Notes: No warnings; the strongest language in here is "damn" and there's no sex at all. Characters and situations property of people with a lot more money than I've got; the way I've arranged them is property of me. Otherwise known as "why Cuddy wasn't actually a passive-aggressive lapdog during the Vogler arc".


Lisa Cuddy took a deep breath and began to speak.

"It's rare for an individual to make a donation significant enough to impact an organization as large and unwieldy as a hospital. This donation does come with one string: that he be made Chairman of the Board. I think that's a reasonable request." Lisa's eyes flicked to James Wilson, her head of Oncology, and she winced a little internally. No one who didn't know him well would have caught it, but Wilson didn't approve. But she soldiered on, "I think he should have the right to know what it is we do with his one hundred million dollars. Please welcome our new Chairman of the Board, Edward Vogler." She started the clapping and sat down as Vogler began making his speech.

She'd known the man was a control freak from pretty much the instant she met him, of course--aside from the fact that he had to be to have gotten where he was, it took one to know one. But you didn't turn down a hundred million dollars just because the person offering you the money was a control freak, not if you wanted to stay Dean of Medicine.

Instead you humored him. You played down the glamor of medicine, made sure to point out that Princeton-Plainsboro was a teaching hospital, not a research facility, at every opportunity; you waited for him to get bored and realize that he had better (more lucrative) things to do with his time than running board meetings in one tiny corner of his empire. And when he was bored enough, you eased him out of active participation, and you ended up with his money. If his speech was any indication, it was going to take a little longer for boredom to set in than Lisa had originally calculated--a father with Alzheimer's was a powerful motivator--but not so long that it couldn't be handled.

Lisa would have been sure she could do it, if only it hadn't been for...well. It wasn't as if the presentation of House (Gregory House, MD; nephrology and infectious disease; head of the Department of Diagnostic Medicine, certified genius, emotional three-year-old, and all-around pain in her ass) as a complicating factor deserved a drumroll. House complicated everything, and generally she could handle it, with a little help from Wilson. The only problem was that this had all happened too fast; she hadn't had time to give Wilson more than the briefest of heads-up, so he hadn't had time to start gentling House down. How Wilson, who was universally beloved, managed to connect so well with House was something Lisa didn't understand, but she could only be grateful for it in circumstances like these. She was glumly aware that House hated change, and she knew she couldn't explain to him that she intended Vogler's tenure to be temporary--couldn't even let him figure it out, because knowing House he'd take that knowledge as an excuse to not change anything. If he thought it was permanent she might just be able to get some action out of him.

Unfortunate phrasing, that, as the man himself would have gleefully pointed out. Lisa sighed, exasperated with herself. She could handle House. She could handle Edward Vogler. And with any luck at all, she could handle them both together.


Lisa invited Vogler for a tour of the hospital--it was expected of her. She had a little internal bet with herself--House was rubbing off on her--and she won it handily when the first thing he said after a few sentences of idle chat was, "I want to run this place like a business."

She'd thought hard about how to handle it, and she'd decided that showing him how absurd the statement was might be a good start. But she faked surprise. "What, you want to put more vending machines in the hallway? Maybe a roulette wheel?"

"Nice one," Vogler said, though she knew he didn't really think so. "But I'm serious," he persisted. "The product that you're selling is good health, it shouldn't be a tough sell. You don't want to sell, it means people don't care about your product. You care if people are healthy, or are you too proud for that?" Lisa took the shot without comment, but Vogler didn't keep talking right away. She followed the direction of his gaze and winced. Couldn't the man grow up? "Who's that?" Vogler asked, as well he should; it was House, and he was playing with a damn yo-yo.

"That's just one of our doctors," Lisa said, trying for offhand and afraid she was only managing flustered. She'd really intended to introduce House to Vogler in a more controlled setting.

"Aren't doctors supposed to wear lab coats?"

Yes, Lisa thought, but she said, "He's…different."

"Everyone's buddy," Vogler said knowingly. For a wild second Lisa was tempted to agree with him, just to see the look on his face later, but she quashed the impulse.

"No, not exactly."

Vogler thought that over for a second. "Then why does he get away with it?"

"It's just a coat," Lisa said, which was the wrong thing to say. "He's very good," she added. That was the hell of it; House was the best they had.

"Hmm," Vogler replied noncommitally. By now they were past House, thank God, and Lisa started talking brightly about the improvements they'd be able to make to the wing.


When the tour was over, she girded her metaphorical loins and went to track House down. She lay in wait near the elevators; House couldn't use the stairs without great difficulty due to his bad leg, so the elevator was generally a good place to corner him. When he finally showed up, she made no pretense at all about getting into the car with him. He stared at her balefully as he hit the button for the fourth floor and made a point of not speaking during the trip. When the doors began to slide open, she sighed--she realized that she did that a lot in connection with House. "I need you to wear your lab coat," she said shortly as they disembarked. It wouldn't work, but it would open negotiations.

