A/N: I don't own House or PSP. I know that this fic isn't that good, but I'll try to make it better, ok?

And yes, I know this chapter is a little late. :D

GHXJW

"Cuddy! I want the deal." House flopped into the visitor's chair next to a very disturbed looking gentleman.

"House, can we talk later?" Cuddy sighed, glancing apologetically at the other man.

"No," House answered defiantly. "I just want to know, am I in time? Am I within the lucky eight doctors?"

"Yes," Cuddy replied exasperatedly. "Unfortunately."

House stretched his neck. It was cramping; he had slept in the oddest position last night. "Perfect. Who else is doing the New Year's shift?"

Cuddy ticked them off on her fingers: "You, Chase, Rurigawa, Cameron, Foreman, Trent, Parker and Wilson."

"So it's the whole gang's trippin' up the hood, yo?" House intoned, but inwardly he was groaning. Wilson? Why? He couldn't even look at the man, much less perform a decent surgery.

"I don't even know what that's supposed to mean," Cuddy sniffed. "Now will you leave so I can finish the funding meeting with Mr. Marchland?"

"Yeah. Catch ya later, man." House popped a pill, gave the man his best "I'm crazy, stay away" look, and limped back to his office.

GHXJW

"But it's so strange!" Parker protested. "He's fine, getting enormously better until eleven-thirty in the morning, then suddenly he declines again!"

"Eleven thirty, every morning?" House asked skeptically.

"Yes," Parker insisted. "Look." She showed him the graphs of his vitals. "Steady until here. And then suddenly he's amazingly sick again. I don't get it."

"Yeah, he should get sick a little earlier before lunch," House said sarcastically. "That way we have more time to relax afterwards."

"There isn't any sickness that can time its severity so perfectly," Trent said definitively.

"What happens every eleven-thirty?" Rurigawa wondered aloud. "Maybe his current fluctuations are environmental, not necessarily connected to his illness."

House nodded. "Go check it out."

GHXJW

"Dr. Wilson!" Betty flew into his office. "Kara Whites just dropped to a thirty-two. We gave her atropine, but as you know, she'll only hold for another five hours or so."

Wilson stood up and pulled on his lab coat. "We have to find out what's wrong with her now."

GHXJW

It was eleven thirty in the morning. His team had just run out to check on their case, and House was watching Wilson run out of his office, down the hall. He supposed another cancer kid was dying. James Wilson, saving one little bald kid at a time. Wilson's altruism made House feel annoyed. It wasn't physically possible that one man could contain so much want for good for the world. It wasn't healthy.

And he would be doing the New Year's shift with said unhealthy man. He really couldn't help but feel a little sorry for himself. After all, nothing is anything without a dash of self-pity.

"House, clinic," Cuddy informed him briskly.

"Aw, Mom," he whined. Maybe it would actually work this time.

Cuddy adopted her best imposing "It's not New Year's yet. You have clinic duty. Go."

"But it's Christmas! The season of good cheer," House countered inanely.

"I'm half Jewish," she answered finally, rose an eyebrow, and marched out. House followed her torturedly. As he walked past a stressed-looking Wilson, his first impulse was to mime being dragged along by an imaginary leash. Wilson looked once at him, then sighed and looked away, effectively breaking House's cute impulses and putting him in a rather dark mood.

After picking up a file wordlessly, which earned him a raised eyebrow from Cuddy; House limped away and opened the door to the exam room. "Mrs. Fern?"

"It's Vern. With a 'V'," she corrected.

"Oh, vuck, I'm sorry," House retorted. "So. What's your problem?"

There was a second's pause during which Mrs. Vern tried to reassemble her brain, and remember why, exactly, she was stuck in this room with this crazy doctor. "Oh. I have terrible pains in my elbows and wrists," she supplied.

He considered her. "You play piano?" he asked finally.

"Yes, I'm a teacher," she answered hesitantly.

"You've been playing wrong for he past fifteen years. When you're playing something powerful like an arranged version of Tchaikovsky's 'Overture', you're supposed to roll the power in from your shoulders, but you tried to get the strength by whipping your hands against the keys. Result? Pre-mature arthritis. These are some pain and partial-recuperative meds. Pick them up at the front."

"Thank you." Mrs. Vern exited quietly, leaving House to his PSP. He pulled the machine out but didn't switch it on.

The thought of having a hundred hours of this mindless drudgery eliminated was tainted by the fact that he would share the operating room with Wilson, who was still avoiding him and House knew exactly why. It seemed petty, a spat over sex, but they both knew what it meant about them, how they functioned together and neither wanted to confront the truth. That it was true, that House took, and Wilson gave, over and over in a vicious cycle. Well, that's what it represented on the surface, but maybe, if you looked deeper…House didn't know why he was looking deeper; he didn't know what he was looking for. Solace on dark nights? Love? Hope? Sex?

A quiet knock on the door interrupted his thinking. "With a patient," he called. Trent poked his head in, then frowned, confused at the lack of patient.

"Just thought you might want to know. You were right about the mold spores, but the reason why he wasn't getting better was because he was taking the wrong medicine." Trent handed him a medicine package. "Cancer meds," he explained.

"Huh. Weird," House commented dully. "Well, put him on the good stuff, then."

"Already have," Trent said. "Should I send someone in here?"

House gave him a look that was deeply pitying. "What do they teach you, in England? Aside from, you know, how to make colonies and then spectacularly lose them then go work there, all the men Princess Diana slept with, what kind of dog your queen has…"

"I guess not." Trent backed out hastily of the exam room.

House idly hefted the weight of the cancer drip in his hand. Strange. Who would ever mess up that badly? Most people at the hospital valued their jobs. At least, most people working at the hospital, he should say. Most people working at the hospital wouldn't make such a mistake…House sat up straight, suddenly connecting a lot of things together at once. Grabbing his cane, he stood up and limped as quickly as possible to the pediatric oncology ward.