Build not your House upon lies

List of new Worm terms used in this chapter, in case you're unfamiliar with the series.

Piggot - Head of the Parahuman Response Team, Brockton Bay branch.

Shadow Stalker - Female. Real name, Sophia Hess. Member of the Brockton Bay Wards. Ability to transform into shadows, though vulnerable to electricity. One of the people responsible for bullying Taylor until she triggered. Has a 'Survival of the fittest' mentality.

Panacea - Female. Member of New Light. Can heal injuries through biological control/biological editing. 15. Self-confidence issues; is in love with her sister Glory Girl due to prolonged exposure to her sister's aura.

Dr. Gregory House was flipping through the countless folders. Hallucinations, heart problems, liver damage; definitely drugs, most likely Merchants. Burn victims; burn marks in the shape of Nazi swastikas so that would be E88. Blade wounds? ABB, maybe. Regardless, it was all so boring! Pointless, pointless, so pointless. Why were there no fun patients?

The intercom whirred to life. "Panacea to floor 3, room 14. ER ward."

House sighed. Right. That's why. Panacea. Some of his fellow doctors hated that girl. Said she was stealing their jobs. Wilson and Cuddy were probably two of the people most in favor of her existence. After all, cancer wasn't something that Wilson could cure. Diagnose, sure. But never cure. Before Panacea, House's closest—and probably only—friend was forced to watch as his patients withered away.

House couldn't really sympathize with the man—his patients never died, but then, his patients weren't suffering from stage 4 cancer. Usually they were suffering from stage 1 'What the Hell even is this?' Moot point. Of course, Cuddy liked the girl. She saved lives, and that's what Cuddy wanted.

For his part, House sat somewhere in-between. He couldn't hate the girl. She was, if anything, honest. Sometimes brutally so. Well, honest in anything not related to her feelings for her sister. But then, that wasn't really a field that House dealt with. Teens and their emotions. A terrible condition that not even he could solve. He didn't mind her healing his patients either. It just meant less people he had to interact with. What annoyed him was that, she stole all the interesting patients. Well, most. She left him those suffering from some mental condition. Couldn't do brains, or so she said. House knew she was lying, though he doubted anyone else did. But then, he was the deranged genius diagnostician. He noticed things. It's what he did.

However, that was one lie that he understood. Lies are nasty little things. It's why House had promised that he would never lie to people. In any serious situation, that is. He still lied to Wilson all the time. Honestly, that man needed to learn that when House said "I'll return your wallet," he definitely didn't mean it. But he knew that some lies are necessary. He wasn't a psychologist, but he could see that if that girl had any more pressure put on her, she'd snap. So House let her have her secret. Well, that and it was amusing to hear his fellow doctors whine about her behind closed doors. It was nice to have another person that could show them up; him in diagnostics, her in actually healing them.

With a groan, House rose from his chair. Even if there weren't any interesting patients, he might as well go do something. He pulled a pair of dice from his pocket and tossed them onto his desk. 3 and 7. 21. Lucky. Well then, floor 3, ward seven, room 21 it was.

Taylor groaned as she opened her eyes. The girl peered around the white walled room she was lying in. It was a hospital room. Someone must have rescued her from her locker, though she didn't know who. The janitor, maybe? Her thoughts were interrupted by the door bursting open. A slovenly dressed man stepped inside, spinning a cane in his hand.

"So," he said, "what's wrong with you?"

"Excuse me?" Taylor asked, confused. She was still disoriented from just waking up, and now there was a random man in her room asking questions that she wasn't sure if she should answer.

A nurse burst into the room and glared at the cane-wielding man. "Dr. House! You can't just come barging into a patient's room!"

The man-Dr. House, Taylor supposed-blinked and stopped spinning his cane. "Hmm," he said. "She's at the hospital because of some reason or another, and needs a doctor. I'm a doctor. So… I believe I can."

The nurse glared harder. "She's not your patient, Dr. House! Dr. Cheng is…"

"Wait, stop." Dr. House held up a hand. "She's Dr. Cheng's patient? The… why, that man is even worse at dealing with children that I am! For God's sake, why on Earth would you assign him to someone who's clearly suffering from anxiety, depression, has massive issues with her self confidence, and is probably here because of a severe case of bullying?"

His response seemed to flummox the nurse and she pulled up short. "Bullying? Depression? What are you talking about, Dr. House? She had a stroke because of stress."

Dr. House rolled his eyes. "A stroke? What idiot diagnosed that? She's clearly suffering from toxic shock syndrome! It… the two don't even look remotely similar!"

"But…" he seemed to have the nurse on the back foot at this point. "The girls who brought her in said…"

"The girls who brought her in said," Dr. House shot back mockingly. "And I'm sure you based your wonderfully idiotic diagnosis of a stroke on what they said? God, how do you people even become doctors? Fine, since none of you are apparently even remotely competent enough to do basic medicine, I'm taking over her case."

"Dr. Cheng won't be happy with you," the nurse said. Dr. House rolled his eyes.

