It had sounded promising.
It was hot as hell.
And now he was paying for it.
Who the hell would have thought that she could really keep him awake the whole night?
And with him he didn't necessarily mean himself but a certain part of his anatomy…
Two of his three ducklings stared at him when he limped to the sink in snail tempo, almost falling asleep when he poured his coffee.
"We have a new patient", Cameron announced, handing him a file when he finally had sat down. He glanced at it with half closed eyes.
"Didn't we throw out the girl with the Raynaud symptomes?"
Chase frowned at him.
"It's a man… the symptomes are completely different. Except for the Raynaud."
Squeezing his eyes shut and opening them again, he read the file again.
"Where's Cramer? He's the angiologist."
"Doing your clinic hours!" Cameron snapped. Did he take too much Vicodin this morning?
"Oh. Yeah. Okay. Find out if the guy is smoking, exlude every other vasculitis, or clots, and then ask Cramer how to treat Endangiitis obliterans. I'm in my office."
Both of his ducklings watched him disappear in his office, falling into his yellow chair.
"Did he just diagnose the guy with just looking at the file?"
"Please, he's diagnosed five people in under a minute in the clinic, why not do it with someone he hasn't even seen once?"
"I'll go find Cramer while you do the history?"
Cameron nodded, watching the abbandoned cup of coffee on the glass table in the conference room.
Someone was shaking his shoulder.
"House."
"Mmmh…"
"House!"
"Yeah?" No, he wouldn't open his eyes. Maybe the person would just go away.
"We have a patient."
"I diagnosed him already…"
"Yes, I know, and you were right."
"Why are you here then?" He tried to turn to his side, but that was just uncomfortable.
"Because we have a patient…"
"I diagnosed…"
"We have a NEW patient", he was cut off, impatient tapping starting vibrations in the floor.
He sighed.
"Tell me the symptomes…"
He could hear paper.
And he could feel a confused look.
"Weakness, exhaustion, anorexy, vomiting, giddiness, stomache ache, blue lips…"
"Check ACTH-levels, sodium, potassium, cortisol…", he said, almost asleep again.
"You think it's Addison's?"
He grumbled something non identificationable in the general direction of his duckling, still not really knowing who of them it was. Of course it was not Cameron, because her voice he could distinguish from the Aussie-dialect and the arian correct pronouciation of his newbie…
"Sometimes I wonder why I even ask… you know everything better…"
It took real effort to answer Chase.
"Check skin color. Ask Cuddy how to do an ACTH-test, if that is not changed. And now leave me alone for heaven's sake."
"House!!!"
He growled at the unwelcome intruder, sure that he had fallen asleep again only five minutes ago.
Impatient tapping started again.
"HOUSE!"
Okay. He would open his eyes.
Even if that meant that the sun would blind him.
Cuddy standing next to him, fuming, also was a picture he'd rather not see right now. Actually he just wanted to see that when he had said something inappropriate or pulled a stunt.
"You know, I'm laying right next to you, you don't have to shout, my hearing is good."
"YOU MADE DR. CRAMER DO YOUR CLINIC HOURS!"
So she would not take pity on his ear drums.
"You say that as if it was a first. Did he come running?"
"No, I walked in on him… it is called YOUR clinic hours, because you should be doing them!"
He sighed.
"He's had like what, three people with a cold, two cases of acute pyleonephritis considering the cold weather in the last days, maybe 12 teenagers who just don't want to go to school and one case of gonorrhoea?"
She was silent for some seconds, telling him that he was right.
Suppressing a yawn he closed his eyes again.
"Hou…!"
"You don't want me down there. I didn't get any sleep last night… must be that first night in a new bed thing… and I already solved two puzzles today. My work is done…"
Now he actually yawned, trying again to turn to his side.
Cuddy just watched him, frowning. He could fall asleep practically everywhere and then had problems with a new bed?
Realizing that he was snoring softly she decided that he was peaceful right now – something the hospital didn't experience very often with Gregory House – and she left the room. Deciding to let him sleep for now.
They wanted to torture him.
He had no other explanation why he had diagnosed SIRS, Todd's paresis, syphilis in end stadium, a lymphoangitis and a kawasaki-syndrome that one of his minions had mistaken for measles. Before lunch.
They wanted to keep him awake.
They. Wanted. To. Torture. Him.
That was why he had dragged his tired ass out of his chair and made his way to the institute of genetics.
Staring inside her office he found her behind her desk, working.
Not looking tired at all.
"You're supposed to be laying on that couch…", he grumped, suppressing another yawn.
"If I'd known you'd be over for a nooner, I'd be laying there already", she grinned at him and he moaned.
"No more sex until I got more than 5 minutes sleep at once. You know, I think the kiddies and Cuddy want to kill me by depriving me of sleep…"
She laughed, getting up from her chair and walked towards him.
"Are you always that paranoid when you didn't get enough sleep?"
"It's not paranoia when someone's out to get you. And I did not get not enough sleep, I didn't get any at all…"
Not that he wanted to complain.
It had been hot as hell. Every porn actor would turn pale confronted with his performance…
She smiled softly, taking his hand and leading him to the couch.
"Stop patting yourself on your back. You can sleep here."
She took his cane out of his hands, when his beeper started to beep.
"God… no!"
It didn't stop beeping.
"This is all your fault", he grumped, getting up from the couch again.
"I'll be sure to do something like last night again only when you have your day off next day", she grinned.
He just made a face at her before disappearing again.
She closed up to him when he had reached the elevator.
"Think you've got work for your neurologist?"
"Only if you keep my ducklings busy for the rest of the day…"
"It's ALS."
