Her office doors slammed open and swung back again with equal ferocity, but Lisa Cuddy didn't even look up.

"You have to-,"

"No."

Greg House set his cane firmly on the carpeted floor and supported his body weight on it, his head slightly tilted, those scrutinising eyes of his studying his boss.

"You don't even know what I'm gonna say," he retorted.

"You want to get out of clinic duty," Cuddy stated simply, eyes still on the document she was reading.

"Wow," House clapped sarcastically. "That's exactly why I burst into your office with such flourish." He tilted his head to the other side when she didn't respond. "And obviously the dramatic effect was lost on you."

Still no reply.

House limped forward and slammed his cane on top of her desk, causing the papers to fly from the force of the impact and gently sway off the table. Cuddy, startled, and resigned, sighed, and looked up.

"What?"

"Someone's snippy," he observed. "I swear it wasn't me. Maybe Wilson. Or Foreman. It's always the black man." He smirked, his eyes widening in mock innocence.

"Did you come in here just to give me my daily dosage of annoyance?" Cuddy asked, as she rearranged the papers she had picked from the floor. "What do you want, House?"

You, he wanted to reply.

But instead, he informed her of the imperative need to push his current patient to the top of the transplant list.

"C'mon. She's 20. Do you really want her blood on your hands? Surely you can find better things to have. Like say, clothes that actually cover those babies," he said, pointing to her cleavage with his cane.

He already knows what her answer would be. There are certain things in this world that are predictable, and this is one of them.

"Are you sure?" She asked, hand already on the phone.

"Couldn't be more sure in my life," he answered with all seriousness, and when she looked back at him, for a moment, it was as if they were talking about something else.

And then he blinked, nodded, and walked off without another word, opening her office doors with the same degree of flourish as when he entered.

And Cuddy reached for her phone, a soft smile on her face as she watched him limp away through the glass panels on her door.

Because this was the relationship between House and Cuddy. There are certain things in this world that are predictable, and this is one of them.