Author's Note - Don't worry, before you ask - I haven't forgotten about the dad, next chapter (5) will explain where he is and what he does. So enjoy this little filler chapter until I get to that...
"So who'd you think hit House?" Chase probed as soon as they were clear of the conference room.
"Let me see…lets narrow it down from everyone the man's ever met" Foreman chuckled unsympathetically.
"Maybe it was a hooker…" Chase suggested, obviously finding the whole situation fascinating, "or maybe it was his hooker's pimp..."
"Guys, give him a break – couldn't you see how much pain he was in; he couldn't even stand." Cameron said knowing that they'd still be just as unconcerned.
"I'm sure he brought it on himself" Foreman interjected, "the guy's such an ass I'm surprised he doesn't get laid out more often."
The three of them strolled up to Andrew's room to find Cuddy checking him over; they immediately assumed that she had found out about the biopsy and that they were now in trouble because of what House had told them to do.
Foreman started the offensive while Chase and Cameron busied themselves by taking Andrew's blood; "We didn't find out about the consent until after we'd done the biopsy – and House didn't even bother finding out the results before he left for the night."
"Nice to see he has such loyal staff" Cuddy muttered sarcastically; she was slightly surprised that House hadn't told them what happened in her office the previous night; "I'm letting the consent go – what House did last night was manipulative to say the least…but it worked."
"What House did? He didn't do anything – we were the one's taking the risk, he just hid in his office all day then went home early!" Foreman argued; there was no way he was going to let House get credit when he didn't risk his job to diagnose the kid.
"Is that what House told you happened or is it what you assumed happened?" Cuddy asked enigmatically as she snapped off her latex gloves and disposed of them in the bin, "Is he still here?"
"Yeah, he's probably asleep in his office knowing him." Foreman replied puzzled as to why Cuddy didn't seem angry with them or House.
Cuddy frowned to herself then briskly walked out of the room, leaving Foreman, Cameron and Chase to look at each other in bewilderment; everyone seemed to be acting strange with House today. Foreman took it as his duty to follow Cuddy to find out why everyone was pussyfooting around House; it doesn't take three doctors to get blood after all.
Cameron got the last of the blood they needed to test just as Andrew woke up; she gave her best apologetic smile as she pulled out the needle, "Hey, how are you feeling?"
"Like I've been hit in the chest by a thunderbolt – how are you doing?" He replied groggily as he rubbed his chest.
"Err, I'm good thanks." Cameron replied faltering at the unexpected question; "Where's your dad?"
Andrew screwed his nose up before replying "Probably at work or something…I don't know."
Cameron frowned at Chase who decided to press further, "Did he leave last night or this morning?"
"I'd say he probably left right after he smacked Dr House last night…which you probably didn't know about judging by the way you're freaking me out by staring at me right now…" He replied feeling a little spooked by the way Chase and Cameron had stopped what they were doing and were exchanging weird looks with him.
"Did you just say that your dad hit Dr House?" Chase asked; it wasn't that he didn't believe Andrew; he just didn't want his 'hooker socking House in the face' theory to be proved wrong when it sounded so good.
"That's what Dr Cuddy told me; can you do me a favour and tell him that I'm sorry for setting him up, I should have known that my dad would go ballistic…" Andrew said looking guilty.
"I wouldn't worry about it too much – Dr House gets hit all the time and I'm sure you didn't know your dad was gonna hit him."
"He'd hit anyone if they wound him up enough." Andrew said quietly.
"Are you talking from experience?"
"Experience of what…being hit by my dad?" Andrew didn't sound surprised at the question, "ask Dr House, he asked me the exact same question yesterday..."
Meanwhile back in the conference room…
House was carefully trying to make his way through to his office, there was no way he was going to sit in the ddx room all day when there were comfy chairs waiting in his office; chairs which wouldn't put his ass cheeks to sleep like the hard ones he'd been sitting on for the past 3 hours!
He had gotten as far as the corner of the table when he ran into some problems with gravity; for some reason the floor and ceiling wanted to swap places and this confused his brain slightly, making it impossible to simply walk the five or so steps to his comfy chair.
He stood, or rather, he swayed for ten minutes with one hand holding the corner of the table and the other gripping the corner of the whiteboard; his cane was hooked on the board, ready for a quick retrieval whenever he was ready to make a break for it. He needed to get to the phone, he had to get Foreman down to check his head; something was up and it wasn't going to go away no matter how much he tried to ignore it – at least his leg wasn't to painful today…something must be seriously wrong.
It was at this point in his thought process that Cuddy barged in and busted him; he decided there was no way he was going to make a complete dick of himself by attempting the short distance now and risk falling flat on his face in front of her, so he sat back down on the nearest chair, defeated.
"You're still here." Cuddy stated angrily to House as Foreman followed her in.
"Thanks I was wondering where I was…" He muttered back, keeping his head low; it seemed to hurt more when he tilted his head back to look at people looming over him. 'God knows where I'd be if you hadn't just told me that piece of pointless information.' He thought warily; too tired to really argue with Cuddy and in too much pain to give her a reason to shout some more.
"I called you last night to let you know what happened to Andrew; I didn't expect you to turn up in the middle of the night and stay here – go home, you look awful!"
"You must be psychic" he said to Foreman, ignoring Cuddy, who stood with her arms folded waiting for him to comply with her order; "was about to call you - need a CT scan-"
"The kid's brain is fine." Foreman protested.
"Okay, maybe you're not as psychic as I thought…I need a CT scan - for me; is that clearer?" He said a little too loud for his pounding head, causing him to wince.
"Is your head getting worse?" Cuddy asked, a tinge of worry creeping in through the anger in her tone.
"Obviously, do you really think I'd still be here if I could make it home?" He replied, causing Cuddy to drop her sympathetic look and replace it with a scowl.
"You seemed ok last night, bit of a headache – but that's hardly surprising considering you're recovering from a nasty concussion and you haven't slept yet!" She said sternly.
"My headache is getting worse and I'm bleeding into my eye; now I could probably put the headache down to the fact that I'm being shouted at more than usual this morning…but I'd like a scan to make sure it's not some sort of medically serious condition – wouldn't want to stroke out on you before lunch." He said, causing Cuddy to crouch down and check his eye - much to his disapproval.
Foreman looked puzzled; "It's highly unlikely you got a concussion and a bleed in the eye from being punched in the face." He stated as he pulled out his penlight to check House's pupil reactions for himself.
"You haven't told them yet?" House asked Cuddy, slightly surprised by this.
"I was going to wait and see what you told them – didn't want to interfere with whatever macho lie you were planning on feeding them to make yourself look good" Cuddy deadpanned.
"You think getting beaten up by a 6ft ex-marine isn't macho enough…what's a guy gotta do to impress you Cuddy?" He whined softly.
"Papilledema could indicate a rise in intracranial pressure." Foreman said, catching House's attention, "where did you hit your head?"
"In Cuddy's office." House joked dryly before seeing Foreman start to get up, clearly annoyed with his brand of deflective humour; "Just here" he pointed carefully to the lump on the back of his head.
"How long were you out?" Foreman asked, immediately regretting the stupid question, "how long was he out?" he rephrased to Cuddy who could see House scowling at the first question.
"About 20 minutes." She replied, thinking back to the sickening sound of House's head banging against her doorframe – it was even more sickly in hindsight.
"We definatly need a CT scan." Foreman said seriously catching both Cuddy and House's attention, "I think you're bleeding into your brain."