Disclaimer: Not my property. I don't like lawsuits. I mean no harm in borrowing these characters.
A/N: Thanks to my LJ beta, user "starlingthefool." I welcome concrit and feedback.


Pocketed Temptation

"House."

House groaned as he reached the elevators, recognizing the stern tone behind him. Most mornings, he swept through Princeton-Plainsboro's sliding glass doors, intent on making the ascent to his office uninterrupted, free of the trailing click-clack of two-inch heels or the approaching rustles of boring case files. It rarely happened. He could have sworn a silent alarm tripped when his foot crossed onto hospital property. Resisting a backward glance, he leaned forward and hastily pushed the "up" arrow for an elevator.

Cuddy halted beside him, her face already bearing a patient, professional smile, her hand clutching a folder. House eyed it suspiciously.

"You never finished your clinic hours last week," she chided, matter-of-factly. "You still owe me two."

"And you," he said boisterously, making sure his voice carried past the nurse's station near the entrance, "owe me two-hundred for last night's swing in the sheets."

Rolling her eyes, Cuddy inhaled slowly. "I expect you there tomorrow. Eleven o'clock."

"Dollars," he added. "Not hours." House adopted a thoughtful expression, his chin resting in the crook of his thumb and index finger.

"And you have—"

"I guess I'd take hours. Two-hundred, sweet hours of those firm—"

"—a new case." She raised the folder and extended it towards him. "Patient recently returned from a six-week backpacking trip through Germany and Austria. She's suffering from nausea, seizures, and hallucinations."

"Oh, come on," he whined, and shifted his weight impatiently, adjusting the backpack that hung over his left shoulder.

She emitted a short sigh and rested a hand on her hip as she looked down, bemused, at his sneakers. House became aware that he was gently bobbing on the balls of his feet, like an antsy child that had been denied a new toy. Grinning inwardly, he bounced to the rhythm of his speech.

"That's all you've got for me?"

Cuddy waved the folder. "Take it."

"No need," he said, stilling his feet. "Bad acid experience. Probably picked it up in some grimy, German hostel. Would explain the hallucinations, the—"

"Her tox screen was completely clean. Take it."

The shrill ping of the elevator sounded its arrival. House ignored the outstretched folder and stepped toward the open door. He was jarred to a halt when Cuddy, swiftly stepping between him and his escape, slammed the folder against his chest. He glared at her unyielding open palm, pressing the folder against him. Her smile, he noticed, had vanished and her jaw was set beneath unblinking, adamant eyes.

He silently raised a hand to grasp the file, briefly brushing the backs of her fingers. "Only because that new top," he nodded at her diving neckline, "just saved me hours of trouble searching for good internet porn."

Cuddy pulled her hand away, apparently pleased, and slid sideways, clearing his path to the elevator. He moved into the elevator, stepping gingerly, but quickly, with his right leg. He was running short on patience for the saccharinely sympathetic concern that seemed to ooze from his female colleagues. Cameron had been casting him forlorn eyes ever since he had stumbled, coffee mug in hand, in the conference room's kitchenette. Cuddy, meanwhile, had been ubiquitously hovering in his shadow, bombarding him with reassurance if he happened to grimace. With his back to her, he could feel her eyes following him.

"You're limping."

His shoulders dropped a little. Turning, he saw her arm stretched across the elevator door. He pressed the button for the fourth floor. Maybe she would take the hint.

She looked at him from under a fan of dark lashes. "How's your leg?"

She spoke the words gently; House felt them rip through his ears and pummel his brain. He maintained a neutral expression, but felt twitches of agitation in his fingers that grasped the folder. "Fine," he said, the word spilling evenly from his mouth.

The echo of his reply hung between them. He wasn't fine, he knew. He hadn't run in three days. His last attempt had been an impulsive decision to use a hospital treadmill, prompted, in part, by a surprise visit from Wilson. It had ended badly. He'd hobbled back through the hospital and into the parking garage, holding on to custodial carts or leaning against walls when the electric jolts of pain seared through his leg. When he'd arrived home, he'd collapsed into bed, having no energy or desire to change his clothes. Eventually, the ripples of pain dulled to a gnawing ache and he'd slept fitfully for, maybe, three hours.

Since then, he'd been limping. The intense degree of pain that had flared during his last run hadn't returned entirely, but, over the last three days, he'd found himself nursing his leg, resuming old habits. Dipping his hand to his thigh and absentmindedly rubbing. Extending his leg in front of him when he sat, relaxing muscle and skin. Leaning on an old companion.

Last night, he'd stood in a glow of ambient light, releasing a whisper of a sigh, as he'd reached around a pair of golf clubs to grasp the curved, smooth wood of his cane. He'd wrapped both of his hands around its shaft, feeling a tightness arise in his chest. He'd hoped it would have been the clubs first.

This morning had been better and, managing a few unaided laps around his living room, he'd left the cane dangling from the back of a chair.

The elevator door still hung open and Cuddy directed him a doubtful gaze.

"I need to get to my office," he hissed, expelling a rush of hot air through his nose. A silent moment passed. Then, defeated, Cuddy's arm fell to her side and the door slid closed.

When he entered the Diagnostic's conference room, he found Foreman, Chase, and Cameron hunkered over piles of open folders and loose papers.

"Catching up on some leisure reading?" he asked, dumping his backpack into an empty chair.

Cameron's head shot up. "Somebody has to finish your paperwork."

