"Why here?" Adams asked, looking around the seedy diner. When Wilson had contacted her for a meeting he'd given her this address. She'd sat in her car outside for at least ten minutes, watching the place before venturing in. Her last encounter with Wilson had ended in her being stuck in a net suspended from the ceiling in House's office, caught in a trap he'd set for her. He'd left her there all night, sending a minion sometime around dawn to release her. "We're thirty miles from the hospital."

"Exactly." Wilson ate some more of his breakfast. "I have a proposition for you."

"Go on."

"You're spying on House for Foreman." Wilson said flatly and it wasn't as if she could deny it. "That isn't very loyal of you."

"I don't owe him any loyalty. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't be stuck doing community service and working at that dump of a hospital."

"You were working at a prison before," Wilson pointed out mildly. "PPTH may have its problems but I think it's a step up from that."

"If you know I'm working for Foreman why do you want me to stay in the hospital? I put in a request for a transfer but it was denied. I know that was you."

"House wants you on his team. He doesn't let people go easily. Even people like you. He thinks you have something of value to add as a doctor - a different viewpoint, due to your upbringing and your... inclinations."

Adams stared at him blankly. He sighed, he still didn't see what House saw in her, but then he'd never understood House's obsession with having a succession of pretty young women on his team. Adams was the quota filler for this current team. House didn't even fuck them, however much they threw themselves at him.

"To get back to my proposition for you. You'll continue to report back to Foreman, but you'll report back what I, and House, tell you to. And you'll keep us updated on whatever Foreman is planning. A double agent of sorts."

"And if I don't go along with this?"

"Did you enjoy your night hanging in the net, Doctor Adams?" Wilson checked his watch. He just had enough time to get back to the hospital. Adams would take a while to process his proposition and come to the correct conclusion of the safest course of action. He stood up, gesturing for her to stay where she was.

"You'll take care of the check," he told her. "Then go into the hospital and go to work as normal. Come and see me by the end of the day."

Outside his driver was leaning against the door of Wilson's Volvo. As Wilson approached the woman nodded.

"All done, boss."

"Thank you. Back to the hospital now please.
Adams would come out of the diner to find her tires flat and her car undriveable. She'd be late for work which wouldn't please House, but Wilson was sure that Adams would understand his message.

"You're late. The other children have started without you," House said as she walked through the office door. "You know if you don't turn up for work you can be sent to prison, right?"

Adams started to answer but then stopped as she took in the sight of her boss. House had been wearing a coarse denim prison shirt and a bright orange control collar since she'd been in the hospital. Now he was wearing a button down shirt over a t-shirt, neither item of clothing had been tucked into his pants as the prison shirt had been. The orange collar had been replaced by a sleek black one. But why would the collar of his colour have been changed? Parole authorities weren't usually concerned with sartorial niceties.

"You can stop trying to diagnose me - you haven't got the chops for it. My parole conditions have been loosened. I am free to roam the state and I don't have to wear the prison shirt. Sorry, I know this must be a blow to you. What's going to get you wet now?"

"You're still wearing the collar," she said, a sneer in her voice. She was tired of House and Wilson playing stupid games with her.

"Oh, but this one is totally different." He struck a pose. "This one is Wilson's."

"Of course Wilson has you collared like a dog - so that you can come when he whistles." The moment she said it she knew she was in trouble.

He crossed the space between them and stood far too close to her. "I know your heart's racing at the thought of this collar. You're thinking you'd like to have the remote. You'd like to make me scream." His voice was low, quiet. Dangerous. "Isn't that right, Doctor Adams?"

'If I had the remote you'd be dead." She pushed him away from her and he grabbed her arm.

"Is that any way to talk to your boss? Or to the guy who let you hurt him, twice?"

She remembered how utterly satisfying it had been to thrash him with his own belt. He'd asked for it and she'd gloried in every moment of it. If it wasn't for Wilson she'd be looking for an opportunity to do it again.

She tugged against his grip, pulling him towards her and knocking him slightly off balance. When he staggered she took her chance and broke free completely.

The door to the conference room opened and Park entered, clutching a clipboard to her chest. Her eyes darted between Adams and House.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"More to the point what are you doing back here?" House backed off a few steps and steadied himself on his cane before turning back to Park. "I told you to go and see the patient."

"The patient isn't eighteen," Park said, still looking uneasily between them. "We need to call in social services."

"She's totally eighteen, she told me herself."

"But..."

"Call them in, we lose the patient and that poor, sweet, innocent kid, is going to end up in the system. And you know what will happen to her then. She's eighteen. Now take Adams and go and run those tests."

Park hesitated but Adams shook her head at her. "It's not worth arguing. And it's not your neck on the line if the authorities find out House has been treating a runaway underage."

"Give me enough rope and I'll hang myself?" House mocked.

"Or someone will do it for you."

"I hear you're treating an underage clinic patient," Wilson said, patting his lips clean with a linen cloth. He pushed the remainder of his meal over to House to finish off. They were eating lunch in his office. The remote to House's collar was placed within easy reach of Wilson.

