Act 2, Scene 1

Oberon: Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
I do but beg a little changeling boy

To be my henchman.
Titania: Set your heart at rest,
The fairy land buys not the child of me.
[A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 2 Scene 1]

9 p.m.

The winter landscape below him was strangely calming. New snow at the beginning of March, an oddity of nature. The sounds of evening traffic drifted up to him muted by the thin blanket of snow. It was a good thing he'd left the bike at home and taken his car. He stuck out his tongue to catch a snowflake, glad to be able to indulge in such childish behaviour without a witness, for the roof was deserted thanks to the late hour and harsh weather. Not that he objected to an audience per se when he behaved like a juvenile, but playing with snow had a touch of sentimentality, somewhere along the same lines as liking fairy tales or rescuing kittens. Perhaps living with Wilson was beginning to rub off on him. You're catching his girl cooties, he reprimanded himself.

Change was imminent. He didn't like change, and had never done so. Now, however, it was inevitable. His mother used to say, and probably still did, "What can't be cured has to be endured." A stupid, defeatist adage. Admittedly he couldn't 'cure' the problem, but he could give it a treatment of palliative medicine, making the transition from this state of being to the next easier on himself. He'd already applied a hefty dose of manipulative morphine today, screwing Foreman in front of the whole board. Wilson had texted him afterwards: 'What r u up 2? 13 fuming!' He wondered whether Cuddy had seen through his ploy.

She'd cornered him in the clinic two days ago, dragging him into an exam room, shutting the door behind her and leaning against it to prevent his departure before she was done with him. He had hopped onto the examination table patting the space next to him invitingly.

"Oh, are we skipping the verbal foreplay today? I love it when you want it hard and fast."

"House, there was a complaint from a clinic patient today ..."

"Couldn't have been me, teacher, because I wasn't there today." He had slid off the table and had made for the door. Cuddy, however, hadn't budged, continuing as though he hadn't interrupted.

"...that the doctor treating her couldn't take a blood sample because her hands were shaking too badly. She had to wait for half an hour until another doctor was available."

House had stopped short, but had caught himself again a moment later. "And this is of interest to me because ... ? You don't seriously expect me to solve your staff scheduling problems, do you?"

"I have taken Dr Hadley off clinic duty. That is no solution to the problem – it's only a stop-gap until you come up with something."

"And if I don't," House had asked, "you fire her? You can't, you know."

"I have no intention of firing her, House. But I can't have her carrying out procedures that require coordination." She'd given him her I-can't-make-the-world-a-fair-place look. "From now on she carries out no procedure on a patient on her own. She is not to do any sort of invasive procedure at all."

Cuddy had paused, cocking her head at him. "Sooner or later she'll be reduced to sitting in on differentials and doing your paperwork. If she has only a tenth of your personal pride it'll be sooner rather than later, because she'll shun patient contact the way you do. And if she has only a hundredth of your professional pride she'll hate what she is reduced to."

He'd been silent.

She'd smiled sweetly at him. "In order to accelerate your thinking process, I've put you down for all Dr Hadley's clinic hours in the coming weeks." Then she'd turned on her heels. His eyes had automatically followed her swaying backside as she'd disappeared in a swish of red and black, but it hadn't given him the pleasant tug it usually did.

He was getting cold, despite coat and hat. Normally he'd head back to his office, relax in his Eames chair and peruse medical journals (contrary to popular opinion, an opinion that he'd admittedly taken care to cultivate, he preferred those to porn) until Wilson was set to go home, but he didn't feel like dealing with his team just now. So condo it was then, although it held no attraction to him this evening. He'd be there alone, watching television, persuading himself that this was his notion of a cosy evening, trying to downplay the pain in his leg that was exacerbated by the cold (and though he chose not to admit it, by the impending upheavals in his department) and the craving for vicodin that flared up on nights like these. He sighed as he turned to the heavy steel door that led inside.

Once ensconced in the elevator he pressed the button to the first floor. He'd brought his backpack with him in wise foresight, so he didn't need to pass by his office. On the fourth floor, however, the doors opened, revealing Cuddy waiting outside. He didn't like the gleam with which she favoured him as she entered the car.

"Done for the day?" she asked as the elevator moved on down.

He mustered the doors. "No patient and I've absolved my clinic duty." No front for her to attack there.

"Good." She fell silent too. House glanced down at her with a growing sense of unease; he was sure about that gleam, and so far she hadn't as much as mentioned the board meeting – this couldn't have been all!

