"Do you have any idea what kind of hours Katrien Verhoeven has been logging in the past week?" Cuddy demanded, crossing her arms angrily over her chest and planting herself firmly right in House's path.

"Can't say that I care," House retorted, trying to sidestep around her. Cuddy followed his motion, checking his advance and keeping him in place so that she could finish the conversation.

"Security tells me that she hasn't actually left the hospital in at least three days," Cuddy snapped at him, trying to impress the seriousness of the situation on him. "Tell me you're not making her stay on purpose."

"I'm not doing it on purpose," House parroted back, rolling his eyes. "Now, will you get out of my way?"

"Were you deliberately trying to break every labour rule we have, or did it just never occur to you that she was coming off night duty when she showed up at your morning diagnostic conferences?" Cuddy asked him, her temper flaring.

House just looked back at her blankly, his blue eyes unreadable. The boy's case was tricky, not that he ever got cases that weren't tricky. His condition had been up and down for the past three days, ever since he'd been re-admitted, and they weren't any closer to finding the underlying problem than they were then. A treatment would seem to be working at first, then rapidly it would start making things worse instead of better. He'd never taken the time to think about what kind of hours the people beneath him were working. The three fellows had gotten used to regulating their own hours and making sure they slept, but he'd completely forgotten that he now had an intern to worry about.

"Find her and send her home," Cuddy told him after a moment, her voice growing softer as she realized that he hadn't known about any of it. "And Chase too," she added. "He's been here almost as much as she has."

House nodded curtly. "Now will you get out of my way?" he requested, raising his eyebrows. This time, after another brief pause, Cuddy moved out of his way.

Both Chase and Verhoeven proved difficult to track down. They weren't in the patient's room, or the conference room, or in Cameron's usual haunt, the lab. House finally caught Chase sleeping on one of the couches in the oncology lounge, and the young Australian had scampered off eagerly, probably hoping to get away before House changed his mind and rescinded the order.

Swallowing a Vicodin, House leaned back against the wall in an empty hall. They'd all been putting in long hours over the past few days and he honestly hadn't noticed that Chase and Verhoeven had been working almost around the clock. Chase should have known better, but he'd taken to the other blonde, foreign doctor, feeling some kind of need to act like an older brother figure. Verhoeven had probably been too intimidated to say anything, even as he assigned more work to her at each morning conference. In fact, he reflected, the assigned work was probably what had kept her from saying anything. She still had to find her backbone.

Sighing, he pushed himself upright and started off across the floor to his office. Finding her hadn't worked, so he'd page her. He could have done that from anywhere, but his iPod was in his desk drawer, and he wanted it on him in case he got called down to clinic duty. It probably would have just been easier to page both her and Chase from the outset, but the search had given him a convenient excuse to avoid the clinic for at least a while.

Halfway to his office, House caught sight of her at the far end of an intersecting hallway. Her crutch was unmistakable, and he almost physically winced to think that his cane performed the same identifying function for him. "Verhoeven," he barked loudly, his voice perhaps unnecessarily harsh as it echoed down the deserted hallway.

She startled, wheeling around abruptly. He saw what was about to happen seconds before it actually did, but was in no position to prevent it. She was exhausted, leaning heavily on the support of her crutch. As she turned, the rubber tip slipped on the polished floor, sliding out from beneath her and removing that support. Off balance and with nothing to support herself with, she crumpled to the ground, impacting it with a loud thump that did make House wince. It had been a hard fall.

She lay there in a heap for a moment, and House could hear her tightly regulated breathing as he hurried over to her. The perfectly timed breathing was supposed to be a strategy for coping with pain, but he'd never found it to be a very effective one. "You okay?" House inquired, fighting a highly inappropriate urge to prod her with the tip of his cane. It was, after all, partially his fault that she was on the floor in the first place.

"Fine," she answered shortly, very gingerly pushing herself up into a sitting position. Her white face and the thin line of her lips told him a different story, but who was he to argue? He did, however, raise a skeptical eyebrow as she immediately wrapped her arms around herself, guarding her ribs.

"Slide over against the wall," House instructed her, finding an appropriate use for his cane as he gestured with it. She obeyed, moving over a few feet so that she could lean back against the supportive surface. Ramrod straight posture, he noted. "When's the last time that you took anything?"

