Disclaimer: Guess what? I don't own them. Enjoy!

Cuddy studied House over the top of her glasses. "What?" she asked him.

"You heard me, now, will you give me the time off?" House asked impatiently.

"Wait, hang on a minute… Did you really say Sweden?"

"I said Sweden," House sighed. "S-w-e-d-e-n, now, give me the time off so I don't have to hear about it later."

"Hear about what?"

"When I go to Sweden even though you didn't give me time off work." Cuddy sighed and shook her head.

"It's almost Christmas," she said. "Don't you have any family to spend your holidays with?" House looked at her pointedly.

"Fine," she said. "Have fun, I don't care. Just another crazy idea of yours."

"When do I ever have crazy ideas?!" House asked, pretending to be insulted. Cuddy shook her head and returned to her paperwork, ignoring House. He got the point and left.

---

House didn't really know why he was going away, and he certainly didn't know why he had chosen Sweden of all places to go to. Wilson was convinced House had confused Sweden with Switzerland, but House knew exactly were Sweden was. He knew basically everything he needed to know about Sweden to not get bored while he was there, everything from population and form of government to what Swedish people ate for breakfast and what brand coffee was the most popular. When House had informed Wilson about all this, Wilson had sighed and shaken his head, muttering something about "obsessive compulsive disorder".

Now, as he checked in his one duffel bag and went through security (funny how the security isn't half as strict going out of the country, he thought to himself as he shoved his bag through the x-ray machine), he started to feel a twinge of regret. He knew it was to late once he had limped through the metal detector, well, it was too late once he had checked in his bag, really. So he was stuck at the airport. If he turned now, ran out of the airport, the police would probably catch up with him and question him about the bag he checked in. He knew how their minds worked.

So, without much of a choice, House shoved the can in the x-ray machine and slowly limped through the metal detector. It didn't make a sound. Safely (or maybe not?) on the other side, he grabbed his bag and cane and made his way to the closest coffee shop. He ordered a black coffee, and sat down at a table close to the window, studying the landscape outside. There wasn't much to see, really. The normal airport life, he guessed. Men in bright yellow vests and airplanes all over the place.

House finished his coffee and started walking towards the gate. His plane was leaving in about thirty minutes; he expected the boarding calls to start any minute now. Sure enough, the flight to Stockholm, Arlanda, was just boarding. He got in line and took out his passport. All around him, he could hear people speaking what he supposed was Swedish. That's what you get for choosing a Swedish airline, he thought and tried to pick up some of the gibberish being spoken around him. The stewardess smiled towards him and greeted him in Swedish when he go onboard the plane. He nodded and found his seat - he was sitting next to an old couple. House guessed they were in their mid-sixties. He shoved his bag in the overhead compartment, sat down, opened a magazine and thereby clearly marking that he wanted to be left alone. The old man sitting next to him did not pick up on this, though.

"Is it your first time visiting Sweden?" he asked, pronouncing Sweden "Sviden". House took a deep breathe, looked at the old man and opened his mouth, ready to give the man a piece of his mind, but couldn't brig himself to it and sighed.

"It is my first time in Sweden," he said, emphasizing the pronunciation of the word Sweden.

"Where are you going?" the man asked, still with a strong accent.

"I'm planning to visit Stockholm for a few days, and then travel north," House explained. He didn't understand why he was answering the man's questions like a normal person.

"We live in a town called Uppsala," the man said. "It's-"

"Slightly north of Stockholm, on the way towards Gävle, I know," House nodded. The man looked surprised.

"You've been to Sweden before, then?" he said.

"No, I'm just well-read, " House said and smiled.

"My name is Åke Ingvarsson," the man said. House shook his hand for no apparent reason. "This is my wife, Magdalena."

"Nice to meet you," House said, although it wasn't all that nice meeting them. "I'm Dr Greg House."

"A doctor!" the wife blurted out with great excitement. House started to regret saying that he was a doctor. He looked with horror at the wife, who was obviously about to tell a great joke or say something very unintelligent.

"Magdalena, jag tror inte doktorn vill höra dina skämt," the man hissed through clenched teeth in gibberish. "Sorry, I was just telling my wife-"

"Never mind," House said and waved the problem out of the air. He opened his magazine and tried to make the man called Åke shut up without actually telling him.

"I see you have a cane," Åke said instead. "Are you injured?"

"Actually…" House bit the inside of his lip and wondered whether to lie or tell the truth. The easy way would definitely be to lie, and thereby avoiding more questions. Then again, nothing had to be black or white. There was always the gray area in-between the two. "I would prefer not talking about it." The man nodded and dropped the matter, and House once again turned to his magazine. The man didn't say anything else, but turmed to his wife and started talking Swedish. The plane started moving towards the runway. House put the magazine down, unable to concentrate. He rubbed the temples of his head as the plane took off, and tried to keep his ears from blocking up. Take offs and landings were the worst part of flying. Actually, there wasn't a single part of flying that was that enjoyable. There was the smell of plastic and fuel, the risk of ending up with an old Swedish couple next to you, the fact that you're thousand's of kilometers up in the air and the prospect of crashing, getting stuck in a crumpled piece of metal… House shook his head and sighed. What was he thinking?

