House yawned, leaning back in the chair by the door out into the hall, one hand rubbing absently over his bad thigh, trying to ease some of the stiffness from standing over an autopsy table for three hours straight.

Thankfully, he could lean against the table most of the time, or sit down and take a break, but it still took a toll.

The doors slid open. "What'd'ya got, Duck…"

Gibbs stopped. The room was empty, except for House and one dead Navy Lieutenant.

"Where's Ducky?"

"His mom had a fall."

Gibbs sighed, clearly less than pleased with having to deal with him. "Well?"

"The autopsy showed she died of a spontaneous pneumothorax. Possibly idiopathic, but also possibly caused by trauma," he stopped, getting stiffly to his feet and limping over to the table. "Here. This bruising—it's not recent, maybe a week old by the coloring, probably from a…" House gestured, as though trying to figure out himself what shape fit best, "one-by-six, or a square metal bar, something with that cross-section, but a lot of mass behind it."

"That all?"

"No. The tox-screen also showed…"

He suddenly had to catch himself on the edge of the table—he was light-headed to begin with because he'd missed lunch, and his leg felt like the muscles were trying to tear themselves free of his femur.

The tips of his ears were burning as he straightened, grip on remaining upright tenuous at best.

He didn't meet the other man's eyes, as he continued, unable to keep a slight amount of pain out of his voice. "…Evidence of the prolonged use of antibiotics."

"Which means?"

"Usually, it would mean that someone had a compromised immune system. But she didn't. What she did have was an inner-ear condition."

"An infection?"

"No, more chronic than that. But it would have upset her balance, and probably her hearing in her right ear."

Gibbs nodded, and started to walk out. He stopped, though, by the door. "Go home before you collapse."

House glared. "I'm fine."

Gibbs glared back. "I don't like you. But people work better when they aren't exhausted."

"I said I'm fine."

Gibbs came back over, clearly losing patience with the doctor.

"Ducky's already got to deal with his mother falling; he doesn't need you hurting yourself on top of that."

"Did you actually expect that argument to work on me?"

They stood, glaring daggers at each other. House's leg was cramping worse the longer he stood in the one position, but he wasn't going to be the one who looked away, no matter how much it hurt.

Suddenly, he had to.

Because looking away and leaning on the edge of the table was preferable to passing out.

A hand wrapped around his arm, and he was unable to shake it off without overbalancing.

"I really don't care what happens to you. But Ducky likes you, and I'll tolerate you because of that. But I'm not going to put up with you if you can't manage. And refusing to go home when you need to just because I told you to isn't managing."

"Don't flatter yourself. I don't care enough about what you tell me to do to bother doing anything in reaction to it."

He started to try and move to the chair by the door, and the hand continued to grip his arm as he started to try and walk, half holding him up.

House was acutely aware of how pathetic this was, that the man he was arguing with that he was fine was having to help him walk to a chair.

They had almost made it there, when his bad leg buckled completely.

Gibbs stared hard at him. "Right. Then why won't you go home?"

House gritted his teeth, and tried to hop further towards the chair, but stumbled and almost fell, hand holding him up or not.

"Have to wait for a funeral home to pick up another body. Palmer left when Ducky did. He's terrified of me."

"I can't imagine why."

House snorted, painfully, as they managed to reach the chair, and he sat, swallowing moan of pain as he straightened his bad leg out in front of him.

Finally, the other man left, leaving House to sit and try to calm the spasms ripping through his bad thigh.

Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

Dammit.

----

A month or so later…

House yawned, perching himself on the empty autopsy table, while he watched the funeral home people—Chris and Marcus, from Final Sleep funeral home—take a body bag out the back door.

The front door slid open, and Palmer came in, looked around furtively, and walked in a beeline for House.

House raised his eyebrows. "Yeah?"

"You're a word-famous doctor and I'm a student coroner but that doesn't mean you're better than me," he said in a rush, "and I resent the fact you're acting like it does."