"Took..."

"You know what I mean."

"I'm not sure," she answered honestly, and perhaps a little breathlessly. "Some Tylenol I got from Doctor Chase an hour or so ago, I suppose."

House nodded once, fishing a prescription bottle out of his pocket and tossing it down to her. She didn't argue, only shook a pill out onto the palm of her hand. She swallowed it down dry with a practiced ease that surprised him. "You're awfully good at that for a stoic," he couldn't help noting, looking down at her critically.

She shrugged, a very tiny motion of one shoulder, as she leaned her head back against the wall.

"I was going to send you home," House told her with an exaggerated sigh.

"What..."

"I was going to send you home," he repeated, "and tell you not to come back until tomorrow morning, after you'd slept. But now I don't get to do that."

"Why not, sir?" she inquired, confusion fighting its way through the expression of pain on her face.

"Wait here," he directed her, stalking away and ignoring her question. "And don't try to get up either."

When he returned a minute or two later, Verhoeven clearly hadn't moved so much as an inch from where she'd been sitting when he'd left her. "I definitely can't send you home now," House observed bitterly. Cuddy wouldn't be pleased when Security told her that Verhoeven hadn't left the building yet.

"Why not?" she repeated.

He still didn't look inclined to answer her question, but Wilson came hurrying around the corner, saving him from having to think of a quick retort. "What do you need?" the oncologist demanded irritably, glaring at House and seeming to not have seen the intern on the floor. "I had to cut short an appointment with an actual patient."

"I need your legs," House told Wilson simply, shrugging.

"You need my legs?" Wilson repeated. "Why the hell..." He stopped abruptly mid-sentence, finally noticing Verhoeven on the ground. "What did you do?" he asked House sternly.

"I didn't do anything," House protested, throwing up his hands as a gesture of his innocence. "She slipped all on her own. Just because I happened to have shouted her name just before she fell doesn't necessarily mean anything."

Wilson sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Are you okay?" he asked Verhoeven.

"I believe so," she told him, her tone a little too hesitant for the oncologist's liking. "But, unfortunately, sir, I will need a hand getting up again."

"She's going to need more than just a hand," House cut in sharply.

"That is most likely true," she confirmed, her face flushing bright red. This was obviously an awkward situation for her and House wasn't doing anything to make it any easier on her.

"Okay," Wilson said, trying his best to sound matter of fact, "what's the easiest way to do this then?" He looked between the two, hoping that they'd give him some kind of direction. He'd never really done this before.

House shrugged apathetically. "Ask her. She's the one that needs the help."

After closing her eyes for a second, Verhoeven looked up at Wilson, blushing more deeply. "If you bend in front of me so that I can put my arms around your neck, when you stand, you're tall enough that I'll be pulled upright again."

Wilson obliged immediately, squatting in front of her, his back held straight. He went to the gym often enough to know that much. "Anything else?" he asked as he felt her hands clasp around his neck.

"If you take my elbows," she replied tightly, her breath stirring the hair at the back of his neck, "it will make it easier for us to balance together."

"Should I leave you two alone for a minute?" House broke in, eyebrows raised.

Wilson ignored him. "Okay, we'll go on three." Counting it down, he stood easily on three, feeling the girl's weight transfer through his shoulders as he raised her back to her feet. He couldn't help but hear the hiss of pain that accompanied it either.

"I'll need..."

House, surprisingly, was ready with her crutch. She took it gratefully, grasping it in her hand and leanign back against the wall again with a wince, her free arm back around her lower chest. "That's why I can't let you go home," House informed her sharply.

"You've done this before," Wilson noted, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked at Verhoeven and ignored House.

"Unfortunately a few times too many, sir," she admitted. "I'm sorry to have leaned so heavily on you. Usually I can be more helpful."

"Wasn't a problem," Wilson assured her, realizing what he was doing and dropping his hand to his side. "Is there anything else that I can do?"

"You're not using your office are you?" House interrupted. "Good. You can examine her and then she can sleep on your couch. We'll take her home at the end of the day." He paused for a split second. "That's settled. Now, I have a patient to figure out." And he was off before either of then had a chance to say anything.

