There was a lot of hustle and bustle in the Emergency Room. Doctors and nurses milled about trying to attend to their patients while throngs of people gathered in the waiting room, occupying most of the available seating and space.

Cuddy zigzagged her way across the room and over to the ER Nurse's station. She glanced at the large dry erase board and scanned the ER room guide. One gunshot wound, three auto accident victims and nineteen moderately to severe cases of food poisoning.

Full house.

Cameron emerged from behind one of the curtained rooms, dressed in her usual hospital garb, pale pink scrubs with bright orange piping. She walked toward the direction of the Nurse's station with her head down, looking over a patient's chart. She looked up briefly to see where she was going but it was too late. She literally ran into Cuddy.

And Cuddy was the last person she wanted to see.

Cuddy rubbed the side of her forehead and winced. "Ow!"

"Sorry," Cameron muttered under her breath as she moved away from her. She snapped her head back down and sifted through the patient's chart once again. With feigned interest and a bitter taste in her mouth, she skimmed the pages, seemingly ignoring Cuddy's presence a few feet away.

Cuddy sensed some tension and tried to broach a subject with Cameron. "Wow! Nineteen cases of food poisoning?"

"Yeah, a retirement party for Mr. Arnold Fleming at Blue Moon Grill. He…"

Cameron paused as Cuddy's phone chimed then continued, "He along with his former boss and colleagues celebrated his last day at work by having a private dinner party there. Everyone who attended got sick. Well, everyone except Mr. Fleming and his wife that is. The police are investigating."

Cuddy removed her phone from the back of her pocket and smiled at the text from House, "Dr. Smarty Pants WAN2 get into your Party Pants."

"Sounds wonderful."

"Huh? Wonderful?"

"Did I say wonderful?" Cuddy nervously laughed. "I meant wrathful."

"Right. So, the dinner was supposed to be a celebration for Mr. Fleming's thirty-five years of employment…"

Cuddy smiled and nodded her head as Cameron continued discussing the patient's long medical history while texting the letters "MTE" back to House.

After a few minutes had gone by, Cameron realized Cuddy wasn't really listening to her at all. She cleared her throat to gain Cuddy's attention and said, "Anyway, his wife later revealed that he was forced into retirement after a massive layoff and was not very happy with their decision to get rid of him."

"Oh."

Cuddy's glanced at her phone as it chimed again.

"W4u" was displayed on her screen. "Damn. Got to go take care of this now." Cuddy held up her phone toward Cameron before placing it back in her pocket. "Hey, by the way, thanks for the heads up. I'll have to cancel my dinner reservations."

"Dinner reservations?"

"Yeah, I was planning on going to the Blue Moon Grill tonight."

Cameron's body tensed and her mouth contorted. "Oh really?" Her voice sounded strange. "Are you seeing anyone?"

Cameron couldn't make heads or tails of what she had seen earlier that morning in his office. Although it looked as if something was going on between House and Cuddy, she needed to know if this was simply a matter of Quid Pro Quo or a matter of love. She had to know.

She tried to fish around for more details, hoping Cuddy would bite and reveal more about her relationship with House. But Cuddy never answered her questions.

The silence between them spoke volumes as the conversation suddenly became more awkward. Thankfully, they were interrupted by the commotion at the ambulance bay.

Two EMTs rolled an unresponsive patient through the main ER doors. One of them called out, "Hey! I need some help over here."

Cameron raced over to the gurney to assist.

Cuddy was in total disbelief. House was right. He did see Cameron in the corner of his eye while she and he were kissing. And Cameron saw them too. Her strange behavior was proof of that. But, was he right also about her having unresolved feelings for him?

She proceeded to leave the ER and walk back to her office. But amid the chaos, she could hear faint music coming from behind one of the privacy curtains and stopped short. It sounded vaguely familiar. She peered under the curtain and saw a pair of cool grey Nike trainers with fluorescent yellow laces and swoosh. Jean clad legs crossed at the ankle and dangled about a foot off the ground.

Cuddy pulled the curtains apart and nearly tore them off the ceiling track. "House!"

A teenaged kid stood up from behind the curtain and off the edge of a patient bed. He fumbled a handheld video game device in his hands. "Geez lady! You scared the shit out of me."

House snuck up behind Cuddy and tapped her shoulder. "Ahem. You looking for me?"

Cuddy turned around to face him. "You're supposed to be in clinic."

House motioned for his video game back. "Game over kid." He retrieved it and placed in his coat pocket. "Now scram."

The kid took off back toward the waiting room area.

Cuddy grabbed House's arm and pulled him over to the bed.

"Whoa! Don't you think we should close the curtains," he said with a goofy grin. But his smile soon disappeared after he noticed a small bump on Cuddy's forehead. "Hey, what happened?"

"Cameron."

"She hit you?"

"No. She sort of ran into me."

"Ran into?" House examined the side of her head.

"I'm fine. Don't worry." She removed his hands from her temple. "What are you doing here?"

"I work here remember? Maybe we should get you a CT scan."

"I meant here. In the ER."

"Oh. Rectal Foreign Body," he said matter-of-factly.

"What?"

