Author's Note: My first fanfiction! I never expected I'd ever do a fanfiction, but after reading a handful of excellent House fanfics... yeah, even then I had no desire to write one. Then, I suddenly had this idea, and bam, here it is. This is very exciting. I'd like to thank the Academy... no, seriously. I suppose this is a rather long first chapter. I had an idea of when I'd start the chapter and when I'd end it, but I had no idea that there would be so much in between! I tried to cut out a few unnecessary descriptions, but a few unnecessary ones I still liked. Anyway, this note is getting a bit long... Please comment, critique, and whatever else! :) Oh, and sorry if I terribly butcher the character, and make them totally OOC. I think Wilson is going to appear in the next chapter. Who knows.

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Lisa Cuddy stared at the resumé, and the accompanying cover letter, splayed out on her office desk. It was very well written, and the job applicant - Gregory House - seemed very eloquent. However, Lisa had the feeling... she couldn't quite place it, but it was almost like he was secretly mocking her in the documents. She had no proof of this, though. It was just a feeling. Sighing, she put the papers down and crossed her arms over the desk. She lifted the sleeve of her blazer to peek at her watch. He was five minutes late already. Halfheartedly lifting the resumé up again, Lisa's eyes scanned over it for what seemed like the thousandth time.

He was well qualified. There didn't seem to be any previous job experience related to the medical field. That was fine, Lisa had interns all the time - most of them grew to be spectacular doctors, regardless of experience. There were no references to speak of, which was a disappointment. Though the applicant had only listed a few interests, hobbies, they seemed to reflect the interests of a well-rounded person. The amount of languages he spoke was nothing short of astounding. Lisa doubted that many languages was required to be a doctor, but you could never know. It could come in very handy. She put the pages down again and glanced at the clock on the wall. Sometimes she liked having a glass office - for one, it looked very 'cool', and for the other, she could observe the happenings outside - and sometimes she didn't. For example, now she could see one or two of the male staff eyeing her. Lisa wished they had curtains, or at least blinds, like the patient rooms.

She allowed herself a brief yawn, covering her mouth with her hand, nails painted a noticeable dark red. Another five-minutes ticked by, and Lisa was getting frustrated. Her chin rested on her fist lazily. She fiddled with the nameplate on her desk. Maybe this was a sign she shouldn't be hiring anyone new. She had been debating the matter. Of course, as Head of the Diagnostics Department, she was bound to need more people working for her, but it also possibly decreased the chances of her getting promoted to Dean of Medicine. She wasn't sure. She was more of a marks girl - punctual, by the rules, etc., she had a tendency to forget to sometimes think outside the box. If Lisa hadn't been as hardworking and generally as good as she was, she doubted she would even had made it past her (somewhat disastrous) internship.

She let her thoughts wander until a flicker of dark movement past her line of vision caught her attention and right THERE was the applicant, at long last! Her breath caught slightly as she took the man in. Her elbow slid off the desk slowly as her eyebrows rose and angled against her will. Lisa couldn't help but make an expression of pity - another of her weaknesses, which was really quite horrible considering she worked in a hospital. The man had a cane! He was struggling a bit to open the door - trying to figure out if it went in or out (out, it backed into the hallway, a problem Lisa herself faced nearly every week), the cane wobbling in the crook of his elbow. Lisa made her face resume a neutral position as she looked at the rest of him.

His hair was feathery, a sort of light brown mix, not quite to the stage where it might start to fall out. He had a bit of stubble over his chin, she noticed with a tiny hint of surprise, as well as slight contempt. His eyes were a startling sharp blue - Lisa could notice them even across the room. He was dressed rather sloppily, obviously he did not have a clear sense (or was it care?) for fashion. Lisa, still feeling pity for him, even though she knew she shouldn't, forgave him for the ten minutes of tardiness. She had a feeling the man wouldn't be discussing it, and so neither would she. She swallowed a bit nervously as she watched him awkwardly navigate to her desk. She half-stood up, unsure, then straightened fully to meet him. He was only - Lisa wasn't sure how old he was actually. He looked older than her, definitely. So perhaps mid-thirties? Not that much older, though. She was also bad at gauging ages.

