady using a walker. They exchanged nasty looks and he kept going.

“She and the other kids who were held show nothing abnormal, no signs anything was done to them. She’s been a mutant for years, so that can’t be it.”

In his reverie, he missed the man striding down the hall toward him until he grabbed House’s shoulder. “Dr. House!” Summers said, “I’ve been calling you.”

“Well, I’ve been trying to cure the patient, so go away.” Only after he’d spoken did he remember that he’d promised McCoy he’d be nice to the kid, since…His thought trailed off.

“Dr. House?” Summers looked worried.

“Your fiancée died.”

“Yes.” His face was blank now and he took a step back.

“Died saving Jubilee.” Summers scowled at him, but House ignored that. Lost a mother figure. There was something there, a memory, if only he could remember what it was.

The EKG results. The TTE. Death of someone close. An apparent heart attack.

Summers was saying something, but House ignored him. There was something else.

There was something about the catecholamines.

“House?” Cuddy was there, brows drawn in concern.

“Catecholamines,” he said, turning on his good heel and striding back toward his office at top speed. He could hear Summers and Cuddy behind him and confused questions, but he was too busy turning the diagnosis over in his mind to answer them.

He pushed open the door and said dramatically. “The heart biopsy shows catecholamine damage, not a heart attack.”

Foreman, who held a folder in his hand, turned to stare at him. “I hate when you do that. How’d you know?”

“Because I know what’s wrong with her.”

“What?” Cameron asked.

McCoy strode in. “What’s going on?”

Cuddy said, “Dr. House was about to reveal all.”

Everyone stared at him and House tried to look like he’d known the answer all along. “Broken heart syndrome.”

“What?” nearly everyone in the room said.

“Stress cardiomyopathy. There was an article in NEJM a few years ago. It’s the result of a prolonged surge in catecholamines that stun the heart. The catecholamines are the response to overwhelming emotional stress. You know, like being kidnapped and imprisoned and having your teacher die. Stuff like that. It mimics a heart attack, except that there’s no heart damage.”

McCoy said urgently, “What’s the prognosis?”

“Complete recovery, and a relapse after recovery is incredibly unlikely.” House shrugged. “Kind of a boring diagnosis now that I’ve made it.”

McCoy gave him a broad grin. “You’re a wonder, Greg. I’m going to give Jubilee the good news.”

House watched him go, while the others talked excitedly. “You could go with him, you know,” Cuddy said.

“Nah,” House shrugged. “I’m terrible at giving good news.”

Cuddy shook her head, a small smile on her face, but she didn’t say anything else.

* * * * *

House stopped by Jubilee’s room as she was getting ready to go home, but she had a bunch of students and Logan and Summers helping, so he watched for a few seconds, then went back to his office.

McCoy and Wilson were waiting for him, already comfortably ensconced with good coffee and doughnuts. House grabbed a chocolate doughnut out of Wilson’s hand just before he took a bite, then settled down in his chair, grinning.

Wilson rolled his eyes and grabbed another doughnut out of the box. “So, another case resolved.”

House shrugged. “Yeah.”

“C’mon, you’ve gotta feel good about this one,” Wilson said. “You liked the patient for once, and she’s going to be fine.”

“Whatever.” House took a big bite of doughnut as Wilson sighed in a long-suffering fashion.

“Well,” McCoy said. “I’m thrilled that Jubilee will be fine. The school has had enough stress without any additional problems.”

“Yeah, about what’shername–”

“Greg.” McCoy’s tone said ‘Top secret, remember?’

“I was just wondering.” House shrugged, drinking some coffee. “Anyway, Jubilee will live to chew bubblegum and buy outrageously short miniskirts again. But the diagnosis…”

“What about it?” McCoy asked.

“Broken heart syndrome,” House said with a sniff. “It’s a dumb name. Who came up with it anyway?”

“I think it was–” McCoy began.

“Rhetorical question,” House said quickly. “Anyway, it makes it sound sentimental and beautiful when it’s really the body going haywire. But ‘Body Going Haywire Syndrome’ doesn’t have the same ring.”

Wilson sighed. “You don’t have a sentimental bone in your body, do you?”

“Well, there’s–”

“Stop!” Wilson put up a hand. “Whatever you were going to say…don’t.”

House gave him an innocent look, but neither McCoy nor Wilson seemed to believe it.

“What’s important,” McCoy said, “is that we know that Jubilee is going to be all right, thanks to you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” House waved a hand. “And the world is still full of puppies and kittens and flowers. Go away now. Come back when you have another interesting case.”

McCoy was undeterred, sticking out his hand and leaving it there until House grudgingly shook it. “Thank you, Greg. I appreciate your help, and so does Jubilee.”

“Whatever.” House waved them away, and Wilson and McCoy grinned at each other before departing.

When they were gone, House looked down at his desk drawer. He opened it for a moment, looking at the handwritten note lying under a pile of paperclips and sticking out of a copy of People: “Thank you, Dr. House. I hope you get lots of interesting dying people to talk to. Love, Jubilee.”

He dropped a copy of JAMA on top of it and shoved the drawer closed again.

Then he propped his leg up on a stool and pulled out his Gameboy. Somebody would be dying soon enough and he had a few more games to lose before they showed up on his doorstep.

–end–

Final author’s note: “Broken heart syndrome” is real. For more information on stress cardiomyopathy, check out Johns Hopkins University Hospital at http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/asc/faqs.html. I read an article about it in the Washington Post Magazine about three years ago and *knew* I would find a use for it in a House fic someday.

by Mara

Summary: Just when Jack Carter thought his life couldn’t get any worse…

by Mara

Summary: Vicki Nelson agrees to help one of Henry Fitzroy’s old friends. The good news is that she isn’t a ghost, demon, witch, or vampire…

by Mara

Summary: Vicki and Henry’s movie night is derailed by overseas visitors.

by Mara

Summary: In which we learn where the Doctor went after the Time War, and who he met there. (DW/Firefly crossover)

NOW:

The Doctor dove toward the TARDIS door, and she was singing in his mind,
welcoming him back. His companion instinctively covered his back as he slammed
the key into the lock and he was in the door, turning to look as she was spun
around, hit in the right shoulder by a projectile.

For an instant almost too short to measure, he hesitated, but it was already too
late. Reinforcements flooded the room and dragged her out.

“Come out of there with your hands up and we won’t shoot you,” a soldier
shouted.

Swearing in Old High Venusian, the Doctor ran to the console, hand reaching for
the dematerialization button. His hearts raced and he could feel sweat breaking
out from the running and…

He could leave now that he had the TARDIS.

His hand moved to begin the calculations reversing the TARDIS’ last-ditch run to
this place…

* * * * *

24 HOURS EARLIER:

The Doctor stalked through the street, avoiding puddles of unidentifiable
rubbish, annoyed to once again be separated from the TARDIS. She was irked with
him as well, filling the back of his mind with the staticky buzz of her feelings
on the matter. She’d been clingier than normal since…since everything.

Wherever she was, they were bouncing her. Probably a cart of some sort. For some
reason, no matter how advanced the culture, they always felt the need to stick
the poor old girl on some primitive conveyance. It was vaguely amusing to find
that was a universal truth even if you’d moved to an alternate universe.

A muffled thump up ahead caught his attention. Who else was out on the streets
so late? He almost turned in the other direction, but habit set him jogging
towards the sound, past the crumbling stone wall and overflowing garbage bags.

In the shadows it was hard to tell who was who, but he almost certainly saw one
unarmed figured backed against a wall, facing three opponents with knives. The
rearmost person said, in an unctuous voice that got on the Doctor’s nerves, “I
gave you a chance, but you chose not to–”

“Well, well,” The Doctor said in his most penetrating voice, “what have we
here?” The knife-wielders all whirled to stare at him.

The Doctor leaned against the nearest wall, arms crossed, as the lone figure
took the opportunity to slam two heads together, then ducked under the third
opponent’s knife and kicked him in the groin. As he doubled over with a yelp of
agony, his knife was neatly removed from his hand and tucked into a boot.
Glancing at the last man, the figure kicked him in the head with a muttered
imprecation in Mandarin.

The figure stepped into the weak glow of a flickering streetlight, revealing
itself to be a dark-skinned woman in a leather vest, boots, and a long coat. She
had a purpling bruise on her left cheek and a wary expression. “Thanks,” she
said.

“Not at all. I’ve never liked uneven odds.” The Doctor studied her. “Lost, are
you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “What’s it to you?”

Once the Doctor would have been offended and protested at great length, but a
little incivility was just one more straw. Turning, he started out of the alley
without a word.

“Wait.” Her voice was low, but urgent.

Walk away, he thought, don’t get involved. But his steps slowed.

“Why did you help me?” she asked. “Most people wouldn’t bother.”

The Doctor shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and turned. “It’s what I do.
Or did, at least.”

The woman looked dubious, but after studying him in the weak light, she deemed
him harmless. Searching the three men, she stripped them of weapons and wallets.
“We’d better get going. The cops will be here any minute to arrest us for
breaking curfew.”

“Really?” The Doctor brightened. “That will simplify things then.”

She paused in her search, staring at him. “You *want* to be arrested?”

The Doctor shrugged as he helped her drag the three men further into the
shadows. “They’ve taken my ship. I’ve found the easiest way to track it is to be
captured by the authorities.”

The woman shook her head. “Maybe you’d better come with me. If that’s your idea
of a plan, the captain’d skin me alive if I left you.” She strode away, not even
glancing over her shoulder to see if he followed.

He caught up to her with several long strides. “I’m the Doctor. And you are?”

“Zoë Warren. My ship’s Serenity.” She was silent for a moment as they reached
the end of the alley and peered around the corner. “The authorities have her and
the crew. So I guess we’re going to the same place.”

“Hmm. What did your crew do to annoy them?”

Her face was shadowed. “What did yours do?”

Both hearts skipped a beat. “I have no crew.”

He’d tried to keep his tone light, but she didn’t buy it. “Ah,” she said.

“I annoyed the government by not having any papers,” he said to forestall any
further comment.

“That’d make ‘em a mite unhappy with you. ‘Specially on the brink of a civil
war.” She gestured and they sidled down the road. “We were here on business, but
our client thought to save money by getting us arrested. Figured with the war
about to break out, we’d be stuck.” She glanced back at the alley. “Then he
figured with my husband in jail, he could take advantage of the situation.”

Her tone made it clear what kind of advantage he’d thought he had. Watching the
purposeful way she moved, the Doctor began to feel almost sorry for anyone who
crossed this woman. After a moment, he followed. It wasn’t as if he had anything
better to be doing.

* * * * *

An hour later, they were most of the way across the city, zigzagging around
police patrols toward Zoë’s safe house. The Doctor considered giving himself up
just to get things over with, but found himself curious about Zoë’s plans.

It seemed like a long time since he’d been curious about anything. Since he’d
had the *time* to be curious about anything.

The Doctor grimaced at the irony as Zoë leaned against a wall, face drawn and
tired. “Almost there,” she said, tilting her head to see around the corner, then
ducking back.

“Oh yes, I see you,” a familiar voice said from around the corner. “And this
time you won’t escape me so easily. We could have had a pleasant time, you
know.”

Zoë said something in Mandarin that the Doctor had previously only heard from
foot soldiers in the army of Kublai Khan. He raised his eyebrows and stepped
past her, even as she tried to grab his arm.

“Hullo!” he said with a bright smile, striding toward the man Zoë had kicked in
the groin back in the alley. “Very nice to meet you. I’m afraid I didn’t have a
chance to get your name before.”

“Captain Collins,” the man said automatically, even as he raised his gun.

The Doctor sidestepped, pulling the gun and the captain’s hand with him.

