A/N: Thanks for reviewing, guys, I really appreciate it – keep those up!

Disclaimer: I am a fifteen-year-old sophomore, not a brilliant medical college student who knows all the ins and outs of health care. Please forgive any faulty medicine found in this story – I tried to make it as accurate as possible, but I'm not perfect. Just in case you forget.

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II. Our Latest Bundle of Fun

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The sun shined, vivid and golden, over the general scene of New Jersey in winter. Patches of snow erratically covered the ground, tiny tufts of dead-looking grass rearing their battered heads through the sludgy mess. February was a muddled time on the East Coast.

Gregory House parked his car in the drive and limped inside, bundled up in his battered gray coat against the nippy wind whipping past him in bursts. He entered Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital through the main front entrance and as he did so, a highly unusual amount of pink came within his view like an enormous slap in the face. He had to blink a few times just to take it all in.

"What's all this?" he grunted at a small, blonde secretary sitting at the desk as he scrawled his name on the check-in list.

"Oh, the pink hearts?" The blonde beamed with pride. "Well, it's Valentine's Day in a couple of days and we thought it would be nice to make the front room a little festive. It's nice, isn't it?"

"Yeah – about as nice as the root canal I had last week." House rolled his eyes, glaring at the bright hearts around him as though each had done him a personal wrong.

The blonde gave him a disapproving look, but said nothing more as she settled back down in her seat to type something into the computer. House continued on his way up to his office, when through his peripheral vision he happened to notice Wilson entering and signing in himself. He turned back around and went to join his best friend, who, like him, was gazing around at the overdose of pink in the lobby.

"Nice decorations," Wilson remarked to the very same blonde. "Who put them up?"

"Us," the blonde clarified proudly, gesturing to the two men sitting on either side of her. "This morning."

"I like them." Wilson's smile was very friendly as he signed underneath House's name and looked back up to see the man himself standing in front of him, sour as ever.

"Oh, good morning," he said. "You look particularly dashing today. This pink lobby really brings out the youthful blush in your cheeks."

"Thanks," House said as both of them made their way together to the elevators. "You look nice too. Your hair is fluffier than a new puppy – it's, like, boy-band sexy!" He pulled a spontaneous pop-star pose to accompany his squawky imitation. "Rock on, dude!" He put out his hand for a pound.

Wilson smirked as he readily ignored House's fist. "Totally, home-skillet."

House made a face as he withdrew his hand and used his cane to punch the call-button for the elevator, as well as smack Wilson's hand for attempting to do it first.

"Hey, stop stealing my hip, zingy one-liners, copy-cat – get your own," he scolded as the doors opened and the two stepped forward towards the tiny cubicle.

Unfortunately (for House, anyway), it already held one occupant.

"Oh, it's you." Lisa Cuddy rolled her eyes at the sight of the hospital's cranky diagnostician.

House took a double-take and blinked a few times, mock-startled. "Cuddy? Is that really you behind those enormous mounds of flesh mounted upon your chest?" He sighed with fake relief, the sarcasm etched into the lines of his aging face. "Sorry about that, I couldn't see you back there. Too much skin in the way."

Cuddy pursed her lips with irritation, scooting over a couple of steps to make room for snickering Wilson and House in the elevator.

"Nice to see you too, House." She grimaced at him. She then turned her attention to Wilson, her features brightening considerably. "Good morning, Dr. Wilson," she said with a smile.

"Good morning, Cuddy." Wilson could not be more amused if he tried.

The woman nodded and her pleasant demeanor melted the moment she turned her attention back to House. "You've got a case," she informed him, rearranging the stack of papers and files in her hand so that a dark blue folder was on top. "Twenty-four year old female, culinary student, went into respiratory arrest late last night."

"Well, unless she plans to make me a free banquet tonight, I'm not interested," House announced. "Respiratory arrest adds some awesome social tension, but unfortunately, brings down the diagnostic tension. Kind of like you, now that I think on it."

Cuddy wasn't giving up so easily. "Her fiancé said she had had a cold for about a week or so and the ER didn't find any of the usual stuff, but her condition is still not going well. She's stable for now, but we can't be sure."

"It's probably undiagnosed pneumonia or something," House said, dismissive as ever, as the elevator stopped at his floor and he left Wilson behind, Cuddy keeping his pace as he limped down the corridor.

"Nope – ER tested for that already," Cuddy persisted.

"It's got to be some sort of stupid infection," House said. "It's a waste of time. Tell the ER to check for more of the usual crap and enjoy that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you help humanity. I think Valentine's season is a time for fuzziness – or maybe that was Halloween, I always get the two mixed up."

Cuddy took an extra couple of steps forward and blocked House off, standing in front of him with one hand on her hip and the other shoving a file into his chest.

"House, take the case," she ordered. "They tried, they tested, and they couldn't figure it out in the ER and they don't want her getting worse. I need you to figure it out."

House wrinkled his nose with distaste as his fingers closed around the file. He waved it for himself like a fan, and then waved it for Cuddy, surprising her.

"Shoo fly, don't bother me with these boring cases," he said, shoving the file right back at her.

"What else would you do, play with your ball or watch your soap operas or do something equally useless?" Cuddy arched an eyebrow.

"Yeah," House said, exhaling and roughly brushing by Cuddy to retire to the safe haven of his office. "I hate being useful. Too much work involved."

