A/N: Thanks for the reviews, comments, and questions. And thanks for sticking with this.
OOOO
Hospitals were not generally run by women in their late thirties, that was usually a job given to middle-aged men who were card carrying members of the Good Ol' Boys Club; Lisa Cuddy understood that – she didn't like it, but she understood it. She also understood that if she wanted to keep her position, she had to play the game. She could wheel and deal and placate condescendingly with the best of them, and she could be as tough and cold as they could when the situation called for it. She was proud of her accomplishments. What pissed her off to no end was that no matter what improvements or innovations she implemented, only one topic seemed to interest her counterparts from other hospitals.
"So, how do you manage to deal with Greg House?"
"Bet that House gives you run for your money."
"Wouldn't want to be in your shoes when Greg House gets started."
Cuddy understood that a good deal of her hospital's reputation was a direct result of Greg House's work, but that didn't make dealing with him any easier. When she had found out that Cameron had conned House into taking her on a date, Cuddy had been positively giddy. She'd been one hundred percent serious when she had told House that Cameron was probably the only woman who could stand to be around him, but more importantly, she knew that somewhere underneath the polite and sensitive shell was a woman who had the power to reign in that man and put a leash on him. Or a muzzle.
She had not been too upset when the first date, by all accounts, had not gone well. She wasn't sure what he had done, but she knew he had to be the one at fault. She had confidence in Cameron's appeal, though, and was certain that the younger doctor could get House to cave eventually as long as she didn't give up.
Then Stacy had shown up, and Cameron had given up.
It wasn't that Cuddy didn't like Stacy. She and Stacy had gone to lunch a couple of times back in the days before the infarction. They had never been best friends – they were both too Type A to get along that well – but they had had a mutual respect built on the fact that they both had to deal with Greg House.
Cuddy was certain that dealing with House after the whole infarction mess was a lot worse at home than it had been at work, but she had still been shocked and fairly disgusted when Stacy had left. Cuddy had found herself battling the man on a daily basis since that point.
Since Stacy's return, House had not mellowed in the least. In fact, he was worse in some ways because now he had another person to snark at and generally treat badly. Cuddy admired the fact that he seemed to be moral enough to maintain a hands off attitude toward the now-married woman, but he still tried to make Stacy's life at the hospital miserable.
Cuddy had a sensitive, touchy-feely side that she usually kept hidden very well. That side of her had felt sorry for both House and Stacy. These circumstances couldn't have been very easy for either of them. The other side, the one she showed at work, wasn't concerned about their feelings. That side was concerned that Stacy's actions might cause problems that Cuddy wouldn't be able to control.
Four of her employees were involved in this mess and Cuddy had to pull on the administrative gloves and deal with it. Time to show the Good Ol' Boys why she was running this place and not them.
At eight o'clock on the dot, Allison Cameron appeared at her office door. Cuddy made a show of looking at the clinic schedule as she waved Cameron in and gestured toward a chair. She looked up over the rim of her glasses and said, "You skipped your clinic hours yesterday."
"Yes, I did."
She gave no explanation. Maybe Cameron had learned a thing or two about politics herself.
"Don't do it again."Cuddy shut the clinic folder and turned towards her computer. "Thanks for coming in."
But Cameron just sat there.
"That's all?" Okay, so maybe she hadn't learned much.
"Yes. I'm sure that House has mail for you to go through, and I'd appreciate it if you could scare up a new patient. Your department sucks up money like noother in this hospital."
Cameron still didn't leave, but she was now fidgeting. She started to say something else, but Cuddy cut her off.
"Dr. Cameron, I know what happened and I assure you that I will take care of things in a way that will create a minimum of embarrassment for all the parties involved."
Allison stood up. "Dr. Cuddy?"
She sighed. "Yes?"
"Dr. Crawford will be making the video available for Christmas. It might make a good stocking stuffer." She turned and walked out, leaving the Dean of Medicine fighting off a belly laugh.
OOOO
Cameron's encounter with Cuddy had been a lot easier than she had imagined it would be. She even felt a little amused at herself for having thrown House's line about the video in. Of course, that amusement may have been due to sleep deprivation, but she still enjoyed it.
Her encounter with Foreman and Chase was not quite so successful.
Both men had been waiting at the conference table when she walked in. They were silent as she walked to the coffee pot, looking for another jolt of caffeine. It wasn't until she had sat down that they started in on her.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Foreman began since he had at some point elected himself her honorary big brother and protector.
"Which part?" She looked at both of them calmly. She had noticed that House wasn't in his office when she came back. Goody. Now she got to do this all by herself.
"Pick one."
"I assume that the first part is that I was dating Crawford, although I also assume it wouldn't matter who it was."
Foreman nodded slowly in agreement.
"I didn't tell you because… well, because I didn't want to tell you."
Foreman's eyes narrowed and Chase shifted in his chair.
"Don't look at me like that." She found that her patience was almost gone. She didn't want to talk about this anymore. "I am capable of having a relationship without you two knowing about it. The big brother act gets a little tiresome after a while, and I can only imagine what you would have done or said to Crawford if you had known." She paused. "In fact, now that I think about it, I'll bet you made sure to whisper something to House before we went out that didn't help much."
Foreman looked at the table and started playing with his coffee mug. Chase still said nothing.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. As for the other, I knew you'd find out sooner than later. Obviously you did, so it really doesn't matter, does it?"
When House walked in a few minutes later, he found Foreman trying not to look contrite, Cameron scowling, and Chase nervously flipping through a medical journal.
"Wow. Looks like we're having fun this morning."
No one responded to him.
"Well, did any of you happen to notice before you started pouting that our patient took a very nice turn for the better early this morning?"