The other two watched him go. Then the oncologist turned to the intern, a clear look of concern on his face. "A quick exam probably wouldn't be a bad idea," he told her. "You're guarding your ribs fairly closely."

She sighed, wincing. "Yes, sir."

"House, why aren't you in the clinic?" Cuddy asked with a sigh.

"I got a page," he replied, stabbing at the elevator button.

"From Wilson," Cuddy noted. "The clinic nurse saw."

"And tattled, obviously," House observed. He jabbed the button again and informed her, "He was examing a patient of mine and I'm assuming he must have found something."

"He already did a rule out for Peter two days ago, House. You'll have to find a better excuse than that." She put her hands on her hips and stared at him, daring him to come up with something else.

House sighed. "I wasn't going to tell you..." he started. Cuddy's pager interrupted him, and she held up a hand to stop him as she looked at it.

"It's Wilson," she said, wrinkling her forehead in confusion as the elevator doors opened.

"Damn it," House swore beneath his breath, pushing past her and climbing into the elevator.

"What did you do?" Cuddy demanded, following him.

"Nothing!" House protested, stabbing at the door close button. It was obvious that Cuddy didn't believe him.

"What did you give her?" Wilson questioned urgently, meeting them in the hall outside his office, his tie askew and worry on his face.

"House, what did..." Cuddy started.

"50 mg Tramadol," House responded, cutting Cuddy off.

"How many?" Wilson said instantly, running his hand through his hair distractedly.

House shrugged. "I think it was only one," he answered. "But I wasn't really watching. She probably thought it was Vicodin, so I can't imagine that she'd have taken two. She'd know better than to deplete my stash like that."

"What did she have before you gave her the Tramadol?" Wilson replied, glancing over his shoulder into his office.

"House," Cuddy broke in sternly. Her displeasure at being left in the dark was obviously "What exactly did you do?"

"Nothing!" House repeated, holding up his hands. "She said she got a couple of Tylenol from Chase an hour or two ago, but she didn't mention anything else."

"Wilson, what's going on?" Cuddy stated flatly, crossing her arms under her breasts and staring up at the men.

Wilson sighed and gestured over his shoulder into his office. "Why'd you page her?" House hissed as the three went into the office.

"Because your intern is unconscious with seriouslydepressed breathing," Wilson hissed.

"This doesn't look like nothing," Cuddy noted, glaring at House as she took Verhoeven's pulse.

"Get Chase on the phone," House snapped at Cameron as Wilson and Foreman lifted Verhoeven from the couch onto a gurney. "We need to know exactly what he gave her."

Cameron looked between House and Cuddy briefly before nodding and hurrying away. This wasn't what she'd been expecting to find when House had paged her back to the office. She'd thought that he'd figured out what was wrong with Peter.

"Her O2 sat is way too low," Foreman observed. "She's cyanotic and we've got to get her on oxygen."

"There's a free room just down the next hall," Cuddy informed them, putting down the phone and trailing behind as Wilson and Foreman maneuvered the bed in that direction. "And, House, when this is all over, I want to know exactly what it is that you did."

He waved his hand over his shoulder at her, hurrying ahead of the other two men, glad of the Vicodin that he'd taken before this all started happening. "At least it's not clinic duty," he remarked beneath his breath as they wheeled around the corner and into the room.

"I heard the rumour that you'd broken an intern," Cuddy declared angrily, "but I thought that you'd jsut made another one cry for doign somethign stupid. A few days off, a shift with someone like Wilson, and they're fine. I didn't think that you'd actually physically broken an intern. What happened? Did you get bored of crushing them emotionally?"

"I didn't do anything," House protested, fiddling with his cane.

"And that's why we had to rush her into a room, pump her full of Narcan to stop her from going into respiratory arrest, and give her oxygen to keep her from getting brain damage from the cyanosis," Cuddy snapped.

"How was I supposed to know that Chase had given her T-3s instead of regular Tylenols?" House retorted. "He didn't even tell her."

"Why are you carrying Tramadol around anyway?" Cuddy inquired with a sigh.

"For the same reason that Chase slipped her the T-3s," House countered. "Only unlike the T-3, the Tramadol was actually prescribed by her doctor." As he spoke, his eyes narrowed and his head tilted to the side slightly.

