House paced his office, trying and failing to think of some explanation to fit the symptoms he'd glossed over in the last meeting with his ducks. Injuries and aortic dissections he could explain. The heart attack… that was a slightly different matter. He was a firm believer in the coincidence theory. Such that, there was no reason a freak vasospasm couldn't have been triggered by nearby heart trauma. Then again he also wished to leave no stone unturned. There was coincidental heart failure in a 40 year-old man and then there was coincidental heart failure in a gradeschool child. Not exactly of the same diagnostic importance. A difference worth exploring.

His lackeys, he was almost certain, would find a nice little bullet hole buried in the hotel walls. Being shot was the only way to obtain an mark anywhere like the circular scar he'd noticed earlier on the boy's abdomen. He should know, after all. For one thing, the scar exactly matched his own (both in placement and size- another coincidence) and furthermore, damage to the kidney sustained by the old wound accounted well for the slightly reduced performance of post-surgery diuretics. Matching past to present, and he figured he had a fairly sure bet as to where the upper-arm cut had come from as well. It certainly didn't fit with a simple fall down the stairs; a cut in a hard-to-fall-on place on a body where every other injury was concussive. It just didn't jive.

Pausing in his paces to rest his leg and twirl his cane a bit, he allowed his mind to wander somewhat. He'd thought over the heart attack, couldn't make a definite decision without the bullet hole… The kid certainly had some weird genes in him, he thought idly. Uncommon features. The black hair coupled with bright blue eyes, particularly. Difficult combination to come by. Add to that the vaguely Asian features and the kid's blue eyes were even more unlikely. A rare genetic combination in the brown-eyes masses of Asia. Must be half-and-half, House decided. That way there was a good 25 chance of blue, plus the light skin and brownish hue to the hair. Now the question: Was he American, or actually from the orient…? He hadn't heard the kid speak yet so he couldn't be sure, but-

"House!" He faltered slightly, startled out of his thoughts, and was forced to catch his cane as it careened out of his grip. Cuddy had appeared at his office door, all fire and flames. He glowered at her sudden smirk. She'd noticed him jump.

"How long did you plan to get away with this?" she questioned irritably, smirk disappearing in favor of a disapproving glare. "And stop looking at my chest while I'm talking."

"Hm? Oh, I'm sorry.. couldn't ignore the top so loudly instructing me to look there." Despite his quip, he reluctantly moved his gaze upwards to the glaring face of his boss. He honestly had no idea what she was mad about. Damned if she needed to know that, though. Besides, she was always mad about something.

"House, I'm serious. My hospital's been harboring a missing child for almost two days without reporting it! Cameron said you don't have any information on the parents, home, anything! Why haven't you called the authorities yet?" Oh, that's what was up. At least she hadn't found out about that pizza order under Coma Guy's name he'd made last week.

"Technically, Chase called. Something about looking for recent reports of missing children. Didn't find any."

"And you didn't feel the need to inform them of the one you already had?" Her hands were on her hips again. Mommy pose.

"Apparently not," he shrugged. In truth he'd figured she'd already done all of this. She'd been the one to send the chart, why hadn't she taken the time to locate parents and all that crap? Of course it would severely compromise his omnipotent status if he were admit to not knowing something, so he kept his mouth shut. Cuddy would manage to sort it all out.

"I'm calling child services, and you will be the one to explain all this to them. Is that clear?"

He shrugged and resumed twirling his cane, not particularly worried. What was there to explain? 'We've got this sick kid, and we don't know where he came from', all he had to say. The state would claim custody, but there was nothing they could do about relocating the kid before he was pronounced fit. No danger of not being able to solve the case. Plus the government would be picking up all the tabs. Score for the patient, House could freely use any and all expensive techniques he would think of. Case gets solved twice as fast.

Cuddy turned but stopped. She'd forgotten something, apparently. "And don't forget clinic duty this week. I'm doubling it."

"Wha—? Hey! Why!" He hadn't done anyt- oh damn it…

"Somehow a comatose patient managed to order a pizza last week, conveniently from a pizzeria that no longer delivers to a certain doctor after he verbally abused their employee. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

House opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again. Oh, well. The pizza had been totally worth it. Those guys were some sort of culinary geniuses, despite their delivery boy being a pimple-faced moron.

He waited for Cuddy to turn and leave, all happy thinking she'd finally gotten a point on House -which was stupid because he hadn't lost, he'd simply refused to participate-, and walked over to his phone to page Wilson. Might as well score a free lunch before he served his sentence.