A/N: This is my first fic featuring House and an OC. I would like to thank the two sources of my inspiration:
One, David Shore and Katie Jacobs, for so eviscerating the character of Cuddy and so poisoning the relationship between her and House that I believed I had no choice but to write something besides my favorite ship. Yes, I know they "kissed and made up" at the end of the season, but it was too contrived to be believable for me. Rant over.
(For those of my readers who like my Huddy stories, please don't worry that I won't be updating them. I've decided I can at least try to get my muse back by considering Cuddy as an OC and ignoring most of season six. Strange, but I hope it works.)
Two, on a much more positive note, I would like to acknowledge the inspiration provided by Glenlivet, LANIKI, and Diva in the House. (Not that I could even hope to come close to being as good as they are). Even if you're a Huddy shipper, you will enjoy their wonderful House/OC stories. Please check them out.
Disclaimer: Don't Own House, but the OCs are all mine!
House sat in the PPTH cafeteria. His morning had sucked. He didn't have a case to engage him, and, as a result, he was stuck doing clinic duty. The cafeteria was mobbed. It was the beginning of the year for internships and residencies, and all the proto-doctors were wandering around like a bunch of lost puppies. And they all looked like they were twelve. Damn, when did interns get so young?
House was alone at his table. Even though it was crowded, his scowl was able to scare away the newbies, and the rest of the staff already knew enough to give him a wide berth. Sam and Wilson were at another table laughing and holding hands. House could have sat with them, but he had gotten to the point that he just couldn't stomach their PDAs, at least while he was eating. Hell, he hated it even when he wasn't trying to keep food down. He caught a glimpse of them across the room, staring into each others' eyes. He quickly turned away. God, examining pictures of the autopsies of people who died from flesh-eating tropical parasites was appetizing compared to looking at those two. He buried himself in his medical journal.
"Mind if I join you?"
House looked up and saw the largest, greenest pair of eyes he'd ever seen. For a moment, he was transported back to a trip to Turkey he had taken as a teenager, when he'd seen the huge emerald kept at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. He blinked and shook his head to clear it. He then noticed what else came along with the emerald eyes. A thirty-something woman, with auburn hair that fell in waves around her face and down to her shoulders. She was average height, with large breasts, wide hips for her size and an ample behind. Her waist was small, and her legs were in proportion to her height. Her face was heart shaped, with a square-ish chin and high cheekbones. Her nose was wide, and her lips were full and red. All in all, a very nice package indeed.
"Now that you've checked out the merchandize, can I sit?" she asked, indicating the empty chair across from House. "This tray is getting heavy."
"Sure," House agreed, looking down to avoid the embarrassment of being caught pathetically salivating. Over a stranger, no less. "Um, sorry about the, um . . . "
"Don't worry about it," she laughed. "When I was younger, a good-looking guy checking me out might have offended my feminist sensibilities, but, at my age, I'm just flattered."
House decided to ignore the compliment, since he didn't know this person well enough to decide if she had any reason to suck up, and since compliments just made him uncomfortable anyway. "What do you mean at your age? How old are you? "
"Let's just say I'm middle-aged and leave it at that."
"Whatever," House replied.
"My name is Ann, by the way," she offered.
"I'm Greg," he responded. "I haven't seen you around the hospital before, and you don't look like one of the new interns or residents. What are you doing here?"
"I work for a company called Information Solutions," she answered. "We're doing an upgrade to the hospital servers and installing a new patient tracking software system."
Ann ate her lunch and House picked at the remains of his.
This software sounded like a major project. House wondered why, as a department head, he didn't know it was going on. Maybe if he ever bothered to go to a board meeting, he might have heard about it. He did remember Foreman saying something a week ago about House being a little too attached to those blue patient files, but he wasn't really listening beyond that.
The bad news was that he would soon be forced to drag around a laptop when treating patients, either with his team or in the clinic. That was going to be very inconvenient with his cane. The good news was that the more information was computerized, the easier it would be to gain access to it by hacking. He smiled as he imagined Cuddy thinking some new system would be able to foil his efforts. The smile faded when he realized she probably wasn't thinking of him at all when the hospital bought this system. Everyone, with pretty much the only exception being the few single practitioners remaining, was computerizing their patient file these days.
"Are you okay?" Ann asked. "You went away for a minute there. Apparently, something made you happy, then unhappy."
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, you were smiling," she observed, "And then you looked disappointed."
"Yeah, well, I was just thinking what a pain it's going to be to have to lug around a laptop with my cane," House grumbled, holding it up for Ann to see. (He definitely wasn't going to mention his thoughts about Cuddy and the fact that she no longer cared about him one way or the other.) "Cripples have a hard time carrying a lot of stuff around."
"How good is your vision?" Ann asked.
"Pretty good for an old guy, I guess."
"Well, this system also works with hand-held devices. The board decided not to buy a lot of them because they are quite a bit more expensive than the laptops, but I can recommend that you get one of them."
"My administrator probably won't go along with that," House conceded.
"Why not?" Ann questioned, looking puzzled. "Does she have something against handsome handicapped men? Is she a man-hating dyke or something?"
House smiled again, both because of the compliment and because of Ann's assumption about Cuddy. "No, she's straight. In fact, she has a much younger boyfriend."
"Uh, oh, cougar time," Ann stated. "I knew I got a bad vibe from her, I just didn't know why."
"She's okay," House argued half-heartedly, "For an administrator."
"Oh," Ann smiled. "If you dislike administrators that much, I can't imagine how much you hate IT people."
"Only the geeky ones," House admitted. "And you're no geek."
"Wow, I don't know how to handle all this effusive praise."
"Hey, I have to hold something back in case we run into each other again."
Ann looked at her watch. "I do have to get going."
"Are you here at the hospital every day?"
"At this point in the project, yes. After about three or four months, I should be able to work remotely."
"Will you go back home then?"
"I was living near our corporate headquarters, but I don't really have any ties to California, so I could just as easily stay here. Besides, we're preparing proposals to computerize the other hospitals in the area, and if we win those bids, I could be here in Princeton for a while."
"See you around."
"Same here."
House watched as she walked away. He used to tease Cuddy about her "rotundous" ass, but it was tiny in comparison to Ann's behind. Must be all that time spent sitting in front of computers House guessed. He wasn't sure, but he thought she might have put a little extra sway in her hips as she walked away. Actually, he didn't mind the view. And she was certainly well-endowed otherwise, too. Fodder for his shower tomorrow morning, anyway . . .
House's pager went off. It was his team. Hopefully, it was a case so he could get out of clinic duty for the afternoon. He headed up to his office.
This was a short chapter. The next one will be longer and justify the M rating. In the meantime, please review.