“Wha–”

A sharp squeeze to pressure points on the wrist and the gun clattered on the
pavement. “No guns,” the Doctor said, his voice low and fierce.

“What the hell are you–”

The Doctor ducked, a punch grazing his cheek, and Zoë was there, grabbing
Collins and throwing him against the wall. “I’m tired of you,” she said. “I’m
beginning to think I should have killed you back in that alley.”

Her knife was at Collins’ throat before the Doctor could react, but he put his
hand on her shoulder. “There’s been too much killing.”

“They’ve taken my husband,” Zoë said, glaring over her shoulder at him, but he
held on and her hand dropped to her side.

Collins’ face was soaked in sweat, pulse beating a tattoo in his throat. Eyes
darting back and forth between them, he asked, “What are you going to do?”

Zoë’s eyebrows shot up. “Good question. Doctor?”

“We’re going to…” The sound of boots hitting pavement made his head turn.
“Run!”

Zoë slammed her prisoner’s head against the wall and dropped him as they both
took off at a dead run, the approaching guards much too close.

* * * * *

There followed a familiar twenty minutes of narrowly eluding pursuit, harrowing
near-misses, and all the things that made the Doctor nostalgic for the old days.
But eventually it ended, and he and Zoë ducked under a last fence and went up a
set of camouflaged stairs into a dimly lit room, furnished with some blankets
and a low table.

“I’ve got food, if you want some,” she said, seating herself on the floor and
unwrapping a package that lay there. “Bread’s almost fresh.”

Shaking his head, he dropped down beside her at the table. “What’s your plan?”

She looked up from slicing cheese. “Get to the capital. Find the crew. Kick ass.
Take the ship. Leave.”

The Doctor blinked at her for a moment. “That’s better than my plan?”

“It’s worked for us before.” Zoë shrugged. “Besides, our plans usually go
*wrong* at the point where someone gets arrested.” She leaned to the side and
grabbed a blanket, tossing it toward him. “You’d best get some sleep.
Tomorrow’ll be a long day.”

* * * * *

The morning dawned bright and clear, the sky nearly cloudless, and not long
after sunrise, Zoë and the Doctor were on their way to the capitol in a
rather…unorthodox fashion.

Crossing his arms as he lay on the bouncing uneven surface, the Doctor stared up
at the load of purple-white turnips suspended above him, mere inches from his
face. Occasionally, a clod of sharp-smelling dirt would drop down, just missing
his nose or mouth. He turned to look at Zoë, who was trying hard to keep a
straight face.

“Travel like this often?” he asked.

“When I need to.”

He sniffed. “Getting arrested would have been faster.”

Zoë coughed to cover a smile. The turnip farmer was some business partner of a
former military subordinate of Zoë’s. Or something.

“So, you’re smugglers?” he asked.

She didn’t react to the jibe, didn’t even seem to register it. “We do what we
have to, to make ends meet,” she said. “We don’t always act…strictly within
the law.”

“Neither do I.” He grinned. “When I left home, I–” Memory flooded back and he
closed his mouth with a snap.

“You lost people in the war.” It wasn’t a question.

How could she–Oh. Another war. He’d momentarily forgotten there *were* other
wars. “You could say that,” he said, turning away again and memorizing the shape
of the turnip right over his nose.

“Who?”

“All of them. My planet was destroyed.” He wasn’t sure why he said it. Only the
TARDIS shared this knowledge with him.

“There must be some alive on other planets.”

He swallowed once, twice, forcing out the words he’d never spoken aloud. “All my
people are dead, everywhen, everywhere.”

The vehicle hit a bad patch of road, and they listened to the rattling of the
old truck and a squeak in the right rear wheel.

“The Captain and me, we’re pretty much all that’s left of our platoon,” Zoë
offered after a while.

“But you have a ship and a crew.”

She pursed her lips, seemingly looking for the right words. “We’re alive. We
moved on.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It’s not. But it’s that or die. Lots of ways to die out here.”

The Doctor thought about his remaining regenerations. Every Time Lord knew ways
to jump to the end, although the authorities tried to hide that knowledge. Few
of his people took the option, but they knew it was there. He’d almost…in the
aftermath, if he hadn’t had the TARDIS, if she hadn’t had to jump them to this
strange universe…

Zoë was staring up at the turnips when he looked at her. Her enemies were still
here, still after her. “How do you forgive?” he asked.

“You don’t.” She turned her head, eyes dark and cold. “But you move on because
there’s nothing else.” She looked away again.

And with that, she closed her eyes, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

* * * * *

“Gorram!”

The Doctor’s eyes shot open, and beside him Zoë tensed.

The farmer muttered something else as the truck slowed down. “Checkpoint,” he
said. “Stay put.”

Zoë’s hand rested on the butt of her gun and the Doctor frowned down at it.
Before he could say anything, they heard voices.

“Morning, sir,” the farmer said. “What’s the holdup?”

“We’ll ask the questions around here,” a surly voice replied.

There was a thunk as the truck door opened and then closed. The voices moved a
few feet away, but were still clear.

Papers rustled and the surly voice asked, “Have you seen this man?”

Zoë and the Doctor stared at each other.

The papers rustled again and the farmer said, “No, I don’t believe I have.
What’s he wanted for, anyway?”

“That’s none of your business. You two, search the truck.”

“Hey!” the farmer protested. “I said I hadn’t seen him. Don’t mess up my
produce. It’s all I’ve got to support my family!”

That argument swayed no one, and the truck bounced on its old springs as the two
guards climbed on and kicked the turnips around. The Doctor held his breath as a
booted foot slipped through the turnips and landed close to the mesh screen just
over his face. Zoë yanked his arm and he slid to her side, both of them holding
their breath.

“Damn turnips,” someone muttered above them. “I hate turnips. Why don’t we ever
stop the trucks with beautiful lonely women?”

“What would a beautiful woman want with you? C’mon, there’s nothing here but
vegetables. Let’s go.”

The Doctor let out a breath as the turnips shifted to cover them completely
again. Zoë poked his back and he realized he was still pushing her against the
edge of the truck. Moving carefully, he slid back to the center of the truck.

They stared at each other as the farmer climbed back into the cab of the truck,
starting it up with a noise reminiscent of a herd of elephants clearing their
throat.

As they pulled back onto the road, the sound settled down to its normal roar and
Zoë tilted her head in inquiry.

“I think,” the Doctor said meditatively, “they’ve finally gotten a look at my
ship.”

Zoë waited, but he didn’t choose to elaborate.

* * * * *

The farmer dropped them off at the edge of town with a warning to watch out for
the Patrol: “Them’s mean ones.”

Zoë clapped the man’s shoulder, passed over something that clinked, and stepped
out onto the road toward the low buildings surrounding several tall modern ones.

The Doctor frowned as he looked around him, at dusty dirt roads where no
children played and adults scurried from place to place, heads low, clothing
patched. He’d been in this alternate universe for…he wasn’t even sure how
long, but he’d been too busy mourning to see where he’d ended up. Striding to
catch up with Zoë, he said, “The guards who took my ship had modern weaponry and
were well-fed.”

“We’re out on the Fringe,” and her voice said ‘why am I explaining the
obvious?’. “The Alliance don’t spend more than it has to. These folks barely
make a living.”

“Let me guess,” the Doctor said, feeling a familiar anger rise in his chest.
“The leaders of this benighted planet collect whatever they want in taxes and
let everyone else starve.”

Zoë stopped in her tracks, holding out a hand to stop the Doctor as well, just
in time to avoid being hit by a man flung through a door. From the reek of
alcohol wafting out, this was the local pub. When the man rolled to a stop and
sprang to his feet, he found Zoë staring him down. “Go home,” she said.

The man opened his mouth, blinked at whatever he saw in her face, and staggered
away.

“That’s the way it is out here,” she said as if their conversation had never
been interrupted. “The strong thrive and the weak survive.”

Her words were accepting, but under them, the Doctor heard an anger to match his
own. “What are you doing about it?” he asked.

Zoë shrugged. “Whatever we can.” And she kept walking, people automatically
moving out of her path.

The Doctor stood still for a long moment, remembering other worlds, other
companions, and days when those would have been *his* words.

Zoë glanced over her shoulder. “C’mon, Doctor, we need to get off the streets.”

Shaking his head, he took one more look around, wondering if this planet had a
stash of revolutionaries anywhere.

* * * * *

As they got closer to their destination, Zoë grew more tense. “Things are too
quiet,” she muttered to the Doctor.

“You’d prefer they were chasing us through the streets at gunpoint?”

She shot him a filthy look. “I’ve found that this is usually when things go
wrong.”

The Doctor was about to respond, but caught his breath and yanked Zoë’s arm,
suddenly ducking into the small space between two buildings. “I believe I just
found your complication.”

“What?” Zoë’s eyes widened. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes. Your friend from the Patrol seems to be striding down the street just
ahead of us.”

She cursed in Mandarin again and the Doctor reminded himself to ask later where
she’d learned it. “I wanted to get some help, but I don’t think we have time.
We’ve got to move now.”

The Doctor nodded. “Lead on.”

* * * * *

From where they lurked behind a convenient hedge, the Doctor looked up at the
building that loomed over them like a particularly noxious raptor. “Why,” he
asked rhetorically, “must the building always look like it was built by a
graduate of the Manga Khan School of Architecture?”

Zoë shook her head, obviously having learned that sometimes it was better not to
ask what he was talking about. “We don’t have time to waste.” She frowned at the
attentive guard.

“Then we’ll go in *my* way,” the Doctor said. Before she could stop him, he
stepped out from behind the bush with a spring in his step and a giant smile on
his face. He strode up to the guard, waving his psychic paper in the man’s face.
“There you are. Where have they put the blue box?”

The man’s face was a study in confusion. Fortunately, he wasn’t the brightest
star in his spectral class. “Blue box?” he asked.

“Yes yes, the blue box. I was ordered to take a look at it. Where is it?” The
Doctor tucked the paper away, crossing his arms and tapping one foot in
impatience.

“Uh, the eleventh floor. The Controller ordered it sent to the lab for
disassembly.”

“Thank you very much,” the Doctor said as Zoë appeared behind the guard and
slammed his head into a fence post. “See?” he said to her. “Nothing to it.”

She gave him a look that promised retribution. “One day that trick won’t work,
Doctor. Now, what blue box?”

“My ship. I told you.”

She spoke slowly and clearly as they ducked through the gate and ran toward the
nearest door. “We’re here to find my crew. Your ship is at the spaceport. Where
ships are.”

“You heard the man. My ship is in the lab. Fortunately, unless they have a set
of transdimensional socket wrenches, they won’t be able to disassemble
anything.”

Zoë held up a hand and looked through the glass of the small side door,
gesturing him to follow her in when the coast was clear. “Your ship is a blue
box.”

“Well, it only *looks* like a blue box,” he said with some indignation.

“Of course.” She sighed. “Cap’n's gonna kill me.”

As they turned a corner, several peons scurried by, and the Doctor and Zoë tried
to look inconspicuous. “He has something against blue boxes?” the Doctor asked.

Zoë shook her head. “He has something against crazy people. And we’ve already
got one aboard.”

The Doctor pointed at a set of closed doors. “Lift? Or certain death? What do
you think?”

* * * * *

The lift wanted a keycard to take them near the lab, but a few moments work with
the sonic screwdriver and it whisked them upward. The Doctor strolled out with
his usual assurance, followed by Zoë, who didn’t look at all pleased by his
approach to infiltration.

“Haven’t you ever learned that if you look like you know where you’re going,
nobody will question you?” he asked, marching down the hall to a promising
doorway.

