Showdown at PPTH

House paced the length of Cuddy's office. The meeting had been going on for three hours now, and House had been pacing for most of that time. Before pacing, he had been pressing his ear to the door, eavesdropping. That ended when Dr. Tambor came out for a bathroom break and slammed him into the wall with the door, probably intentionally though he said a half hearted 'excuse me' as he hurried on his way.

Now he was pacing. His usual go to guy, Wilson, was in the meeting, so House had to take drastic measures.

"You paged me Dr. Cuddy?" Chase looked at the tall lean man with the cane and day old scruff and realized it hadn't been Dr. Cuddy who paged him only moments ago. "Dr. House!"

"Chase." House nodded his head.

"I am just about to go into surgery." Chase took a step toward the door, but his grudging respect for his old boss held him in place. "Why did you page me?"

"What do you know about this big Board meeting?" House tried to sound casual, as though he'd just run into Chase in the hallway and asked about the weather.

Chase had never seen House this…insecure before. It was disorienting. "The word is," Chase took a few steps forward, wondering how to break it to House. "Cuddy's in trouble."

"She can take Brady," House said proudly.

"I'm sure she can, House, but…" Chase really didn't want to be the one to tell House.

"But what DAMN IT!" House slammed his cane on the desk. Chase jumped. "Tell me what's going on!" House raged.

"Brady has called in the BME." They'd been questioning some of the staff over the past few days. Chase was surprised House hadn't noticed. "He's trying to get her license removed."

"I know that," House snapped. It wasn't going to work.

"The Board is going to announce an official investigation in today's meeting. They're going to suspend Dr. Cuddy's license. They're announcing it today. " Chase's face held a pang of guilt. He' hadn't done anything to help the BME's investigation, but he was a good Catholic boy, so he naturally felt guilty.

"They can't!" House slammed his cane hard against the wall. A loud crack rang through the room and Chase cringed. He straightened himself up, but took a step away from House.

"I'm sorry Dr. House. I should have told you sooner."

"DAMN IT!" Why hadn't Wilson told him about this?

"It was all rumors, until today. When Dr. Knutsen showed up…" Dr Knutsen was one of the nastiest members of the Board of Medical Examiners. She held a strong grudge against anyone who wasn't her. She was especially hard on women.

Chase hadn't had time to finish his sentence. House was gone. Chase kicked himself for not going to House sooner, when Nurse Sara had first told him what her brother overheard when he was doing repair work over at the BME offices. He'd just thought it must be a misunderstanding.

House stormed down the hallway, swearing to himself. Brady was going to regret the day he messed with Cuddy. The door to the conference room loomed before him. It was closed, the blinds were drawn, and loud voices could be heard pushing through it.

"Dr. House…" Nurse Brenda, the pit bull of PPTH tried to stop him, but he pushed her out of the way. "The door is locked," she said softly as he attacked the handle unsuccessfully.

Cuddy turned when she heard the rattling. Her whole body froze. She knew exactly who was on the other side of that door. So, it seemed, did the rest of the Board.

"That's him," Brady said to Knutsen smugly.

Cuddy shot laser's toward the rotund man. Her eyes burned into him until he looked away. "You were saying, Dr. Knutsen?" Cuddy was well aware of the thin frosted blonde's reputation. She had the features of a hawk, matching her birdlike mannerisms, and predator instincts.

"I was saying, Dr. Cuddy, that it is not beneficial to this hospital to have an administrator who is so obviously biased in favor of her staff. Particularly not a member of staff who is as consistently disruptive to the rest of the staff."

Wilson squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. Flashbacks of Vogler popped into his head. Other doctors were looking at one another and shaking their heads in agreement with Knutsen. Cuddy silenced them with a cold, hard stare.

"If you had such a problem with Dr. House, Dr. Brady, there are less underhanded ways you could have dealt with it. If, however, you are just being petty because you do not like the way Dr. House runs his Diagnostics Department, do I need to remind you, once again, that the creation of that department, which was, indeed created for Dr. House, has brought more recognition and donations to this hospital annually than your department ever does. And, those donations helped pay for your fancy new radiology lab as well as countless other updates to this hospital?"

"And need I remind you, Dr. Cuddy, that Dr. House cost us $100,000,000.00 a few short years ago?"

