Chapter 2:

"Who are you?" Asked the red-haired musician.

"I am Doctor House. Apparently you don't know me."

"Why would I know you?"

"Because…oh, yes. You are the world famous one, not me. That's a shame."

"What do you want with me?" She asked in a tone that was much more than surly.

"I'm going to examine you."

"But that other doctor, Doctor Kutner, already examined me. He said that I was fine."

"Now, who is the world famous one here?"

"Me." She said, crossing her arms in the bed that she lay in. She scowled.

"Oh. Right." House looked up at his forehead and pretended to smack himself in stupidity. "It should be me." He said shortly. He adjusted his face and closed the sliding door to her room. He was just stepping in when the interrogations started. House rolled over to her bedside on a rolling stool, just like the one in the exam room. He had her skinny but very important chart in her hands. He opened it up and read through the medications list.

"Accolate for athsma, Ataraz for your anxiety disorder… Do you have anxiety disorder?"

"That's what my doctor thinks."

"Well, your new doctor, me, thinks that you don't. No more of that nonsense." He pulled a pen out of his pocket and crossed out the scribbled handwriting. "Deltasone for athsma, Maxalt for your migraines, Provera for your menopause-" House looked up at the patient, who had her arms crossed over her mid-abdomen, as if shielding herself from the rude doctor's gaze. "You look too young for menopause. You are only about forty."

"The doctor told me that I was having early menopause last month when I told him I wasn't menstruating."

"Did he rule out pregnancy?" He asked, peering at the chart again, flipping through page after page, skimming through each line quickly.

"He said that he did."

"Okay, then why are you taking Colace?"

"I don't want to have to use the bathroom while performing. It ruins my concentration. Sure you know what that's like." She gave him a look and noted that he was seeming to be crossing his legs like he had to 'go'.

"Whatever. So you did ask your doctor before taking it, right?"

"Oh, sure. I told him all about it. He just wrote it down in the chart and that was the end of it. I take it just like he tells me. One dose twenty-four hours before being on stage."

"Great. So what's this about Valium. Don't you already take a medication for anxiety disorder?"

"Yes, but I went to another doctor once and he told me to take that too. So I do. Why, is that bad?"

"No, just wondering if the seven-hundred mg is too much for your system when you take three-hundred mg of Ataraz already." He closed the chart and rolled back over to where his cane was, propped up against the table under the television.

"So am I okay?"

"No. You might have liver failure. We just got your blood test results back. You're going to be fine." He said bluntly. "No! Of course not!" He scared her. "We're going to do a CT on your abdomen, to see how your liver is looking. Is that alright with you?" He picked up a clipboard and a pen.

"I guess,"

"Sign this." He shoved the clipboard and pen into her hands.

"Why should I?" She shoved back.

"Sign this!" He prompted.

"Why?"

"Because I just told you about a procedure and you have to give consent. Now, sign this!"

"What if I don't want to sign it?"

"You just said yes to my question! Sign it!"

"No, I said 'I guess'. And I quote!"

"Just sign the form! Do you want to die?"

"No,"

"Then sign it!" House pounded his fists onto the rails of her bed, which startled her a bit. She picked up the pen, while still looking at him, and peered down to find the line with the large X on the end. She signed and handed the form back to him.

"Happy?" She pouted, no longer afraid.

"Not really, since we could have gotten the room reserved by now." The crotchety older man grabbed his cane and stood up, closing the sliding door as he left his patient's room.

000000

"I need that CT machine for tonight! We need to look at her liver!"

"No, House. There is a long line-up for that CT machine, and all the others. I can't get you a machine until late tomorrow. And even with that, there are no guarantees.

"Fine. Let me have an X-ray machine for late tonight. She won't know the difference."

"No." She refused.

"Why?" He began to yell.

"No, because you'll have to get her to sign another form, and no because that room is full too. So are all the others. From opening to closing."

"It'll take about five minutes!" He argued.

No. There is no room."

"How do you know?"

"I am looking at the schedule right now."

"No you're not. You're posting your picture to MySpace, and I assure you, nobody is going to send you theirs." Cuddy glanced up at him angrily, and then rolled her eyes in despair and turned her gaze back to h er computer screen.

House looked around Doctor Cuddy's office, glancing at every bare spot on the wall and every covered spot in the same time. He did not even care to examine any art or photos.

"So I can't even have a MRI machine for three minutes tonight?"

"What part of 'no' don't you understand, House?" She stood up abruptly and glared at him with those eyes. Those eyes…

"The 'no' part." He turned around and opened the wooden door that led out to the busy and sometimes hectic hospital building around them.

"So, what did she say?" Blonde-haired Chase was shooting him a questionable look. Was he asking, or demanding?

"She said 'no'."

"To everything? MRI, CT and X-ray?"

"Yes, she did."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"Just because she said 'no' doesn't mean I can't do it."

"What are you talking about?" Doctor Cameron jutted in, handing him the ever-growing chart.

"I said three minutes on the MRI. I could do it in two and a half."

"But House, maybe there isn't enough time in-between other patients for you to waste a whole set up just for two and a half minutes!"

"So? I'm a doctor too, just like Cuddy and Wilson and like you, Foreman." House said, with a surly tone. He looked up from the file towards the African-American man next to Chase.

"And what are you going to tell them when you burst into the MRI room needing a MRI machine?" Asked Chase again, crossing his arms and speaking in that soft British accent.

"I'll just tell them to wait their turn. I did." House stormed off, as fast as he could with his cane, towards the West wing of the hospital. Towards the MRI machine.

"What are we going to do with him?" Asked Foreman rhetorically.

"Nothing," Cameron answered. "He's our boss, and there is nothing we can do to stop this madness that we call 'Doctor House'."