“In my experience, people try to *shoot* me when I break into their
headquarters.” Zoë’s hand twitched over the gun again.

“When you’ve lived as long as I have–”

The Doctor broke off as he opened the door and peered in. “There you are!” he
cried, striding toward the blue box.

“Doctor…” Zoë said. “You’re talking to a box.”

He whirled on his heel, pointing a finger at her. “It’s not just a–” His eyes
widened and his throat caught on a useless shout as guards swarmed through the
doorway.

The Doctor dove toward the TARDIS door, and she was singing in his mind,
welcoming him back. Zoë instinctively covered his back as he slammed the key
into the lock and he was in the door, turning to look as she was spun around,
hit in the right shoulder by a projectile.

For an instant almost too short to measure, he hesitated, but it was already too
late. Reinforcements flooded the room and dragged her out.

“Come out of there with your hands up and we won’t shoot you,” a soldier
shouted.

Swearing in Old High Venusian, the Doctor ran to the console, hand reaching for
the dematerialization button. His hearts raced and he could feel sweat breaking
out from the running and…

He could leave now that he had the TARDIS.

His hand moved to begin the calculations reversing the TARDIS’ last-ditch run to
this place. Swearing again, he tracked the movement of Zoë and her captors
through the building, ignoring the shouts and bangs from outside.

The Doctor couldn’t take his eyes off the scanner, for fear that he’d lose her
in the hordes of scientists and bureaucrats that roamed the halls. The TARDIS
was impatient about something and he fended her off as he watched them drag Zoë
halfway across the building.

“Not enough space to materialize there,” he said to the TARDIS when Zoë had come
to a halt. “We’ll have to do this the hard way.” He quickly set a course for a
nicely deserted hallway not too far away from Zoë.

Moments later, he stepped out into the hallway, strolling his way toward what he
was certain was a cell. He burst through the door, waving his psychic paper.
“There’s my prisoner,” he said with enthusiasm, even as Zoë’s eyes widened in
alarm. “I’ll just take her back with me and…”

He trailed off as a gun appeared under his nose. Captain Collins stepped out
from behind the door. “I don’t think you’ll be living much longer. You’ve made
me the laughingstock of the Patrol, but they won’t laugh when they see I’ve got
in custody *both* of the most wanted criminals on this rock.”

Eyeing him for a moment, the Doctor said, “Go on, Zoë, get out of here. I’ll
deal with this.”

Collins’ gun hand moved to point at Zoë, but he was stymied when the Doctor
grabbed it in an implacable grip, keeping it pointed at his own head.

“Go ahead and kill me,” the Doctor said. “As long as Zoë gets away.”

“You’re not serious.” Collins looked sorry he hadn’t kept another guard in the
cell with him.

“I’m very serious.” The Doctor dropped his jovial exterior, letting his age, his
anger, his frustration show in his eyes. “Just try me.”

Collins flinched back from the Doctor’s expression, but his finger stayed on the
trigger.

Without turning his head, the Doctor barked out an order. “Zoë, *go*!”

Zoë stepped past him, but instead of walking through the half-open door, he
heard her pick something up, then a whisper of sound, metal on leather, and a
gun was pointing past his ear at Collins. “I don’t think so, Doctor. I don’t
intend to let you die now.”

Collins frowned in a petulant fashion. “Hey!”

“Shut up!” Zoë and the Doctor said.

Zoë spoke up before the Doctor could say anything else. “Dying won’t bring your
people back. You know that. That’s why you’ve been helping me.”

“What about me?” Collins asked.

Zoë growled softly. “Keep quiet or I’ll kill you first.”

The Doctor let the other man’s wrist go and stepped back, leaving Zoë’s gun
pointed at him. “Let’s go,” he said softly. They backed out of the room, leaving
the befuddled Collins in the cell. Zoë pulled the door shut, and the Doctor
listened with pleasure to the click of the lock. “My ship is just around the
corner,” he said.

Zoë nodded and that was when he realized blood was dripping down her arm. His
face must have reflected his surprise, because she glanced down. “It’s not as
bad as it looks.”

“Hmm.” Stoic could be taken a bit too far, he thought, concentrating on not
dragging her faster down the hallway. Slow and steady gets back to the TARDIS
safely.

Turning the corner, they came face to face with a short man in a stained lab
coat who almost walked by them, but stopped, eyes widening when he saw Zoë’s
blood. The man opened his mouth to yell for help, but by the time sound came
out, the Doctor already had his key in the TARDIS door.

“They’re coming,” Zoë muttered to the accompaniment of yet another bunch of
pounding boots.

The Doctor grabbed her good arm and they both dove inside the TARDIS. “We’ll be
safe here,” he almost yelled, the elation of reaching safety a familiar rush to
his system. Smacking the emergency door button, he moved Zoë nearer a light so
he could check her injury.

He dug under one of the grates and pulled out an emergency kit one of his
previous regenerations had stowed there, pulling her shirt to the side and
cleaning her wound. This gave her a moment to look around.

Her body stilled. “This is the blue box.”

“She’s called the TARDIS.”

“Ah.” She looked around. “Nice.”

He glanced up. “What? No ‘But it’s bigger inside than outside’? How
disappointing.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Doctor.”

“Hmmph,” he said, wrapping a clean bandage around her arm and shoulder. He found
himself pleased by her reaction. Anything else wouldn’t have fit her
personality.

“So,” Zoë said, catching his eye, “you’re not from around here, are you?”

“No. I’m from an alternate universe.” The exhilaration died. “After the war,
*my* war, the TARDIS brought me here to escape being destroyed with my entire
race.”

She studied him for a moment. “You’re an alien.” There was an odd tone in her
voice.

“The two hearts give it away every time,” he said, tapping his chest on both
sides.

“There aren’t any aliens,” she said. “Everyone knows that. No bug-eyed monsters
or little gray men.”

“Really? I know at least twenty races of bug-eyed monsters and five different
varieties of little gray men.” His eyebrows shot up. “I’d love to know where
they went in *your* universe that you haven’t met them.”

The TARDIS relayed the sounds from outside, and Zoë’s eyes flicked up at the
banging of heavy objects being flung toward them. The Doctor glared at the
walls. “Why do they always do that, even after it’s obvious they couldn’t get
through with a wrecking ball?” he asked.

Zoë clenched her jaw as he tightened the wrapping, then stood without waiting
for his help. “How does this thing move?” she asked. “Can we get to my crew?”

“Of course!” He snorted. “Why d’you think we came here first?”

“I thought you might be planning to leave without me,” Zoë said, her tone so
neutral it lacked affect.

For a moment, he stared at the shadows cast on the walls. “I…” He closed his
eyes, wondering what had happened to him, and knowing the answer.

Resting a hand on his shoulder, Zoë spoke. “I know. The important thing is that
you didn’t. Now let’s find my crew.”

“Right.” He leaped up and dashed to the center console, giving it a pat.
Spinning a dial, he began typing on the old keyboard set into the side. “What
can you tell me about them? How many are there? Anything distinctive?”

“Ah, the Alliance did something to River’s brain, made her able to read minds.”

The Doctor looked up. “A telepath? Here? I can find *her*.” The TARDIS balked
and he glared at the console. “Steady…” he muttered.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Zoë suppress a grin.

“What?” he asked her with a mock glare.

“Nothing,” she said.

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“It’s just that you…remind me of my husband when you do that.” Her mouth
twitched with a smile.

Shaking his head, the Doctor went back to the delicate task of convincing the
TARDIS to find a telepath in the building.

* * * * *

The rescue of Serenity’s crew was anticlimactic after everything they’d been
through, the Doctor thought. Zoë probably didn’t agree, but she certainly looked
relieved as she bundled the last of them through the TARDIS doors under the
shocked gaze of guards who hadn’t expected a blue box to appear in front of
them, along with a gun-wielding woman.

The Doctor hit buttons with a flourish and the TARDIS dematerialized.

“I’ll just be over here, kissing my wife,” an unassuming man in a very loud
shirt said, grabbing Zoë’s uninjured arm.

“Wash, we don’t have time–”

“We do,” the Doctor said.

“Doctor, we need–”

“Trust me, Zoë.” He caught her eye, the others too busy staring around them at
the control room to notice the exchange. “You have plenty of time.”

She shook her head, but allowed Wash to drag her off into a corner, where
everyone politely ignored them.

The captain–Mal Reynolds she’d said his name was–stepped forward. “Ah, Doctor,
we’re mighty obliged to you.”

“Not at all. The least I could do after Zoë’s help.”

Reynolds nodded, obviously understanding the importance of a debt. “But I have
to say, I can’t help but notice that your ship–”

“Is bigger inside than outside?”

“Something like that.” Reynolds grinned, obviously not entirely fazed.

“Yes, she is.” The Doctor grinned back.

“Right then. Must be handy on long hauls.”

“Something like that.”

Reynolds nodded, tucking his thumbs into his waistline. He seemed about to add
something when a strange sound caught their attention. “Gorram,” he muttered
when they saw it was the girl, the telepath. She knelt by the center console,
hands covering her ears, rocking slightly.

“Oh dear,” the Doctor said, striding over there.

River shrank back as he approached, her eyes wide enough to be saucers. “Don’t
belong,” she said.

“No, I don’t,” the Doctor replied.

“Little sister,” the young man with an arm around her shoulder said, “what’s
wrong?”

Her entire body began to shake. “The light. Too bright. It burns!” She scrubbed
at her face with her hands.

Everyone looked in her direction, several rolling their eyes, but the Doctor
ignored them, kneeling down by her. He could feel her mind, fluttering like a
trapped butterfly. “See me, River,” he said. “Don’t look at the light.” Touching
her cheek, he opened a piece of his mind to her, directing her away from his
connection to the TARDIS.

She stopped shaking, her face going slack as she looked inward. Suddenly, her
eyes came into focus. “Pain,” she said, her voice quiet and sad.

“Is he hurting you, River?” the young man asked, trying to pull her away.

She shook her head. “He lives in conjugations of pain. Been hurt. Hurting now.
Will hurt.”

The Doctor stared at her as she touched him on the cheek, feather-light. He
bowed his head at the feel of her mind on his, for a few moments reminding him
he wasn’t alone. “Thank you,” he said.

She stared into his eyes. “Must go home and know for sure.”

The Doctor pulled back. “You don’t–”

“Go home,” she said. “She misses home too. Told me so.”

Her brother gave her an odd look. “Who misses home, River?”

The Doctor’s breath caught in his throat. “My ship,” he said. “I didn’t
realize.”

River cocked her head to one side. “She forgives you.”

The Doctor shrugged in an attempt at insouciance. “We’ve been through a lot
together, the TARDIS and I.”

River patted the console, leaning over to whisper something while the young man
watched in confusion.

The TARDIS wheezed as they arrived inside the spaceship and the Doctor opened
the door, watching with amusement as Zoë and the captain chivvied their shell-
shocked crew out the door.

The Doctor followed them out, finding something about the cargo hold familiar.
Perhaps it was the same feel of a ship battered and bruised, but unbroken. And
obviously much-loved from the way various people found a way to touch a wall or
railing unobtrusively.

It looked like a nice ship, he thought, patting the TARDIS absently.

Zoë caught his eye from the other side of the space and walked across to him.
“You’re leaving,” she said.

He shrugged. “That’s what I do.”

Zoë glanced at her crew. “You could stay. Make a new life.”

From almost anyone else, the offer could have seemed selfish, more about the
TARDIS’ abilities than him. But the Doctor knew she was sincere.

And it was tempting to stay, somewhere with no lingering traces of Gallifrey or
the Daleks. Tempting to work with this woman and her quiet confidence and
calming effect.

