0000000---0000000

Fishsticks and Animal Crackers

0000000---0000000

Luna and Thirteen watch as Chase enters the conference room, with a swagger that they have not seen from him previously. They look at each other curiously.

"Hadley, was the girlfriend in the room while you were getting the patient's history."

"Yes, why? He was very open about his history. He even admitted to her that he got syphilis and gonorrhea from his old girlfriends.

"It's not history that he's lying about."

Kutner comes bounding in with Ross, Honeycutt, and Anjali following him.

"We come bearing gifts," Kutner announces as he tosses a pill bottle to Thirteen, that catches her by surprise. "Mrs. Guthrie has…"

"Severe dementia," Chase finishes.

They all look at him shocked.

"Yeah, how do you know?" asks Kutner.

Wildman walks in. "You're right. She thinks he's twelve," he says handing her medical file to Chase.

"Is that a metaphor?" asks Kutner.

"No."

"Severe dementia explains the mood swings, and violent outburst," says Luna catching on to what they are talking about.

"What does the mother's history have to do with our case?" asks Honeycutt.

"Depends on what you found in the house."

Ross happily dumps the contents of his trash bag on the conference room table.

Chase grimaces as he looks through the junk. "You could have just dropped it off at the lab. Did you find any of this stuff in the kitchen?"

"No," Ross says looking at his feet, "Honeycutt did the kitchen."

They all look to Honeycutt who seems to shrink in her seat with the attention.

"There was mold underneath the sink," she squeaks. Everyone rolls their eyes at her, clearly thinking that her find isn't significant to the case." Honeycutt squints, thinking about anything that she noticed which might help the case, but for some reason nervousness was over taking her, so she continued to babble. "Everything was pretty clean, except I found ant spray and baby powder in the refrigerator."

She stands up straighter, "Oh." Finally realizing why the mother's history is so important. "You mean she could have put sugar in the soup instead of salt?"

"Except instead sugar, a highly toxic substance," says Luna dryly.

Anjali grabs a bottle of antspray on the table.

"Is this the same brand?" she asks. Honeycutt nods, as Anjali looks through the ingredients. "These chemicals would have been found in the test I ran…"

"You ran?" Chase asks.

Anjali's eyes go wide, realizing she let something slip. "Um, I…"

"Baby powder isn't poisonous," Wildman interrupts. "They used that to snort instead of cocaine in the making of Scarface."

Ross and Thirteen give Wildman an incredulous look. Is this guy kidding? They both think. He pays them no attention and gives Anjali a sly wink.

"I actually knew that," smirks Chase. "So this stuff isn't going to get tested by itself." Chase's fellows and Kutner scramble out of their seats, while Thirteen remains seated.

"So that's all you've got?" asks Thirteen challengingly.

"Do you have something to add, Dr. Hadley?" Chase asks, causing everyone to stop short.

"Maybe we should tell House what we discovered. He might have a diagnosis."

Chase clenches his jaw. He really has had it with Thirteen. It is not his fault that House decided to be more difficult than usual to be found, today. "Okay, you look for him, we'll continue working on the case," Chase says condescendingly.

Thirteen gets up and stomps out of the room. Chase lets out a sigh. He looks down at the samples on the table, and notices a near- empty bag of fertilizer.

"What did you find that in the greenhouse?"

"Green house? What greenhouse?" asks Kutner.

"Mrs. Guthrie, mentioned something about a greenhouse being built on the property."

"Yeah, but she also thinks the patient is in the sixth grade," says Ross, curtly.

"The house is huge," says Kutner pensively. "She's probably lived in the house since he was in sixth grade. I'll go back and check." He hurries out of the room.

Chase's beeper goes off. He scrunches his face in confusion as he sees the number. "I'll be back," he exits the conference room, leaving the remaining fellows to figure out something to do."

000---000

Kutner hops over the fence in the backyard, regretting Honeycutt's decision to lock the front door after they had left the first time.

He has actually been really impressed by Chase's handling of the case. He wonders why Thirteen was getting herself worked up over Chase taking over the case while House is Missing in Action for the better part of the day. Sure, he was fired by House, but House wouldn't have disappeared if he did not think Chase could do the job…right? Oh hell, knowing House he is probably planning some elaborate prank on Wilson, or Cuddy, or watching a squid mate with whale in Coma Guy's room.

Kutner looks around the backyard. He sees a path leading the fence covered with vines. Paths don't just stop at the wall for no reason. Kutner heads to that part of the fence. He moves the vines and sees a secret door. He opens the door and on the other side is a huge green house.

He walks into the green house and finds himself confronted with hundreds unmarked green plants. "Shit."