"There were far too many strings attached to Mr. Vogler's offer Dr. Brady. Perhaps you would have preferred I wait until he went after your job? However, I feel that Dr. House, like all of my carefully chosen staff, is an asset to this hospital, and until he proves otherwise, he is not going anywhere."

"But that all depends," Dr. Knutsen said calmly and in a quietly icy voice, "on whether you are still at this hospital by the end of my investigation."

Cuddy's face flashed rage for a split second, then fell back into cool control. "Dr. Knutsen, if, in your already exhaustive investigation, you find one plausible reason for me to step down as head of this hospital then, for the good of the hospital, I will do so. However, I think you might find the task much more difficult than anticipated."

"Dr. Cuddy!" Knutsen stood up, slamming a hand on the table. "I do not need a plausible reason to have you removed from your position."

"Excuse me?" Cuddy looked at her with recrimination.

"All I need is a majority vote from the Board of Trustees."

Cuddy fought a smile. "True." Her Trustees wouldn't let her down.

Knutsen looked around the room. She had spoken personally to every member of the board. She had gotten two absentee votes in favor of Cuddy's resignation. The only vote she knew she wouldn't get was Dr. Wilson who had lectured her on Cuddy's strengths before saying he would never turn his back on his administrator. Most of the doctors in the room looked away, fumbling with pencils or checking for something they hoped they dropped under the table.

Cuddy took a moment to read the room. Most of these doctors were hand picked by her. Some were held over from the previous regime. Most of them just needed to be reminded of a few things. "Before you rush through your vote, I would just like to remind everyone at this table of what Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital was like before I got here. You might not agree with everything that I've done; you might question my decisions; but you can not argue that PPTH is in a better position now than it was when I took over ten years ago.

"I have worked hard to make this one of the top teaching hospitals in the country. I couldn't have done that without you, but it was me who spearheaded the changes at this hospital. It is me who hired a staff that would get this hospital recognized world wide. I have dedicated my life to making this hospital what it is today, and I want to continue to do so.

"Dr. Brady wants you to believe that I have favored Dr. House far beyond any other doctor here." Brady puffed up proudly as a few doctors nodded their agreement. "But that simply is not true." Cuddy waited for the murmurs to die down. "I have favored Dr. House when he needed it. But, Dr. Bennett, when your son was ill, did I not go out of my way to make sure he had the best of everything? I gave you more time off than was mandatory. I set up a room next to your sons, for you and your wife." Dr. Bennett's eyes were moist as he remembered how generous Cuddy had been to him in that time. She smiled at him warmly. "I hear Brandon got accepted to Yale. You must be so proud." Cuddy didn't have to say that Brandon wouldn't be alive if it weren't for her. It was a known fact.

"Dr. Yang, I supported you 100 during your malpractice suit. I never doubted you for a moment. And even though several members of the Board thought I should suspend you until the investigation was over, I stood behind you because I believed that you were not guilty."

"None of this matters." Brady stood up boisterously.

"Why?" Cuddy challenged. She could see he was getting nervous.

"Because House is and always will be your favorite!" Brady was losing his cool.

Cuddy looked away so he wouldn't see her smirk. He really didn't have a leg to stand on. "You're right." Gasps all around. "Dr. House and I have been in a relationship for some time. As a matter of fact, we are engaged to be married."

The room burst into outraged cries mixed with gasps of surprise.

"There, there, you see!" Brady was standing and pointing at Cuddy as though she'd just confessed to murder in a seedy courtroom drama. She forced herself to remain calm.

"What the hell is going on in there?" House struggled to get out of the grasp of the two large orderlies Nurse Brenda had called to hold him back.

"Dr. House! Stop it! NOW!" She was holding a needle. She really, really didn't want to do it, but if he pushed it, she was fully prepared to sedate him.

"That is a blatant conflict of interests." Knutsen rose to be heard above the murmurs.

"Perhaps it is, Dr. Knutsen. What it is not, however, is a violation of any of the codes of conduct of this hospital." It probably should be, but Cuddy wasn't going to mention that.

Knutsen fumed.

"And it has nothing to do with the way I run this hospital."

"HA!" It was all Brady could come up with in the short space Cuddy left while taking a breath.