House shrugged. "Kid had enough sense to take off when her home became a shithouse. Doesn't make her case any less interesting." He talked through a mouthful of Wilson's french fries, stuffing more into his mouth as he went.

"And of course you don't feel any empathy for her."

House scowled at him. "I wasn't a runaway."

"No, you just spent a year in juvenile detention when your Dad reported you for car theft when you were fourteen."

"Those records are sealed. And that wasn't all he did. And he wasn't my Dad." House pushed back from the desk. "I'm going back to work."

"Sit down," Wilson said mildly. House wavered but then sat back down, his face set in a sulky frown. Wilson could see the fourteen year old kid inside. "I don't care that you're treating this patient. I do care that you could be jeopardising your freedom by doing so."

"I can't live in fear of going back to prison. I wouldn't have called social services before, and I'm not calling them now."

Wilson regarded him. He'd always allowed House a free hand with how he ran his cases, and his department. He intended to keep House on a much tighter rein than he had before but he wouldn't undermine him on this. He nodded. Then he picked up the remote, tapping it on the edge of the desk. He was aware of House's eyes on him. He'd made excellent use of the collar last night when he'd fucked House into the mattress. A little jolt at just the right moment had been enough to send House over the edge and begging for more.

House licked his lips, staring at the remote and then back up at Wilson. Wilson touched the control, just enough to send a tingle through House's body from his collar.

"You'll work the case however you like, but you will take care of yourself. I don't want to lose you again. Understood?" He nudged the current up a touch and House's eyes widened.

"Yes," House said, his voice slightly shaky. Wilson knew it wasn't fear. House wasn't afraid of pain. It was desire. House wanted this, as much as he sometimes fought against it. He needed this. Wilson upped the current again just momentarily and then shut it off completely. House slumped back in his chair, suddenly boneless.

Wilson slipped the remote into his pocket and left for his rounds.

"Pull!" House yelled out and the clay pigeon flew through the air. He followed its track and then pulled the trigger. The target flew on, unimpeded as had the previous three before it.

"What are we doing here?" Adams, of course. He turned around, shotgun in hand. His team were all huddled behind him, shivering in the cold. They all eyed the gun warily and Park edged in closer to Chase.

"Celebrating my freedom and exercising my democratic right to go wherever I want," he said. "Because I can."

"You have to stay in the State," Park corrected and then immediately shrunk in on herself when he glared at her.

"My democratic right to go anywhere in New Jersey and shoot clay pigeons. I've missed this."

Adams laughed derisively. "You haven't gotten within ten feet of any of them. You've never done this before."

"I've missed the opportunity to do this." It was true. He didn't particularly like guns, or shooting, but being out of the hospital and in the fresh air was a welcome change of pace. Wilson's collar nestled snuggly around his neck, and he still wasn't exactly sure how he felt about that, but if that was the only impediment to his freedom he'd take it.

Besides, screwing with the team like this was fun. Taub was wearing ear muffs and looking miserable, Chase was bored and freezing, and Park seemed terrified. Adams was, of course, pissed at him - seemingly her permanent state of being.

He cocked the shotgun. "One shot. You hit the target you can go run to Foreman and tell him we're treating Little Orphan Annie. Miss and you keep your mouth shut about it." He threw the gun at her and she caught it.

In one swift move she loaded a shell into the gun, swung it to her shoulder and yelled out 'pull!' Her shot caught the target, shattering it and sending pink smoke into the sky. Then she swung the gun downwards until it rested by her side.

"Damn," House swore. She looked hot, standing there casually holding the gun. Chase was staring at her with new appreciation, Park looked even more terrified and even Taub was taking notice.

"I don't give a fuck about the patient," she said. "Call social services, don't call them. I don't care either way. I won't be telling Foreman. I'm through with playing stupid games with you people." She threw the gun back at him and walked off. Chase started to follow her but House stopped him with his cane.

"Down, boy. She'd eat you alive."

"She's a loose cannon. You can't trust her."

"I don't trust anyone."

They both watched as she got into the car the fellows had come in and drove off.

House grinned at their crestfallen expressions.

"There's room in my car," he said. Well, it was Wilson's car - his own had had an unfortunate encounter with the front wall of a house and never recovered.

He offered the shotgun to them.

"One shot. You hit, you get a ride with me."

"And if we miss?" Park asked.

"Maybe Adams will come back for you."

Wilson looked up as Adams entered his office at the end of the day.

"Case solved?" He went back to writing his case notes.

"No. Foreman got wind of the patient's age and called social services. They've taken her away."

"Too bad."

"I'm not taking your offer."

He put his pen down and regarded her.

"I'm not reporting back to Foreman, but I'm not spying for you either. I'm here to be a doctor, and that's all I want to do. I just want to finish my time out and move on to somewhere else. Anywhere else."

He pretended to consider for a moment and then nodded.

"Thank you, Doctor Adams. You can go now." He picked up his pen and went back to his case files. She stood there for a few moments more and then left, anger radiating from every step. When she was gone, the office door slammed behind her, he put his pen down and sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. Then he made a call.

Chase came a few minutes later, slipping into the office quietly and closing the door behind him.

Wilson looked up at him.

"We have a problem."