"What? How?" Foreman reacted first.
"I don't know, which is why I want the three of you to check her out from head to toe and figure out how."
They sat there, puzzled.
"Go, go, go before she decides to get worse again." House waved the cane toward the door.
Cameron was the last one out and he stopped her before she could leave.
"How did it go with Cuddy?"
"Fine." She tried again to walk out.
"Are you doing okay?"
"Please stop," she almost whispered. She faced the hall with her chin dropping toward her chest.
He ignored her. "Go home. Get some sleep."
She sighed and looked back up at him. "I don't know why you're choosing to be like this right now, but I need to stay and work. I figure I've got about three more hours of juice left before I collapse. My goal is to stick it out and hope that I'm standing on something soft when the adrenaline runs out. Now, there are some emails I flagged that you need to look at and a couple of requests for consults on your desk."
She pushed past him and headed towards their patient's room.
House tapped his cane on the floor. This was no fun. Greg House didn't like second guessing himself, nor did he enjoy self-contemplation. He felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin, and he didn't think that was all due to the hangover he had. It had more to do with the woman who had just walked out of the room and the one who had walked out of his life.
He growled.
Now was not the time to try to figure out what the hell his brain was up to. He needed to work off this feeling so he headed out to find someone to harass. Wilson needed to be punished for his actions from the morning, and House needed to eat. Looked like Jimmy Boy was going to be the winner.
OOOO
Cuddy had sympathized with Cameron. She probably wouldn't have wanted to deal with the clinic either if she had been in Cameron's shoes, but she couldn't let Cameron get away with skipping her clinic hours altogether. Their two minute meeting had been a token attempt at discipline and it had gotten the job done.
Now Cuddy had to deal with Stacy. This was not going to be a token attempt at anything; Stacy had to go, or Cuddy feared that House and, by extension, the reputation of her hospital would go instead.
Stacy and Mark Warner arrived at Cuddy's office fifteen minutes late. Both seemed a little out of sorts. Not surprising, thought Cuddy.
This time, instead of sitting behind her desk, Cuddy had moved to one of the couches and had coffee waiting in an urn on the table. She stood and greeted both visitors with a smile and led them to the other comfortable chairs in the room.
Stacy smiled back as she sat down next to her husband. She looked a little strained, though, as she spoke first, "You said on the phone that you wanted to discuss Mark's progress. What's going on? Is there a problem with the treatment?" The lawyer maintained her calm even though she knew that Cuddy probably knew most of what had happened the day before. There was a slim chance that she didn't, but Stacy wouldn't bet on it.
Cuddy poured them each a cup of coffee, even though she hadn't asked them if they wanted any. "No, there's no problem at all, in fact just the opposite is true." She took a sip of the hot drink. "I've reviewed your file with your current doctors and your therapists, Mark, and I think you're ready to move on."
"Move on?" He asked.
Cuddy made certain not to look at Stacy. "We've agreed that there is no reason that your own family doctor couldn't take over your care at this point."
"Really?" Mark perked up a bit.
"Absolutely. You've made terrific progress over the past few months and I'm sure that you're getting tired of coming all the way to Princeton for check-ups."
Mark nodded and was about to speak when his wife stepped in. "What about his physical therapy?"
Cuddy made a show of flipping through his chart. "Well, his current PT agrees that he's ready to move on as does his occupational therapist." She smiled and looked at Mark again. "Your doctor at home can set you up with therapists who can take care of you at this point. Your medical needs are not at all what they once were and there is no reason for you to continue that awful trek back and forth between here and home."
Mark sat back and smiled. He reached over and rubbed his wife's back. "Stacy, you can go back to your practice, then. Maybe things can get back to normal."
"What about my job here?" Stacy asked.
"They don't need you to stick around." He looked at Cuddy. "I mean, I realize that hospitals need lawyers, but the deal was that she stayed while I received treatment, right?"
"Of course. Stacy's done incredible things here," she looked at the other woman, "but I do understand her need to get back to her own practice. I would never keep her from doing that." She held her gaze steady with Stacy's.
"So what needs to be done?" Mark was completely oblivious to what was not being said between the two women.
"You'll just need to sign some releases for your records…" Cuddy began.
"Then Lisa and I need to talk about the cases I'm handling here," finished Stacy.
"My secretary has the releases all ready for you."
"Great." He stood up and looked down at his wife. "And you were nervous about this meeting." He laughed.
When he had no more than shut the door, Stacy looked at Cuddy. "You ever consider being a lawyer?"
"No." She had no intention of extending this encounter.
"Well, you'd be a good one." Stacy continued to sit. "That was slick."
Cuddy didn't say anything.
"Lisa, aren't you going to say anything? I know you know what happened." Stacy was certain another shoe was going to drop at any moment.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Cuddy crossed her legs and sat back more comfortably.
"Bull."
"What I know is that I have a hospital to run and its reputation to protect. When something happens to threaten that reputation, I have a responsibility to fix the problem."
There was silence for nearly a minute.
"So, that's it? You're not going to do anything else?" Stacy asked. Cuddy was struck by how much Stacy sounded like Cameron had earlier. The difference was that Cameron's question had been motivated by confusion; Stacy's was motivated by guilt.
"Anything else would be none of my business." Cuddy stood up. It was time to end this. "As for the work you've done here, I've taken the liberty of dividing your cases between the other lawyers, who were happy to take them. You really have nothing left to do here."
After Stacy had walked out of her office, Cuddy opened one of her desk drawers. She pulled out a shot glass and a bottle of whiskey that was very similar to the one House had all but finished the night before. She did one shot, removed the evidence, then took a roll of breath mints out of another drawer and smiled. She'd like to see one of the Boys at Princeton General pull that one off.