1.

"Not interested."

"Fatigue but difficulty sleeping, rapid heartbeat, bulging eyes, –"

"Graves' disease, Dr. Cuddy. Graves' ophthalmopathy, aka bulging eyes." Dr. House turned his head as he walked to demonstrate. "You don't need me for that."

House kept moving, his long stride – despite the limp – forcing Cuddy to tap-tap-tap along behind him in her heels. She pulled out another chart and opened the folder. "This one's unusual. … Inability to cry or salivate. Patient has had other symptoms, was diagnosed originally as lupus, and responded well to medication with the lupus-like symptoms –"

"It is lupus, and you're right, it is interesting, though hardly difficult to diagnose. It's Sjogren's syndrome, a disorder of the immune system. Often accompanies rheumatoid arthritis and – lupus." House stopped in front of the elevator and pressed the down button. He looked at Cuddy. "Relieve the symptoms. Not much else to do. It'll get better with time."

Cuddy tucked the stack of charts under her arm. "House, this is ridiculous. You have to do something here. You get paid to see patients, not wander around irritating your colleagues."

The elevator arrived, and the doors opened. The car was empty. House got in, but Cuddy held the door open. She said, "If one of these more unusual cases doesn't interest you, there's always the clinic. They could use another pair of hands. Which is it?"

House smiled at her, knowing it was the expression of his she found the most irritating. "I have to go see a man about a horse at the moment. A sick horse. I'm needed elsewhere, Dr. Cuddy. Healing the ill, et cetera." He pushed her arm gently away from the elevator door.

As the doors began to close, Dr. Cuddy let out a groan of exasperation. She shouted, "House! You have one hour to find a case or find the clinic!"

The doors closed.

2.

Dean ignored the "no parking" signs and skidded to a stop, jerked open the car door and leapt over the hood to the other side of the Impala. He grabbed the handle of the passenger door and pulled it open. Shit – Sammy was still seizing. Dean reached in to get his brother under the arms to get him out of the car without hurting him.

This was so bad he didn't even want to think about it. What had been a simple – okay, kinda deep – slashing from a busaw had gone way wrong. Despite Dean's care from day one, it had been infected by day three. In the middle of a low-level ghost hunt, Sam had gone white, swayed on his feet for a couple of minutes and fallen hard to the ground. The ghost missed Sam on account of it, and that gave Dean the space to burn its bones, so Dean thought for a minute Sam had dropped on purpose. But no, Sam was out cold and hot with fever. By the time Dean got him back to the hotel, Sam was seizing, seizing hard. Dean took him to the closest hospital – Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.

So here they were, Dean trying to drag Sam, who was still shaking like a sonofabitch and scaring his big brother near senseless, into the ER. Dean hated hospitals. He hated 'em for himself and he especially hated 'em for Sam. He wouldn't be allowed to stay with him, he'd have to play all sorts of games with names for insurance and such, and he never knew what the hell they were talking about. Sam was the one who knew that shit, and it didn't look like Sam was going to be explaining anything for a while.

Damn. He hoped Sam was going to be okay.

Halfway up the brightly lit ramp some guys in scrubs met Dean with a stretcher. It took some doing to get Sam, stiff and shaking, onto it, and his legs from the knees down weren't even supported, but it was better than dragging him, and, man, Sam was heavy, so even though Dean didn't want to give him up to a bunch of strangers, he really didn't have much choice. He caught his breath while the medical dudes carefully carried Sam up to the hospital doors, then loped to catch up with them. They took Sam right into a room, beckoning for Dean to go too, and told him someone would be in for triage in a minute.

"Please sit down, sir," one of 'em said to Dean, and Dean wanted to punch him for the stupidity of it. He caught his temper though, knowing it was fear. Tucking it into the deeper part of his brain (where he never went unless he had to), Dean said, "Thanks," instead.

He couldn't sit though, not with Sammy like this. Thank whatever that he'd stopped seizing and was now just unconscious. Maybe he was just asleep.

Dean walked over to Sam, strapped to the bed so if he had another seizure he wouldn't fall off. Really hating that, Dean said quietly, "Sam? Sammy? You just sleeping now?" Dean tried a little louder, hoping like hell, but knowing sure as anything that Sam wasn't any better and they were in the best place for him.

Sam lay there, his giant of a little brother, eyes finally closed, eyelashes dark above his cheeks. His long, dark hair flopped over his face and Dean gently moved it away from his eyes and mouth, pushing it behind his ear. Sam didn't move at his touch. He felt hot. Jesus, he was burning up.

The triage nurse, a lady of about fifty, came in and asked the usual bunch of hospital questions. Name, rank, insurance number. He'd give them the names they'd been using, in case Sammy woke up when Dean wasn't there to tell him stuff.

"Vince Neil," he said. "This here is my brother Sam Maloney. Half-brother," he said, before she could ask. They had fake insurance in both names, so that was cool. Maybe for once luck would be on their side and there wouldn't be any trouble. "When is a doc gonna come see him?"

"As soon as someone is available," she said. She thanked him and left.

Dean paced for about a thousand years, making sure by sheer power of thought that Sam didn't start seizing again. Much more of it and there'd be brain damage for sure.