“You could come with *me*,” he said. “Bring your husband. I promise the Alliance
won’t find you where I’m going.”

He knew the answer even before she shook her head with a small smile. “My place
is here. I gave my word a long time ago.”

“I need to go back.” The Doctor paused, and Zoë waited. “My people were from the
planet Gallifrey. They were called the Time Lords.”

“Time…” Her eyes widened.

He nodded as he opened the TARDIS door. “I’m the last of the Time Lords. And I’m
going home.”

–end–

by Mara

Summary: Two great minds that think alike. Watch out, world(s).

Author’s Chapter Notes:

I’m playing fast and loose with Firefly canon. Please roll with it for the sake of the crack. Oh, and one Guide entry is taken *almost* directly from the book, although the others are mine. (It will be fairly clear which one, I should think.) The Mandarin is from the Firefly Pinyinary and you can see the translations at the end of the story. Gigantic thanks to Saone for the beta and reassurance

River liked to talk to spaceships. They didn’t have any distracting subconscious thoughts to confuse her.

Besides, they taught her all kinds of interesting things about space-time and folds in space and faster-than-light travel. And evasive maneuvers and docking and thrusters. And also about fish. (But that was another story entirely.)

One time she’d gotten so involved in a conversation with an Alliance cruiser that she forgot to ask him if he could develop an imbalance in his port thruster so Serenity wouldn’t have to make quite so daring an escape. Wash had to do some tricky maneuvering and Mal taught her three new curse words and Kaylee apologized to her engines.

When everyone was asleep, River went down to the engines and sat with them for a while, apologizing in her own way. Sleepily they assured her that they understood, but they’d appreciate not having to do that again until Nice Lady (an approximation of how they thought of Kaylee) could get them a replacement for the inertial polarizer.

River said she’d try and patted the engines before going off to bed.

Sometimes River tried to figure out why the others couldn’t hear Serenity the way she could, but then she would get distracted by counting the passing neutrinos and forget about it.

One afternoon, while River sat perched on a railing watching Jayne, Mal, and the Shepherd moving boxes, she heard a new ship. She was…far away, which was new and interesting. But she was so noisy that River could hear her anyway.

Tilting her head, River tried to make sense of what the new ship was trying to say.

“Is something wrong?” Inara asked as she walked by.

“Can’t quite understand her,” River said absently. “Funny accent.”

“Understand who?”

“Goldie. She’s telling me a story.”

“Goldie?” Inara took a deep breath, looking rather sorry to be asking.

“Heart of Gold,” River said. “It’s a story about two men floating in space. And penguins. And the President of the Galaxy.”

Inara blinked. “Oh.”

“It’s infinitely improbable.”

“That’s what I’ve always said about Serenity,” Inara said as she walked away.

River went back to asking Goldie questions about Brownian motion producers and other tea-related things.

* * * * *

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about insanity:

It is important for the well-informed hitchhiker to know what insanity is, because it is remarkably unpleasant to have your travels derailed by a trip to the local asylum.

Unfortunately, insanity depends on your point of view. On Mixilplitic V, for example, insanity is defined by your children. (As opposed to the thousands of other planets where it is *caused* by your children.)

On the desert planet of Afalmingo, it is considered insane to fall in love. This has led to the banning of romantic comedies, low lights in restaurants, and honeymoon suites with heart-shaped beds–proving that everything has its good side.

An ape-descended mammal from a small blue and green planet said “Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked,” but nobody listened to him anyway.

* * * * *

River heard Simon coming two decks away, but she didn’t move from her position staring out at the stars upside down through a porthole. There wasn’t any point, since he’d just worry louder and louder until he talked at her.

“River? Mei mei?”

She dropped to the floor in front of him and tried to wait for him to ask his question. But Goldie was talking and she got distracted. Simon was giving her a worried look, so she said, “Talking to Goldie.”

“What?”

Oh. He hadn’t asked what she was doing yet. “Out of order again,” she said, frowning. “Need to wait.”

“What’s out of–” Simon shook his head. “Never mind.”

“Goldie’s telling me about a book. A wonderful book about everything.”

“Who’s Goldie?”

“A ship.” Sighing, River waited.

“River, we talked about this. I know you can have some telepathic abilities, but ships don’t have minds for you to read.”

Bouncing on the balls of her feet, River asked Goldie if her crew understood her. She wasn’t surprised to learn the answer was no.

“River? Are you listening?”

River stretched backward into an arch. “Listening doesn’t mean agreeing.”

“I…” Simon rubbed his forehead, sighing. “Never mind. Wuh tzai chien shr ee-ding ruh dao shuh-muh run luh bah…”

Frowning, River tried to remember how this conversation was supposed to make her brother feel better.

* * * * *

Families, the Hitchhiker’s Guide says, can provide food, shelter, and clean towels to weary travelers, especially if they can be convinced that you are a long-lost relative.

This can be difficult if said families decide you need to be married immediately, but the Guide provides a complete list of planets that allow shotgun weddings and a list of suggested excuses to avoid marriage that are guaranteed to work on an additional 7,577 planets.

* * * * *

The hardest part of building the finite improbability engine (precursor to an infinite improbability engine) was finding a few of the more complicated parts of the Bambleweeny 57 Sub-Meson Brain. Fortunately, Kaylee didn’t mind if River dug through the spare parts bin, as long as she didn’t break anything (or break anything more than it already was).

Goldie made some helpful suggestions, but it still took a month and two planetfalls before the engine was ready.

(That included the time it took to rebuild when Jayne discovered she’d swiped a piece of one of his guns and came looking for her. That ended up with the entire crew standing in a hallway yelling at each other while River did handstands and walked her feet along the wall. When the shouting reached its peak, she sidled up to Simon and whispered, “Offer him the candy.” She got the gun parts back.)

The finite improbability engine wasn’t a particularly prepossessing piece of machinery, but River was the last person to be fooled by appearances, so she and Goldie went over it piece by piece until they were sure it would work.

* * * * *

The Infinite Improbability Drive, says the Guide, is a wonderful new method of crossing interstellar distances in a few seconds; without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace. As the Improbability Drive reaches infinite improbability, it passes through every conceivable and non-conceivable point in every conceivable and non-conceivable universe simultaneously.

In other words, unless you set the coordinates of where you want to end up, you’re never sure where you will end up or even what species you will be when you get there. It’s therefore important to dress accordingly.

* * * * *

River decided the finite improbability engine needed a proper test. Goldie made some suggestions, but the one that resonated with River was…well, let’s just say it made for a good party trick if you were a bored physicist who never got invited to the really fun parties.

She meandered into the mess while everyone was eating and sat down in the corner with the engine, making a few last-minute tweaks and fiddling with the tea to make sure it didn’t spill.

Simon kept half an eye on her and Kaylee smiled and waved her chopsticks, but everyone else ignored her, as they always did. River tilted her head and decided the test was as optimal as it would ever be. She hit a series of buttons and waited.

“Gwai-gwai long duh dong!” Jayne hollered, nearly knocking over his chair as he pushed backward. River considered the results and nodded, pleased, as Jayne tried to cover his entire naked body with his hands.

Zoe, face neutral, handed him his clothing, which had somehow landed in her lap. Kaylee’s eyebrows hit the ceiling, Wash was giggling outright, and Mal continued to eat his noodles without reacting at all. Simon shot a quick glance at River, but went back to helping Jayne shove his clothing on without saying anything. Shepherd Book heaved a sigh and River could feel him thinking about her, but he didn’t look in her direction at all.

By the time Jayne had his pants half on, he’d turned to glare at River, who ignored him in favor of poking at the engine.

“It’s her,” he said, pointing at River with the hand that wasn’t holding his pants up. “She’s…boo-tai jung-tzahng-duh!”

“That’s true,” Mal said, glancing up for the first time, “but I don’t know why she’d want to traumatize us quite like this. Thought you said she wasn’t evil, Doc.”

Simon covered his mouth, trying to decide how to react.

“Well, I sure as hell didn’t do it, Mal.” Jayne stamped a foot on the floor,

Mal flicked a glance at River. “True enough, Jayne.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Finish my dinner,” Mal said, scooping up another pile of noodles with his chopsticks. “Sit down and finish yours.” He glanced at Wash. “Zoe, I’d take it kindly if you’d either get your husband to stop laughing or remove him before Jayne kills him. I’d hate to break in a new pilot right now.”

Wash’s laughter died and Zoe grinned for the first time. “Taken care of, sir.”

Jayne sent River a venomous glance but she ignored him, picking up the finite improbability engine and calling out to Goldie as she left the room. They had a lot more work to do.

* * * * *

River spent a week tweaking the engine, which involved brewing a great many cups of tea. And she had to borrow one of Wash’s dinosaurs, which she felt bad about, but it had exactly the right level of springiness to cushion part of the sub-meson nebulizer.

“Uh…” Wash said, looking between her and the dinosaur. “What do you need it for?”

“Generating infinite improbability,” River said, a bit impatient with the pilot’s slowness.

“Right. You said that.” Wash considered her for a moment. “Oh well, I guess I owe you for the good laugh.” Shrugging, he handed her the dinosaur. “Try not to damage it, will you? These things don’t grow on trees.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of a rubber tree plant?” River asked as she danced down the ladder.

“Was that a joke?” Wash called after her. “Do you even *make* jokes?”

* * * * *

The first five editions of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had extensive sections on humor, jokes, riddles, and how to earn a little money doing standup comedy on street corners.

But those sections were excised after The Great Comedian Purge of Dragonia VI, which was started by a hitchhiker, a water-filled flower, and a joke about Vogon women.

* * * * *

Several weeks later, the infinite improbability engine (which, improbably, looked like a miniature and very grimy cappuccino machine) was done.

For this test, Goldie informed her, the engine *should* work anywhere in the ship, but River felt in her bones that it needed to be somewhere in the engine room, so she carefully carried it down and set it up in a corner.

Kaylee looked briefly surprised when she poked her head out from underneath a Tesla coil, but she shrugged and smiled. “Hey there,” she said.

Nodding, River considered how she was supposed to respond. Simon had tried to explain polite conversation to her, but somehow it all slipped her mind at times like this. “Serenity’s cold,” she offered eventually, knowing Kaylee was very interested in the ship. “Lonely without a star. But you’re good company.”

“Well that’s shiny,” Kaylee said, patting the floor. “And I’m surely doing my best to get her moving faster.”

River nodded and put the infinite improbability engine down in a corner. She could move the ship a great deal farther than Kaylee, but it didn’t seem polite to point it out.

Goldie made some suggestions on how to steer and River frowned, trying to translate them into her universe’s constants. Eventually, she decided that as long as she could keep from dropping them into a sun or black hole, that would probably do for the first test.

Kaylee was used to River, so she thought nothing of her behavior, smiling and ducking her head back under the coil.

River sat down next to the engines and listened to Serenity and the shifting universe.

Goldie complained that *she* didn’t need to go through all this preparation to get anywhere. River patted her and pointed out that Goldie had been *built* with the infinite improbability engine inside her.

Eventually, River felt everything align just right and she pushed the big red button. There was a moment in which her stomach strongly considered rebelling, then River opened her eyes.

She smiled as Serenity’s engines morphed into elephants, clapping her hands with glee at the little mice dressed as rajahs riding atop them.

Tilting her head, she decided the universe was overdoing it a bit with the fireworks. But the universe was *showy*.

Sitting back against a wall that was now made of strawberries, River watched the show.

Kaylee staggered from behind the elephants’ legs. “River! What’s this?”

“Infinite improbability,” she said after considering the question.

“Yes, but…” Kaylee jumped as the elephants turned into dragons. Pink dragons. In yellow tutus. Doing Swan Lake. “What’s it doing *here*?”