House raised his eyebrows. "Catty," he said, and let the folder in his hand drop past her face and onto the papers splayed out in front of her. Foreman and Chase stopped scribbling to cast sideways glances in the direction of the file.

"Patient presents with a hallucination, nausea, and seizures." House walked unevenly to the white board, plucked a black marker from its tray, and wrote as he spoke. "Oh, and she spent weeks parading around Western Europe."

"Right," Cameron confirmed, dragging an index finger along the lines of the open case file. "It was a college graduation gift from her parents."

"Nice parents," mumbled Chase.

"Yeah," House commented, capping the marker and tossing it back in its tray. "Nothing nicer than dumping your kid in a foreign country with a backpack and a pair of boots."

Chase's eyes widened in exasperation and he dragged his gaze to Foreman, who shook his head slightly and directed him a fleeting, half-grin.

"So," House continued, as he sat beside Chase at the far end of the table. "Cuddy seems to think this case is a real puzzler."

Foreman scoffed. "It's probably just the effects of a bad acid trip. Wouldn't be the first college graduate to get carried away with free reign."

House heard shuffling papers. He placed his elbows on the table's clean, glass surface and leaned his head forward into the knot of his entwined fingers, feeling a tight pull in his thigh. He pressed his knuckles against his forehead and peeked from under the cluster of his hands to his left. His eyes fell on the trash can near his desk.

When Wilson had appeared in his office, three nights ago, Wilson had offered him a bottle of Vicodin—a ballsy attempt to get him to exercise and admit the error of his claims. He'd refused, watching the pills sail through the air and land with a rattle in Wilson's hand. He hadn't finished his own, left-over supply; five elongated pills had remained in the translucent orange container buried in the small, outer pocket of his backpack. Long after Wilson's departure, he'd found the full prescription bottle hidden near a stack of journals piled high on the bookcase near the door. What a bastard, he'd thought, his jaw clenched, as he'd hurled the bottle into the trash. He'd swallowed the rest of his pills over the next three days.

Cameron's voice, suddenly distant, floated into his ears, "Tox screen was clear."

Inside his leg, the tissue felt twisted, like the frayed fibers of an old rope. He blinked hard, tuning in to and out of the diagnostic chatter of his staff.

"—be Epilepsy." That was Chase. Idiot.

"Wouldn't explain the hallucination." Foreman.

Trying to appear mildly interested, House disentangled his fingers, stretched his left hand across the table, and wiggled the file free of Cameron's grip. She threw him an annoyed look, her lips pursed and eyebrows drawn toward the bridge of her nose.

House killed the urge to comment on her smoldering expression and pretended to focus very intently on test results and scribbled lists of symptoms. He dimly heard the overlapping of voices around him as the differential resumed. His right hand dived under the table to answer the call of another sharp bolt in his thigh, but, as it swept past the pocket of his jacket, a soft crinkle drifted to his ears. Maybe it was money, he thought. Intrigued, he scoured the bottom of his pocket with his fingertips, meeting a worn, creased scrap of paper. Too big. Damn. He ran his fingers along the smooth pulpous fibers, so soft they felt like fabric. He tilted his head and caught a glimpse of dull white engulfed by the dark grey of his pocket. Dark printing produced hard, linear shadows over the middle crease: lson, MD.

His breath hitched silently. The forged prescription. He'd forgotten about it over the past few days. The night he'd scrawled Wilson's signature on the small piece of paper, he'd returned home and turned it over in his hand, folding and unfolding it, before slipping it into the pocket of a jacket that hung lazily over the back of the cushion. This morning, it had been the only jacket within reach as he'd left the apartment.

He felt another surge in his thigh and he gripped the paper in a tight fist. He forced his eyes to refocus on the case file. As he attempted to ignore the jolts in his leg, he scanned the pages and settled on a miniscule line of text. Squinting slightly, he leaned his head closer to the page.

"Cuddy missed something," he said. "Here." He lifted a piece of paper from the file and waved it inches away from Chase's nose. His finger traced a tiny line of printed text squished between two larger handwritten notes. "She neglected to mention that."

Chase swiped at the page and held it at a readable distance. "Tingling and numbness in the patient's right arm."

"What if the hallucination is unconnected?" Foreman suggested. Meeting an inquisitive silence, he continued, "If she had experimented with drugs, they could have already been out of her system by the time she'd undergone a tox screen. The test would have come back negative, making us think that the hallucination was a symptom—"

"Foreman!" House blinked, holding back imaginary tears. "Basing a theory on no medical proof? I'm so proud." Then, his pretense vanishing, he urged, "Get to the punch line." He and his leg needed to be alone. Soon.

"Assuming the hallucination isn't a symptom, we should test for mercury poisoning," said Foreman.

"Mercury poisoning could cause nausea, seizures, and peripheral numbness," added Chase eagerly.

House bit back his doubts and, after a pause, uttered, "Good. Go." He listened to the flurry of movement as he lowered his head—folders slapped closed, chairs skidded against the carpet, shoes pattered purposefully through the open door of the conference room and into the corridor.

He pressed the heel of his hand into his thigh, his thoughts drifting to the folded square of paper in his pocket. Beams of sunlight, spilling through the vertical blinds behind him, slunk silently across the floor. He quieted the splitting sensation in his leg, eventually easing it into a dull throb. He could hide a throb; he'd had lots of practice.

He stood carefully, gripping the back of his chair for support, before decidedly venturing out of room, towards the elevators and the ground floor.