As promised, here is the next part!

CHAPTER 8

The pager attached to House's waist started to vibrate. He unclipped it from his belt buckle and read: 'Imp. pt. Ex R 2. GO!" House ignored the message and went back to doing what he did best, ignoring Cuddy. Not two minutes had gone by before the pager started to vibrate again. This time it simply read: "NOW!"

House figured he had about six and a half minutes before Cuddy came looking for him so he decided to make a run for it and hide before she could find him. He had just made it out of his office when he distinctly heard the sound of pissed off Prada heels marching his way. He thought about going back into his office to behind the cabinet, but it was too late. She spotted him.

"House!" yelled Cuddy across the long, narrow hallway.

"Dr. Cuddy please! We have sick patients in this hospital who are in the need for some peace and quiet so they may recuperate. Does no one have any decency anymore? What is this world coming to when the Dean of Medicine does not care enough about her patients to show them some respect?" said House quite loudly. Some people gave Cuddy dirty looks as they went by her, which seemed to please House to some extent because he was now supporting a smirk on his face.

"Shut up House!" retorted Cuddy cutting House off from further rambling. "I just paged you regarding a very important patient in the clinic. Why aren't you down there yet?"

"Cuddy, how insensitive can you be! You paged me not less than five minutes ago and you expect this cripple to make it down there in that amount of time." Said House feigning hurt. To this, Cuddy received some more disgusted glares and House received some sympathy glances.

Cuddy lowering her voice in attempt to get House to lower his as well replied, "Well, if you were in the clinic where you were supposed to be instead of up here playing with your Nintendo then maybe you would have gotten there faster and I wouldn't have had to come hunt you down."

"And what made you think I wasn't in the clinic in the first place?"

"Have you ever done what I have asked you to do?"

"No."

"Then you have your answer now don't you?"

"In that case, if you know I never listen to you, then why are you so angry? How is this time any different from every other time I ignore you?"

By this point House was feeling pretty smug, thinking he had once again outsmarted Cuddy as she had an exasperated expression on her face which usually signaled her giving up and walking off leaving House to do whatever he wanted.

"Fine House, you win. You don't have to go see the patient in the clinic. I'll just have Wilson do it. Too bad though, I thought you wanted to know what Stacey and I were discussing yesterday, but if you're not interested that's fine." She said as she began to walk away.

The smirk House had plastered on his face for the last 10 minutes slowly began to disappear. He now had a dilemma. Go downstairs and find out what the meeting was about, but thereby admit defeat, or let Wilson see the patient, but remain clueless about the meeting. He had to think fast. "Cuddy!" he yelled trying to by some time.

Cuddy's mouth slowly curled up into a smile when she heard his voice. She crossing her arms over her chest turned around and replied sweetly, "Yes Dr. House?"

House hated giving in to Cuddy but his curiosity was getting the best of him so he reluctantly responded, "Why do you want to bother dear, old Wilson? The poor guy has enough on his plate with dying patients and all. Besides, you probably don't want to send an oncologist to see this patient. It might send the wrong message, considering they are SO important. I'll see them myself."

"Oh, you're right Dr. House. What was I thinking? You better go though, don't wanna keep the patient waiting." Replied Cuddy, giving House his little victory.

"Right then. See what I do to save you're a$$ Cuddy. I wouldn't do this for just anybody you know? Just your body."

House limped passed Cuddy to take the elevator down to the clinic, but not before taking an extra long, exaggerated look at the a$$ he was supposedly saving.

In the clinic, Kate was patiently waiting in exam room 2 reading her People magazine. She was catching up on the latest celebrity gossip. When did Matt Damon get married? Who's too fat? Who's too skinny? And who's having a baby? There is not a dull moment in tinseltown thought Kate.

Outside in the clinic, House had just made his way to the nurse's desk. "Gimme the chart for the patient in exam room 2 please?" he asked Carol.

"The chart is in the room with the patient Dr. House" came the reply.

House did a double take. "Um….Since when do we give the patient the chart?"

"Well, the patient asked for it so I gave it."

"And what if they change something on the chart? The patient could be a drug addict, you never know?" he replied with every bit of sarcasm in his voice.

"Well, it's kinda hard for them to change something considering the only thing that the chart says is: "Needs a physical." Came the reply once again. Carol had known House for so long now that his comments just rolled off her back.

This made House think again. He thought he could find out who the patient was by looking at the chart before meeting this mystery person, but that idea went out the window. He hated not being in the loop. If he was in the loop, he could not be blind sighted. But here he was, with no information at all, which actually peaked his curiosity a bit more but at the same time made him uneasy. So he decided to do the next best thing, ask Nurse Carol.

"So Carol, don't you look beautiful today. Is that a new uniform?" asked House trying to do his best nice guy impression.

"Thanks House and no its not." Said Carol rolling her eyes. She knew exactly what he was up to and wasn't about to say a thing.

"Sooooo, do you know who the person in exam room 2 is?"

"Yes"

"Care to share with the class?"

"Not really."

"C'mon, Carol. We go waaaaaaay back. Tell me who's in there."

"Go and see for yourself House. I'm busy. Unlike you, I actually have work to do."

"Go see for yourself House. I'm busy." Mocked House, scrunching his face. "Fine. I'm going." And with that, slowly and cautiously made his way to the exam room.

House walked up to the door to Exam Room 2, turned the handle and went in.

