"Let's see… I heard a song about this once… Oh, yeah. Sing it with me – Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz, Oh what a relief it is!" House hoped that if he sang it again, the frowning clinic patient might just join in. But no hope of that – the guy opened his mouth, but instead of "plop plop" he demanded a second opinion. "It's an ulcer! I want a biopsy!"

"Well, Mr…" looking down at the chart, "…Hamburglar. Ironic. What's today, Wednesday? 49-cent cheeseburger day at Micky-D's. Judging by the mustard under your fingernails and the ketchup on your cuff, you open up the burgers and scrape off the onions – the only part of the burger, by the way, that has any nutritional value. Judging by your current state of abdominal pain, the amount of American cheese stuck in your molars, and the fact that your stomachache isn't accompanied by any other symptoms of, well, any health problem, I'd say you probably ate, what, five? Six?"

"Eight."

"OK. But the fact that you want a biopsy to check for ulcers means you're an idiot. And you're stressed. Actually, you're stressed about being stressed. The American dream. Fueled by America's Number One Fast Food Chain. Relax, guy. Take a jog. Stay away from the burgers and you and I will never have to see each other again." With that, House stalked out of the exam room, logged out of the clinic, even though it was ten minutes early, and caught the elevator up to his office without looking back.

Waiting for him on the desk of his empty office were two things. House grunted down into his chair, pulled his legs onto the corner of the desk and dug in. Wilson had scrawled a note: "From the Desk of James Wilson, MD, Oncologist. GGW Tonite, 8. Order pizza. I got beer. –W" Despite the fact that it was almost entirely illegible to the average human being, House could easily decipher his friend's writing, and he made a mental note to make fun of the fact that Wilson spelled "tonight" with such a ridiculously unnecessary abbreviation (it only saves one letter!). Because House didn't have any plans for the evening, or any evening for that matter, a night with Wilson watching a new Girls Gone Wild DVD was pretty cool with him.

The second thing on his desk was a pastel blue something that looked suspiciously like a greeting card envelope. It said "Dr. House" on the front in girly, loopy handwriting. Flipping it over, he noted the Hallmark symbol and prepared to roll his eyes at whatever he saw inside. It was a thank-you card. Miss Manners and the greeting card industry would have us believe that formally thanking someone for rendering a service or giving a gift makes that someone just about happy enough to wet their pants. House wasn't like that. He opened the card. "Thank you for finding out what I had and curing it. I was so scared. Of you, mostly. (Not! Ha ha)," the (presumably) girl had written. "Who actually still says 'Not!'" House smirked to himself. He kept reading: "You believed I was sick when none of the other doctors did. Thank you for looking deeper. Thank you for being you. Love, Mandy."

Mandy… 16-year-old girl with Lyme Disease. Lyme is hard to diagnose, especially in its early stages. Mandy had been dismissed as a hypochondriac by a few other nurses and doctors. She lived in foster care and had come to the free clinic by herself. He couldn't remember having any conversations with her that would move her to "love" him, but that had been a good day. On days like that one, when Cuddy hadn't harassed him too much, when his leg pain was down to a four or five, when he had a solved case under his belt, clinic duty was more bearable. He liked to flatter himself that he occasionally found cool or mysterious cases in the clinic that most other doctors would have missed. So maybe he had been uncharacteristically nice to her. He doubted it, but anything was possible.

Today was not such a good day. He hadn't felt too good, hadn't wanted lunch even though Wilson insisted on buying. And, apparently, Cuddy didn't like it when he came in two hours late. Actually he was three and a half hours late, but two hours later than his normal lateness. She also apparently didn't appreciate his failure to finish his journal article on the Bubonic Plague girl in time to meet the hospital's publishing quota. Since he didn't have an active case, she put him in the clinic for the rest of the afternoon. At least since returning to his office, nothing too unpleasant had happened. The leg pain that had kept him up all night was finally ebbing away a little as he stretched out for a nap. He didn't have to be home till a few minutes to 8 anyway.

"Thank you for being you," he echoed dully to himself, drifting hazily between sleep and wake. "No problem there. No effort. Nothing I do is in my control. The leg, Cuddy, Wilson. The team. Pain. Everyone wants something…"

Four hours later, he woke, stiff from sleeping too long in one position, the edge of the desk having left a sizable reddened dent on his left calf. 8:11. Oops, eleven minutes late, plus transit time. Well, Wilson still had his key. Wilson was probably on edge right now, hovering near House's phone, trying to force himself not to call and check up on him, but worried and angry that he was late. And he was probably drinking up all the good beer. House swallowed two pills and considered his options. He should call Wilson and tell him what happened. Innocent enough, he just slept too long. "But why should I have to explain myself, make excuses, why should I even have to meet him at all?" His mood had not been improved by the nap, and he decided to do what he wanted to do, and screw Wilson and everyone else. A trip to Murphy's, that would be cool. His favorite dive for the last few years. A place that hadn't thrown him out yet. Yet.