000---000

Chase heads back to the conference room, grumbling. Why would the clinic call him down there to consult on a simple case of bloody diarrhea? He barely stepped onto the elevator when they paged him again, for a bad case of the cramps.

He walks into the conference room and stops short. Luna and Anjali have their laptops out, and Ross is at the office computer. All are furiously typing on their keyboards. Wildman paces the room talking earnestly on his cell phone like he is coordinating a covert op command center.

"Uh, hi?" Is the only think Chase can think to say.

"Here's the next picture," says Wildman, acting like Chase hadn't even entered the room.

"I'm free!" shouts Luna.

Wildman walks over to him and shows him the picture on his phone.

"He's joking right? We found that one ten minutes ago!"

Chase just stands there confused.

"Then what is it?" asks the voice on the other line.

"Fennel." Luna says in an exasperated voice.

"Are you sure I already sent…"

"Yes!" shouts all three doctors on the computer.

"Is that Kutner?" Chase asks recognizing the voice on the phone.

"Yeah, he found the green house," replies Honeycutt, who sits on the couch with several books spread out in front of her.

"Okay."

"The plants aren't labeled, so Kutner's texting us the pictures and we're looking them up on line…" explains Wildman.

"and in these readers," adds Honeycutt, holding up a book, Boy Scouts Manual to Poisonous Plants.

"What about the lab?"

"There's a lot of plants," says Honeycutt solemnly.

"And he keeps texting us the same plant twice," scoffs Anjali.

"Besides, Anjali pointed out that most of the potential toxins we found in the home, would be found on the test we already ran," says Luna.

"That's a root, you're going to need to dig it out," says Wildman on the phone.

He gets the picture. "It looks like some sort of turnip." He shows the picture to the others.

"It's a mooli," says Anjali.

"It's a Chinese radish," says Luna.

"No, it's a daikon, right ?" says Ross. He looks to Wildman for support, but the other man just shrugs.

They start to argue. Chase goes over to Wildman and takes a look at the picture.

"Uh guys," Chase interrupts the squabbling. "You're all right."

The all quiet down abruptly.

"They're all just different names for the same vegetable."

The three blush a little in embarrassment.

Chase's beeper goes off. He rolls his eyes, it's the clinic again.

"Well, keep at it. Page me if anything else comes up." He heads out the door.

The door shuts behind him. They group here's snickering

Anjali glares at Wildman, whose shoulders are shaking, as he is trying to keep in a chuckle.

"What's so funny?"

Wildman shakes his head. Luna lets out a snort. They both bust out laughing.

Anjali pouts. "Oh shut up! You were arguing too."

"So?" Luna wipes his eyes, "It is kind of funny."

"No it's not," grunts Ross, "We looked like idiots."

"Why don't you tell us what this is, slick?" says Wildman, as he shows Kutner's next text. Ross shrugs. He starts looking up the plant on the internet.

Anjali gets a look at it, "It's thyme."

"You sure of about that one?" ask Wildman, giving her a small smirk.

"Very."

"Time? Time for what?" asks Kutner through the speaker phone.

"Thyme, the herb," explains Anjali, "not time the clock."

"My clock says three fifty- five."

"No, the herb thyme, not time, time," Anjali exasperates slapping her forehead. "Not poisonous, next picture!"

They hear snickering on the other end.

Anjali's eyes widen, as everyone else starts laughing. She realizes that Kutner was joking.

She crosses her arms across her chest. "Ha, ha, walked right into that one." No one stops laughing. "Oh come on people, there's a life at stake!"

The laughter grows louder.

The conference door swings open. Cuddy enters the room, giving them a look not to be messed with. "What's going on here?"

The laughter immediately subsides, they all look at each other guiltily.

"Can't you tell," House says appearing behind Cuddy, holding a Big Gulp. "They're all playing War Craft." He takes a loud slurp of his slushie.

000---000

Chase's fellows as Cuddy yells at House outside.

"Do you think we should be worried," asks Honeycutt.

"No," replies Luna dryly, remembering that House had locked them up in this very conference room. "It probably has nothing to do with us."

"You think it might be about Dr. Chase, he is his boss."

"I think if she wanted to yell at Dr. Chase, she'd yell at Dr. Chase."

Wildman whistles to get their attention. "Next one, it looks like lettuce."

"I've never seen lettuce with a purple stalk before," says Anjali.

"It's rhubarb," says Honeycutt.

"Did you say rootbeer?" asks Kutner through the phone.

"No," replies Anjali slightly annoyed that he's trying the same joke twice. "How do you spell it, I'll look it up."

"Don't bother," says Wildman, "it's edible, I've eaten it before." He turns his attention to the next picture sent.