“We need to pass through everything,” River said, trying to understand the question.

Kaylee shook her head, dislodging the lei placed there by a hula dancer. “How do we make it stop?”

River looked mournfully at the infinite improbability engine, which had turned into a giant rock with a button in the middle that said, “Absolutely Do Not Push.” She could hear Kaylee’s panic and not far away, she could hear the rest of the crew, who sounded equally unhappy. With a sigh, she pushed the button.

There was a sound like the universe being given a wedgie and they were back in regular space.

The comms were back and everyone was yelling. River put her hands over her ears, but that only blocked the outside yelling.

There was a loud clang and all the voices stopped. “That’s *enough*,” Mal hollered. “Everything shut your mouths for a minute. Roll call.”

He called everyone’s names and they all answered with varying degrees of pissed off in their voices. When he got to River, Kaylee hastily said, “She’s here with me and just fine, Cap’n.”

After a suspicious silence, Mal went on, “Okay, we’re all in one piece, so let’s see about figuring out where we are and if the ship’s still together.”

“We’re just outside orbit of Newhall,” River said.

There was a moment in which everyone held their breath, then Wash said, “She’s right.”

“Well, then,” Mal said, “that’s not such a bad thing. We’ll just deliver our cargo a week early and get out of Dodge.”

“But–”

“Enough, Jayne. Don’t spit in its eye of the first good fortune we’ve had lately.”

“I’d like to–”

“Shut it.” Mal sounded oddly sympathetic. “Let’s make some money.”

Kaylee took a deep breath and clicked off the comm. “Seems the Cap’n's in a forgiving mood, but maybe we’d better take that thing apart ‘fore he sees it.”

River sighed. She felt *very* misunderstood.

* * * * *

River spent most of the rest of the day curled up in an out-of-the-way corner, talking to Goldie, but she could hear Simon worrying, so she came out when he was done eating dinner.

“Why did you build it, River?” Simon’s face was pinched and anxious as he knelt by her bed.

“Moving faster means less trouble. Cap’n knows.” River blinked at Simon, still not certain why he was so upset. “Besides, she asked me ever so nicely to visit her.”

Hesitating, Simon finally asked, “Who?”

“Goldie. She doesn’t have many friends.”

“River, Goldie’s a ship, she doesn’t–What am I saying?” Simon put his head in his hands and River patted his shoulder. “Mei mei,” he said plaintively, “can we just forget this ever happened?”

Shrugging, River stood on her head. “Goldie has an answer she wants me to question.”

Simon sighed. “Don’t you mean…never mind.”

“It’s 42,” River said.

“What is?”

“The answer.”

“What’s the question?”

River turned her handstand into a cartwheel. “Maybe it has to do with the dolphins.”

“I’m not even going to ask.”

–end–

Mandarin:
Boo-tai jung-tzahng-duh – not entirely sane
Gwai-gwai long duh dong! – What the hell!
Mei mei – little sister
Wuh tzai chien shr ee-ding ruh dao shuh-muh run luh bah… – I surely annoyed someone or other in a past life, didn’t I…

by Mara

Summary: You just never know what the Rift is going to drop in Cardiff.

by Mara

Summary: “It’s not a joke. Bruce Wayne is Batman and I used to be Robin.” (Sequel to “Change is the Only Constant”)

“What?” Wilson repeated, his voice cracking slightly. House had said a lot of
outrageous and downright bizarre things in his time, but this one…it was
unparalleled.

Raising an eyebrow, House looked at Bruce Wayne lying in the bed beside his
chair. “I thought I was pretty clear, didn’t you?”

Wayne frowned at him. “Don’t tease him, Tim.”

“Oh, but it’s such fun. Look how nicely he blushes.”

Wilson stared at the two of them, then shook his head. “Very funny. You brought
me down here to make a joke? You do know I have actual *patients* to see,
right?” Turning, he took a step toward the door, wondering why he put up with
House at all.

“Wait!” House called.

Wilson stopped, closing his eyes for a long moment before turning back. “Yes?”

House sighed a long-suffering sigh. “It’s not a joke. Bruce Wayne is Batman and
I used to be Robin.”

“Uh huh.” Wilson crossed his arms, glaring. “And I’m secretly Superman. I
commute between here and Metropolis.”

Wayne snorted. “Nope, you can’t be Superman. No spitcurl.”

“He *is* nearly as much of a boy scout as Big Blue, though.” House leaned on his
cane, head tilted. “If I didn’t know the truth, I might even believe it.”

Wilson ignored that, looking at Wayne. “Wait, you called him Tim.”

“It *is* his real name.”

“And we’re all about telling the whole truth, aren’t we, Bruce?” House scowled,
but it didn’t have nearly enough venom in it to be serious. “Yes, my name was
Tim Drake, but I gave that up when I was 16. I’ve been Greg House since then.”

“You’re insane.” Wilson stared at them, waiting for the punchline. “Utterly
insane.”

House and Bruce Wayne simply stared back, not backing down, and most certainly
not smiling. House didn’t even have on his sardonic grin, the one he always used
when he wanted you uncertain if he was telling the truth.

“Oh my god, you’re serious.” Wilson groped around for a chair and sat down. “I’m
not on Candid Camera or something?”

House shook his head. “Candid Camera hasn’t been on the air in decades. Keep up
with pop culture.”

“Don’t distract me! You’re trying to tell me that you used to be *Robin*–an
urban legend, for Christ’s sake.”

“No more an urban legend than Superman,” Wayne said, one corner of his mouth
tilting up.

“But…Robin?” Wilson stared at his friend, the cranky, misanthropic, goddamn
*bastard* who stiffed him when they ordered in the cafeteria just because he
could.

House shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” For a moment, Wilson closed his eyes and waited for the world to make
sense again. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. He opened them again. “You spring
something like this on me and all you can say is ‘Yeah’?”

“Yeah.” *There* was the sardonic grin, a little late, but familiar territory at
least.

“I…I don’t know what to say.”

House fluttered his eyelashes. “Say you’ll still marry me now that you know the
truth.”

Wilson studied House. “Why did you tell me this? I know you didn’t have to.”

House looked away and Wilson nodded, knowing he’d hit the crucial point. “It’s
old news,” House said, “but I thought you should know.”

Wayne’s mouth twitched in obvious amusement. “And you told Dick years ago that
you didn’t want to be like me.”

House glared at him. “Stay out of this.”

Turning to Wilson, Wayne leaned forward, expression much more serious. “He’s
never willingly told anyone this before.”

Wilson looked at House, who was twitching in annoyance. “Really?”

“Yes, you’re my first, now can we get on with this? I’ve had my fill of touchy
feely for the day and I didn’t even get a hand on Cuddy.” House stood. “Well, I
guess we’re done here.”

Wilson looked at Bruce Wayne, who said, “He’s changed.”

“What was he like before?”

House froze, barely breathing, before looking at the man he claimed was Batman.
“Bruce…”

“You started this, Tim.” He turned to Wilson. “He was idealistic. Told us all
that Batman needed a Robin and when Robin…couldn’t be there, he made himself
into Robin.”

Wilson blinked a few times. “Made himself?”

House turned away, tension in every line of his body.

“He wasn’t the last to do so, but he was the first. And the most successful. He
*believed* in the mission. Certainly more than I did at the time.”

Wilson recognized the look on Bruce Wayne’s face, because he saw it all the
time: It was the look of a man who’d lost family. House’s white-knuckle grip on
the cane said something similar. “Why did he leave?” Wilson asked.

“Hello!” House said, waving his hand. “Standing right here!”

Wayne took a deep breath. “He left because I screwed up.”

House froze again. He obviously hadn’t been expecting that. Slowly, he turned
back.

Wayne looked at Wilson, the pain more buttoned up than before, but still
obvious. “Tim left because…” He gritted his teeth. “I let someone he cared
about out before she was ready.”

Wilson blinked. “Out…you mean, in the vigilante sense.”

House snorted quietly, but let Wayne answer. “She was Robin for a short while. I
kicked her out. And when she tried to prove herself to me by going out on her
own, she was killed.”

“Steph should have known better,” House said, his voice hoarse.

“So should I.”

The two men stared at each other, and it was obvious at that moment that they
had once known each other extremely well, because there was some kind of
nonverbal communication going on. Wilson tried not to breathe, because he sensed
they’d reached a critical point and he didn’t want to interrupt.

House looked away first. “Yes, you should have, but I can’t keep punishing you
for that.”

Wayne looked at Wilson. “You might find it difficult to believe, but Tim had
quite a few friends in those days.”

House’s mouth tightened.

“Still has them, if he cared to call.”

“I left all of that behind me for a reason,” House said. Wilson noticed he
didn’t actually say what that reason *was*.

“Kon tells me that you once said you had friends and I had associates.” Wayne’s
voice was almost teasing.

“Friends are too much trouble,” House said. “Just ask Jimmy here how much
trouble I am.”

Wilson snorted. “Oh, he’s a lot of trouble.”

“I can believe that.” Wayne looked like he was suppressing a smile with great
effort.

House rolled his eyes. “Are we done torturing me yet? Maybe you’d like to try
poking my leg a few times for good measure?”

“No, I think we’re done,” Wayne said.

Wilson took a good look at him, noted definite lines of exhaustion, and stood.
“Well, you’ve certainly given me…food for thought.”

House raised a hand. “It goes without saying that this isn’t for public
consumption.”

Wilson blinked several times. “Are you kidding? Do you know how many laughs I’d
get if I tried to tell anyone you used to be *Robin*? It’d be easier to convince
them that you’re a melanin-challenged Mr. T.”

With that, he swept out of the room. Never let it be said, he thought, that
James Wilson didn’t know a great exit line when he found one.

–end–

by Mara

Summary: When Bruce Wayne becomes Dr. Gregory House’s latest patient, House’s hidden past might just be disclosed.

CONTINUITY: No spoilers for House. Some spoilers for DC big events Identity
Crisis and War Games, although this isn’t set in the same continuity. Clear as
mud? Righto. Just roll with me on this one, ‘kay?

NOTES: This is…an AU? A crossover? Elseworlds? Something like that. The idea
was originally Marcelo’s, but once I saw the show, I *had* to do this. Huge
thanks to Smitty, Marcelo, Euphiechan, and Smurf for the helpful betas and
telling me I wasn’t utterly insane to try this. I’m told that you can read this
without knowing DC comics, but I’m not certain if you have to know House, MD or
not.

* * * * *

House cursed under his breath as his leg twinged. Leaning on his cane, he walked
faster toward the hospital entrance, half his mind listening to Wilson’s
concerned lecture about something or other, the other half trying to remember
how many Vicodin he had left.

When his cell rang, he didn’t bother to look at the number. “What?”

He should have looked.

The voice sounded much older than the last time he’d heard it, but he would
always know the deep tones. “Tim, we need your help.”

“Right, like I’ve never heard *that* one before. And I told you not to call me
that.”

“There isn’t time for your attitude. I need your medical expertise.”

“Oh.” He stopped in front of the doors, not seeing his surroundings. “I’ll
pencil you in then.”

“Really?”

“For the tenth of never. Goodbye, Bruce. Don’t call me, I won’t call you.” He
snapped the phone shut and briefly considered throwing it, but Cuddy might take
exception to him breaking a window. She was so picky about those kinds of
things. Damn Bruce for trying to rope him in again with a stupid outbreak of the
bird flu in Vietnam or something. Whatever it was, other doctors could handle
it.

“House?”

Wilson’s agitated voice finally penetrated the red haze of his mind. “Yes?”

“What’s wrong?”

