Title: "As the World Turns"
Word Count: 519
Rating: PG? Barely. One or two bad words, that's all. gasp!
Summary: She thinks she's clever. He thinks he's right. And they can always see right through each other.
Author's Notes: Damnit, this was supposed to be a drabble! beats literary elephantitis with cane. Anyway, this one's a little more light-hearted than the others I've posted today; if you can call dialogue snippets from the Pilot spoilers, then you're about to be spoiled. Consider this House's internal reactions during/prior to the Pilot, perhaps? grins

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"Because I'm a doctor," she'd told him, in that tone that commanded the room -- any room, for Christ's sake, and even in his abject frustration the puzzle so simple and yet so untouchable, his mind like a scalpel with no firm direction, simply bleeding truth from every wound it opened even while still unable to heal them he didn't know whether he wanted to smack her or kiss her, and damn her for always using that against him -- arching a single perfect brow before storming off toward the stairs; click-clack of expensive heels and knowing damn well that he couldn't follow, couldn't chase her down and make her see reason... even if it was only his reason, disjointed and inexplicable but goddamn inexorably right.

"When we make mistakes, people die."

And he'd snorted at her pretension, her egoand no, that wasn't the pot calling the kettle black, thank you very much -- patients died all the time, died from moving too fast or moving too slow or died from their own damn stupidity, that doctors were the closest thing these morons had to God and that not doing something was the biggest mistake of them all, couldn't she see that? --

--no, of course she couldn't, could she, never, never, if she could or would he wouldn't be watching as she climbed the stairs ahead of him, beyond him, out of reach again in a tangible reminder of just how out of reach she'd always be to him, deeper twist of the same fucking knife and he wanted to rage at her, scream at her, grab her and make her see that, see just how untouchable she was, how unreachable, how distant and hurtful and cold, words, nasty words on his lips like You ought to know, Lisa, just look what you did to me--

--but later, sitting beneath the ugly fluorescents in Exam Room One, engrossed in General Hospital and its poor lighting and cheese-laden dialogue, Wilson at his shoulder and the throbbing euphoria of a pattern finally completed ebbing from his veins, House had all but forgotten Cuddy's little declaration of duty.

...until a blue-draped doctor on his tiny TV raised their head and fixed the actor across the gurney with the World's Most Dramatic Look and told his colleague in a tone that brooked no argument: "Because we're doctors. When we make mistakes, people die."

And Greg House's mouth turned up in half a smile that no one else would ever see. You disingenuous, clever bitch, he thought: with pure, unadulterated affection.

He thought for just a minute, just then, that maybe Lisa Cuddy might not be so inaccessible after all.

And Dr. House did so love a challenge.

He was famous for it.