House smirked. "I know."[SS1]

Palmer blinked. "You know… wait, what?"

"Been waiting for you to say that since I got here. I'm not going to respect you if you don't respect yourself enough to say you deserve respect."

Ducky, who had been standing at the back door, after signing off on the body transfer, smiled a bit, and closed the door loudly, making Palmer jump.

Things went significantly smoother in autopsy, after that.

----

Abby grinned, as she walked into autopsy. "Ducky, I finished running the blood you gave me—"

House was there, sitting on one of the autopsy tables, and Palmer, pulling off his gloves, but Ducky wasn't.

"Where's Ducky?"

"He's at lunch," said Palmer, finishing taking off his autopsy scrubs, and then going to the sink to wash up.

Abby pouted. "He said he wanted these as fast as possible and then he went to lunch? That doesn't sound like Ducky…"

"I think that secretary from legal might have been involved in the lunch plans," said House, wryly.

Abby grinned. "Oh. Well, here's the results on the John Doe."

House nodded, taking the file.

She didn't let go of it. "We could have lunch plans sometime too. Hi Gibbs." She turned around, smiling. "Ducky's on a date."

Gibbs nodded. He seemed ticked off about something. "You have an ID on that John Doe yet?"

House shook his head. "The uniform was from a Petty Officer Second Class, but neither his DNA nor prints are matching anything in the armed forces registry, NCIC database, or any other database I could think to search."

"Me neither, Gibbs. None of the usual registries are getting any matches."

"Well then go find something unusual to search."

"Aww, Gibbs! I was going to have lunch with House."

"Have lunch with Palmer."

Abby glared at him. "What's your problem today, Gibbs?"

"At the moment?"

She stuck her tongue out at him.

Palmer quickly finished drying his hands, and followed hopefully after her.

Gibbs looked at House, steadily. "Stay away from her."

House glared back, glad that, this time, he was already sitting.

"Why? She's smart. She's capable. She can't make her own choices?"

"Not if the choice is a drug addict with a criminal history."

"Tritter."

"I had a nice chat with the detective, yes. I didn't say anything because it wasn't technically legal. But leave Abby alone. It's against the rules to date a coworker, anyway."

"Wilson's wanted for assault and destruction of property; you didn't seem to care about that. And like you care about rules."

"He wasn't talking about going on a date with Abby. And it's *my* rule."

"He's dating Ziva."

"Ziva's a trained assassin, she can handle an oncologist that got in a bar fight twenty years ago and hasn't had a charge against him since."

"I get that you have some sort of weird surrogate father thing going on here—"

"Stay away from her!" It was a roar, more than a yell.

House flinched back, rather violently.

That was wrong…

Yelling like that was supposed to scare House more than disciplinary action against dating a coworker, the way a threat of interrogation scares teenage boys more than a threat of chores. But it wasn't supposed to panic him… There was no reason for him to look panicked like he did.

"Hey," Gibbs said, realizing the situation had taken a severe left turn, "calm down."

House closed his eyes, and seemed to get some measure of control back, as he sat, consciously controlling his breathing.

"Crap," he muttered. Then he took a breath and said, "Don't worry about your precious pseudo-daughter. I was just screwing with you. I have no interest in doing anything with her besides working and talking. And she actually knows that, if you'd bothered to ask her."

He slipped off the table, and limped out of Autopsy, ripping off his scrubs as he went and stuffing them rather viciously into the biohazard bin.

"And Ducky wonders why I can't stand Marines…" he threw over his shoulder, as the doors slid closed.

'Screwing with you…'

….House had actually been enjoying himself?

Gibbs' lips curved, just a bit.

That had been him being friendly.

…or flirty.

----

"Is your old student gay?"

Ducky looked up from where he was leaning over a corpse. "Well… he never told me, but I've always suspected. Why do you ask, Jethro?"

"Why would he hide it?"

"From you?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Jethro… just a theory, but I would suspect it would be because he did not want you to know."

Gibbs gave him a look.