It was getting later, they had been in the air for about four of their nine hour long flight. It was getting late, and it was starting to darken outside.

"Will you not sleep?" the Swedish man asked him. House shook his head.

"I don't like sleeping in public," he explained and instead of leaning his chair back and going to sleep, like everybody else, took out a deck of cards. "I'm a little paranoid." House shuffled the cards and wasn't sure what to do with them. The Swedish man shrugged and adjusted his seat and fell asleep, snoring slightly. House took out his iPod and listened to music for the remaining four hours and fifty-three minutes.

House stretched his arms and got his bag from the luggage reclaim and went through the customs, nothing to declare. He came out into the fresh air and took a deep breathe. He studied the scene outside Arlanda. So far, Stockholm seemed pretty uneventful and lame. Although, House reminded himself, this is only the airport. The old man and his wife passed by; they offered him a lift, but House couldn't bare the thought of sitting in a car with them. He could take the bus into the city center, but he hadn't the energy to find one and was suffering from severe jet lag. He hadn't a clue whether it might be too early for the busses to start running, he didn't even know what time it was. (He had left his watch at home.) He found a bright yellow cab with blue writing on it - he couldn't make out a lot off it, but he saw the word Stockholm and figured it would take him to his hotel. The taxi driver was a man called Achmed, who turned out to be a fully educated heart surgeon.

"So what are you doing driving a cab?" House asked surprised. He didn't think Sweden was like that when it came to employment, maybe more like England, but apparently Swedes weren't that open minded.

"Swedish people don't understand," Achmed explained. "They think we're stupid, you know?" The man spoke close to perfect English. House guessed it was because he had been studying modern languages in med-school. "Brain surgeons and rocket scientists sweeping floors and picking up garbage… It's a crazy world." House nodded in agreement, gave Achmed his money and a pretty big tip, he had exchanged all his dollars to Swedish crowns at the airport in New Jersey, and checked in at the "Grand Hotel". Twenty minutes later he flung himself on the bed in his room and fell asleep almost immediately.

---

When House woke up it was still dark outside, and he felt disorientated. The time difference was about six hours. House looked at the watch. It showed eight o'clock am, so it would be… two o'clock am at home. He opened the curtains and peered out into the dark. He wondered what he was going to do during his first day in Sweden; he had at least three days to spend in Stockholm, unless he changed the travel plan and left earlier from her to spend more time up north. He looked at his map. Stockholm was located on the east coast of Sweden, roughly in the center of the long coastline. He was going to go by train up to Gävle, a town with about 90,000 inhabitants also located on the east coast and spend a few days around Christmas there (he had heard rumors about the fact that Gävle was trying to be Sweden's Christmas town - he was eager to find out to which lengths they would go to win the title). Then he was going to continue north, to the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi (House hadn't believed his eyes when he read about it, but apparently there was such a thing as an Ice Hotel). Of course, Jukkasjärvi was very far north, above the Arctic Circle, so he would have to make a few stops along the way. He still hadn't decided where to stop; he wasn't much of a planner, but he knew he had to see the giant goat made out of straw in Gävle and the Ice Hotel where parts of a Bond-movie was made. He needed to see if these two things really existed in real life, if Swedes really were that crazy, or if they just made it up to sound kooky.

House started his first day in Sweden with a black coffee in the hotel restaurant. He found a Swedish newspaper and decided to give it a go - how hard could it be? He took out his dictionary he had bought last minute, and started translating all the words he didn't know. Of course, he didn't know anything but the basic 'Hello' and 'How are you?' phrases, so he ended up scribbling English words all over the newspaper, until a man in a suite cam and asked him if he was going to buy it. House shrugged and gave it to him, not being bothered with trying anymore. Apparently, some dude called Reinfeldt had made a big decision and the crown princess had nothing important to say in the big, exclusive interview. He decided to go out for a walk and explore. Without waiting any longer, he took a Vicodin and left the restaurant. It was chilly outside, but there was no snow. A picture on the front of a newspaper declared something about the temperature being five degrees below zero, which House supposed was cold in Celsius, but not as could as below zero would be in Fahrenheit. He found what he thought was the city center pretty quickly, and declared that Sweden was the most boring country he had ever been to. He started to wonder why he ever came, and quickly decided to check out early from the hotel and head for Gävle straight away. Then he would see how he liked it there, he had never been to such a small town (90,000 inhabitants? That's nothing!), and go to the Ice Hotel. Then, he would head back to his own bed in America.

Maybe Cuddy had been right. Maybe he should have gone to spend Christmas with his parents. Well, if he left Sweden earlier than planned, which looked most likely right now, he promised himself he would spend all his future Christmases with his family. The thought made him shudder.