A Taxing Situation
Rated: T
A/N: This was written for the Friday Night House/OC Challenge - Theme: Taxes
"Why do I have to go with you to an audit at the IRS?" House whined to a highly-vexed, but thoroughly unconvinced Lisa Cuddy. "Don't you have accounting lackeys to handle these types of things?"
"Because maybe if you hadn't convinced said lackeys to let you declare everything from lollipops to lapdances on your expense reports, you...the hospital wouldn't be in this mess."
"But Mom?" House pleaded, giving her his best puppydog eyes.
"Forget it House! You're coming with me bright and early tomorrow morning, so the IRS Auditor can see for himself, who would be so brazen as to declare candy canes as hospital supplies. I am not taking the fall for that one!"
"Besides, last I checked, actions still had consequences," Cuddy snarked as she rounded her desk to herd House out of her office.
A few minutes later House hobbled into his office still mumbling a string of curses and epitaphs he hoped would severely burn Cuddy's ears. As he made his way towards his desk, he found Taub and Kutner at the conference room table engaged in a heated game of Who's Hotter. Thirteen sat directly across the table from them looking from one to the other, muttering something about what were the odds that two villages could be missing their idiots at the same time.
"Ginger's hotter!" stated Taub matter of factly.
"No way, dude! Mary-Ann's hotter, and that Mrs. Howell wasn't too shabby either for an old broad!"
"Ewwww," Thirteen groaned. It was all she could muster for her obviously disturbed co-worker.
House wore a crooked smile as he sat back in his chair tossing his red and gray tennis ball into the air to the beat of Taub and Kutner's inane argument and Thirteen's nearly audible eye rolls.
The ducklings looked through the glass at their usually cantankerous boss to see a slightly crooked, far away smile on his long, handsome face. They were immediately scared.
They assumed House was deep in thought over some pressing hospital matter or perhaps a new case he would soon share with them. What they didn't know was that House was simply envisioning the skimpily clad, Kansas farm-girl from the show. There was just something about a cute brunette that did something to him every time.
Thinking it best not to engage House while he was lost in thought, the ducklings immediately looked away so as not to get pulled into whatever mad scheme their boss may have been concocting in that brilliant brain of his.
A few minutes later, as House looked out into the conference room to see Kutner shooting wadded paper basketballs through Taub's encircled arms, it was then that he realized that without a case to occupy them, his ducklings had literally been bored out of their minds.
"Shoo!" He yelled at them as he walked up to their glass-topped basketball court.
"Go do my clinic hours...go wash my car...go get me some lunch...just get out of here!"
"On second thought, forget that lunch thing, that's what I have Wilson for."
The ducklings arose, each one ready to protest having to do House's bidding. But before their protests could start, he leveled a blue laser stare at them that let them know immediately he was quite serious. The ducklings all scattered faster than ducklings in a sudden thunderstorm.
As he watched their retreating backs, House realized he was bored, too! Maybe the meeting at the IRS tomorrow morning would provide some much needed boredom relief.
As House left in search of his bestest PPTH playmate and lunch buddy, Dr. James Wilson, he thought about how much fun he could have screwing with some uptight, government bureaucrat and watching Cuddy's rotundas a squirm.
"Priceless," he chuckled to himself as he barged uninvited into Wilson's office.
Cuddy glanced at her watch, which now read 8:35 a.m. She had deliberately told House 8 a.m. knowing he would arrive late, but would still arrive early enough for their scheduled 9 a.m. appointment.
The large, gray and white waiting room of the IRS offices in the federal building in Trenton was filled with a cross-section of the American workforce. Some in suits and office attire, others in work shirts, some with their lawyers, all hoping prayer would get them through their audits unscathed.
They clutched large brown file folders, brief cases and rubber-banded shoe boxes filled with receipts, while they wiped thin threads of sweat from their furrowed brows as they waited for their names to be called. Some stood patiently in lines, while others fidgeted in the deliberately uncomfortable waiting room seats.
"Now, let's make sure we have our facts straight," Cuddy said to the well-dressed CPA slash lawyer from PPTH Accounting, who sat immediately to her right.
"I've heard that this guy Rearden is so tough that if he could personally reinstate the Poor House he would and would send as many tax-dodging deadbeats as humanly possible to serve out life terms.
"I think we'll be fine," said Michael Cleary in his most reassuring voice as he slyly patted the hand of his beautiful lady boss.
Michael Cleary's secret crush on Lisa Cuddy began day-one of his now 8-year tenure at PPTH. It had yet to wane. He had learned over time that if he helped keep her hospital out of trouble, which included her pet a and best doctor, Gregory House, Lisa Cuddy would reward him with one of her beautiful smiles, or a few more words of conversation in the hallways or even an occasional cafeteria lunch. He knew that after today's audit, he might even get a real date. He was truly a happy man.
"I'm sure we'll be OK," Cuddy said giving him her best co-conspirator smile."And, if the auditor doesn't buy our story, we can always offer them House as a human sacrifice."
"Cripple coming through," House shouted to the long twisting lines of people waiting to hand over their wallets and first-born sons to the IRS.