Cuddy sighed. "I'll get back to that in a minute," she said. "But I suppose that the broken ribs are Chase's fault too? Or do you have a hand in that one?"

"Gotta go," House broke in suddenly, standing and walking out of the room before Cuddy could get another word in.

"We finally got her respiration completely stabilized," Foreman reported, coming back into the room, "but she'll probably be pretty out of things for another hour or two."

"I taped her ribs while she was still unconscious," Cameron noted, coming in behind Foreman. "I thought it would be less painful that way."

House waved his hand at them dismissively. "Reye's Syndrome," he stated, writing it out in big letters across the top of the whiteboard.

"We dismissed Reye's Syndrome because the symptoms didn't fit," Foreman countered, taking a seat and immediately leaning back in the chair, his arms crossed over his chest in an expression of his displeasure.

Cameron took her own seat, leaning forward eagerly, looking at the list of symptoms scrawled on the board. "The rash didn't fit, and niether did the rest of the symptoms," she said cautionsly. "The variations in blood pressure, the edema, the fevers..." Her voice trailed off as House took the eraser and cleared off all but the very first symptoms.

"Ignore the rest," House stated. "Seizures following a fever. They didn't bother to tell us about it, but there was probably lethargy too."

"Peter's mother knows not to give her children aspirin," Cameron told him. "I overheard her telling the babysitter not to give it to Michael the first time Peter was here. That was one of the reasons we ruled out Reye's the first time." She saw House's blank look and sighed. "Michael is the brother with the ear infection."

"She knows not to give the kiddies aspirin, but she wasn't the one who gave it to him," House replied.

"He's two, House," Foreman declared. "He didn't give it to himself."

"No, but his sister did," House answered. "The same sister who was being so helpful when she brought Spidey and ear infection boy to the clinic."

"Are you sure?" Cameron asked, sitting straight up. "What about the rest of the symptoms?"

"We've just had a prime example of what happens when you give someone drugs that they don't need," House noted.

"So now he overdosed on aspirin?" Foreman questioned incredulously. "ASA overdose doesn't even present with those symptoms, especially not after this amount of time."

"Not an overdose" House retorted, rolling his eyes. "Unnecessary medication. Most of his symptoms are a reaction to the IVIG, exacerbated by our attempts to treat an underlying condition that doesn't actually exist," he explained. "Take Spidey off everything for twenty-four hours, and he should stabilize on his own. We'll charcoal haemoperfuse his blood starting tomorrow night."

"He obviously only has a mild case of Reyes," Foreman observed, finally acquiescing to the diagnosis. "Why haemoperfuse? It's an unnecessary risk."

"It'll clear his blood of all the toxins we've pumped into it, as well as getting rid of anything left form the Reye's." House shrugged. "Now, shouldn't you be doing something? Maybe telling worried parents? Or babysitting unconscious interns? Or stopping unnecessary drugs from being pumped into a toddler?"

"Doctor Chase," House drawled, twirling his cane idly as he watched the Australian walk self-consciously into the diagnostics conference room.

"Doctor House," Chase replied stiffly, peeling off his coat. He turned to hang it up, hoping that he didn't look as nervous as he felt.

"Verhoeven wanted me to personally thank you for your contributions to Spidey's diagnosis," House went on, his tone surprisingly civil. "She appreciated having her own role in it. And, after all, it isn't every day that we almost have to pump an intern's stomach in the name of a diagnosis."

Chase turned back to face the older doctor, his face red. His best response was a helpless shrug. "I didn't know that you'd been giving her painkillers too," he said, his tone equally as helpless. "It was the first time that I'd done it, but she was really hurting. I figured that it wouldn't hurt anything if she got some relief."

"Still, she wanted me to thank you personally," House repeated. "She especially appreciated you taking her shifts for the next week or so, until she recovers enough to get back to work."

Chase nodded resignedly. It would be a long week, but it was the least that he could do.

"What are you doing here?" Foreman asked, watching as Verhoeven made her way carefully into the conference room. "Cuddy made House give you the week off. He did break your ribs and almost send you into respiratory arrest, after all."

"Doctor Chase was very concerned and he feels quite guilty," she answered, gingerly starting to take off her jacket. It was obvious from the way she was moving that she was trying to guard her sore ribs without being obvious. "I thought that if he saw me back to work, he wouldn't feel quite so badly."

