Author's Notes: Again, a very big thank you to my beta, Ceciilee for taking the time to edit this fic.


***

Lost in Boston

After reporting to Mass General Hospital for duty Monday afternoon, Jake is informed that the hospital is not expecting him for another six months. After much search for an answer at HMS' offices he finally learns that they messed up his schedule and he needs to report to Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) instead. Unfortunately for Jake, BWH's clinical rotation for med student began a week ago so he's off to a rough start. And to make matters worse, he spends much of the Tuesday waiting for someone to process his paperwork.

A nurse informs her supervisor of a med student who's been waiting the whole morning for someone to process his paperwork.
"Does he know that he's a week late?"
"He brought a letter from HMS explaining of a schedule mix-up."
"Well, we can help him with the administrative stuff but an attending need to give him the orientation."
"I'll call Dr. Castro and see what she thinks."
The nurse supervisor walks out of the office in search of the poor med student. There is only one person in the waiting room playing with a Nintendo DS so she approaches him.
"Are you the med student who needs to be process?"
Jake looks up and replies "yes, ma'am."
"Did you fill-up all your forms yet?"
"Yes, ma'am"
She takes a quick glimpse at the forms that Jake hands her and says "follow me."

After about ten minutes of silence, the nurse intensely looks at Jake and asks "is your Momma the same Lisa Cuddy that did her residency at Mass General?"
"Yes, ma'am"
"Do you remember me?"
Jake stutters "no, ma'am"
The woman starts laughing and says "of course you wouldn't. You were a baby back then. My name is Sandy, Sandy McCain and I use to work with your Momma at Mass Gen. Whenever your mother was working late, your mom would leave you with me. You would play and sleep underneath the nurse's station desk."
Jake is pleasantly surprised at Nurse Sandy's revelation.
She asks "you're now in med school? Gahh, I can't believe I'm that old."
Jake nods and smiles at the older nurse's statement
Sandy quickly checks Jake's forms and asks him "how's your mother?"
"She is doing very well, ma'am."
"Come on Jacob. You're a week late but I'll get you situated in no time."
"Thank you, ma'am."
Sandy doesn't just bring Jake around to the various offices to drop his forms but she charms various staff into processing them while she waits. The two catch-up on news and Sandy is ecstatic to hear that the young Lisa Cuddy she knew twenty some years ago is now a successful doctor—a Dean of Medicine at that. As she promised Jake, she has all his paperwork ready to go in no time. But not before taking him to Dr. Kessler's office.
The bespectacled doctor looks up at the imposing black woman who just entered his office and smile.
He takes a quick look at Jake and asks "don't tell me one my med student has already broken your rules."
"Not this time. This is Jacob House, one of your new med students. HMS screwed up again, so this one is a week late."
"Oh, okay." Dr. Kessler looks at Jake and says "well, you already have your ID. I guess, we now know who Nurse Sandy's new favorite is" he teasingly adds.
Sandy rolls her eyes and sarcastically replies "who could not love all your med students equally?"
She hands a folder to Dr. Kessler and says "I have to take him to Dr. Castro before she leaves for the day, do you think you can spare a few minutes with Jacob afterwards?"
Dr. Kessler smiles and quickly replies "sure." Sandy McCain is not only the head nurse administrator in BWH, but more importantly she's Kessler's trusted 'enforcer' who ensures that the hospital operates smoothly. And Sandy never arranges for the hospital administrator to have one-on-one meeting with a med student so Kessler is more than curious to find out why.
As Sandy and Jake leave the office, Kessler reads Jake's personnel file.

***

New week, new beginning

Cuddy quietly moves her sleeping daughter from the nursery to their bedroom and comes back to wake the twins up.
"Good morning boys. Guess what's today?"
Ethan opens his eyes and groggily replies "first day of pre-school."
"Yes! Aren't you excited? You'll get to meet new friends, new teachers, and learn new things."
Ethan hugs his mom anxiously while Charlie bolts out of his bed and replies "cool!"
Cuddy adds "oh, and someone special is here to see you two."
The two boys' eyes light up and ask "who Mommy?"
Cuddy coyly replies "hmmm…I don't know."
As Lina peeks through the door, the two boys yell "Yaya Lina!"
They excitedly hug Lina and start telling her what they did during vacation.

