Hmmm – got a bit bogged down. Still it worked out OK in the end.

Thanks to all who reviewed last time – remember, lets cover the nice author in millions of reviews

Yes, 'tasha, I'm working on the CSI, honestly.

"Where is he?" Foreman demanded of his colleagues, impatient as ever with the vagaries of timekeeping that, in part, defined the inestimable Gregory House M.D. - and S.O.B. Foreman subconsciously appended.

"Give the man a break, Foreman, he's crippled, walks with a cane…remember? You do remember don't you, you're not experiencing early onset Alzheimer's from those ties you're always wearing."

"You wear a tie too, Chase," retorted the black man, obviously annoyed that once again House was being defended by one of his primary victims.

"True, but I don't wear it like a fetish trophy; perhaps you're exploring the world of auto-erotic asphyxiation."

"I thought that was your hobby, Chase."

"Actually, I prefer whips," Chase continued, ignoring Cameron who was making desperate TMI gestures with her hands as she looked worriedly about the waiting room to the clinic, "the fact is, Foreman, if you don't undo that top button at some point your head's going to explode."

"You know, Chase," replied Foreman, in what was clearly a faux-observational tone; "your perspective on the matter is truly astounding for someone with their head inserted so far up their arse."

Before Chase could respond, Cameron lost her temper - perhaps more correctly, she lost her omnipresent desire to paint everything in flowers, birds and frolicking lambies – "Would you two kindly shut the fuck up!" Her moment of boldness was immediately undermined, as she once again looked around the waiting room with a look of horror plastered on her pretty features.

For their part, Chase and Foreman did shut up, stunned into silence by something they thought impossible.

"Did you know she could swear?"

"Nope. Did you?"

The Australian doctor shook his head in the negative; it was like discovering that not only were dinosaurs not extinct but that they drove to work every day and coached little-league teams in their spare time.

Cameron, for her part, appeared to be vacillating between lynching the two doctors for their condescending, albeit friendly, attempts at humour or just giving up and laughing at them and herself. However, before she could come to a decision she was interrupted by an on-duty nurse who, having lost a rapidly cut throat elimination round of rock-paper-scissors with her peers, had been nominated to approach the, now, laughing doctors.

"Excuse me? Doctors? Is one of you free?"

"We're waiting for Doctor House to arrive."

"I know." She glanced around rapidly, much like a gentle ruminant at a savannah watering hole checking out the location of the nearest predators, "Well, I know you work for Doctor House," she amended, "but seeing as he's not here," thank Christ, she added silently, "could one of you check out the child in Examination Room One, he's been screaming for the past half-hour and no-one's been in to check him out."

"Why not?" asked Cameron.

"Doctor House was supposed to be here half an hour ago but he's yet to arrive."

While Foreman rolled his eyes at Chase in an 'I told you so' gesture, Cameron stood up, all business. "I'll go," she said, before following the retreating nurse towards the room, "you two try and stay out of trouble until House arrives."

"I don't think she trusts us," pondered Chase.

Foreman shrugged, "Can you blame her?"

"I dunno, I think I'm fairly trustworthy; what about you?"

"Do I think you're trustworthy?"

"No. Are you trustworthy?"

"Depends who you're asking."

"I'm asking."

"So, you're asking me if I think I'm trustworthy?"

The Australian doctor paused, for a moment, to work his way through the semantic conundrum into which he'd so successfully boxed himself. "Errr…yes?"

"The answer, of course, is no."

"Chase looked startled, "You know, Foreman, you sounded remarkably like House then."

"That's because he didn't answer the question, I did." Both doctors whirled around to see House, leaning insouciantly against a pillar, with his usual look of smug superiority plastered winningly across his face.

"Where have you been?" demanded Foreman, "You're the one that told us to come down here to watch you; the least you could do is actually turn up."

House looked at the black doctor oddly, "I thought you didn't like watching me work, Foreman; I'm fairly sure that, on occasion, you have mentioned, to all and sundry I might add, that I am an affront to your notion as to what constitutes professional standards. Or is it simply that you missed me. How sweet." House spared Chase a glance, "did you miss me too?"

"Not really."

"I'm devastated; not surprised mind you, but devastated nonetheless."

"I'm sure you'll cope."