The elevator stopped. House limped out, throwing a casual goodnight over his shoulder.

"Goodnight, "Cuddy replied. "I'll see you tomorrow morning at eight."

House didn't break his stride. "My department isn't involved in the Senator's visit, so I see no reason to be here at eight."

Cuddy fell into step next to him with difficulty. "I know. Diagnostics is neither being inspected ..."

"There's nothing to see, for goodness sake!" he interjected.

"... nor have you offered help in any other form. All doctors not actively participating in the programme for the Senator are assigned to clinic duty from eight a.m. to four p.m."

That stopped him short. He stared down at her, scanning her face for an indication that she was scamming him. "Cuddy, you are an ..."

Her pager went off. She crammed it out and glanced at it, saying, "I'd so love to hear your opinion of me, but I must go. Bother!"

She strode off in the direction of the ER without a backward look. Just before she reached the doors of the ER the familiar thunk-kerplunk of House's cane-reinforced limp behind her brought her up short, nearly causing him to run into her. "House, what do you want?"

"Thought I'd come with you and check whether there's a patient for me in ER."

"Nice try, House, but you will not sweet-talk the ER staff into handing over some hapless patient to you just so you can skip clinic duty tomorrow. I assign patients to you – you don't get to pick and choose." She pressed the door button and the doors of the ER swung open to admit her. "Now go!" she admonished, striding inside.

He waited a moment before following her. There was no way he was accepting eight hours of clinic duty without a fight. It wasn't that he intended to do them – he'd doubtless skip most of them and sleep through the rest – but this was a matter of principle. Besides, a run-in with Cuddy promised more fun than anything he had lined up at the moment.

The moment Cuddy set foot in the ER, a distraught-looking couple rushed up to her. House assessed them mentally: Asian Indians, probably northern or central India judging by their complexion. The man's clothing was nondescript, the suit rather ill-fitting, yet his demeanour indicated confidence to the point of brashness. House noted the keychain in his hand – it sported the Mercedes star. Probably a successful businessman or IT-specialist, House decided. The woman, who seemed considerably younger than her husband, was dressed casually in western style, but wore some heavy-duty jewellery. There was little doubt in House's mind why ER had chosen to alarm Cuddy despite the fact that she had enough on her plate the coming twenty-four hours.

"Dr Cuddy, we are glad to see you," the man called out as soon as he spotted Cuddy. He stopped to mop his brow with a handkerchief before he descended on Cuddy to shake her hand. "Our Arun has had an accident. Gita, tell Dr Cuddy what happened."

"Mr Chatterjee, Mrs Chatterjee, good evening," Cuddy greeted them. "Arun? He's your oldest son, isn't he?"

"Yes," Mrs Chatterjee answered. "I told him not to ride his bike in this weather, but does he listen?"

"Is he being attended to?" Cuddy asked. A senseless question, for she would hardly have been paged if the ER staff were not attending to the child.

"Yes, your doctors are seeing to him, but we felt that we should like you to take a look. They seem very ... young, Dr Cuddy, and we want our son to be in competent hands," Mr Chatterjee explained.

House snorted audibly behind Cuddy, who turned round and hissed, "Shut up!" at him.

"Donors?" he smirked. Cuddy didn't deign to answer.

"I'm sure my staff is fully capable of dealing with anything that crops up, but I'd be glad to check with them myself and take a look at his chart," Cuddy smiled. She turned to House. "An accident while riding a bicycle. Not a case for diagnostics. You can go!"

"You heard Mr and Mrs Chatterjee. They want their son in competent hands," House murmured.

"And that's you? The last I heard, your specialities were nephrology and infectious diseases!"

"And the last I heard, your speciality was signing pay checks," House retorted.

A vein in Cuddy's temple throbbed.

"Ignore him. Let's go," she said, striding off at a pace that House found impossible to follow.

He trailed behind Cuddy and her donor couple, who were clueing Cuddy in on every detail of the accident and on many a detail not pertaining to it at all. Cuddy nodded, smiling perfunctorily as though listening. They came up to a bed in which lay a boy of about ten years who was definitely looking the worse for wear. A young resident stood next to him adjusting the IV while an even younger nurse hovered in the background; both lacked the kind of confidence-inspiring respectability that comes with age, greying temples and reading glasses.