"Not me, some idiot patient—who has already been admitted twice to the ER for an RFB—in the last few months by the way."

"Twice?"

"Yep."

"You're lying."

He leaned on his cane. "I wish I was."

"Let me guess. He slipped and fell on something."

"Did I tell you about this guy already?"

"No. But we all know, everybody lies, especially bottom line with these with these kind of cases."

"The first time this idiot was here he claimed he was showering, slipped on a bar of soap then landed dead center on a shampoo bottle."

"Yeah, like that really happened."

Cuddy snickered.

"He has seriously got to have his head up his ass if he thinks we think his Head and Shoulder's ended up his ass that way."

House inched his way closer to Cuddy. "I'm rubbing off on you."

"What did you say?"

"I'm rubbing off on you."

"HA!" Cuddy lightly punched House in the arm. "You blew it! I won the bet!"

"What? When? How?"

"I'm rubbing off on you? Not appropriate in the workplace."

"Cuddy, I meant that sounded like something else I would say. I'm the one who normally speaks with clever puns."

"Yeah, but it was the way that you said it. There was something between the lines."

"More like between the sheets. I think you're the one with sex on the brain."

"Whatever."

"Come on. I text you a dirty message and you respond with 'my thoughts exactly'. Let's just drop these stupid rules."

"No. But I'll allow texting, as long as you don't leave your phone lying around for others to see."

"I think I can live with that for now."

"Good."

"Anyway, you got to hear about this patient. Last month he was here again for the same problem, only this time it wasn't with a shampoo bottle, but a medium sized butternut squash."

Cuddy arched her brow. "Butternut squash?"

"Yeah. You know, it's a creamy 'flesh-toned' vegetable that looks rather…rather…what's the word?"

"Phallic?"

House stared at her with a confident smile.

"I know what butternut squash looks like, House."

"No. It's just…you said the P word. That's a dirty word. I win."

"What? What phallic?"

"Oh! You said it again!" He leaned in to her and whispered, "So does this mean you can't wear any panties for two days now instead of one?"

"House, I was speaking in clinical terms. We were discussing a case."

"Right."

"The RFB patient has a history of mental illness. It's obvious he was using it for other purposes. Andphallic isn't even a dirty word, at least not by your standards." Cuddy bit her lip. "By the way, how did he tell you it happened that time?"

House gesticulated quotation marks with both hands. "Unfortunate kitchen mishap."

"I see. But now I'm trying to figure out why you're here. There are plenty of doctors in this building. What business is it of yours? You came down here to the ER just to humiliate a patient?"

"No. Well, yes."

Cuddy placed her hands on her hips.

"I also bet Wilson one hundred dollars that this guy would be back again. He doubled it if I could guess what said object would be," he motioned with hands, "you know…up there."

She began to tap her foot. "And?"

"And I'm here to get the evidence to prove to Wilson that he owes me two hundred bucks."

"You're lying."

"Still don't believe me, huh?"

"House, I know you. You'll try just about everything to get out of clinic duty. The jig is up. Get back to work."

Cuddy nudged his side.

"Why aren't you moving? Why are you trying make me mad?"

"I'm not trying to make you mad."

"Yes you are."

"I'm not."

Cuddy pointed to the ER room guide. "Then, why isn't it written on the board there?"

"The patient is no longer here. They couldn't extricate the backscratcher through conventional means. He's being prepped for surgery as we speak."

"House…"

One of the ER nurses delicately approached Cuddy and House.

"Excuse me, Dr. Cuddy." She handed House a file marked Radiology and looked back at Cuddy. "Dr. House said he needed this immediately."

He retrieved the file folder and opened it. "Thank you."

The nurse left them and attended to another patient.

House carefully examined the contents of the file. "Now I have the X-Ray to prove it. See." He pulled out the X-Ray film and smiled.

Cuddy squinted her eyes. "Is that?"

"A backscratcher? Yes! Wilson owes me two hundred bucks! And I think you owe me a sincere apology."

"House, I'm sorry."

"That didn't sound very sincere."

"Don't push your luck."

Cuddy cleared her throat.

"Just out of curiosity, what was his story this time?"

"Oh, you mean how this," he pointed to the backscratcher on the X-Ray, "ended up here? According to the patient, he had used it for the sole purpose of relieving his bad anal itch."

House and Cuddy both tried to stifle a laugh.

"I swear he's doomed to be the butt of jokes around here forever."

"House, please tell me that you've already arranged another psych council for Mr. Accident-Prone?"

"Yes. They've been very busy lately. Did you know that we've had at least fourteen other RFB cases just this month? This month. Weird."

House placed the X-Ray film back in the file and began to walk away from Cuddy.

"Um, where do you think, you're going?" Cuddy pointed in the opposite direction. "Clinic is that way."

He turned to face her. "Gee, don't you think I've earned my Get Out of Clinic Duty card now?"

"Nope. Think again."

He waggled his eyebrows and waved the patient file in his hand. "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."

"Eew. Tell you what. I'll let you go see Wilson and collect your two hundred dollars before reporting to clinic, okay?"

"How about I go collect my two hundred dollars and go play doctor somewhere else, preferably with you before reporting to clinic."

"House!"