House glared at his forgotten companion, ignoring the stares from hospital
visitors and patients streaming by. “Just an old acquaintance presuming on a
nonexistent friendship. Don’t you have nurses you should be screwing now?”

He stomped through the sliding doors, leaving a stunned Wilson behind. You’d
think he’d never been rude to the man before.

* * * * *

Twenty years of practice and a pill enabled him to forget about the call as he
shuffled papers on his desk, wishing for an office that wasn’t quite so open and
well-lit during daylight hours. Even after all these years, he still craved the
dark.

He booted up the computer, burying himself in a case study JAMA had been
pestering him to write up for months, the jargon flowing automatically.

When his office door opened and shut, he didn’t bother to turn. “I gave at the
office.”

“I could name a dozen ways you’ve changed,” an amused voice said, “but letting
just anyone walk in on you is the most amazing.”

House’s head shot up and he found himself speechless as he spun in his chair.

“Hi, Tim.” Dick slid into a chair across from him, a small wince showing that
he, too, had aged. His hair was only lightly streaked with silver and his face
had somehow remained almost as boyish.

“I’m not Tim anymore.”

Dick crossed his arms. “Well, if you act like a sullen teenager, I’m going to
treat you like one.”

House slammed the book he’d been consulting onto the desk, wishing he could
break something. Dick’s head, maybe. Unfortunately, even if Dick was showing his
age, he’d continued to work out for all those years.

Which left House with the one weapon he’d continued to train: his mind. “I take
it Bruce sent you, thinking I’d be a softer touch for my ‘big brother.’ Well, it
won’t work.”

Dick’s eyebrows shot up. “I doubt very much he thought anything of the kind. No,
he sent me because he thought you needed to accept him as a patient before he
showed up.”

It hit like a jab to the diaphragm, stealing his breath and leaving him
speechless for the second time in five minutes. Irrelevantly, he almost wished
Cameron, Foreman, and Chase were there, because it was a sight they’d never
witnessed.

He was stalling, House noted. “He’s sick?” Damn it, all those years and he
sounded like that young boy again, the one who wanted to know why Dick wouldn’t
come back and be Robin, the one who took the job instead.

“Of course he’s sick.” Shaking his head, Dick frowned at him. “He told you so.”

“No, he didn’t.” Back on the solid ground of argument, House thumped his desk.
“In typical Bruce fashion, he said he needed my medical expertise, but he
carefully left out the minor fact that *he* was sick! I assumed it was some
problem for the Justice League, a pretext to talk since you’d found me.”

“Mmm, we found you several years ago, but it was a good thought hiding so close
to Gotham,” Dick said, watching him with that familiarly disturbing intensity.
“Fooled us for quite a while. What’d you do to Kon and Bart, by the way? They
actually turned white when I tried to convince them to tell me where you were.
And they’ve both gotten much better at eluding pursuit.”

“Kon had no right to tell you where I was last time.”

“Forget it.” Dick waved a hand. “The issue is still that Bruce is sick and the
only doctor he trusts is you, now that Leslie is gone.”

“Fine. I can tell you what’s wrong.”

“Without seeing him?”

“He’s old. Lesson over, next patient, goodbye, don’t let the door hit your ass
on the way out.”

Dick frowned, and House resisted the instinct to give in. He wasn’t that kid any
longer. “Ti–Greg, it’s not that. It’s more serious.”

House leaned back, grabbing the pill bottle from behind the monitor without even
looking, popping another pill just to watch Dick try not to flinch. “He’s Bruce
Wayne. He can pay for any medical care out there.”

“He wants you because he knows you’re the best.”

“I don’t care.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Too bad. Now get out before I call security and have you thrown out.”

“You wouldn’t do that.” Dick stared at him, eyebrows narrowed.

“Just try me.”

Dick opened his mouth then closed it. Standing, he marched out of the office,
shoulders slumped, unable as always to hide his emotions.

House didn’t watch him through the glass door all the way down the hall.

* * * * *

Wandering into Cuddy’s office, House tried to look as if it was his idea to
visit. “Just couldn’t go a day without seeing me? Be careful, people might guess
about our torrid affair.”

She glared, but it was a half-hearted attempt. “Sit down, Dr. House.”

“Ooooh, if the principal makes me sit, it means I’m in *real* trouble. What is
it this time? Did some little old lady from the clinic complain that I told her
she was ugly? Because if that’s it, I can explain–”

“Shut up.”

“Ooookay.” He should have seen what was coming. In fact, only willful ignorance
could have kept him from seeing it coming a mile away. After all, his patients
played the same game with him practically weekly, and they were less-skilled
than Cuddy.

Cuddy looked at him with her usual long-suffering expression. “What’s this about
you refusing to treat Bruce Wayne? He’s offering the hospital a lot of money and
this time nobody’s asking you to endorse a drug.”

“Ah, but money is the root of all evil. I’m simply leading you away from
temptation.”

Folding her hands on her desk, she rolled her eyes. “The biblical quote, as you
know, is that the love of money is the root of all evil. I’m fairly certain that
curing the sick is considered a good use of money in most religions. Except
perhaps yours. What *is* your religion, anyway?”

“Religion? Don’t be ridiculous. Next thing you’ll be suggesting I try praying
for my patients.”

“Some people like that kind of thing.”

“And some people sacrifice chickens and goats, but that doesn’t mean you want me
to practice Santeria in the hospital cafeteria.”

Her expression turned pained and a twitch started above her left eye. “At this
point, chickens and goats are the least of my worries. Bruce Wayne is being
admitted this evening. I want your team on it.”

“So because he’s rich, we should drop everything and go cure his heart disease?”

“How do you know he’s got heart disease?”

“I don’t! That’s not the point! The point is that this hospital clearly only
cares about patients if they’re millionaires.”

“Just once, could you possibly look at a patient without giving me a hard time?”

“Oh, but that’s my special treat.” He made a face at her.

“Dr. House, what in the world do you have against Bruce Wayne?”

He’s an arrogant jerk. He fired me. He wouldn’t let me do the only thing that
ever mattered to me. “He’s rich.”

“I don’t care if he’s Donald Trump. He’s a patient. You will treat him.”

House opened his mouth to continue the argument, but suddenly imagined the
stream of superheroes that would haunt him until he did this. Not only would Kon
and Bart beg him to help, they’d probably send *Superman*. Clark would be
earnest. And noble. And caring. He’d probably say how much everyone missed him.
And he’d mean it, damn it. Better to give in before he had to deal with that.

“Fine.” On principle, he glared at her and pounded his cane extra hard as he
went out the door. As a bonus, she looked worried that he’d given in so easily.

* * * * *

House was thankful everybody was accustomed to him not bothering to visit
patients and nobody would think twice when he sent Cameron to do all the icky
work of actually talking to Bruce.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t make himself *completely* unavailable or people would
start to wonder. He stuck to his usual hiding places, where Wilson or his team
could find him if things got really dire.

He sent Cameron to get a complete history (good luck on that), Foreman to get
started on all the bloodwork, and Chase to do something or other useful, and was
preparing to hide out in the OB waiting room when he realized he was supposed to
be in the clinic.

Frowning, he ran through a couple of excuses, but couldn’t think of one that he
hadn’t already tried. Besides, anybody who thought he was hiding would assume
he’d run away from the clinic.

Strolling in, he waved grandly at the nurse. “Your finest waste of time, my good
woman.” She rolled her eyes and handed him a folder.

It was a perfect hiding place, he thought with a grin as he entered Exam 2.

He got the door halfway closed before looking at who awaited him in the room.
“Damn it,” he said, thumping his cane against the floor as he glared at Babs.

She rolled her wheelchair forward. “You know, most people say ‘hello’ when they
see me. Maybe they’re just more polite than you.”

“*Everyone* is more polite than me. What do you want? I agreed to take the
case.” He sat down in a chair with a thump.

“And you haven’t set foot in his room,” Babs said. “You haven’t even *looked* at
him.”

Babs had allowed her hair to gray rather than dyeing it, which didn’t surprise
him. And her argumentative expression was exactly the same as when she’d refused
to take him on as Oracle’s assistant 20 years before.

“I never look at patients if I can avoid it,” House said in his most bored tone.
“Patients only lie to me and make my job harder.”

Her eyes widened. “Jesus, Tim, what’s happened to you?”

“I’m not Tim!” He jumped to his feet, intent on escaping, forgetting for the
first time in years about his leg. It gave out under him and he staggered and
nearly fell, hissing in pain. “I’m not Tim,” he said again, clutching the edge
of the exam table to stay upright. “How many times do I need to tell you people?
I know you’re not stupid, so what part of ‘My name is Gregory House’ do you not
understand?” Knives shot up his leg all the way to the hip and he blinked back
tears. With one hand he held the table and with the other he fumbled open the
bottle and popped another pill.

Babs frowned at the bottle, but he ignored her.

“I’ve got my team working on Bruce’s case. They’re the best. I know, because I
trained them myself. If he can be cured or stabilized, we’ll do it. Don’t ask
for anything else because you’re decades too late.” He leaned over and grabbed
his cane, staggering toward the door.

“You know that the others give you some slack because of your leg,” she said,
almost shouting. “But I don’t. I think you hide behind your injury. I think you
hate the fact you weren’t injured on the job. And you might recall some of us
have it worse than you.”

“I don’t want to hear this,” he said, his hand on the door handle.

“Tough shit.” She rolled her wheelchair up behind him, bumping the back of his
ankles. “I wanted you to come work for me, but you weren’t ready, you were still
too angry. You needed to get away from the mess for a while and you did. I tried
to get in touch with you, but by that point you were running away too fast.”

House stared at the white door.

Her tone got sharper. “I’m sorry. We’re all sorry. We’ve told you that before.
Will you ever forgive us?”

“No.”

House expected her to come after him, but he made it safely to the elevator.

* * * * *

“Something about this case is bothering you,” Wilson said over the rim of his
coffee cup an hour later.

“Excuse me?” House lowered the issue of Teen People he’d stolen from the clinic
waiting room.

“Bruce Wayne. His case bothers you.”

Snorting, House went back to his examination of Britney Spears’ breasts. “All
patients bother me. Especially rich ones.”

“No, it’s something more than that.”

“Do I look like I’m especially bothered?” House looked pointedly at his feet,
propped up on a low cement wall, and his coffee and danish, which he’d been
enjoying in solitude before Wilson showed up.

“Yes.”

“I won’t bother to ask what tortured logic allowed you to reach that conclusion,
but I can assure you I’m no more disturbed than normal for a day in which I have
to spend two hours wiping the noses of obnoxious children and reassuring their
moronic parents it isn’t bubonic plague.” He snapped the magazine back up.

“Look, I wasn’t planning on eavesdropping, but I overheard a conversation.”

“Really. Imagine that. People in a hospital talking. What will they think of
next?”

“A conversation between Bruce Wayne and someone named Dick.”

House did not move a single muscle, but his mind raced.

“They were talking about how you’d refused to see him. How much they missed
you.”

Damn them. “Missed me?”

“I got the impression that you knew them. That you had known them for a long
time.”

“They said that?” House lowered the magazine again. “In front of you?”

Wilson recoiled from his expression. “Well, they didn’t know I was there, but–”

“Oh, they knew you were there, I’ll guarantee it. The day those two don’t know
who’s listening in, is the day I dig their graves. Strike that. I’m going to
kill them right now.”

Even at House’s top walking speed, it only took the shocked Wilson a few moments
to catch up to him and House cursed his leg for the millionth time. “I don’t
understand,” Wilson said. “How do you know Bruce Wayne? Why are you so mad that
I know it?”

“I worked for him. A long time ago.” He gritted the words out, knowing if he
didn’t answer, Wilson would keep asking.