A footstep behind him – Dean whirled around, one hand clenched into a fist, the other ready to go for his knife. Seeing the girl in the lab coat, he remembered where he was and forced himself to back down and relax. Yeah, Sam was where he oughta be, and Dean probably shouldn't be here till he'd had a couple of beers and chilled the hell out.

"Miss?" Dean said, politely as he could, given the amount of adrenaline still pumping through him.

"Doctor," the girl said firmly. "Dr. Alison Cameron. And you are?"

"You're a doc?" Holy shit, they were making 'em prettier these days.

"Yes, I'm Dr. Cameron."

Oops. She didn't like that. Gotta be more careful.

"Sorry, Dr. Cameron, I just didn't expect someone as … uh … young as you. My bad."

She smiled. "It's all right, Mr. Neil. That does happen from time to time. And the patient is your brother, Sam, age 23?"

"Yeah, that's right. He's really sick, and … um … I thought I'd better bring him in."

"So tell me about what happened."

A busaw we were hunting got too close and slashed the hell out of my brother's chest with its filthy, sharp claws. I cleaned out the cuts and sewed him up like I have a million times before but this time it's no good. This time, though, he gets really sick and has to pass out right in front of me before I can tell he needs a hospital.

Yeah. Right.

"My brother and me were out a few days ago hunting. We got separated and the next thing I heard was Sam shoutin' to me and his gun went off. By the time I found him the … uh … bear … had run off and Sam was on the ground, hurt."

She looked him in the eye and asked, "A bear attacked your brother? In New Jersey?"

He flushed. "No! We weren't hunting in New Jersey. We were in … Wisconsin, northern Wisconsin, at the time."

"And what hospital did you take him to after the bear attack?"

"Hospital? Um, well, we weren't near one, actually. So I cleaned him up. And I had a coupla Red Cross classes a while ago, so I sewed him up, too."

The look on her face … he wasn't sure if it meant she didn't believe him or she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"I was real careful, Doc. We have a top-notch first aid kit."

She said slowly, "Because … Mr. Neil … you and your brother hunt a lot."

Was that a question? Dean really hated hospitals.

"Um. Yeah?"

She seemed to give up for the time being. Dean was sweating bad, he was so uncomfortable. Dr. Cameron carefully didn't look at him – he could tell – and moved over to Sam's bed. She put the chart down at the foot and turned to Dean.

"You'll have to leave now, Mr. Neil –"

"Vince, please."

"All right. Vince, I'm going to have to ask you to leave for a bit; we're going to get Sam into a hospital gown and examine him completely. The waiting room is right down the hall to the left."

"Whoa… Shouldn't I be here in case he wakes up? I don't want him to freak out or anything. …" Because the last thing he'll probably remember is digging up a grave and who knows what he'll say if he's still kinda out of it. And also, Dean didn't want Sammy to freak out. He'd most likely been keeping to himself how bad his chest hurt, hoping it'd get better by itself. Contrary to all indications. So finding himself in a hospital with some chick doctor poking him all over might be kinda freaky. Actually, it might be kinda hot.

Dean realized the doctor was speaking. He looked up at her.

"– come and let you know right away if he wakes up."

"Right. Okay. Waiting room … where again?"

"Down the hall to the left." A light knock on the room's half-open door made her glance in that direction. A couple men in white jackets walked in.

Dr. Cameron said, "Vince, these are the other doctors on the diagnostics team: Dr. Foreman and Dr. Chase."

Dean saw two guys, both pretty young. Foreman was black, Chase was white, about the same height; both, like Dr. Cameron, looked pretty well put-together. Foreman's hair was cut close and a wariness in his eye told Dean he was no suburbanite. Chase's hair was verging on the Sam-ish. It was longer and kinda floppy. It made Dean kind of warm to the guy.

On the other hand, now Dean felt outnumbered.

Sam's hair had fallen over his eyes again. Honest to God, he just looked asleep. Maybe Dean shouldn't of brought him here. Maybe he'd just got overexcited and for that there was gonna be hell to pay. Looking down at his sick brother, Dean forgot himself again and pushed Sam's hair away from his face. Sam was boiling. Yeah, he was pretty sick.

He looked up to see all three docs watching him closely. Self-consciously he cleared his throat. "Um... He's been burnin' up for a while now. He might be gettin' dehydrated."

Dr. Chase nodded. "Good point, Mr. –?"

Cameron interjected, "Neil."

"Vince's fine," said Dean.

Chase continued, "We'll get him on some hydration right away."

Huh. English? Na, Australian? Yeah. Australian, like Crocodile Dundee. Dean had a sudden urge to try to make Dr. Chase say, "g'day, mate," but he left it alone. No need to look even weirder than he and Sam probably looked already.

"Well, then," he said, "I guess I'll be in the waiting room. Down the hall and to the right, right?"

He left the Three Docs (like a band name, a really bad band name) and Sammy in the sterile little room and made his way to the waiting room. It was late and there was no one else in there. Dean paced for a while, finally giving in to sit down in a puffy lounge chair, putting his head in his hands.