"I do not treat Dr. House special because I am in love with him. I give him special treatment because the Diagnostics Department is special. We are one of the few hospitals with a free standing Diagnostics Department. When I started it, the idea was revolutionary. People said it wouldn't last, but this Board had faith in the idea. You," she looked around the room pointedly, "believed in it. And because of that belief and because of Dr. House, we have saved hundreds of people who would have otherwise died, undiagnosed. Deaths we prevented because of Dr. House."

"If House is so great, maybe the rest of us should just leave." Brady wasn't giving up yet.

"This hospital needs each and every one of you. Our patients shouldn't have to lose out on the best possible care because you have an issue with who I sleep with. This hospital shouldn't suffer because of a ten year old grudge." Cuddy knew what was fueling this attack. It was the same thing that had fueled every attack Brady made on her. He had lost the position of Dean of Medicine to a 30 year old girl.

Knutsen looked furious. This was not going at all the way Brady had promised. Brady looked like he was about to have another heart attack. Wilson gasped when he saw something flit by the window. It looked beige or tan or…his mind must be playing tricks on him.

"Dr. Wilson?" Brady snapped his head in Wilson's direction.

"Should we just vote now?" Wilson sounded timid. He often sounded timid at Board Meetings. He hated being on the Board. At least they'd already finished the budget part of the meeting. Brady must have been hoping to get rid of Cuddy that way since he only introduced Knutsen after Cuddy won over the Board with her brilliant budget plan for the next three years.

The vote was eleven to one in favor of Cuddy retaining her position. In the end, even Dr. Figalora had to admit that Cuddy was the best person for the job.

Cuddy stood up, trying not to look too triumphant. "If that's all, I'd like to bring this meeting to a close." No one stirred. "Thank you all for coming." She looked directly at Dr. Knutsen. "Really, thank you so much for coming."

Knutsen shoved back her chair, knocking it down as she got to her feet. "I'll be watching you Dr. Cuddy," she threatened.

"Good." Cuddy smiled as she walked over to shake Knutsen's hand. "It's nice to see the BME taking such an active interest in PPTH."

Knutsen pushed past her without a handshake or even a slight head nod. Cuddy felt nothing but a slight gust of wind as Frosty pushed past her. She wasn't deeply hurt by the lack of pleasantry. She smiled and nodded and made polite small talk with various members of the board as they piled out.

Soon it was just her and Wilson left. "Well, that was fun," Wilson came over and gave her an awkward handshake almost hug.

"I'm surprised House didn't burst in and make it worse."

Wilson remembered what he'd seen in the window. "Uh…"

"What?" Cuddy watched him walk over to the window.

"I think he might have tried." Wilson pressed his face against the glass and saw the prostrate body of his friend, laying in the bushes. "HOUSE!" He shouted, tapping on the glass.

"What's he doing?" Cuddy looked quickly before rushing out of the room.

"Dr. Cuddy…." Brenda tried to call her boss with no success.

Wilson shot past her next. "Dr. Wilson…" she again got no response. She shrugged and went back to work.

"House?" Cuddy was kneeling in the snow beside his body when Wilson arrived.

"Is he…"

"I'm not dead you idiot!" House exclaimed, trying fruitlessly to roll over.

"What happened?" Cuddy helped him into a sitting position after a bit of a struggle.

"That stupid woman drugged me." House grumbled, dusting snow off his coat.

"What are you talking about House?" Cuddy sighed. House wasn't seriously hurt, so she was getting more annoyed than concerned.

"Nurse Brenda Ratchet. She stuck me with a sedative."

"How did you get out here?" Cuddy hadn't thought Brenda would take her that seriously when she said do anything to stop House from getting into the meeting. She felt a little guilty now.

"I escaped her goons," House boasted.

"Goons?" Wilson questioned.

"Two orderlies, Big and Bigger. They held me down while she stuck me with the needle." He looked at Cuddy. "What the hell kind of asylum are you running here?"

Cuddy smiled at him.

"You're still running it then?" House smiled back.

Cuddy put her hands on either side of his face. She looked into his bright blue eyes. They were slightly unfocused because of the sedative Brenda gave him but they still sparkled as they gazed at her. She smiled warmly as she pressed her lips softly against his.

Wilson looked away nervously and started whistling. He thought he might have a burger for lunch. Yes, and some fries. That sounded good. He wandered off toward the cafeteria alone.