"Unless you accidentally cook the leaves." Honeycutt says inconsequentially.

000---000

Wilson's work is interrupted by a loud commotion from the hallway. He peeks out and sees House and Cuddy in a heated argument.

"House, I thought I told you to give Chase the case, not take over his team!" exclaims Cuddy.

"Believe me, this is all Chase."

Cuddy's vein in her forehead starts throbbing. "And what have you been doing all day?"

"Errands." He takes another large slurp from his slushie.

"House just because I gave Chase your case, doesn't mean that you can skip clinic duty."

"But what incentive do I have to leave Chase alone?" House smirks cheekily.

They hear chuckling behind them. They turn to see Wilson leaning against the wall watching them with much amusement.

"What's so funny?" snaps Cuddy.

"Just the world setting itself right," Wilson says impishly. "I was beginning to worry with al the Chase bashing, going around."

Suddenly the door swings open and Wildman and Luna go sprinting down the hall.

The doctors look at each other and to the remaining doctors in the conference room wondering what's going on.

000---000

Chase walks out of the clinic exam room feeling a bit put out. He goes over to the Nurse's Station.

"Can you please page Dr. Cuddy for me?" he asks the nurse on duty.

"Bad idea, she's House hunting," a cheery voice says next to him.

Chase turns to see Rebecca leaning on the counter next to him.

"Of course when I first heard someone tell me that, I thought that they were talking about real estate so I asked who her agent was."

Chase chuckles. "Why were you looking for her?"

"I wasn't, but Foreman was."

"Do you know anything about the Clinic, paging me every five minutes."

"Well…" she gives Chase a cheeky smile, "Cuddy told everyone to get a consult from you if they think they have a complicated case. Then, Foreman came back from the doctor's lounge looking rather pissed off, and said we should page you for anything that can't be solved with a prescription of antibiotics."

Chase lets out a groan remembering seeing Cameron exit the doctor's lounge in a huff, and Foreman slamming the door in his face. Obviously they were talking about him, and it did not go well. "I think this is his way of getting back at me."

"This place sure has a weird way of getting revenge. Should make dinner interesting,"

Chase raises an eyebrow. "What do you mean…" A high pitch beep interrupts his sentence. He looks at his beeper, it's a 9-1-1 from the diagnostic conference room.

"I've got to go," says Chase a bit distracted. "Can you ask Hobbs to please do a blood test before he pages me next time."

000---000

Chase runs into the conference room to find House and Cuddy talking with his fellows.

"This can't be good," he thinks to himself.

He walks into the room.

Cuddy hangs up her cell phone. "I've got you a room, so you need to hurry and scrub up." She breezes past him.

"What's going on?" Chase asks.

"The results from the lumbar puncture we did earlier confirm the diagnosis," says Anjali.

"No time for chit chat now, the wombat needs to put on his surgical gloves," says House, as he exits the room

"I figured it out," Honeycutt says as she runs up to him like an eager puppy, her actions soliciting an eye roll from Ross and Anjali. "It's rhubarb poisoning!"

Chase looks at her blankly, little overwhelmed by the frenetic energy in the room.

"What's a rhubarb?"

000---000

Chase's would- be fellows, Kutner and Thirteen gather in the observation room above the surgery. They watch as Chase performs a gastric lavage on his patient.

"Why would anyone lie about taking care of their mother," Honeycutt wonders. "He even lied that he ate raspberry pie, because his fiancée knew that he only eats rhubarb pie that his mother makes. I'd be very impressed with a man who was so devoted to his mother."

"Yeah, but would you marry him?" asks Wildman. All eyes turn to him who keeps his as he keeps his eyes on the surgery.

"I'm sure, 'my mom has a debilitating, degenerative disease' is a great selling point with the ladies," says Ross sarcastically.

"Yeah, better to trap her into marriage, by lying to her," retorts Luna.

"It's called divorce. People leave each other for a whole lot less."

Thirteen clears her throat. "I'm going to update the fiancée." She sulks out of the room.

The other fellows look to Kutner curious about her reaction.

"What was that about?" asks Anjali.

Kutner starts counting the ceiling tiles. "Um… a debilitating degenerative disease."

Wildman shrugs. "If you really love someone, you give them a choice."

000---000

Chase closes his eyes as he sits on the bench out side the surgical room. The surgery went well, now all he to see if his efforts were on time, or too little too late.

He hears someone approach him. He doesn't have to opens his eyes to know who the loud thud is coming from.

"Well that was quite a performance," a mocking voice says. "So you really don't need a team, you just need a laptop with internet access."

"At least we solved the case," says Chase tiredly.