Ducky sighed. "I really do not feel that I can tell you what reasons he might have in good confidence, Jethro. I'm sorry. He never meant for me to find them out, but he accepted that I would keep them a secret. I am not about to break that trust on reason of curiosity—even your curiosity."

Gibbs sighed, nodding, and walked out.

----

House leaned back in the chair. "So you're into her?"

"Why am I talking to you? And why are you at Ziva's desk?"

House snorted. "Because she's not here."

Tony looked up. "So you're not scared what she's gonna do if she comes back and finds you in her seat?"

"Nope."

"Then I guess you've got a death wish. She's insane—she'll kill you."

"That, or I know she's on a date and that the guy she's seeing is an expert panty-peeler. I seriously doubt she'll be back before well after midni—"

"Why are you at my desk, House?"

House shrugged, lifting his bad leg down off her desk. "McGee's has too much stuff at it."

"That does not mean you had to sit at my desk."

"My leg hurt."

"Up."

"Why aren't you still with Wilson?"

"James is drunk."

House snorted, getting up. "Ah. Someone drug him?"

"No, he just drinks fish."

House and Tony looked at her for a moment, and then Tony said, "Like a fish. Not drinks fish."

"Where is he?" asked House.

"He is in my car, I did not know where to drive him… he does not live nearby, yes?"

"He lives in New Jersey but he's staying at my place for the weekend."

"That is why he is only available on the weekends?"

House nodded. "Yeah."

"You know, Ziva, that guy just isn't right for you."

Ziva turned to DiNozzo. "And why is that, Tony?"

"He's not a creepy scary assassin."

"I am not creepy!"

"Oooh yes you are. Creepy-scary. Scary-creepy. Scary-creepy-scary!"

She gave him a look. "Go home, Tony." She then looked at House. "Where is your apartment?"

"I'll drive him."

She smiled. "Good. You can tell him when he wakes up that he does not need to try and drink more than I do to impress me."

House watched her go, darkly.

He didn't notice that DiNozzo was glowering just as much as he was.

She stopped a moment later and turned around. "I do not feel right. It is my fault that I did not stop him, it is my fault that he thought he had to impress me. I will help you take him home."

House looked at her, and then nodded shortly. "Okay."

----

Ziva sighed, as they finally got Wilson heaved up onto the couch.

She jumped, as something rubbed against her leg. "You have a cat!"

"Yeah."

"What is her name?"

"Deathcat."

"She is dying?"

"No. She used to belong to a nursing home, slept next to anyone who had a fever—inadvertently predicting their deaths."

Wilson shifted, sleepily, on the couch.

Ziva looked at the sleeping oncologist, briefly, then back at House. "You are close, yes?"

House sat on the arm of the couch. "Yeah."

"Why did you move?"

"That isn't really any of your business."

She looked at him, and sighed. "You miss him, yes?"

House looked away. "No."

She laughed. "That is the worst lie I have ever heard!"

House looked at her, irritated. "He's been married as many times as Gibbs. Either he cheats, or they cheat, because he never manages to pick a woman who he actually loves. Except recently. There was this doctor, applied for a job under me. They met, started dating. That… would have worked out. He didn't feel he had to take care of her, and I think that was the biggest reason it would have worked."

"Would have? It did not?"

"Obviously, since he's seeing you now. She and I were in a bus crash, stuff happened, she died, I didn't. He'd only started talking to me again a week or so before his brother was found dead."

"I am sorry."

"Why the hell are you sorry?"

She shrugged. "It is something people say when they hear of another's misfortune, yes?"

House shook his head. "Whatever."

"It is not right to say I am sorry?"

"Ain davar k'Zeh. Al tedag." (Drop it. Don't worry.)

She blinked. "You speak Hebrew?"

"My dad was stationed in Israel for a year, so…. me'at." (a little.)

She nodded. "Shalom, House."

"Erev tov, David." (Good evening.)

She left.

House snorted, and then turned to his snoring best friend. "Goodnight, moron."