Again, Cuddy followed him and cut him off. House frowned at her, surveying her with annoyance. However, seeing a small group of people strolling by together, he took the liberty of saying in an overly-loud, exaggerated tone, "God, woman, no, I've already told you I will not have sex with you!"

Mission accomplished – the group of people glanced quizzically in their direction.

"I've said this a million times – now a million and one," House said with a vast sigh and an understanding pat on her shoulder. "Office relationships don't work out – ever. It's not the responsible thing for us to do. You will have to learn to keep yourself under control around me so we can maintain a healthy work environment."

He checked to make sure he had been heard; and indeed he had been. The spectators passed along, shaking their heads and looking at each other with sheer bewilderment, and House looked back to Cuddy, who was giving him one of her cold-and-formidable glares, her eyes narrowing.

"Take the case and I promise a healthy work environment will be maintained." Her expression did not change in its iciness as she shoved the file a final time into his hand. She turned on her heel and walked back down the hallway to attend to business elsewhere.

"You've got the ass of an overweight hippopotamus," House yelled back after her on sudden inspiration.

Cuddy, needless to say, did not feel the need to respond; which obviously meant House had successfully given her day a terrible start and won their face-off.

Smirking to himself in victory, House opened the file with mild curiosity, scanning through it as he pushed the door open into his office, where his team sat assembled already, lounging about and chatting amongst themselves until their boss made his appearance.

"New case," House stated with the utmost flippancy, tossing the file neatly in the middle of the table and making his way to the counter in the corner. "Take a look."

Thirteen was the first to grab the blue folder, taking a peek through it. "Elizabeth Dyal, twenty-four-year-old female, college student, came in with cold and respiratory arrest," she read.

Kutner took the file from her with interest while House ignored them all in favor of making himself coffee. "Says here she goes to that college nearby, the culinary one," he volunteered. "She wants to be a chef."

"Does it matter?" House stared at the ceiling for a moment, pondering this, before he enlightened the team with a: "No, it isn't. Tell me something I care about."

"There's really nothing to say." Now Taub had the file as well as the floor, while Foreman glanced at it over his shoulder. "She's stable now and her lungs seem to be working all right. But her boyfriend –"

"—Fiancé," House corrected. "Get it right, Taub, God. The girl's in love; don't cheapen it when Valentine's Day is so close by."

Taub smirked and went on, "The fiancé has said she wasn't feeling well before she came in. Said she had aches, coughed a lot, was more tired than usual, had a fever yesterday, and took Advil."

"Valentine's Day foreplay could explain the aches and exhaustion," said House.

"Well, it's a fever, so this is definitely an infection," Foreman decided, ignoring this. "I'd say it's in her lungs."

"It could be bronchiolitis or SARS," agreed Thirteen.

"ER already tested that!" House sang, leaning over to scribble symptoms on his white-board with blue marker. "Idiots…originality is a good thing, make friends with it."

"West Nile," Foreman proposed.

House snorted, derision all over his face. "Hey, hey, not that original. Our fine American government would go nuts if we tried to say something like West Nile was found in the middle of New Jersey," he said disapprovingly. "International viruses don't belong here. Wait until we get a better symptom before we start getting exotic."

He glanced crossly around the room at the four of them. "Come on, people, Cuddy reminds me everyday how over-qualified you are and all I get are your idiotic theories. Give me something else, something good."

"She's a twenty-four-year-old college student," Taub noted. "She's young. She could have an STD. There's a note here that she was supposed to have a big exam today – stress can make a person do some pretty strange things."

"She's getting married and went home for Christmas break and all that – she could have some pet-carrying infection, maybe from a dog," Kutner suggested. "Could be RMSF."

"That was two months ago, it would've shown symptoms already," Thirteen argued. "I think it's a lung infection."

"It could've kicked in late, or felt like something else, so she didn't pay attention," Kutner defended himself.

"I agree with Thirteen, it's probably in her lungs," Foreman declared.

House snorted again into his newly-made mug of coffee. "You would think that," he said scornfully. "Go agree with the only girl in the room, why don't you – if it worked for Chase, it could work for you too. We all know you want some, and who better than a chick who won't discriminate who gets what?"

Thirteen blushed, triggering Taub and Kutner to exchange smirks across the room. Foreman's expression grew quite cold, reminding him forcefully of Cuddy all of a sudden. "It's a sound diagnosis," he defended himself. "Seeing as she's got faulty lungs, as well as a fever, it would make sense that she's got an infection eating up the aforementioned lungs."

"Kutner had a decent idea all his own that could work," House pointed out.

"I did?" Kutner brightened.

"No, but it works for my argument." House's eyes remained on Foreman.

"Oh…"

Kutner went back to the file, making Taub chuckle quietly to himself, and Foreman could only shake his head, irate, at his opinionated boss.

"Fine, so what are we going to do?" he asked.

House took a sip of coffee and pulled on his thinking face. "Um…take a panel of STD tests so that Taub will shut up the next time we deliberate, test some of the easy infections, and give the dead-lung girl broad-spectrum antibiotics to see if she's as boring as I think she is," he ordered. "Go to it, cadets! Guard the home-front, protect democracy. And I want those germy safe-havens out of Afghanistan before the day is out."

He waved his team impatiently towards the door and the four of them rose, leaving the room to test the patient. House remained behind, watching them go, and settled down with his feet up on the chair next to him, staring at the board and cursing Cuddy's bad taste in medical mysteries (as well as her cleavage) to oblivion.

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A/N: Review, por favor.