House, it seemed, was in a mood today because he responded, "I need two days of outrageous sex with someone obscenely younger than you. Like half your age."

Lisa rolled her eyes at him as they went down the hall. It always surprised her how fast he moved with that cane, especially when he didn't want to talk to someone, but she'd been short her whole life and keeping up with men with longer legs was something she was used to. "Wear the coat," she said.

"Man oh man. Someone got spanked real good this morning," House said, with a suggestive quirk of his eyebrows. Lisa ignored it.

"Guy gives a hundred million dollars to cure cancer, pretty small concession to wear a lab coat," she said, which she realized was a tactical error as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

Sure enough, House pounced on it. "Cure cancer. Is the hospital getting out of the dull business of treating patients?"

"You know that's not what he's doing," Lisa said, trying to sound bored.

"I know exactly what he's doing. He's using us to run clinical trials."

"Oh, shame on him--saving lives like that!" Lisa replied as they passed the Diagnostics conference room. Sometimes House goaded her into meeting him on his level; sometimes it was just the only way to get through to him.

"It's unethical," House said, pushing open his office door. Lisa followed on his heels and he made a face at her. "Oh, are you coming in, too? I thought I had you convinced." He sat down in his chair with a relief he'd have been appalled to realize she could see. It must have been a bad day, which wasn't going to help her deal with him; House, like most people, was far more reasonable when he wasn't in pain. Or was in less pain--the fact that he could think at all, much less be brilliant, on the amount of Vicodin he took told her very uncomfortable things about the kind of discomfort he was in on a daily basis.

But that was beside the point. "Clinical trials save thousands of lives," Lisa said.

"He's using patients as guinea pigs."

Lisa rolled her eyes and said, "Pharmaceutical companies do that every day."

House gave her the patented are-you-an-idiot stare he usually reserved for clinic patients who he thought were wasting his time (almost all of them, that was). "Are we a pharmaceutical company?" he asked, clearly a rhetorical question so she didn't bother trying to interrupt his flow. "We're gonna wind up pressuring desperate patients into choices that are bad for them, good for us. You're gonna compromise patient care."

Lisa blinked at him, surprised and intrigued, and covered the shock by going on the attack. "Who the hell am I talking to? Suddenly ethical lapses are a major concern for you?"

"What's interesting is it suddenly doesn't bother you," House said, the flippant psychoanalysis he indulged in so often.

This from the man who stole coffee cups to run a paternity test, Lisa thought. Aloud, she said, "So, if you ignore ethics to save one person it's admirable, but if you do it to save a thousand you're a bastard. All he's done is taken your game and gone pro." She made this last as dismissive as she could manage.

House fixed her with a stare that was suddenly serious. "He's not going to kill a few patients. He's going to kill this hospital."

This would have been the perfect time to tell him her plan, but she wasn't going to do that. Instead, she said, "It took him three seconds to size you up, and surprise? He doesn't like you." She turned for the office door. "Wear the damn coat," she shot over her shoulder.

As she made her way back to her own office, she decided it had been a decent first pass. Time to work on him more later.


Later turned out to be sooner than she'd thought; it was less than a day later when House pushed his way through her office doors, unannounced as always. When he voluntarily entered her office, it was usually a bad sign--though at least when he came in on his own, he generally hadn't done the illegal or immoral thing yet. He dropped a pile of papers on her desk.

"My patient," he said without preamble, "needs a heart."

Lisa glanced at the forms, looked up at him. He'd taken on his usual posture, which was meant to suggest that the mere fact of being in her presence was boring him nearly to death, but there was a hint of tension in his shoulders that she didn't quite understand. "What happened?" she asked warily.

"Respiratory arrest caused by congestive heart failure," he said. Lisa narrowed her eyes when he didn't elaborate. House not trumpeting his superiority to the world was House up to something. But if she prodded, he'd curl up like an armadillo, presenting an impenetrable surface and refusing to answer any questions at all, so she just nodded.

"She can't wait?"

"No," he said. "As it is we might have to put her on bypass unless something happens pretty quick."

"I'll list her and we'll call an emergency meeting," she said, flipping through the pages to make sure everything was there. And that was when things got really weird, because House just nodded and turned to leave. There was no parting shot, no cleavage comment, nothing.

Lisa watched his departing back, deeply suspicious. Only when he was out of sight did she sign the forms.


She was embroiled in pre-committee-meeting paperwork (just like House to have a patient who came in with problems nowhere near the organ she ended up needing to have replaced) when Vogler knocked on her office door. "Come in," she called, and he pushed the door open with a word of thanks--both of them knew he was coming in regardless, but Vogler was the type to keep up appearances. He got right down to business.