After what seemed like an agonizing and terse ten (twenty? thirty? sixty?) seconds, the man made it to her desk. Swallowing again, Lisa plastered a smile on her face, and said, "Please sit down Mr. House", motioning to the chair.

Without a word (she wondered if he was perhaps mute? But that would make no sense considering the languages he spoke), he did so, and shortly Lisa followed. She took the papers, and neatly aligned them by tapping them twice on the desk.

Lisa smiled again. "What would you like me to call you? Gregory? Greg?"

He stared at her for a few awkward seconds before replying, "Just House." It was the first time she had heard his voice. She was captivated by it, and only when she reminded herself this was an interview, not a - a date, did she compose herself.

"Just House?", she repeated, smiling some more. "Mr. House, then? Or Dr. House?"

Then he smiled in return, a slow, somewhat mocking, or sarcastic, one. "I'm not a doctor yet, Dr. Cuddy."

Words stolen from her mouth for a few brief seconds, Lisa continued, "Well, not technically, but you do hold the degree of a doctor, so." She swallowed as he just smiled that same mocking smile at her. "Alright, just... just House then", she said uncomfortably. Wasn't the interviewee supposed to be nervous, not the interviewer?

Seeing as the man - House, as she should refer to him from now on - was sitting down, and didn't seem to be displaying any evident discomfort or pain, Lisa had momentarily forgot about his cane. She had to restrain herself from asking - yet another weakness of hers - how it came about. It wasn't a standard interview question after all. But there was another, slightly less taboo question, that she could ask, and she asked it, as a compromise to herself.

"How... how old are you, H-House?" Lisa still had to get used to the informality of the 'nickname'. She noticed him raise his eyebrows.

"I don't think that's a question you're allowed to ask Dr. Cuddy", he replied.

Lisa flushed a bit, but continued. "I- I know. Perhaps I can phrase that better. Would you - feel comfortable being under me?"

He smiled, actually now, half amused, and half sarcastic like always. Too late, Lisa realized her blunder. "Of course", he said, voice giving no indication of what was going on inside his head. "How long have you been working here, Dr. Cuddy?", countered House, leaning forward slightly.

Lisa flushed a deeper shade. "That's not really information you need to know", she said, clearing her throat.

He nodded, condescension just barely showing through.

"Four years", she blurted out. Here at Princeston Plainsboro Training Hospital, it had been a mere four years. She wasn't sure what House thought of that information. His face was indiscernible.

The rest of the interview, with the set interview questions she had on a piece of paper, passed in a similarly awkward fashion. Lisa was left thinking, again, who was the interviewer, and who was the interviewee. Though House's blue eyes betrayed an edge of guardedness, otherwise he showed no nervousness whatsoever. Lisa, on the other hand, inexplicably stuttered and flushed and backtracked her way through the next twenty minutes. Finally, it was time to go.

Clearing her throat, she stood up, extending her hand. "Thank you for coming, House", she said, almost by recitation.

Her arm wavered as she watched him awkwardly push the chair back across the ragged carpet. Then, he had to push himself up to a standing position by holding onto the desk. Lisa's eyes travelled to the cane, resting diagonally on the second chair beside House's, before flicking her eyes back to his face.

House, of course, noticed her eye movement and stared at her. The gaze seemed a mixture of angry, reprimanding, and, well, maybe embarrassed, but that certainly wasn't the right word. Finally, he hesitantly reached her own hand out to shake Lisa's. While the gesture had been reluctant, the grip was strong and assured. As Lisa turned over the irony in her mind - that his handshake were strong, while his legs were not, her grip faltered, and her arm swung back to her side. Her eyes could not hold the piercing gaze of House, so she cleared her throat again and looked to her desk. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him loping back to the door, then finally leaving.

Exhaling a breath Lisa hadn't realized she had been holding, she fell backwards onto her chair, exhausted. What. A. Day. This was only applicant number four, but she was already wondering if she made a mistake in this. The other three job applicants hadn't been like House - they were punctual, neatly dressed, orderly, everything Lisa was... but they were also comparatively extremely dull, boring beyond belief. There already was a Lisa Cuddy at PPTH. There needn't be two. As she sorted the files out, Lisa wondered if she should hire House... if only to stir the pot.