"Tell me. Who's a senior fellow with this hospital? Who's the best damn diagnostician in Brockton Bay? Who's the man who Cuddy has been bothering about actually doing work? That's right, me. So if I go to Cuddy and tell her that I'm taking over the care of this girl, what do you think her response will be? It'll be 'Good to see you taking some initiative for once, House.'" Dr. House pointed to the door. "Now get out and let me do your job for you."

Wordlessly the nurse stepped outside, sliding the door closed after her. Dr. House turned back to Taylor.

"Now that that's taken care of, let's practice medicine." Taylor looked at him.

"How'd you figure all that?"

Dr. House glanced at her. "Figure what?"

"That I'm, quote, 'suffering from anxiety, depression, has massive issues with her self confidence, and is probably here because of a severe case of bullying?'" Taylor said.

"Simple. The first two? All teenagers have anxiety and depression." Taylor nodded. Fair enough, she supposed. Dr. House continued on. "You're tall for your age, but in spite of that aren't particularly developed in certain areas. That's always a sore spot for girls, so issues with self confidence." His words made Taylor grimace. Yeah, the size of her breasts was a bit of a confidence breaker. Especially considering how developed Emma was, and how often the other girl brought it up. "Also when I came in, you shrank away from me, unsure of how to react. And as for the bullying? Your fingernails are chipped, and there's trace amounts of some sort of metal filings on them. Almost as if you had attempted to claw your way out of a metal box of some description. Like, for instance, a high school locker."

Taylor blinked. "You're observant."

Dr. House shrugged. "I'm a diagnostician. It's what I do. Now, let's see what's wrong with you."

"Excuse me, Director Piggot. There's a Dr. House to see you. He doesn't have an appointment, but he's insisting that you'll meet with him." Emily Piggot looked up from her paperwork. House had come here? Curious. Well, she supposed she could use a break from dealing with all the logistics of running an overtaxed and underfunded organization in one of the most crime-infested cities in the country.

"Send him up," she informed her secretary. "He's an old friend."

Piggot went back to her paperwork as she waited for House to arrive. After a minute or so, her office door crashed open and House limped in. Piggot put down the document she was looking over-budgeting concerns, as usual.

Piggot smiled faintly. "Good to see you, Greg. It's been a while."

House shrugged, dropping into one of the chairs in front of her desk. "Emily. Yeah, it's been years. Kidneys still working like shit?"

"Aye. Better that they work like shit than don't work for shit though. What do you want anyways?" Piggot asked.

"Can't a doctor just show up to see how a former patient and old friend of his is doing?" House said.

Piggot rolled her eyes. "You hate people, Greg. I'm sure I'm one of the very few people on your friends. You also hate your friends. Honestly, I have no idea how Wilson's put up with you for all these years."

"Hell if I know." House sighed. "But yeah, I need to talk about one of your Wards."

"Damn," Piggot muttered under her breath. "Fucking Capes. More trouble than they're worth. Which one?"

House pulled out a folder and tossed it in front of Piggot. "Sophia Hess. Shadow Stalker."

Piggot grabbed the folder and pulled it towards her. She paused, about to open it. "I suppose you're not going to tell me how you found out who she was?" House smirked at her. "Well, you always were one to disregard the law. This isn't going to be about her vigilante justice, is it?"

House shook his head. "Nope. Considering that my general method of medical treatment is to ignore almost all basic safety guidelines, I can't really fault someone who operates outside the law, can I? Bit more damning than that."

"I'm not going to like what I read here, am I?" Sighing, Piggot began reading through the dossier. When she finished, she slammed it shut, anger clearly evident on her face. She grabbed her office phone. "Sarah? Effective immediately, detain Agent Fields and Shadow Stalker and send Armsmaster and Aegis to my office. Yes, that is an order. Severity 3. Do it."

"You seem pissed," House said, flicking through a rubik's cube he had pulled from his pocket. "Haven't seen you this mad at anyone in a long time."

"I trust your medical report, but how accurate is the rest?" Piggot asked.

House frowned. "Firsthand report. Stopped by the school and watched. Winslow doesn't care much about another druggie lying around outside, you know? What with the amount of Merchants and all that."

"Damn." Piggot sighed. "This is going to be a shitstorm, isn't it? Damn, damn, damn!" She slammed a fist onto her desk, breathing hard. Collecting herself, she addressed House again. "How'd you get involved anyways? This doesn't sound like your normal problem. You solve impossible medical issues, not long running bullying campaigns."

"Well, that's the good news. You might get another Ward to replace Shadow Stalker." House smiled, though there was no humor in his gaze. "Turns out that Sophia's usual victim triggered. She got brought into my hospital. Very normal case. Probably would have fallen by the wayside if Cuddy hadn't been bothering me to actually put my team to use."

House stood up and strolled towards the door, leaving Piggot alone to read through the damning report on Shadow Stalker once again. Heads would roll for this.

Yo. I'm back. Sorta. Yay. Read and Review, or message me on Steam to motivate me. Or don't, whatever.