Crossover: Dr. House, Faerie Apocalypse. I cannot write Dr. Cuddy, so the third person here is a vague unnamed person.

“Dr. House, I’d like to introduce our new diagnostic machine, Melody Redfern.  Melody, Dr. House.”

“Oh, come on,”House scoffed.  “You keep trying to replace me, and you know it’s futile.. Face it,”he sneered, you’re stuck with me.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go stick a needle in a teenager’s spine.”

“No, House, you misunderstood.  Melody isn’t here to replace you.  She’s here to replace the ridiculously overpriced tests you keep ordering.”

“What’s she going to do?”. His gaze raked over the young woman, taking in her floral skirt and silver bracelets.  “Read their tea leaves?”

“Now that you mention it…” Melody’s voice matched her appearance: sweet and thin.

“Actually, Melody, if you could… Dr. House was just about to do an LP on the patient in this room here. Greg?  Oligoclonal bands?”

“Pressure, Lyme disease, drug use, what is this really about?”

“This is about non-invasive, space- and money- saving diagnostic testing in an experimental way.  Melody?”

True to her name, Melody began first to hum and then to sing quietly, nonsense words and Greek interspersed in a floating, dreamy tune.

Between her spread hands, bands of text and images began to appear.  Dr. House scoffed and then stared. “Wait. That’s wrong, that’s… oh.  No, interesting.  Blood test, we need a blood test for anti-double-stranded DNA.  And a cervical neck MRI…”

“House, House, one minute.  Melody?”

The tune and the words changed, and, after a moment, new images appeared between Melody’s hands.

“Yes, yes, ha!  Not lupus, it’s never lupus.  All right, can you, her.  X-ray.  I want to see her lungs.  And the back of her eyeballs.  And…”

“Greg.  Greg.  If you want more testing from Melody, you’re going to have to buy her a sandwich.  Melody, thank you.”

House wandered off, muttering about Lupus and Devic’s and something about plugging Melody in like any other machine.

“I thought he might be… surprised?” Melody let the images fade and leaned against the wall.  “Or disbelieving?”

“That’s House.  Just don’t let him overwork you.  Come on, I’ll buy you that sandwich.”

 
Want More?