House didn't bother to answer, distracted as he was by Foreman, who was looking more and more impatient by the second.

"What?"

Foreman looked at House suspiciously, clearly expecting to spring a trap with his response, but not entirely sure what it would be "Well…" he answered cautiously, albeit no so deferentially as to intimate that he didn't think House was being an idiot "We're supposed to be observing you, remember?"

"Well fine. Observe." It was then that House noticed that he was missing a minion, "Where's Cameron?"

"As you were late, one of the nurses asked for someone to help with a patient, Cameron volunteered."

"Of course she did." House sighed in resignation, "and where, pray, is this patient?" he looked around as if willing the patient to appear in front of him thus sparing the necessity, and ancillary indignity of having to go to another person.

"Examination Room One."

"Fine. Come minions."

Foreman and Chase looked at each other and shrugged, it wasn't like they had anything else to do. Actually, that wasn't precisely true, they had plenty of other things they could do, however, since House had commandeered their morning, it was more accurate to state that they didn't have anything else to do if they wanted to continue walking and breathing so they trailed after the acerbic older doctor as he limped towards the examination room.

Showing his usual grace and restraint, House crashed into the examination room with only barest excuse for a peremptory knock to announce his arrival.

"So, assuming you haven't irreparably maimed the poor child, Cameron, what's the diagnosis?"

Barely raising an eyebrow in response, Cameron turned to reassure the mother of the, once again, wailing child, before serenely addressing her boss.

"Ear infection."

"Nothing else?"

"You seem disappointed; would you like the child to have contracted something more virulent?"

Sparing a glance at the mother, House moderated his response, slightly, and only to prevent the mother from joining her vocally gifted offspring in joining the mounting crescendo, "Virulent no, interesting yes."

"Define interesting?"

As ever, House's answer was cryptic and distinctly non-helpful "Your interesting, or my interesting, Cameron? Let's take the three of you as an example; if I were to ask each of you what constituted interesting, I would get a completely different answer. You, Cameron, would give us an answer based on the principles of happiness utilitarianism."

"What's that," asked the mother, who had decided, on taking a measuring glance at the, obviously, senior doctor's relationship to the younger practitioners, that there were more exciting things going on here than a simple mass consultation and, as such, there was more be gained from paying attention then there was wailing.

Without looking at the woman, House replied, "It's an idiotic philosophy that believes that the best outcome is the one that results in the most happiness."

"Why is that a bad thing? Isn't making people happy a good thing?"

"Sure, if you're stupid and don't understand the concept of consequences. The thing with making a lot of people happy is that you have to compromise, and while compromise might be okay if you're facing two groups of angry people carrying sharp implements; it's not so good medically; medically, you want the solution that works, irrespective of whether or not it pisses someone off."

"I disagree," interjected Cameron.

"You would. You think a smile solves everything."

"But it helps."

"With what?" House managed to combine sarcasm and disbelief into two words. "If you're going to cut someone's leg off it doesn't matter how much you smile at them the leg's going to come off anyway, and frankly, with the patient unconscious due to anaesthetic, your smile isn't going to assist in the medical procedure either.

Cameron looked militant at House's apparent dismissal, well a militant as a puppy with a slipper, but she did her best, which amounted to little more than a passive-aggressive growl that had Chase and Foreman desperately choking back laughter.

"What about those two?" asked the mother, having noticed the two men's suppressed mirth, and deciding that some parental logic needed to be applied; that is, if some of the children were feeling smug at the expense of another then they needed to be cut down to size.

"Let's see." murmured House. Foreman and Chase abruptly stopped their cackling and Cameron began to look smug. "That one," he indicated Foreman, "justifies any action based on how it relates to his professional appearance as a doctor, which I'm suppose isn't bad thing if all you're prepared to diagnose is punctured dignity. That one," he said, indicating Chase, "Will probably diagnose you correctly, but will then claim that it wasn't his diagnosis and was only acting under orders."

"And what about you?"

"Other than the fact that I'm brilliant?"

"If you insist." The woman was used to dealing with people with godhood complexes at parent-teacher meetings so wasn't too worried about House's estimations of his staff, or himself for that matter.

"I see people as experiments, not human beings with feelings and stuff; I'm told that's a bad thing. Anyway, let's deal to your brat, sorry, I mean, child."