“Then why hide the fact?”

“Because I hate his guts. Somehow I think that foolish idealistic doctors like,
say, Cuddy, might think this compromises his care.”

“Cuddy figures you hate everybody. I don’t think she’s worried about that.”

House scowled harder, a group of student nurses scattering out of his path like
bowling pins as he stomped toward the elevator. He wanted to go up the stairs,
but knew if he tried that, he wouldn’t be able to walk for a week. As he stared
at the elevator door, trying to develop Superman’s heat vision, he tried to
ignore Wilson, who’d begun to smirk. “What?” he finally snarled, unable to stand
it.

“It’s an actual emotion. I’m excited. We don’t get to see anything but annoyance
from you very often.” He cocked his head to one side, still smirking. “You
really hate this guy but you agreed to let your team treat him. What in the
world happened?”

“None of your business.”

The elevator dinged and House got on. Wilson followed, still studying him. “I’ve
never seen you like this.”

House ignored him, concentrating on twenty different ways to kill a man lying on
a bed. If Dick was there, he’d have to get through him first, but that was just
fine. Babs would have escrima sticks somewhere on her chair, but he was ready
for that. Cass might be a problem, though.

It took everything he had not to break the glass door opening it, but he
managed. Through the haze, he made sure no nurses were present and turned to
look at Wilson, who’d followed him. “Out.”

“House, I–”

“Out. I told you it’s none of your business, so get out, damn it.”

Wilson turned away without speaking; distantly, House realized he might have
gone too far, but it was too late to take it back. The other man paused, but
sighed and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Smacking his cane on the floor, House turned to look at Bruce and Dick. “Just
what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I–” Dick started.

“And don’t even try to play innocent! You knew damn well he was listening. You
knew he’d talk to me. By now you probably know everything there is to know about
this place, so don’t even try to pretend.” He was shouting, which was probably a
bad thing, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

“It–” Bruce tried.

“You come into my hospital and interrupt my work and what the hell happened to
secrecy anyway? Did that fall by the wayside along with me? Maybe I should just
open the door and yell that I used to be–”

“Tim!” Bruce’s voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through his shouting in a way he
remembered he’d always hated.

“Don’t call me that.” His voice was quieter but Dick’s eyes widened at the tone.

Bruce looked as impassive as always, although House automatically catalogued
wrinkles, new visible scars, and a faint tremor in his left hand. “Fine. Dr.
House, you need to calm yourself so we can discuss this rationally.”

“You want to discuss this rationally? Let’s start with a rational discussion of
how the hell I’m supposed to treat you when I know you’re lying.”

A flash in Bruce’s eyes. “I’m not lying.”

“Uh-huh. I’m sure when the lovely Dr. Cameron came in to take a medical history
you told her all about where you got that scar down your left side. Or did you
give her the usual crap about car accidents and skiing in Switzerland?”

“How I got that scar is not relevant.”

“Oh, so you’re a doctor now? I’m the doctor around here and *I* decide what’s
relevant, not you. If you know what’s wrong with you, you don’t belong here.”

Bruce right hand clenched in his blanket. “If you’d come to take the history, it
wouldn’t have mattered.”

Staring at the ceiling, House wished he could pray for patience. “That may be
the stupidest thing you’ve ever said, although it’s got some pretty stiff
competition.” He stepped closer, staring down at Bruce. “Do you think I’m some
lone vigilante doctor? I may be a maverick but I’ve got paperwork, a boss, three
sidekicks, and colleagues who read over my cases to try and catch me screwing
up. There’s no way I could hide that kind of information here.”

Bruce seemed startled, brow furrowing. “I didn’t–”

“Think of that? Obviously. Having Leslie around spoiled you. Welcome to the real
world.”

“But I did get you to come see me, even if it was only to yell.”

As House slammed the sliding door shut behind him, he thought he heard the clink
of glass breaking. He didn’t pause long enough to check. Let Maintenance worry
about it.

* * * * *

When the kids came back to report to him, they all looked like they were
marching to their doom–obviously reports of his tantrum had made it through the
gossip mill in record time. It was probably in the staff newsletter already, he
thought, tossing his GameBoy onto the table; the clatter made Cameron jump and
nearly drop the folders in her hand.

But–fortunately for them–they’d waited long enough for his temper to cool back
to its normal simmer. “What’ve you got?”

Nobody wanted to be first and a silent battle raged in twitching lips and
sidelong glances.

Sighing, House gave up, waving his cane at them. “I’m not going to bite your
heads off. At least today. Foreman, what’ve you got?”

Standing, he limped to the whiteboard to take them through the case. For the
moment it was The Case and not Bruce Wayne, because he couldn’t afford to think
about the patient right now.

“What’ve we got for symptoms?” he asked.

“Fever spiking at 104 and fatigue.” Foreman ticked them off on his fingers as
House scribbled down the list.

“Numbness and weakness in the fingers and toes, as well as some diffuse pains,”
Cameron added.

“Transient ischemia and severe headache,” Chase said. “Oh, and three separate
occasions of partial visual loss.”

“Memory problems not accounted for by age,” Cameron said, flipping through her
notes.

Fortunately, all three of them were looking elsewhere, so they missed House
starting when he heard that. He closed his eyes, imagining for a moment how
frightened Bruce must be by that particular symptom. “Give me possible
diagnoses,” he said, forcing himself to concentrate.

“Brain tumor,” Foreman said.

Cameron shook her head. “Maybe, but they scanned his brain twice.”

“Do it again.” House tapped his toes. “Chase?”

“Vasculitis,” Chase said with a sigh. Everyone just stared at him. “Never mind.”

“Some kind of nerve problem?” Cameron asked.

“Doesn’t explain the fever, does it?” House tapped the board.

“It could be anything,” Foreman said, slamming shut the book he’d been
consulting.

House rolled his eyes. “Oh good, maybe you’d like to tell the patient that.
‘Sorry, it could be anything, so I decided to play a round of golf instead.’”

“I didn’t say that.” Foreman scowled at him.

“What, did you think this fellowship was going to be easy? ‘I’ll work for Dr.
House. I’ve heard he takes all the *easy* patients.’”

“Dr. House…” Cameron looked like she was on the verge of a pout.

“Chase,” House snapped, “I want a CNS angiogram and a spinal tap.”

He blinked. “Right.”

“Foreman, besides the brain scan, I want you on the bloodwork. Gimme everything,
I don’t care how obscure.”

He nodded, scribbling notes to himself.

“Cameron, get on with the research. Focus on the nervous system. Tell me this
isn’t something obvious and boring everybody has missed so far.”

She scowled but nodded, picking up a notepad and a thick stack of books.

All three looked like they’d been through a major disaster: Chase drained his
coffee cup like it was the elixir of life, Foreman’s frown was permanently
etched, and Cameron had dark circles under her eyes.

“Go. Cause trouble,” he said, waving them out of the room. Chase and Foreman
couldn’t escape fast enough but Cameron hung back.

Damn, he thought. Not now.

“Dr. House?” she said.

“Don’t bother.”

“Excuse me?”

He sighed heavily. “You’ve heard that I yelled at our patient today, so there
are only a couple of possibilities: First, you want to be sympathetic about
whatever got me so upset; second, you want to give me a friendly lecture on
being nice to patients; or third, you’re fishing for information about what I
was yelling about.

“So, to get it out of the way: I don’t want sympathy, I hate patients, and I’m
not telling. Get to work.”

“Do I even need to be here for this conversation? You seem to have both parts
down.”

“Then go.” If there was one topic in this world he didn’t want to talk about,
Bruce Wayne was most certainly it, beating out his leg, his feelings, and his
nonexistent sex life.

“Dr. Wilson told me you know the patient.” Cameron crossed her arms.

Tapping his cane on the floor, House stared at her, but she held his gaze
steadily. On one hand, it was nice to see her toughening up, but he rather
wished she wouldn’t use her newfound toughness on him.

“What do you know about Bruce Wayne?”

He pretended to think. “He’s been number one on People’s Sexiest Rich Men list
seven times. He likes romantic walks on the beach and pretty girls, which you
most definitely are. Okay, he’s a bit old for you, but the money should
certainly make up for that. I won’t introduce you, though. You’re on your own
there.”

She even ignored that. “You always tell us we need to know everything about a
patient to treat them, but you’re not giving us all the information.”

“I know it. You don’t need to.”

She studied him for a moment. “You make it very difficult to be nice to you.”

He stood, leaning on his cane. “I do, don’t I?”

“I wonder why?” Her eyes widened and her mouth narrowed and he groaned–it was
her diagnostic expression, the one she got before she proposed a theory.

“I didn’t hire you for your psychiatric expertise.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond, stomping out of the room at his top speed.
For a moment, he remembered the burn in his thighs after running across the
rooftops, the muted thunk of a line launcher catching its target, the smell of
cordite on his clothing.

The squeaking of his shoes sounded louder than usual, an awkward counterpoint to
the tapping of the cane, noises he couldn’t disguise as he went down the hall.

* * * * *

The Gotham crowd seemed to have finally grasped his point and they avoided him
over the next few days. The hospital staff didn’t know what was wrong, but they
knew an extra-bad Dr. House mood when they saw it, so they avoided him too.
Cameron, Chase, and Foreman were all stuck with him, but they walked on
eggshells and he didn’t snap at them *too* much more than he would normally.

Wilson gave him a reproachful look later that day, but seemed resigned to his
rudeness and didn’t bother to try and get him to apologize.

House almost apologized just to see the look of confusion on his face, but
decided against it at the last minute, lest Wilson come to expect it.

They were narrowing in on Bru–the patient’s diagnosis and they’d even managed
to avoid any exciting infarctions and such. It was boring. Booooring.

House leaned back in his chair, shifting his foot on the footstool and wincing
as his leg protested. What should he do while his assistants were off
administering treatments and searching PubMed?

Well, there was an hour until General Hospital, but he could always make fun of
CNN, so he decided to turn on the television. He slid his leg carefully down and
reached for his cane.

“Hello,” Cass said from the doorway.

House cursed under his breath as he dropped his cane. Damn it, he hated being
out of practice, he thought. Cass had always been able to sneak up on him,
whether she was in costume as Batgirl or not, though.

Cass picked up the cane and handed it back to him before dropping back into a
relaxed stance. An untrained person would never notice, but to House’s eyes, it
was obvious that she was perfectly balanced and able to kick serious ass without
moving from her position.

“Unhappy,” she said with a frown.

House snorted. “Like *that* takes any expertise with body language. All you had
to do was ask anybody around here.”

A smile flitted across her face, which had a few lines he didn’t remember around
the eyes. “True. Love what you do, though.”

House turned his head, although he knew it wouldn’t stop her from reading
everything there was to know. “It’s important.”

“Yes.”

He kept staring out the window, watching the pitiful trees outside swaying in
the breeze even as he felt her step closer.

“It *is* important, Tim.” She put a hand on his cheek and he looked at her,
confused. Her face was intent, trying to communicate something to him, but he’d
never been as good at reading body language.

“Thanks for the inspiration. You can go back to being a faithful sidekick now.
Until Bruce decides *you’re* no longer useful.” Not that he was bitter or
anything.

Cass shook her head. “You don’t understand. Bruce is proud of you. Sorry for
what happened.”

House bowed his head, the memories visceral as ever: meaningless hymns echoing
off church walls, black clothing scratching his skin, food crumbling in his
mouth like ashes.

Knowing his dad’s murderer was alive in Arkham and Steph’s was still at-large.

* * * * *

The rain fell unheeded across his back as Tim slammed an informant against the
wall. “Where’s Black Mask?”

