They were officially known as House's "fellows", but everyone knew they were just lackeys; slaves, essentially. When they didn't have a case, they sat, bored, around a table, as they were doing now. Foreman, being cooler than the rest of them or something, was somewhere else, having gone on a very long coffee run.

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…" Kutner muttered, fiddling with some kind of action figure. He proceeded to hum the Star Wars theme as he stabbed a picture of House with the action figure's lightsaber. "Dah, dah, dah dah dah daaah, dah, dah dah dah daaah, dah, dah dah dah dummm."

"Kutner." Taub cleared this throat, trying to get his colleague's attention.
"Dah dah dah, dah dah dah, dah daaah dee dee dee dum dum," the nerd continued.
"KUTNER! Shut up!" Taub yelled, his patience finally reaching breaking point.
"What? There's nothing to do, nothing to listen to, nothing to look at, nothing to eat…find your own way of entertaining yourself," Kutner whined.
"Fine. Just keep it down, okay?" Taub conceded, shuffling his chair to the other side of the table.
"Hey, Thirteen," he said in a sing-song voice. She looked up from her book without speaking. "Or should I say…Thirty-one?" he goaded.
"I can't believe you're stooping to House's level," the only female doctor sighed. "To be honest, I thought it would be Kutner who broke first."
"Well, he's entertaining himself," Taub said pointedly.
"Aargh! Ouch! Kutner, could you please stop stabbing my corpus spongiosum?" House had entered the room quietly for once, and was now feigning pain in the aforementioned body part. Before he could collapse to the floor and complete his performance, Thirteen spoke up, although quietly.

"Give it up, House."

He steadied himself with his cane, looking directly at her. "Give what up?" he asked innocently. "Oh, by the way…how's the fence?" he added with a smirk.
"That. Why are you so juvenile? Just give it up. We've all had fucking enough." Thirteen looked disgusted as she walked out the door.
"But we have a case! Heart palpitations and a perfectly healthy heart!" House yelled after her, waving his cane feebly.

Thirteen fought back the tears of rage that threatened to ruin her calm exterior. What the hell was wrong with House? Didn't he realize that acting like a kid in this kind of environment could cost lives? Flashes of ruined vehicles blurred by smoke and tears fluttered through Thirteen's mind.

"Dr. Hadley?"

Without realizing it, Thirteen had wandered to the nearest bathroom, whose sole occupant before her arrival had been none other than Dr. Lisa Cuddy. Sighing with relief at her ability to hold back tears, she looked directly at her boss's boss.

"Go, Dr. Cuddy. I'm fine. And I'd appreciate it if you would call me Thirteen, like everyone else."
"Are you sure there isn't anything you need?"
Thirteen snorted. "I need House to go away. Far, far away." Thirteen waited for Dr. Cuddy's reaction, which didn't come. She added acerbically, "But I don't think you can help with that." Seeing that Cuddy was still standing there with a look of concern on her face, Thirteen walked out the bathroom door, back to Diagnostics.