Foreman moved to help her take off her jacket, explaining, "House made him take all your shifts, but Cuddy gave House extra clinic hours all week for his part in the whole thing. Without you around to do it for him, he actually has to see the patients himself for a change."

Verhoeven cracked a smile, taking a seat at the table. "Then perhaps I will simply wait here until either Doctor House and the others arrive, instead of trying to seek out Doctor House and let him know I'm here. I wouldn't want to take him away from his patients," she commented perfectly evenly, raising an eyebrow at Foreman.

Foreman snickered and went to pour her a cup of coffee.

"Guess it takes breaking some ribs to make you finally grow a backbone," House commented, striding in through the door. "Heard through the grapevine that you were in the hospital, Verhoeven. Good to see you back again. The clinic could use some attention."

"You didn't actually make her go to the clinic, did you?" Wilson asked, setting his tray on an empty table in the cafeteria and watching as House took the seat opposite.

House shrugged. "She was the one who couldn't wait a week to get back here. I figured that she might as well be put to work."

"The nurses like her," Wilson noted, digging into his salad.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," House replied. "Your point?"

"I'm not sure that I understand yours," Wilson replied.

"The nurses hate me. She's even more of an anti-me than Cameron, if that's possible. But aside from that, the whole 'broken' thing is the clincher, they know that I hate her. So, if I hate her..."

"I'm still not sure the saying applies in this case, but I get the point anyway, strangely enough," Wilson cut in.

"Once you understand the logic, it's only a small step to complete conversion," House quipped. "Next thing you know, you'll be alienating nurses yourself, avoiding patients, and..."

"Breaking interns?" Wilson queried, trying to hid his amusement in a bite of his salad.

"I was going to say making scathingly witty comments," House said, rolling his eyes. "But it appears as though you've already been working on that one. A word of advice: work harder, that one isn't very original. Even the nurses have been using that one."

"And comments like that one are the reason why the nurses don't like you very much."

"No, they don't like me because I call them names and put rubber snakes in their desk drawers, in addition to generally trying to make their lives miserable," House retorted.

"What gets me is that they're still doign the tray thing, even though their hatred of you is well-documented -- and well-deserved, may I add -- and they like Verhoeven," Wilson noted, stabbing another piece of lettuce.

House sighed and stood up. "You're not going to give up on this one until I explain, are you?"

Wilson shrugged non-committally. "Or until I managed to figure it out on my own."

"Come with me. I know where there's an empty room."

"And comments like that are what starts the rumours about the two of us," Wilson sighed, abandoning his salad and following House out of the cafeteria.

"Here," House said, tossing his cane to Wilson and limping over to the crash cart.

"What..."

"That's not how you hold it," House interrupted, looking pointedly at the cane. "There's no point if you're not going to do it right."

Wilson had a bemused expression on his face, but he took the cane in his hand properly. "Better?"

House nodded. "Now, there's a patient on the bed coding, what are you going to do?"

"Call for the crash cart, of course," Wilson answered, rolling his eyes. "Exactly the same as any other doctor."

"Face the bed," House ordered curtly. "And call for the crash cart, like you're running one of those practice codes they used to make us do in med school. Pretend it's the real thing."

"We used to get a cadaver in med school," Wilson protested, turning to face the bed and moving to set the cane aside.

"Pretend like you need the cane," House directed. "And run the code."

Wilson sighed, and started going through the motions of a code, calling for the cart. House gave it a push, sending it across the floor to Wilson, just as Wilson turned around to grab for the defibrillator paddles, the cane still thoughtlessly gripped in his hand. The cane collided with the side of the cart, and, with a crash that reverberated through the room, the cart tipped over onto its side, spilling its contents onto the floor.

"You just killed the patient," House said, limping over to grab back his cane. "Good thing we didn't actually waste a cadaver on you."

"So you're not just a sadistic bastard," Wilson noted with some surprise.

"Don't let it get out," House cautioned, starting for the door and leaving the mess of the spilled crash cart on the floor behind him. "I've got a reputation to maintain."

Author's Note -- And that's it for this story. Is the character worth continuing with, or should Katrien Verhoeven be abandoned forever? Let me know. Thanks to all that read. And double thanks to all that reviewed.