House's three minions stared at the neurologist who had taken them with her to take a look at their newest patient while House had annouced that he was doing his clinic hours.
"And you know that after he stuck his tongue out?"
"Yeah. Fibrillations."
"That could also be caused by HTLV-I… ALS is so…"
„Final? I know, but I can't change that. Do the test's. And it's not caused by HTLV-I, because then his family would be affected too…"
Somebody was shaking his shoulder.
Again.
And he thought in exam room 2 they would leave him alone.
"Cuddy is on her way here", a soft voice said, dragging him from the bed in there to a sitting position on the chair.
"I told you she was out to get me", he answered, opening the file she gave him just in time.
"House! Nurse… what are you doing here, Dr. McLachlan?"
House pretended to be busy studying the file while his stranger turned to the dean of PPTH, looking her directly in the eye.
"We're discussing one of Greg's cases. Patient's an early stage of ALS, maybe medication can help…"
"Did you exclude HTLV-I already?" House asked, turning the page in front of him. Hannah turned her gaze to him
"No. Your kiddies will be busy with doing tests for some hours. And maybe we could relocate this discussion into my office, where I can show you some statistics, instead of disturbing you when you could be treating patients", she answered, her eyes wandering back to Cuddy.
"If they can spare you here in the clinic, of course."
"You just so lied in there", House mentioned when he followed her out of the building.
"You were in a room where you treat patients, and you could have been doing that."
"Jeez. You missed your profession. With all this hair splitting you would be one hell of a lawyer."
"Shut up or I'll show you those statistics I talked about instead of letting you sleep on my couch."
He smiled while she easily adjusted her steps to his slow pace.
Silently they walked to the institute of genetics, where he immediately crawled onto said couch, sighing contented when he could turn around without being hit by an armrest.
"You going to play teddybear?" he asked tiredly, glad that this sentence still made sense.
"Nah… you wouldn't get any sleep with me in your arms…"
Actually… he wouldn't mind…
It was loud.
Really loud.
And he was trying to ignore it for five minutes now.
With very little success.
"Mine was more important!" a male voice shouted.
"But I reserved the lightcycler!" another male shouted.
"I don't care! I could have…" the first man started.
"You could have done what every civilized person would do and reserve that thing when you need it!" the second interrupted him
"Please, with your little green stuff. Do some real research, and…!"
"You…!"
"Shut up, both of you!" a female voice ordered. And she didn't shout. She just talked REALLY loud.
"But…!"
"I SAID SHUT UP. Especially you two. I should cut off your ears and stuff them into the pockets of your pants so you can hear it when I kick your ass!"
Heh. That one he had to remember…
"Are we in a kindergarten? I believe both of you are adults, and according to your certificates you also have a brain. You stop taking his stuff out of anything he has stuff in, and YOU stop using equipment other people have reserved. And…"
"I can't reserve a centrifuge everytime I…"
"YOU are quiet now. I'm talking. Also you have to plan your experiments, you…"
"I have to do them when…"
Hannah actually growled at the man.
"Down. Give me twenty!"
"Wha…?"
"Twenty push ups, now!"
Uh oh… she sounded really angry now.
He could hear her moving, and it was silent for a while before the man started panting.
When the guy got up again, he could hear his stranger growl again.
"You want another twenty for talking now?"
The guy didn't say a thing, House just assumed he was shaking his head.
"You will reserve the equipment you need. I don't want to hear any complaints. Never ever again. Did I make myself clear?!"
The guy still didn't say a word, maybe was just nodding because Hannah growled a "Good. You can go now – and you don't even try to thank me or you'll be also down on my floor!"
It was quiet for a while after the two poor men had closed the door to her office after them, and he tried to find a comfortable position again.
"I'm sorry I woke you", she said calmly from her desk, her fingers flying over her keyboard.
"Just remind me not to piss you off. Bum leg's not up for push ups."
"I beg to differ… your performance last night shows me you're simulating", she grinned at her desk, making him frown. Then he shook his head and had to laugh, too.
"Just don't tell anyone…"
This time he actually got some hours of sleep.
Then a warm pair of lips on his skin woke him, even though that was better than anyone shaking his shoulder.
"Time to go home…"
He eased himself up to his elbow, blinking tiredly, but feeling more relaxed than before.
"How long…?"
"Three hours. Your beeper went off two times."
He rubbed his eyes, yawning openly.
"You didn't say anything?"
"I called Allison. Your ALS-Patient has ALS and they diagnosed an encephalitis on their own."
"Who they?"
"Your kiddies. Don't worry, it was a case like in the books…"
He grabbed her wrist pulling her onto the couch with him and closed his arms around her.
"Next time we do something like last night we make sure I have the next day off. You can't abuse an old man like this, you know?"
She sighed when his tongue drew a wet line from her neck to her shoulder.
"You're not old. And I can abuse you like this when you let me. You dared me last night to prove I actually could play with you all night."
"Yeah… I shouldn't have had doubts… in you AND me", he grinned cockily against her neck, while his hand pulled her blouse ot of her skirt.
He was caught.
"What do you think about going home, eat something and then do highly inappropriate and pleasurable things to each other?"
A smile crept on her face when she was running her fingers through his curly hair while he was drifting into sleep, his breath tickling the skin on her chest.
"That I hadn't in mind when you said inappropriate", he whispered when they curled into each other.
She wrapped her arms around him, leaning even more into the soft pillows of their new bed.
"It's pleasurable, though", Hannah whispered back, kissing his forehead.
"I'll make you pay for what I had to suffer today", he said, his voice getting more quiet with every word.
"I hope so", she replied, feeling him laugh and fall asleep at the same time in her arms.