"No, google did. I at least knew that rhubarb was a fruit." House takes a seat by Chase.

Chase pops his eyes open. "How did you know I didn't…did you have a web cam on us?"

"I have more interesting things to watch than the baby wallaby's running around like headless chickens. There was another episode of 'Who's your daddy?' on Maury Pouvich."

Chase smirks, knowing very well that House was lying, "Sure." He closes his eyes again.

"Interesting tactic, diagnosising someone who isn't a patient."

"See, I did learn something from you," Chase he opens one eye and looks sideways at House. "You're not going to hit me for solving your case again?"

"Naw, it wasn't my case," House says as he takes a large slurp from his slushie. "Cuddy told me to give it to you."

"Thanks for not telling Thirteen and Kutner, by the way, they were really helpful."

"Oh, I know," House slyly grins. "They'll be especially helpful, when they're checking on what's-his-name's status." House gets up and exits.

Chase closes his eyes and chuckles, "Thanks, House."

000---000

Chase's fellows file into his refrigerator of an office in the Shelly Wing.

They silently gather their stuff to leave for the day.

Wildman slings his backpack over his shoulders. "Anyone care to get a drink?"

"What for?" asks Ross.

Wildman shrugs. "It's the end of the day."

"Sure you don't have any ulterior motives in wanting to get a drink with us?"

"Of course. I'd like some company," he gives Ross a cheeky grin. "Feel free not to come."

Luna lets out a breath, "I'm down. Kutner told me about this bar nearby we can check out."

"I'm down… in, too" says Honeycutt dorkily. "Sounds fun."

"Yea!" Ross mimics her condescendingly. Honeycutt pouts her lips, hurt. Ross sees her reaction and looks at the ground.

"What about you, Asha?" asks Wildman.

"Maybe," she says noncommittally.

They all start to head out the door, when Chase comes breezing in, along with a huge stack of paper work Cuddy gave him.

"Good night, everyone," he says as he gets behind his desk. He bangs on his drawer to try to get it open.

The candidates stand around awkwardly. They nudge Wildman.

"See you tomorrow?"

"See you… Please be here by nine." He starts looking through the paperwork.

"In this office?" Wildman makes a face.

"Unfortunately."

"So you're not going to fire anyone?" Ross asks.

"I've got two weeks to do that, unless you guys want me to choose now."

The fellows all look at each other, and head out the door.

Anjali is about to exit, when Chase calls her. She turns around nervously.

She looks at him expectantly. Chase wonders whether or not to confront her, since most of the time he is perfectly willing to let people be, but he thinks that he should say something, since he is technically her boss.

"Why do you want to work here?"

"It's a great opportunity to learn and expand my skills as a doctor," she answers a little too quickly.

Curious, Chase thinks to himself. That's the exact same answer she gave in the interview. "Yet you hide the lab?"

Anjali shifts uncomfortably. "I wasn't hiding," she says evenly, "I just thought my expertise would be better suited testing in the lab."

Chase looks at her a bit amused. "I thought learning means doing things you aren't an expert at?"

Anjali is taken aback.

"I'm sorry," she stammers.

"Uh…I don't want an apology."

Anjali takes a breath and composes herself. "Are you going to fire me?"

Chase looks back down at his paper work. "Like I said, I have two weeks to fire people."

Anjali nods and takes this as her cue to walk out.

Chase lays back into his chair and lets out a breath. That wasn't so bad.

"Dr. Chase." Anjali pops back into the door frame causing him jump.

"Um… I just wanted to mention that I really need… I mean want this job. I can't… well, I promise to do better." She gives him a tight smile, and exits.

000---000

"Yeah, I'm in the lobby…see you soon." Chase hangs up his cell phone.

Chase waits for Foreman so that they can have their "talk." He called him up and suggested that they go out to eat, away from the prying ears of the PPTH staff.

Chase paces the lobby. He stops short when he sees Allison Cameron walking towards him.

"Hi."

"Hi." They give each other a stilted greeting.

"Foreman said that you were going to talk, and that I should come with you," says Cameron.

"That's… nice," says Chase who's aqua eyes meet her green ones, looking at her hopefully.

"Hi," Foreman says as he approaches them. "You're coming?"

"I guess I am," says Cameron, not breaking eye contact from Chase.

"Great, I'm starving," a fourth voice appears, startling them. "So is this place in walking distance?"

0000000---0000000

Please review! I appreciate all criticism, even flames.

Author's Query: Who do you think Chase is going to pick?

000---000

Next Chapter: It's Happy Hour and Foreman screwed up and invited an unwelcome dinner guest. Alcohol tends to bring a lot of things out into the open.