DISCLAIMER: I don't own House MD or any of the characters therein, so don't sue me, okay? I don't have money to give to you, anyway.
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Walking by his office, one would notice (by looking through the glass walls, of course) the long wooden table with the cushy looking leather chairs surrounding it, the coffee pot by a sink to the left of the table, and probably even the dry erase board in the distance. Freshly cleaned, I might add.
Most likely, however, one would not notice the office attached to that board room. The office with the comforting mahogany walls, the solid oak desk, the plush leather chair and the desk lamp, obscured by volumes upon volumes of books and papers and studies. If one were, in fact, to notice this office, perhaps they would also notice Doctor Gregory House, reclining with his feet on this cluttered desk, playing a game boy and ignoring the ringing phone. Caller Identification worked wonders for him, enabling him to be as antisocial as he wanted. At least to a certain degree.
"Antisocial" was the one word that fit the diagnostician to a 'T'. He had grown to mistrust people, knowing that everyone, even innocent elderly people, lied and over exaggerated their conditions. He especially hated when the news media uncovered new and progressively more frightening potential public health crises. His clinic sessions were always packed then, and no one ever turned out to actually have what they thought they did.
His phone was ringing now because he was late for his clinic duties. This, without there even having been a potential for an outbreak of the avian flu.
There were some within the hospital who knew where he could be reached. One of them, a Lisa Cuddy (a fellow doctor and an attorney...and also his arch nemesis), knew exactly where to find him and what he would be doing when she did.
House, as if sensing this, attempted to get out of his chair and seat himself on his office floor, and scoot under his desk until he was sure the evil had passed. Unfortunately, House had a painful gimpy leg, and was unable to move quickly enough. Cuddy swished through his door in trumph.
"Of course! A full clinic, and Doctor House is here playing a child's game." She grinned smugly, wanting to kill the doctor before her ever so slowly.
"Ugh," House sighed, easing himself back into his chair and placing his game boy to the side. "I don't recall any mysterious disease outbreaks on the news lately, so you must be referring to the patients who are visiting me because they have the sniffles or woke up next to someone and didn't know his name. Here are some prescriptions I took the liberty of filling out earlier, you're going to need them." His blue eyes flashed slightly as he handed Cuddy a small stack of prescriptions, knowing he was getting under her skin.
"Come on, House, You know as well as I do that you have mandatory clinic hours every month. Go and fulfill them. Besides, none of these have any names on them, just drugs...oh, and this one with a phone number on it. Tell me-has your pager ever had batteries in it? Or do you just use it as a toneless accessory?"
"Residents and interns pay attention to their pagers. It's a newbie thing. After a few years of that, you become an attending- or an actual doctor- and realize that approximately ninety eight percent of your pages are for stupid things, such as hospital-mandated clinic hours." House replied, sniffing for a moment before picking his game up again. "Besides, look what you've done. Three hundred points lost, and I'm minus a life. Do you have any idea how many of your precious clinic hours it's going to take to reclaim my victory?"
"Come on, House. You do not have any other pressing cases..."
"Except for Princess Zelda! She needs saving, too!" House interjected, clearly not swayed by the raven-haired lawyer standing before him.
"Look. I'm not asking for the impossible here. We go over this every day, and every day the result is the same...which usually turns out to be a bunch of disgruntled patients, because you've made it clear that they're disrupting your life. I'm not asking for miracles here, House. I'm just asking you to earn your salary." Cuddy turned to leave, placing her hand gently on the doorknob.
With her back turned to him, House made a mimicry of Cuddy's monologue-silently, of course.
"Grow up, will you? You have patients who need you." Cuddy opened the door slightly.
"Oh, how touching. Patients who need me. Actually, I think these patients, if they need anyone, would be willing to need any other doctor than myself. Sick is sick, no matter who diagnoses it."
"But you have that special touch that they love." With that, Cuddy left, undoubtedly to assess what damage had occurred in the clinic by the absence of the physician in question.
HMDHMDHMDHMDHMDHMDHMDHMDHMD HMDHMDHMDHMDHMDHMDHMDHMDHMD
"Nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps." House stated simply, writing the signs on the dry-erase board.
"The flu," Foreman stated simply, "House, that could indicate a lot of things. You know that."
"Girl is 14 years old. Amenorrhagic," House continued, "pubescent. No fever, no chills."
"Oh no," Cameron gasped.
"You guessed it! Daddy's diddling her. I guess he forgot the pull out and pray method. Either that or he didn't pray hard enough."
"House," Cameron replied disgustedly, "have you ever considered that she could have a legitimate boyfriend? Not everybody has sex with their kids."
"But he has. Both of them have the warts to prove it." House stated simply.
"So what does that mean for us? Where is the mystery?" Chase mumbled, not quite wanting to know the answer.
"That means, my precious little wombat, that you get the job of telling her she's carrying her brother or sister. And since I'm practically saturated in blood from Cameron's bleeding heart, I'm sure a call to Child Welfare has already been placed. And you," House pointed his cane at Foreman, "get to cover clinic duty."
"Why me? Why can't I tell her that she's pregnant?" Foreman griped, rising from his seat.
"Because you're black." House stated simply. Foreman rolled his eyes and walked toward the door, the others following suit.
"Why the long faces? It's my holiday present to all of you! And I only say 'holiday' because I think Foreman celebrates Kwanzaa. Have to be politically correct, you know."
With that, the ducklings departed, leaving House to his own devices for a while. Of course, he whipped out the Gameboy and started reclaiming the points Cuddy had caused him to lose.