Gregory House burst through the door of Princeton - Plainsboro Teaching Hospital with minor regrets of entering the medical field. He, for one, is not very tolerant of the human race. When one is actively working around the human race on a regular basis, it should be known that you have a good amount of patience. Dr. Gregory House was not a man of this kind. He had a harsh rational and logical reasoning that most would find rude and unsympathetic. He did not care if someone found him as a bad person, or as a good one either. He was never afraid to speak the truth and be the individual he was.
House limped his way through the hoard of anxious patients overflowing from the clinic. Crying babies and worried parents were enough to make anyone annoyed, but this was more so true for House. As House nonchalantly walked past the full clinic, he realized the tapping of footsteps behind him. He knew exactly who it was...
"House. You have clinic hours to make up" Lisa Cuddy stood before House. He was not in the mood to deal with runny noses and tummy aches.
"Do I? Because I could've sworn that I was already beyond that." Cuddy looked at House in confusion. House leaned in closer, barely in a whisper's reach. "Don't you remember...the other night? You said so yourself. You said a lot of other...more interesting things too." House watched amusingly as Cuddy's face turned to that of utter disgust. "But I guess you'd prefer to keep that sacred reputation of yours, as one of the very few female Deans of Medicine in the country. Yeah, the girl power anthem seemed to have remained loosely followed in the last decade." House turned away and began to walk off towards the elevator. Cuddy quickly shook off House's last remark and paced herself up to him.
"I don't care if you have other patients, House; you have to take your clinic rounds just like the rest of us." House punched the up button on the elevator repeatedly, hoping the elevator would come quicker.
"I'm the best doctor you have, and you want me to spend my time diagnosing a cold? That definitely shows my place in this hospital," House replied.
"I don't give a damn how good of a doctor you are or think you are, you still have to finish up...," Cuddy opened the file she was carrying and glanced at it before looking back at House. "96 clinic hours." The elevator finally arrived. "At this rate it will take you months to make up for lost time, possibly even years."
"Have you ever noticed how much I despise that clinic of yours? Hey, that might even be the reason I avoid it all costs, just like I avoid you," House replied, his answer dripping in sarcasm.
He turned away from Cuddy and entered the elevator. As the door to the elevator began to close, Cuddy stuck her foot into its path, opening the doors once again. "Two hours a day, just this week. I might even consider letting the rest go." House looked at Cuddy and pondered her proposition. "By the way, I took away your case load. You currently have no patients that need tending to." Cuddy smiled at her slyness.
"Oh, but I could find one," House replied. Cuddy's smile dropped.
"Just...do the damn hours from today. Just today, that's all I'm asking." Cuddy felt defeated: her proposition failed to intrigue House, and he was persistent on being nowhere near the clinic...ever. House rolled his eyes and limped out of the elevator, obviously annoyed.
"Fine, but when you get a call from your lawyer stating that a patient's been inhumanely criticized by a nonclinical doctor, you'll know who it is," House implied to Cuddy who in return rolled her eyes as if annoyed. "Only two hours, that's it. After that I'm going to bore myself with something else, maybe some dirty porn or bugging Wilson with his predator-esque obsession with vulnerable cancer victims."
As House made his way, once again, through the crowd of idiotic clinic visitors, the screaming of babies and rambling of parents are loud enough to deafen anyone's senses. Once he reached the receptionist desk, he regretfully picked up the first manila folder stacked on top of dozens of more manila folders. House turns towards the receptionist as he reads the file.
"What exam room is...Anna Hitchcock in?" The receptionist looks at the file and points to a handwritten number in the top right hand corner of the title paper.
"Exam room one" House takes the file and limps his way to exam room one. It is small white room with the basic necessities of any clinical doctor. Antihistamines, gauze, rubbing alcohol, etc. The smell of the room is typical to the hospital: clean and filtered. House scans the file and learns that the patient is suffering from constant stomach pain. Once he reaches the door to the exam room, he casually opens the door, dreading the beginning of his clinic hours. He enters without looking up from the file held before him.
"So...you have a kiddy tummy ache," House said, closing the folder. He looked up to see two women standing before him, one he determined to be Anna Hitchcock. The other must have been her daughter, or niece. Their ages were obviously different, but they still shared the same features. House's attention was directly turned toward the younger of the two. She had the darkest of dark brown hair, nearing the color black. Her eyes were the color of martini olives. She was of short stature, barely over 5 feet, but still lean and healthy looking.
The mother, he was supposing, took his comment as an insult and made it known by letting out a light gasp. "I'm pretty sure I know what a simple stomach ache feels like, doctor, and this is not it," she replied.
"Well...Anna Hitchcock...a stomach ache is a stomach ache is a stomach ache, and you most certainly have a stomach ache. Why your idiotic self waste your time coming to a clinic to get a diagnosis a monkey could have conjured up is beyond me, but don't bother me with these kinds of problems." Anna huffed and stood from the medical bed and raced out of the exam room. Her younger company stayed behind, haven't yet said a word. House looked at her, waiting for her to retort to him saying that he was a bastard or asshole, like he usual got after a simple diagnosis, or she just might leave. But neither happened, she stayed almost absentmindedly.
"She's always been a hypochondriac," she finally spoke up. House furrowed his brow in curiosity.
"Then why not just shove ibuprofen down her throat, maybe shove a hot water bottle in her face?" House replied. The girl looked him straight in the eye, unlike many people had ever done.
"To get her to shut the fuck up." House raised his eyebrows surprised at her hostility.
"I could just declare her mentally insane, she'll refuse, therefore setting this plan into high gear and convincing most of the hospital staff as she is dragged away to her unlovely demise in a mental institution. But then you would have to live as a guilt ridden woman that trashed away her own mother's life." The girl laughed at House's response. Her smile glowed, and House noticed. Without knowing it, a smile formed on his lips as well, which he quickly wiped away.
"She even had a problem with my dad naming me," she continued. "She over exaggerated the birth saying how much pain she went through to give birth to me. She had a cesarean section...hardly pain, she was drowned in sedatives. My dad wanted to name me Natalie, and she wanted to name me Anna, after her. But once my dad was given the forms for my birth certificate, he filed my name as Natalie. I don't think she's forgiven him for that." Natalie was her name. The girl finally had a name. A moment of silence passed before Natalie spoke up once again.
"Well, Dr...," she trailed off, waiting for House to answer.
"House, Dr. House," he said smugly. She smiled and nodded.
"Well, Dr. House, these runny noses aren't going to diagnose themselves...even though I'm almost certain they could. I'll leave you to your work and you will never have to be bothered by me ever again. Or at least until my mother has another 'mysterious' symptom," Natalie replied casually rolling her eyes out of annoyance of her mother. She stood up and made her way towards the exam room door. She left to go after her mother, who was already waiting in the parking lot, prepared to leave the clinic for the day. House watched as Natalie made her way towards the entrance of the hospital and to the parking lot. He quickly took himself back into reality and grabbed yet another manila folder out of the still towering stack of clinic patient files. Maybe she would come back...