“I can’t–” The goon’s head made a hollow sound as it thudded against the brick,
and a few brick chips fell to the ground.

“Tell me or I’ll rip your arm out of its socket,” Tim hissed.

“No way!” The man spluttered as rain cascaded over his nose and mouth, but he
shook his head. “You don’t do that kind of stuff, kid. Everybody knows that.”

“Your boss killed a lot of people these past few days.” Tim was nose to nose
with the goon. “One was my girlfriend. Don’t tell me what I do.”

The man’s eyes rolled up in fear, then focused behind him.

Tim didn’t bother to turn. “Leave, Batman. This is my collar.”

“Robin, stop.”

“Stay out of this.”

“Stand down, Robin.”

The voice came closer, but Tim ignored it. “I’ve got to do this for her.”

“We’ll get Black Mask, I promise you, but not like this.” Batman was two feet
behind and to the right.

“I don’t believe you. You didn’t even tell me that she was dying. I didn’t get
to say goodbye.”

“This isn’t the way–”

Batman grabbed for his arm, but Tim was already moving, throwing his goon to the
opposite wall, hoping it would knock him out. Tim ducked under Batman’s hand,
rolling out of reach.

They faced each other in the dark of the alley, the rain dampening the garbage
that littered the ground.

“Don’t try and stop me, Batman.”

“I have to.”

“*We* have to,” Nightwing said, limping into view as Batgirl leaped down from a
fire escape overhead.

“To hell with all of you.”

“If you do this,” Batman said, “I’ll expect to find your uniform back in the
Cave by morning.”

Nightwing murmured a quiet protest, but Tim and Batman both ignored him as they
stared at each other.

Tim gritted his teeth. “So be it. You’ll have the uniform after I have justice.”
He threw down a handful of smoke pellets and was gone.

* * * * *

House put his head in his hands. He hated those memories. “Damn it, go away. I
don’t want to think about what I almost did.”

“No. Can’t run this time.” She knelt in front of him.

“Cass, I can’t forgive him.”

“For taking Robin. And for Steph.”

He nodded slowly. “She wasn’t ready to be Robin. He knew that.”

“Not your fault for leaving.”

He sat up quickly. “Of course not.”

“Not his either.”

“Bullshit. You’re making excuses for him the way everyone always has. I got
tired of it.”

Cass waited until he looked at her. “We miss you. Everyone is sorry. Time to
stop hating. She would want that.”

He didn’t know what she saw in his face, but she nodded. Leaning over, she
kissed his cheek and left.

* * * * *

When Wilson wandered in an hour later, House still sat with his forehead leaning
on his cane.

“Is something wrong?”

“Definitely,” House said without lifting his head. “Have you noticed that the
Republicans control the executive, legislative, *and* judicial branches of the
government? That’s wrong.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then you’ll need to be more specific.”

House could hear Wilson sigh and sit down. “You’re not exactly a ray of sunshine
at the best of times, but since Bruce Wayne showed up, you’ve been impossible.”

“So?” House stared at the vinyl floor, wondering why hospitals always had the
ugliest patterns. Did they get a discount on the stuff?

“I’m curious. For instance, why you never told me that you worked for him.”

“It was a long time ago.” House snorted. “But that was in another country and
besides, the wench is dead.” He’d never noticed how apropos that quote was.

“Speaking of wenches, who was the woman you were talking to when I passed by
before? I saw her with Bruce Wayne yesterday.”

“Cass. Her name is Cassandra.” She’s poetry in motion, House didn’t say. She
could kill you a hundred different ways with just the objects in this room. She
loved Steph as much as I did, but she stayed with Bruce.

“That’s it? No details?”

House looked up. “No.”

“Look, I know you don’t want advice from me–”

“Goodness, Doctor, how’d you get to be so smart?”

Wilson ignored him with the ease of long practice. “But it seems to me that
you’ve got some unfinished business with Bruce Wayne if he can get you angry
after so many years. I know you hate emotional stuff, but you need to deal with
this.”

House shook his head. “That’s what Cass came to say. Well, she used fewer
words.”

“And?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“I know you hold a grudge until it dies and then visit its grave, but what did
he do to you?”

The answer was automatic. “Took away the only thing that ever mattered to me.”

Wilson shook his head in confusion. “Medicine?”

House stared at him.

* * * * *

Bruce’s face looked almost as stern in repose as it did awake, House thought.
But he looked old. And tired. Nothing like the monster of his memories.

Although if he was going to be honest, Bruce had *never* been the monster of his
memories.

Bruce’s eyes opened. “Tim?”

“Hi, Bruce. Got a minute?”

“For you?” The smile spread across Bruce’s face. “Always.”

House limped over to the visitor’s chair, hiding the wince as he sat down. “I’ve
had a few visitors recently.”

Bruce frowned. “You know I didn’t tell them–”

“I know.” He shook his head. “I didn’t come to complain about that.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I…” House took a deep breath. “It’s been pointed out to me that perhaps I
need to get over myself.”

Bruce coughed. “I don’t know that I would have put it precisely that way. We
both made mistakes.”

Staring at the floor, House took another breath. “Medicine is important to me.”

“I’m glad.”

House looked up into Bruce’s concerned expression and shrugged. “Life goes on.”

“That it does.” Bruce nodded slowly.

The silence was uncomfortable and House filled it. “So, how’s Gotham?”

“The usual. Poison Ivy’s mad at the Joker and we had to clean up half of
Robinson Park. The Penguin continues to make money illegally. Now that Two-Face
is–”

House sat upright so fast he nearly fell off the chair.

“What?” Bruce looked around for whatever had House so alarmed.

He grabbed the phone and paged his sidekicks. “If it was a snake,” he muttered,
“we’d all be dead from venom by now.”

“I wasn’t bitten by a snake,” Bruce said, obviously concerned for his sanity.

House gave him a withering glance. “Metaphor, Bruce.”

Cameron ran into the room and skidded to a stop, looking around for the
emergency.

House held up a finger. “Wait for it…”

Chase and Foreman piled into the room behind her, and all three stared at him.

“Vasculitis,” House said with satisfaction.

Foreman and Cameron stared at him, then stared at Chase, whose jaw had dropped.
“I always say vasculitis–”

“And I always tell you you’re wrong. Because you’re always wrong. But this time
you were right.”

“But we–”

House interrupted him again. “It’s hypersensitivity vasculitis caused by
exposure to a specific substance. Removal of the allergen plus a good round of
steroids should clear up all his symptoms.”

“What substance?” Cameron asked, eyes going unfocused as she mentally paged
through her notes.

House looked at Bruce, whose eyes were wide as he looked back. “Pamela?” Bruce
asked.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“What are you talking about?” Foreman asked.

“He knows. How many times have I told you that everybody lies?”

Cameron blinked. “Over five hundred, I think.”

“That was rhetorical.”

“I know.” She grinned at him.

“Smartass.”

“Better than a dumbass.”

House shook his head. “What are you standing around for? Order this man a course
of corticosteroids and then go home and get some sleep. I’ll monitor to make
sure I’m right.”

“You’ll–” Chase closed his mouth with a snap.

The three of them looked at each other and were out of the room in seconds.

“They’re good kids,” Bruce said into the silence.

“Yeah. They’ll get over that eventually.”

The room was silent again, but it wasn’t uncomfortable now. The dim lighting
felt familiar and for a moment House fell back in time to the dark of the Cave.

“What now?” Bruce said.

“Now you get better,” House said with a shrug. “You go home, back to kicking
supervillain ass and making the new Wonder Girl nervous.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t belong in your world anymore.” It twisted his guts to say it…but it
was true. “I belong here. I’m damn good at what I do.”

“I know you are. That’s why I’m here.”

Even after all these years, House still wanted to grin at the rare praise and
Bruce’s expression, the one that said ‘You got all the hostages out alive. Good
work.’

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “I know that look.”

“What look?”

“It’s the same one you had when you wished you could tell your father. Who do
you want to tell?”

House looked away.

“Do you trust this person?”

“Does it matter?” The anger was back.

Bruce didn’t rise to the bait of his tone. “Yes. This time you might convince
me.”

The floor tried to drop away and House gripped his cane for support. Another
shock like this, he thought distantly, and he’d be a patient in his own
hospital.

“Do you trust this person?”

“Yes.” He didn’t have to think about it. “With all of our lives.”

Bruce nodded once. “Okay.”

* * * * *

Wilson strode in, brow furrowed with concern. He stopped dead in his tracks when
he saw House sitting comfortably next to Bruce. “House? You paged me. Is there a
problem?”

“You’ll want to sit down for this.” House gestured at a chair. “I have…we have
something to tell you.”

Giving House an odd look, Wilson sat down. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“That depends, I suppose.”

“On what?”

“On how you feel about spandex. And capes.”

Wilson stared. “What?”

–end–

by Mara

Summary: Alfred has an unusual visitor for tea.

CONTINUITY: Oh, sometime between War Games and Multiple Crises in Infinite
Disasters or whatever it’s called.

NOTES: Hmm. This story might go against a specific piece of canon, but I can’t
tell you what without ruining the story. Here’s the deal: If you promise not to
quibble and just go with the flow, I promise to give you a short character
ficlet. Okay? This is for Fanfic100′s challenge #21, Friends.

* * * * *

Alfred set the table with his usual precision–two teacups and saucers, a small
plate of fresh lace cookies (with coconut rather than nuts, just the way his
guest liked them), napkins folded just so.

The clock showed he had a few minutes left, and he poured the rapidly boiling
water into the teapot and set it to steep.

When he looked up, the other seat was occupied. “Hullo, Alfred,” the dark-haired
young woman said with a smile.

“Good afternoon,” he said, sitting opposite her.

“One day,” she said, laying the napkin across her lap, “I will startle you by
doing that.”

“Of course you will,” he said politely, and she laughed. “I’m glad you could
find the time to visit,” he said.

“For you? I make the time. Not literally, of course. And besides, I seem to
spend more than my fair share of time in Gotham.” Her eyes were sad.

“True.” Alfred poured the tea. “And how is your family?”

“Still fractured, I’m afraid, and more than a little insane.” She inhaled the
scent of the tea with a blissful smile. “Nobody in this country makes tea the
way you do. And how is *your* family? Happily, I haven’t heard a peep from them
in months.”

Alfred sighed and took a sip of his own tea, staring into the cup. “Still
fractured and more than a little insane.”

The woman took a cookie. “Yes, I can imagine. I was so very sorry…it was hard
for me to do.”

Leaning across the small table, Alfred patted her hand. “Of course. You know I
don’t blame you.”

“That’s one of the things I find so refreshing about you.”

She ate her cookie and they chatted of inconsequentials for a few minutes until
footsteps could be heard in the hallway.

“That would be Master Bruce,” Alfred said.

“Well, it was more than time for me to go anyway.”

“Please, take another cookie with you.”

“Thank you!” As her pale hand took a cookie off the plate, her ankh necklace
swung free and glittered in the light. Like the Cheshire Cat, she faded away
until only the necklace remained, and then she was gone.

“Alfred,” Bruce said as he came around the corner, “I wanted to check if–I’m
sorry, were you having company?”

“Not any longer,” Alfred replied as he began to clear the table. “She didn’t
have long to stay.”

Bruce smiled. “Will I ever get to meet her?”

Alfred’s hand shook and the teapot rattled. “I’m afraid so. But you’ll find her
pleasant company. Now, you were looking for me?”

–end–

Author’s note: I’m kind of assuming that you figured out that Alfred’s guest was
Death from the Sandman series, and yes, I seem to recall that it was stated that
she took human form one day a century, but a) I don’t remember if it was said
she couldn’t do so at other times, and b) even if that were true, Alfred is the
exception to *many* rules.