Kate looked up from her magazine, smiled and said, "Only made me wait 45 minutes. Hmmmm…..You're going soft in your old age House." She said as she began to laugh.

House had walked into the exam room half-expecting to see another rich, Armani-suit wearing, middle-aged man with a bald patch who just wanted to meet The Great Dr. Gregory House before donating millions of dollars to the hospital. Yes, House was that arrogant. He seriously believed that the hospital revolved around him, but then again he was not completely wrong. It was a well known fact that having Dr. Gregory House employed at PPTH was a selling factor when it came to getting donations.

House was not prepared for what he saw when he opened that door. He walked in and spotted a 26 year old sitting on the exam room table reading a People magazine. Not at all what he expected.

"Katie." Was all House managed to say.

Other than her parents, no one else called Kaitlyn, Katie except for House. She really hated it because she thought it made her sound like a child, especially since she had a bit of baby face which made her look younger than she actually was. She hated still being carded when she went out to clubs with her friends.

Kate rolled her eyes and replied sweetly batting her eyelashes, "Yes Housey?" That was Kate's nickname for House when she just felt like annoying him or wanted something from him. House hated it.

House, having recovered from the initial shock finally snapped out of his stupor when he heard this. He looked her over and noticed that she hadn't changed a bit except her hair was now shorter. "So Katie," he said purposely emphasizing Katie, "what brings you back?"

"Well Housey, I just missed you oh so much that I couldn't stand being away from you another second. So I packed my stuff, got on the next bus straight here just to see you. Don't you feel so special?"

"Really? You know I might just have believed you, if I didn't already know about your meeting with Cuddy and Stacey."

"You know already? Dammit, I told them I wanted to tell you. Who was it? I know Cuddy didn't tell you because I just spoke with her. It has to be either Stacey or Wilson. It was Wilson wasn't it? He can never keep a secret!"

House had no idea what Kate was talking about, but decided to play along. He also realized why Wilson wouldn't go out to have drinks with him last night. You get a couple of beers in that guy and he squawks like a certain Aussie trying to save his arse.

"Rookie mistake. Never tell Wilson anything. The whole hospital will know your business before the day's end. But I promised him I wouldn't tell you, so you can't tell him I told you that he told me what you told him not to tell me okay?" House thought if he confused her enough, she would give away the big secret.

"Huh? Yeah, yeah sure, whatever." By this time Kate began to get the feeling that House had no idea what he was talking about so she played along. "So tell me, what did you think when you found out?

"What do you think I thought?"

"I dunno. I can never tell with you. Whenever I think you will like something you never do and when I think you won't, you do." Kate was using House's technique on him in hopes of tripping him up.

"Well, how did you think I was going to react?"

"I thought you wouldn't go for it."

House went through a quick thought process. 'Okay, let's see here. Whenever she thinks I won't do something I do and vice versa. So if she thinks that I wouldn't go for it, then I probably would right?' House was beginning to get a headache from all of this double talk so he just replied, "Why wouldn't I go for it? I was a little concerned at first yes, but now I think it's an okay idea, as long as you stay out of my way."

"Really? That's great House! I was really worried there for a minute. Oh, by the way House….."

"Yeah?"

"You have no idea what the meeting was about do you?" asked Kate smirking.

"Not a clue."

"That's what I thought."

"What gave me away?"

"The me staying out of your way part. That is guaranteed not to happen."

"So why are you back?" asked House growing more and more irritable by the minute.

Kate noticed this and decided to have a little fun with good, old Housey. "C'mon House. A smart diagnostician like you should be able to figure this out pretty easily."

House turned to go out the door.

"Wait, where are you going?" Kate asked still smiling.

"Gonna go ask Wilson."

"You could do that, but that would require you to buy him some drinks first which requires you paying for those drinks. And in any case, he didn't go drinking with you yesterday, and he won't be going tonight either because he's having dinner with me. So if you really want to wait until tomorrow, go right ahead, but I still need my physical done today."

House turned around and said, "Fine. But, I'll only do your physical if you tell me what the meeting was about." House thought he finally had the upper hand.

"Okay. But physical first."

"Nope, you first."

"Physical first."

"You first."

"Physical."

"You."

"House, do you really want me to call Cuddy?" And just like that, House lost his upper hand.

"Fine." House grabbed the chart that was sitting on the exam table beside Kate and pulled out his stethoscope.

He lifted her shirt so he could slide the end of the stethoscope up her back to listen to her breath sounds. As he lifted her shirt, he noticed a small tattoo on her lower back. It was the scale of justice and on each end was a caduceus, a snake wrapped around a stake, the medical symbol. House began to chuckle. "Nice tattoo."

"Thanks. I thought you'd like it."

"Only you Katie would get such an odd tattoo. What, was the skull and crossbones taken?"

"Ha ha, aren't you just hilarious. I like being unique thank you very much. And what better way than to get a tattoo of my profession?"

Light bulbs starting going off in House's head, things began to click. She's a lawyer now. He hadn't realized that it had been four years since she went to law school, until now. So she is probably looking for a job, which is where Cuddy and Stacey come in. The puzzle pieces were beginning to fit into place. Cuddy offered her a job and she accepted. Hence the physical.

House stopped what he was doing and reached for the chart. He opened it and there sat a medical examination form with the PPTH header.

"So the great diagnostician finally figured it out huh?" asked Kate looking at him for some sort of reaction.

MD MD MD MD MD MD MD MD

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