"What is a 'Department of Diagnostic Medicine'?" the large man asked bluntly.

Lisa wished again that she'd had a bit more time to prepare House for this, but aloud she went for just the facts. "That's Dr. House's department. They deal with cases that other doctors can't figure out."

"It's a financial black hole," Vogler said, taking a set in one of her visitor's chairs. "Department costs us $3 million a year, treat one patient a week."

And this was where the fun was going to start. "He saves one patient per week," she said shortly. The Diagnostics department was a jewel in PPTH's crown, the only one on the East Coast, and she was not prepared to give it up just because a non-medical businessman thought it a bad idea. Even if the department head was making her wonder what the hell he was up to this time.

"What about everyone else? His department's not going to find the cure for breast cancer," Vogler said.

Lisa resisted the urge to tell him that neither was anybody else, not in the next six months. All she managed to get out, though, was "Maybe not, but," before Vogler interrupted her.

"Are you sleeping with House?"

"What?" she said, completely taken aback. "No." The rumors went through the mill every once in a while--the remarks House delighted in throwing around didn't help--but no one had ever actually asked right out before. She was actually surprised that a businessman as savvy as Vogler had been so blunt about it; she'd have expected hints and pussyfooting.

"But you did, right? A long time ago?" he asked.

Lisa snapped shut the folder she'd been working on, considered a number of responses, and settled for simply saying, "That's an incredibly inappropriate question."

"If your judgment is compromised by prior or current relationship, that is my business."

"I respect him, that is all you need to know," Lisa said, making it clear that she considered the subject completely closed.

After a second, Vogler said, "He's still not wearing a coat."

How to explain that getting House to do things took time? "Well, I told him – "

"I'm sure you did. And yet, he's not wearing it. I'm just wondering if that's a reflection on him, or on you."

Lisa gave him a patently insincere smile, to match the thinly veiled threat in that comment. "Dr. House requires special handling. He'll come around," she said.

Vogler leaned back in his chair, looking skeptical. "Is he worth special handling?" And that, suspicions or no, was a question she could answer with no reservations at all.

"Yes," she said.


When it was time for the meeting, Lisa wasn't feeling any better about the transplant. For one thing she'd noticed that House had come to see her before Carly's test results had come back from the thoracentisis. House being House, it wasn't impossible he'd just intuited the whole thing, of course, but if so why hadn't he insisted on telling everyone he could catch how he'd done it?

She let him get through his initial presentation before pressing the issue, and she had to admit the woman sounded like an ideal candidate. But there was the issue of the timing, so she went on the offensive.

"Dr. House, I'm confused by your time and date stamps," Lisa said. "It appears that you put Carly on the transplant list before you did these tests."

"I had a hunch," House said, though not as flippantly as she might have expected. It wasn't the answer she'd expected either--House, admitting to uncertainty?

"You don't have hunches. You know," she said bluntly.

"Look, if the tests had come back differently, obviously I would have taken her off the list, but on the long shot--" House broke off for a moment as Vogler entered the conference room. Lisa stifled a sigh. Of course he had every right to sit in if he wanted to, but she was a little unnerved by the enthusiasm with which he was embracing every aspect of running the hospital. House gathered his thoughts and repeated, "On the long shot I was right, I didn't want to waste time."

All right, if that was how he wanted to play it. Time to pull out the big guns, "Are there any exclusion criteria we should know about?"

"CAT scan revealed no tumors and Dr. Wilson found no trace of cancer." And now she was sure he was being evasive.

"What about any other criteria?"

"No atherosclerotic vascular disease – "She tried to speak over him. "Are there any – "

House ignored her and kept talking. "No pneumonia, no bacteriemia, no Hep-B or C or any other letters." Which was when Lisa caught on: he was being very specific, because there was something and he was hoping that if he listed everything it wasn't, he wouldn't have to flat-out deny it.

She thought over what was left and tried, "Substance abuse? Any history of – "

"No alcohol, no drugs."

"Any psychiatric conditions, history of depression –"

House said, "She's a little blue, but turns out she needs a heart transplant." That had the kind of tone to it that Lisa was used to hearing out of House, which meant she'd missed the target somewhere. She glanced at Vogler, who was watching her intently--watching her try and fail to outwit House. She didn't try to hide her exasperation.

"Dr. House, if you subvert or mislead this committee, you will be subject to disciplinary action."

House paused for a moment before he asked, "Dr. Cuddy, do you have any reason to think that I would lie?"

"I simply want you to answer the question!" she exploded. "Is there anything on the recipient exclusion criteria that would disqualify your patient from getting a heart?"

Lisa watched House give Wilson a level look, then glance at Vogler, and she knew what he was going to say before he said it.