"Good evening, Dr Lee," Cuddy said. "Mr and Mrs Chatterjee have asked me to check on their son personally. May I see Arun's chart please?" She held out her hand imperatively.

"Yes, of course," the resident said, his expression hovering between chagrin at being relegated to the position of a helper and relief at being able to hand over the responsibility for a patient with tricky family to someone else. He took a blue folder from the bedside table and handed it to Cuddy, carried out last adjustments to the IV drip, and then stepped back from the bed to make room for Cuddy and the parents. House sidled up next to him.

"Symptoms?" he mouthed, his eyes roaming over the boy. "Apart from the obvious that I can see."

"Concussion," the resident recited. "Bruising on the left side of his torso, left femur probably broken, a few ribs possibly broken."

House shrugged, prepared to give up his search for a patient and call it a day, when his attention was called back to the boy. Cuddy was examining his eyes with a pen light.

"Will you follow the light with your eyes, please?" she instructed.

The boy looked puzzled. He turned to his mother, who was positioned at the head of the bed. "Ma, daktar ki bolchen?" he asked.

"Alor dikhe dekho," she answered, looking surprised and worried at her son's lack of comprehension. "Look at the light."

"Altered mental state," House muttered to the resident, "and ... inability to move chin down towards chest." For Cuddy was now examining Arun's left leg. Arun tried to follow what she was doing, but gave up when he had to tip his head downwards to keep his gaze on her hands. "What symptoms of concussion did he show?"

"Nausea, vomiting, blurred vision," the resident stammered, somewhat awed at gaining the unwanted attention of Gregory House MD. Cuddy, distracted by their murmurs, shot House a quelling look before returning her attention to the Chatterjees.

"Arun has concussion and possibly a few broken bones. However, that's nothing to be worried about. Once the results from the x-rays are in, Dr Lee will be able to assess the damage and inform you how long he has to stay here. He's in very good hands, we'll transfer him to a ward as soon as possible and if you have any questions or doubts, don't hesitate to come to me. ... House, what are you doing?"

House had taken the opportunity to take out his own pen light and flash it into Arun's eyes. Cuddy took hold of his arm and tugged him away from the bed.

"Cuddy, there's something wrong with the boy," House stated quietly, with a sideway glance at the parents. He needed to interfere, but he had no desire to expose Cuddy in front of family just now.

"Of course there's something wrong with him! He fell off his bike on a slippery road, so he's badly concussed, he's definitely got a fractured leg and possibly a few other fractures."

"I don't mean that! He can't move .."

"House, come with me!" She pulled him right out of Arun's bedside area. "You are not using a simple road accident victim to get out of clinic duty. Sorry to spoil your game, but there it is."

"He's not a simple road accident victim. He could have ..."

"No, he couldn't! He's fine apart from the usual injuries!" She rolled her eyes.

"Then why are you here?" he mocked.

"Because his parents are worried. My presence reassures them."

"Because his parents are donors, so you're sucking up to them. It would reassure them even more if I found out what's wrong with him."

"No, it won't, because there is nothing wrong with him. If I let you mess around with him, you'll perform a whole lot of unnecessary tests, alienate his parents and cost the hospital one of our most valuable donors. Therefore you will stay away from him, period."

She turned back a few steps towards the Chatterjees. "I'll be in the hospital another two or three hours. Page me if you feel the need to consult with me over anything," she informed them.

Then she took a firm grip of House's elbow and propelled him out of the ER.

"No, don't even try, House. You will do your clinic hours tomorrow no matter what!" Cuddy adjured as she pushed him towards the lobby.

"What about the father's heart problem?"

"Father's what?" Cuddy turned to stare at Mr Chatterjee, her face falling. She breathed out heavily. "House, is this one of your blitz-diagnoses?" He nodded. "Alright, I'll have that checked out. But if anything is wrong with that boy that Dr Lee can't fix, he'll inform me. You have caused enough mayhem for one day."

He looked at her in surprise.

"Don't think I don't know what you're up to," Cuddy told him. "Nevertheless, my boardroom is not the place for your team intrigues. Kindly fight them out yourself the next time."

"Ah. Did it piss you off that you had no clue as to what was going on?"

"I had every clue; Dr Hadley didn't," Cuddy corrected. "You staged that very neatly: Dr Hadley in a safe occupation, Chase out of my line of fire, but what about Foreman?"

"Collateral damage," House answered abstractedly. He didn't like what he had just heard. She'd figured out about Chase?

