.The House of Adders

Cuddy looked up from her medical file to see Chase and Cameron escorting a man out of the elevator. He was hunched over, shuffling along in a disheveled suit. He flinched away from a nurse that passed quickly by.

"Another patient?" she asked as they drew close.

"No idea," Chase admitted. Cameron looked at Cuddy, started to say something...then screwed her eyes shut and ran off.

"What's with her?"

"Trauma," Chase said. "This way, Mr. Baldrick."

"Mister? No one's ever called me mister before."

"Big surprise," the doctor muttered as he led him around the nurses' station towards the patient's room.

"There might be another patient," Foreman said as he came out of the room. "Blackadder travels with a servant." He stepped close to Cuddy.

"Evidently he's a pretty miserable form of human life on the best of days. We need to find him."

"What does he look like?" Cuddy asked, looking over his shoulder at the approaching pair.

"Well, according to his employer, an underevolved subhuman of Neolithic dress and manner, for all that helps."

"I think I know where to find him," she replied with a nod of her head. Foreman spun around.

"A new Lithic? I can't remember, are lithians women that like womens? Or professional actors?"

"Maybe they're actors that like women?" Chase supplied. Cuddy shot him a baleful glare.

------

"So," House said from the end of the table, "cultures done on the second individual show no signs of Edmund's condition?"

"We don't even know what Edmund's condition is," Foreman pointed out.

"But the stuff we DID find in Baldrick," Cameron whispered, reading from a fat medical file. "We could do a thirty-year study on his lymph system alone."

"Not a concern as long as he's functional," House replied.

"Define functional," Chase challenged.

"Not throwing up in mall clothing stores."

"Hey," Chase asked, "did we ever find out why he was in that store? He'd never wear anything he could buy there."

"He can't taunt airline personnel," Foreman explained, "so he goes where he knows he'll get substandard service, justifying a good rant."

"He told you this?" House asked.

"I figured it out, from what he said."

"Maybe you should write that down, House," Cameron said, turning to her boss. He was scribbling something on a piece of paper. "

"Okay," House replied, "aside from the man's excellent sources of amusement and validation of his feelings of superiority, what do we know about his shopping trips?"

"No exposures to anything worse than floor cleaning fluids," Foreman said, tapping the report.

"Where has he been?"

"Last three trips: Siemens Electronics here; General Dynamics in Massachusetts; Fabrique Nationale in Belgium. For all three trips, he was there to update existing contracts, never left the front offices."

"Interesting. Okay, we need to start isolating systems. Is the problem IN his digestive tract, or somewhere else, and driving the vomiting as a response." He began pointing fingers in assignments.

"Get an MRI, an LP, and check for metal toxins. I know," he said, holding a hand up to forestall Cameron's interruption, "we checked for industrial toxins. But let's check for non-industrial. Even pre-industrial."

"Where will you be?" Chase asked.

"I have to go out and buy some shirts. I figure-" House was interrupted by every pager in the room. Blackadder was getting worse.

------

Worse from the nursing staff's view, though, not necessarily as a health issue. Blackadder looked quite healthy as he leaned over the second bed in his room, smothering Baldrick with a pillow.

Chase and Cameron wrestled him off and back to his bed. Foreman checked the other man's pulse and lifted an eyelid.

House watched from the corner, standing beside Wilson. "What happened?"

"As near as I could tell," Wilson said softly, "an alarm went off and it was time to kill Baldrick."

"Ah," House said with a nod. "I can understand the impulse."

"I can't," Wilson replied. "Well, I can understand it, I'll just never feel it. And if Baldrick is so hateful, why did he hire the man in the first place?"

"Bah. Medical mysteries are challenging. Figuring out why people a screwed up isn't my bag." With a nod to his friend, House strode forward to take charge. "So, is this a tradition in your relationship, or do we have a new symptom?"