"No," House said. He let the negative float in the air for a moment before continuing, "In the meantime, she's 32 and probably in better health than I am. Not to mention I'll bet she'll be grateful to the hospital that saved her life, and she can afford a lot of grateful if you know what I mean." He didn't actually waggle his eyebrows, but he managed to imply it.

Lisa went through the formalities of getting House out of the room on autopilot. She was queasily aware of Vogler, paying attention to everything--he wouldn't have missed that telltale look; the only question was whether he knew what it meant. Lisa, meanwhile, was keeping her eye on Wilson. He'd looked a little worried during the questioning, she thought, but as the committee debated he seemed to come to a decision; when it came time to vote, he raised his hand in favor without hesitation. Lisa knew House wouldn't have told him much--even House wouldn't put a friend in that position--but she trusted Wilson to be able to tell whether House had gone completly off the rails. Fortunately the vote wasn't close enough that she as chair had to break a tie, though in truth she'd have voted in favor as well even if she had.

Because when it came down to it, and reluctant as she was to admit it, she trusted House.


It wasn't untl it was far too late that she had reason to regret that trust--the transplant was done and the patient was recovering when Vogler let himself into her office.

"Dr. Cuddy, there's something you need to see," he said. He pulled a little bottle from his pocket and handed it over. Lisa glanced at the label: ipecac. The sight of the stuff always made her stomach heave, souvenier of a childhood encounter with some bright red berries. She looked up at Vogler questioningly, though she had a terrible feeling she knew what was coming. "That was found in Carly's purse," Vogler continued, "and I'm told it can cause the kind of heart problems she had."

Lisa resisted the urge to sit down hard. This was what he'd been hiding--the woman was a bulimic. But she couldn't let Vogler know. "She must have hidden it from House," she said, hoping it sounded more convincing to Vogler than it did to her.

Vogler sighed. "You don't believe that," he said.

"If I didn't, I wouldn't have voted in favor," Lisa countered.

"This is why it's a problem that you have feelings for him, "Vogler said. "It compromises your judgement."

"The only feelings I have for House are...exasperated ones," Lisa said. She set the little bottle down decisively. "He's a great doctor, and he wouldn't have pushed for her to get the transplant unless he thought it was the right thing to do."

"What House thinks is the right thing is not the same as what is the right thing, " Vogler said.

"Actually, in general they line up pretty well," Lisa said, which was what was keeping her from calling the ethics board even now. She was willing--just barely--to give House a chance to explain himself, because if it was possible he didn't know she couldn't risk losing him. And it was possible--again, just barely.

"I'm going to talk to him," Vogler said. He picked up the vial of ipecac and repocketed it.

"Don't push him," Lisa replied, as sincerely as she could manage.

"Seems to me House needs a little more pushing," he said. "Have a nice evening, Dr. Cuddy."


She stayed at her desk until she saw House, stumping past the nurse's desk and clearly on his way home. Lisa made sure to time her approach so that he was out the doors before her feet hit the hard floor of the lobby, denying him the chance to hear her coming. She caught up with him a few steps outside the door.

"House," she said, and watched his shoulders stiffen.

"Vogler told you about the ipecac too," he said, sounding resigned. "I'm an idiot, OK? I didn't catch it till it was too late." Lisa looked into his face; she couldn't catch his eyes as he studied the pavement near where his cane touched it. That would account for his demeanor during the transplant meeting--if he'd suspected but not known, House's weird code of ethics wouldn't have allowed him to check, and he hated being fooled by anyone.

"You really didn't know?" she asked gently.

"It wouldn't have mattered if I had," he said, and tried to turn away. Lisa caught his arm.

"Yes, it would have," she insisted. "A bulimic--"

"She's not an idiot," House said tightly. "She's a control freak, and what are they sending her home with?" Now he did meet her eyes. "They're giving her a bagful of immunosupressants that have to be taken on a strict schedule. A litany of appointments that have to be attended. And a strict diet. She'll be fine--all those little details to control, she'll be in hog heaven."

"House," she said again, still unsure. "Did you know?"

"Do you really want me to tell you that, Cuddy?" he asked. "If I knew, you have to call in the ethics board. I'll lose my license. And the fact that you're asking means you'll believe me if I say I did know."

"I'll also believe you if you say you didn't," Lisa said.

There was a long pause.

"I didn't know," House said at last, with just a bit of emphasis on the final word. "I suspected. I couldn't let her die on a suspicion." Lisa searched his face for deception and found nothing--though she knew quite well that House could lie with the fluency of a lifelong con artist when he chose. All she saw was frustration, though.

"All right," she said, and let her hand drop. "Have a nice night, House." He stared at her for a few more seconds before nodding and making one of his lurching, oddly graceful turns.

"House," she said. He paused and looked back over his shoulder. "Wear your lab coat."

"But what should I wear under it? Can I borrow one of your thongs?" he asked as he started moving again. Lisa, safe behind his back, smiled.