"Yes, Chase," Cuddy averred, as though he'd spoken aloud. "I saw both of you disappear into an examination room yesterday morning."

"Oh, Cuddy," House intoned in mock dismay. "You've discovered our little secret! Don't tell Wilson – he is so prone to jealousy and I don't want to sleep on the couch the next weeks."

"Don't worry, I'll be silent as the grave," Cuddy said drily, "if you'll let me in on whatever kinky stuff you did with the IV pole and bag you were toting."

House waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "I'll show you if you're interested."

"House," Cuddy's tone was serious once more, "the hospital has a policy on how to deal with employees with suspected or proven alcohol issues. I expect you ... no, I don't expect you to implement it." She shook her head as though to clear it. "You sticking to hospital policy would be a miracle. But I do expect you to put a stop to whatever excesses Chase is indulging in, otherwise I will start putting him through the steps of that policy. I don't care what creative effort you put into it as long as it is successful. Sending him away to Johns Hopkins, though it might get him out of my sight, won't get him out of my mind, so you'd better come up with something more effective."

"Chase is fine," House muttered.

"No, he isn't. And I won't tolerate any alcohol-related incidents in this hospital. You're his boss – do something!" With that Cuddy turned away towards the clinic doors.

That did it! "Don't we have a bit of a 'pot-and-kettle' issue over here?" he called. She didn't break her stride. "Hey Cuddy, you enabled me for how many years? You knew I was addicted after that insane clinic hour wager, yet you never pulled hospital policy on me. You let me pop vicodin like it was breath mints. Have you forgotten that?"

He'd never mentioned it once, never confronted her with her part in his personal fiasco in all the months since his return from Mayfield, although his work environment had been one of the topics Nolan had covered with him in his therapy. Nolan hadn't wanted him to return, but no other hospital had wanted a former addict without a medical license but with a reputation that stank to the high heavens, so PPTH it had been.

Cuddy stopped dead. She turned on her heel, but House, attuned to her body language, could see from the slight sag of her shoulders that he was not to be treated to a witty repartee. She looked at him sadly before she dropped her eyes and turned away again.

"No," she said so quietly that he could hardly hear her, "I'll never forget that."


Wilson returned to his office to find the door that he was sure he'd locked before departing to check on a patient slightly ajar. It therefore came as no surprise to him to find House draped across his couch, idly tossing an unidentified object into the air and catching it just before it hit the ground next to the couch. As long as the object wasn't small, orange and cylindrical ...

"House, there are reasons why people lock their doors. There is a concept known as 'privacy' ..."

"Ten-year-old boy of Indian descent with nausea, blurred vision, altered mental state, impaired head movement."

"Ten-year-old? Sounds like concussion to me. Any signs of trauma? By the way, is there any reason why you are doing a differential in my office with me instead of in your office with your team?"

"Don't close the door! He fell off his bike. ER and Cuddy think it's concussion too."

Wilson looked puzzled, but left the door open a crack. He took a file off the shelf behind his desk and neatly sorted the board meeting minutes into it before he returned his attention to House.

"Then why is he your patient?"

House didn't reply, the distraction offered by his yo-yo apparently greater than his interest in his patient.

"Wait, he isn't your patient! House, it's concussion. Keep your fingers off him, for goodness sake! Don't give Cuddy another reason for wanting to flail you."

"Another reason? I haven't given her any reasons lately."

"No? She wasn't happy at having to gloss over your intra-departmental communication glitch during the board meeting. They must suspect she hasn't got Diagnostics under control." He frowned at House. "Why are you sabotaging Foreman?"

"Because he's a self-important jerk who deserves to be taken down a notch?" House suggested.

"You've humiliated him in front of Cuddy and the board. He isn't going to stand for that. Why do we have to have this conversation in a draught?" He eyed the open door with disapproval.

"We don't have to have this conversation at all."

"You're hanging out here to avoid Foreman," Wilson surmised. "How long are you going to stay on my couch: April? May?"

"Foreman and Thirteen have left already."

"Okay, I amend my statement. You're avoiding your team. The door is left ajar so you can observe them leave and return to your office once the coast is clear." Wilson fell into his chair, massaging the bridge of his nose. "Why do you antagonize them if you can't deal ..."

House held up his hand to silence Wilson as he swung his legs off the couch. Voices could be heard approaching from the direction of House's office.

"Robert, can't we ..." It was Cameron's voice. Wilson's head jerked up. House looked interested.

