House strutted into the lobby and through the Clinic the next morning to reach Lisa Cuddy's office. He liked how the doors had glass so he could peer in on her before any confrontation. She was sitting at her desk, focusing on something on her computer screen so intently, that she didn't even see him coming. He grinned and grabbed both door knobs to her double doors and swung them open at the same time.

She jumped up in her seat, "Oh, God!" she screamed out, putting her left hand to her chest.

House gave her a confused look, "wow, I thought I'd have to show more of my skills before you started calling me 'God,' but, okay."

She arched her right eyebrow at him, while grabbing a stack of papers she had in the corner of her desk and gave them to him when he sat in the same chair he selected the day before. "These are all for me?" he asked, feeling like running out of there to avoid them.

"Yep. All for you. You can sit there if you want," she said pointing to her couch with his gaze following and looked back at her with a hurt expression.

"You don't want me sitting close to you?"

She let out a laugh, "it's more comfortable there," she smirked, now knowing how much he hates paperwork, "aaaand, you're going to be here a while."

He scowled at her and got up to move to the couch and dumped all the papers on the coffee table and stared blankly at the top one. He inhaled before he started talking. "There has got to be a simpler way to go around paperwork. All it really is, is saying that I agree to not kill a patient intentionally, which I don't..." he paused, rethinking that he might if they were morons, but kept it to himself, "that has got to be a given, right? So why do you need me to-"

"Just do it, House."

His scowl came back and she smiled at him and turned to face her computer screen again. His gaze stayed on her to make sure she was deep into thought over what she was doing so she wouldn't be paying attention to what he was doing, and scanned the page for a signature line, signed it, and dated it. He flipped to the next page, scanned for the signature line, and dated it, flipped the next. "House, what are you doing?"

"Paperwork," he answered, never lifting his head, continuing signing and dating.

"You have to be reading that too," she stated sternly.

He looked up and squinted his right eye, "I'm a fast reader," his eye went back to its normal, "go, do what you're doing, and I'll..." he scanned the next page and saw that it was just full of words and flipped it, passing it by, "do what I'm doing." His pattern continued and grinned when he felt her gaze left him and she went back to her computer.

Five minutes later House sat up from sitting on the couch and sat back in his chair he grew accustomed to and dumped the stack of papers he was handed. "Done."

She rolled her eyes, knowing he just signed and dated, but didn't want to argue over the little things. However, she feared what else he might try and get away with in the future if he was already breaking the simplest of instructions of reading, but reminded herself this was Greg House, and didn't say anything. "Okay, now," she leaned back in her desk chair, "we need to figure out which department to put you in. What is your specialty?"

He looked at her skeptically, "you mean to tell me, that when I came in here yesterday, you knew the fact that I had a girlfriend, but, you didn't know what my specialty was? When THAT is on my resume, not my relationship status. Why were you so interested?" his narrowed eyed gaze stayed on her and he watched as her face started to blush. He inhaled and moved on, not entirely sure he wanted to know the real reason, he was happy with Stacy. "I'm a certified Diagnostician with a double specialty of infectious disease and nephrology. So, where are you going to put me?" he asked casually, sitting back in his chair as he waited for her to answer.

"I...can put you in...our Diagnostics department."

He narrowed his eyes on her again, which he saw she responded with a questionable look. "You don't have a Diagnostics department."

"We could. If we had someone like you to run it."

"Run it? Would I have a team?"

"If you want."

"I want a team."

"Fine, then you are in charge of the interviews, since you'll be working with them, you get to pick them."

"Where's my office going to be?"

"I..." she paused, realizing she hadn't thought of where to put him. "There's a big office a couple floors up you can use. We've had it vacant for a while, so you can start getting your stuff in there today if you want, and I'll put up a post that we're looking for resumes and give them to you when I have enough for you to go through. This is a teaching hospital, so they will be your team, but also, you will have to teach them things as you go along."

"But they'll know enough?"

"Of course."

He nodded, "fine. So, where is this office?"

"It's next to the Oncology department, I'll show you when I'm done with this," she motioned to her computer screen.

"No rush, I can start doing things tomorrow, I can come back then," he saw her give him a shocked look at wanting to leave.

"Have you heard from Wilson yet?" he asked before she got a chance to respond to him leaving.

"Yeah, I talked to him not long after you, he's coming in for an interview in a few hours."

"Good."

"Look, House, why don't you start today. I can use you in the Clinic for a little while, then I'll work on getting you your first patient as soon as I can."

He made a face at the suggestion but knew he should be thankful that she gave him a chance. "The Clinic," he whined, when he reminded himself they have history and he didn't need to be on his best behavior with her when she already knew how he was.

"Just for five hours and then you can go home for the day," she paused and shrugged, "or, I can just tear all this paperwork up and forget you ever came in."

"You wouldn't, you need me here."

"I'd get over it," she said, challenging his leaving.

He stood up frustrated, "you never said the Clinic was part of the deal. If I had known-"

"If you had known you still would have accepted because I'm the only one crazy enough to hire you long term..because I know your history, and you're good at what you do."

"Fine," he said through clenched teeth. "But I'm not wearing that damn white coat."

Cuddy chuckled when House stormed out of her office and stood at the counter in the Clinic looking at files of patients like he was being held at gunpoint...