As he unceremoniously made his way across the room looking for Cuddy and her lackey du jour, a sudden thud and a sharp yelp snapped his attention immediately to the floor in front of him.
Sprawled out on the floor before him, legs askew, black suit skirt hiked to the point of indecency, amid a sea of papers and files, was a petite brunette with dark blue eyes that were currently shooting him death rays.
"What kind of moron are you?" House asked the clearly ticked off woman with the oh so great legs.
"You tripped me!" she hissed through clinched teeth at the arrogant jerk, who didn't even attempt to help her up from the floor as she scrambled to pick up her papers. A small crowd had gathered as she smoothed her skirt, pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and tried desperately to restore her bruised dignity.
"But I'm the cripple. You should have been watching out for me," House whined though he knew it was absolutely his fault. He also knew she would be expecting an apology, but what's one more pissed off bureaucrat? Wasn't that their natural state anyway?
A young man in a gas station work shirt helped her up and handed her a few papers, while a young housewife handed her the rest of her files. All the while she continued to shoot daggers at the arrogant jerk who had turned her into IRS roadkill.
She thanked her helpers and continued to glare at the tall, disheveled stranger with the incredible blue eyes who was responsible for her now throbbing tale bone and the brilliant red flush on her cheeks.
"I'm fine, thank you!" "No need to help!"
"I figured as much," he said as he made to leave, but couldn't help taking one more look at her naturally pretty face, then her great caboose and shapely legs as she bent over for one last stray piece of paper.
She could feel the intense heat from his penetrating blue stare through the lightweight wool of her suit. As she turned around to really give him a piece of her mind, she found herself unable to speak as he gave her the most utterly disarming smile she had ever seen. No apology, but the smile more than made up for it.
Slow down girl, she thought to herself. I know it's been a little while since a man has looked at you like that, but you just can't fall for the first guy you...well...fall for!
Shaking her head to clear it first of his rudeness and then his sexy visage, she spun on her sensible heels and disappeared into the IRS masses, trying her best to get her heart to beat once again at a normal rhythm.
Sydney Rearden sat down gingerly at her desk and tried to gather her thoughts as she prepared for another long day of work for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
As the youngest agent in charge at the Trenton IRS office, she had developed a tough as nails reputation over her 10 years with the Department of the Treasury. She had audited more than her share of dishonest corporations and with the help of brilliant prosecutors, sent numerous unscrupulous executives to jail for tax evasion. Even if it was only to Club Fed, she took pride in her job, just like her father and his father before him did.
"Three generations of T-Men," "No wonder I'm thirty-six and alone."
Sydney refocused her thoughts on preparing for her first appointment of the day. She perused the file as her brow furrowed deeper as she continued to read.
Red flags had been popping up over recent years with PPTH and one name in particular–one Dr. Gregory M. House. The violations were minor initially; the usual unintentional errors they saw on tax returns on a daily basis. But once her assistant had briefed her on House's troubles with the police, his possible addiction, and the fact that his boss possibly perjured herself on the stand, she thought it was time to take a closer look at what was really going on at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. After all, drug addicts needed money and there was no telling what they would do or say or who they would use to get it.
As Sydney continued to straighten the files on her desk, her mind drifted again to the insufferable ass with the great smile, who mowed her over in the waiting area. Her tailbone still throbbed, but she just couldn't seem to stop thinking about the tall, lanky stranger. As she rubbed her bruised tailbone, she really hoped that he wasn't a tax evader or worse, a husband.
As she turned over the last page of the PPTH file, stapled to the inside back folder was a photo of a man with a scruffy beard and cerulean blue eyes that looked right through her. The mugshot of Dr. Gregory Michael House, courtesy of the Princeton Police Department, made her heart skip a beat. The gasp she let out startled her as heart at once tried to regain its rhythm and raced out of control.
"Just great," she sighed out loud to no one at all.
Cuddy rolled her eyes as she first heard and then saw House make his approach from the center of the commotion and plop down in the seat next to her.
"Can't you enter a room like a normal person?" she stage-whispered to him as most of the eyes in the room looked in their direction.
"Define normal!" House snarked as he leisurely stretched out his long legs.
Michael extended his hand to House as he would to any client, but had forgotten that House didn't engage in handshakes. Instead, he nodded to the always troublesome Dr. House, who proceeded to ignore both his hand and he and Cuddy's pre-game strategy conversation.
It was almost 9 a.m. and Cuddy was just about to lecture House about being on his best behavior when she heard their name being called.
The trio from PPTH gathered their belongings and followed the receptionist through a set of double doors and down a row of cookie-cutter offices.
"It's showtime!" House dramatically whispered, giving "jazz-hands" to a suddenly uneasy Cuddy.
The IRS auditor arose from behind the desk and extended a hand first to Cuddy, then Cleary and lastly, to House. He uncharacteristically shook it and stared into the eyes of the pitbull IRS agent he was sure was going to make his adventures with Tritter look like an afternoon with Mary Poppins.
"Agent Sydney Rearden,"said the petite brunette with the dark blue eyes. "Why don't we get started?"
House's hand tingled as he withdrew it. He had the distinct feeling that if he looked down, he would be staring at a nub.
THE END