"Nothing has changed, Allison." Chase could be heard letting out a sigh. "You want something I don't want. I'm happy here."

"You've changed. Don't pretend you're happy. I can see that you aren't." There was a pause. "Look, if you're so fond of diagnostics, there's an opening in our diagnostic department. You can get out of here, get away from him, start afresh."

"Allison, I'm fine with House – I don't want to get away from him. I've got a good job in a top team ... you're never going to understand, are you? Okay, I killed Dibala, I feel guilty for killing a man, but I'm not sorry I did it. I'd do it again!"

Wilson's eyes widened.

Cameron's voice held a touch of steel. "Top team? Did Foreman and Thirteen tell you that they're leaving? ... No, I can see they didn't. Well, they are. They're going to UW Medicine. ... You really had no idea?"

"Shit, no." Chase sounded preoccupied. "House really screwed them, but I didn't think ... oh God, that means I'll have to handle the Johns Hopkins course on my own. There's no way I can do that. Did they say where they're going now?"

"Home, I should think. Robert can't we talk about us?"

"There's nothing to talk about. What do I have to do to make you understand that? ... Where's that damn elevator?"

Chase's rather heavier footsteps could be heard retreating rapidly along the corridor, then the fireproof door of the stairwell squeaked, only to fall shut with a thud a few moments later. Cameron's lighter step followed, accompanied by a strangled "Robert" before the stairwell door performed its squeak-thud a second time.

"Wow!" Wilson finally said. "That was very enlightening. Let me see: Chase killed Dibala, Foreman and Thirteen are leaving while Cameron just happens to be back. Please, please tell me that you didn't know about any of this! Okay, that's asking for too much; tell me that you aren't implicated in any way. This isn't one of your diabolical machinations, is it?"

"Wilson, you have a suspicious mind. When Dibala 'died' I didn't even have my license back, so I'm not culpable. I didn't know Foreteen were planning on leaving."

"But you're not surprised. And Cameron?"

"I knew she was coming down from New York to see Chase," House admitted.

"Chase told you?"

House had the decency to look slightly uncomfortable. "Not exactly, but there had to be some reason why he was pickling his liver in alcohol this week. So I got curious and ... checked his emails."

"You hacked his account? House, are you crazy?"

"So? I've hacked yours, and I hack Cuddy's account regularly."

"I'm your friend and Cuddy is ... Cuddy. But if Chase finds out and charges you with violating his privacy, you're done for. Your license isn't half a year old yet, you haven't got tenure, you'll be fired!"

"Relax! He won't find out unless you tell him."

House sat on the couch rhythmically spinning his yo-yo, observing the movement as though it held the solution to all the mysteries of the world. Wilson steepled his fingers, waiting.

"Gotta distract Cuddy," House finally observed with the air of having found an answer to whatever problem was occupying him.

"Cuddy? You're losing your entire team and your reaction is to rile Cuddy?"

"I need to distract Cuddy so I can appropriate her little Mowgli."

"Senator Woodward's visit should prove a diversion."

"Not enough and much too late. The Senator arrives at eight. I have clinic duty from eight to four. If I can diagnose Cuddy's donor delight by then, she won't care whether I turn up or not."

"Eight to four?" Wilson, diverted for the moment, grinned like the Cheshire Cat. "I'm coming to film that. Why don't you pour some oil on troubled waters and do your clinic duty for a change? Cuddy'll go ballistic when she hears that your clever machinations have condensed your team down to Taub."

"And Chase. He isn't gone yet. No one is gone as yet."

"Don't kid yourself." Wilson, observing House's moody mien, changed the topic. "Look at the bright side of clinic duty: if Cuddy's boy-toy decides to abuse his new privileges so he can sneak in a kiss or a grope, you'll be in an excellent position to interrupt his nefarious activities."

House's head snapped up while his hand missed the returning yo-yo. "Lucas? What's he doing here?"

"He's supervising security tomorrow, if I interpreted Cuddy's remarks at the board meeting correctly."

"Interesting." House's eyes narrowed in concentration. He rose abruptly and made for the door.

"House!" Wilson called. House paused, but didn't turn. "Talk to your team. Tell them that you want them to stay, that you need them ... House!"

The door slammed shut.

Demetrius: I love thee not, therefore pursue me not [...]
Hence, get thee gone,
and follow me no more.
Helena: You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant,
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as steel.
[A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 2 Scene 1]