After letting the boys spend quality time with Lina, Cuddy dresses them up in matching get-ups of long sleeve t-shirts, blue jeans, and Nike shoes. As the boys eat breakfast, Cuddy goes back to their bedroom and softly wakes her husband.
"Greg, you wanna say goodbye to the twins before they head to pre-school?"
House groggily grunts "uh-huh."
Cuddy coxes her husband "come on big boy, you can go back to sleep after we leave."
Shortly after, House joins his family in the kitchen. He warmly welcomes Lina back and declares "I can go back to being the king of my Household again!"
Cuddy explains "he had to help with the kids when you were gone. So, he thinks he can now go back to being lazy."

Charlie asks "are you coming to our school today Daddy?"
"Yeah, I'll be picking you two up later."
Lina asks "will they be in school the whole day?"
"No, they're attending half-day pre-school Monday through Friday."
"Will they be in the daycare afterwards?"
Cuddy hesitantly answers "we're not sure about that part yet. Why?"
"Elsa got the student assistant job at the hospital daycare. She starts this afternoon."
"Oh that's wonderful! If Elsa is there, I'll let the boys go back to daycare."
"I think that will be great too. She's very nervous that the kids will not like her."
"Oh, tell her not to worry. I'm sure she'll do fine."
House interrupt "if she can handle these two, the rest of the kids are a cakewalk."

During the drive to school, Cuddy tells the twins that their school is only a walking distance from the hospital so she or their Daddy can easily pick them up at noon.
Charlie excitedly asks "Daddy said I can play with mudpies."
Cuddy hesitantly replies "yes, you'll have pottery class once a week. I'm sure your Daddy will be happy to assist you in making mudpies."
Cuddy looks at the rearview mirror to check on Ethan who has remain quiet throughout the drive.
"And Ethan, you will love their music room. They have all types of musical instruments and teachers to teach you how to play them."
Charlie replies "cool! Can I play the drums Mommy?"
"Of course, honey."

As they enter the lobby, they were warmly greeted by Dr. Kobayashi (the principal) and some teachers. One of the teachers informs Cuddy "morning pre-school is at room 104. There are already several kids in the room, so the boys can play with them."
While Charlie excitedly checks out his classroom, Ethan refuses to let go of his Mommy's hand.
Cuddy asks Ethan "do you want Mommy to stay with you for awhile?"
Ethan nods his head and hides behind Cuddy.
Shortly after Charlie starts making friends with the other kids, Ethan begins letting go of Cuddy's hand.
Ethan points at the train set nearby and Cuddy encourages him to "go ahead."
Ethan takes a few steps towards the train set but continues to check on his Mom every few seconds.
Few more minutes later, Charlie pulls his brother's hand and introduces him to the other kids.

***

The PPTH lecture hall is filled with forty perspective fellows with number tags around their necks. House warns them that "this will be the longest job interview of your life. I will test you in ways that you will often consider unfair, demeaning and illegal. And you will often be right."

Meanwhile, Nurse Brenda hands Cuddy a stack of staff authorization forms.
"What are these?"
"Authorization forms for all the new hires."
"I didn't authorize the hiring of these much staff."
Brenda raises her brows and replies "well, someone forgot to tell House that he doesn't have 40 openings."
"40 fellows? He can barely manage the three he had the last time. Do you by any chance know where he's hiding these 40 fellows?"
"The only room where he can fit them" as Brenda points to the lecture hall.

Cuddy enters the lecture hall, crosses her arms in front of her chest and calls "House?"
House smiles and goes to meet her by the entrance.
"What can I do for you, boss?"
"Did you forget how to count to three?"
"I've got a budget for three, doesn't mean I can only hire three."
"Actually that's exactly what it means."
"I cut the permanent salaries by 10 percent, over 3 years that'll more than make up for the breakage on the 27 that I'm going to weed out over the next few weeks."
"There's forty people in there."
House looks inside the lecture theatre and says "Row D, you're fired. Sorry, I didn't actually count all the resumes.
"This is stupid, you can't manage that many people, you're just going to keep weeding them out arbitrarily."
"Sure. And interviewing them one by one in my office is a much better system?"

When a pretty brunette with the #19 tag walks by him, House stops her and asks "were you in Row D?"
Number 19 says "yes."
"My apologies, my boss says I'm being arbitrary and stupid." He sticks his head back in the lecture hall and yells "row D is not fired, row C is fired."
House smiles at Cuddy as the row D people start to go back into the lecture hall and row C starts to leave.
House beamingly says "See? That was not arbitrary."
Cuddy is about to reply when House's pager goes off.
He tells his wife "well, I'd love to chat but I've been paged." After picking up his pager and looking at it, he adds "that's interesting, I apparently paged myself."

***

As always, I do appreciate all types of feedback, it's the only way I know if you love, hate or even reading this story ;-)