"What happened to your face?" Wilson asked, examining the hand-shaped mark left by Cuddy like it was an interesting exhibit at a trade show. It was several lovely shades of red and purple. "Finally piss off the wrong person?"

"Things got a little rough with Lisa last night," House answered without bothering to look up from his desk. Too busy surfing the net to pay full attention to his late-morning visitor.

"Are there claw marks on your back? Wait, don't answer that. You don't have to say anymore" The oncologist blushed and turned away, trying to think of anything that would get the bloodcurdling image of House, Cuddy and handcuffs out of his head. He had to forget about that or else he'd be wide awake for days.

"It wasn't the fun kind of rough, you pervert."

"It wasn't? Then what happened? Were you two fighting?" Wilson's face collapsed into a frown.

"No."

"So what is it? Did you trip or something and she couldn't catch you and wound up slapping you instead?"

"No, nothing like that."

"But Cuddy did hit you."

"Yes, that she did."

With a tilt of his head, the younger doctor focused all of his attention on his friend. Um...House, is there something you want to tell me?" he asked quietly. Concern dripped out of each and every pore.

"No, there isn't," House answered with a calm and even voice, all the while pecking away at his laptop. "This is between me and Lisa, as in it's none of your damn business and you really don't want to know."

"I never thought Cuddy would do something like–"

"She didn't." The diagnostician's head snapped up, a storm brewing behind his eyes. "If you even think about accusing her of something like that ever again, you're going to have a matching smack on your face from me, plus a few extra."

Wilson let that remark run around his brain for a few beats. "So you're saying she smacked you for a good reason?"

"Exactamundo, dear Wilson. You get a gold star."

"And it had nothing to do with fighting, abuse, or sex?"

"You forgot flying ashtrays. They weren't involved either."

"She hit you, but everything is just fine."

"Yes, everything is. Thank you."

"I don't believe you."

"Then don't," the older doctor replied with well-practiced apathy.

"There's never a good reason to hit someone."

"Especially a cripple, am I right? Before you call the authorities and have Lisa hauled away in shackles, why don't you get the story from her, since you won't leave it well enough alone no matter what I say."

"I will," Wilson said firmly. "I'd like to get her side of the story."

"By all means. She should be the one to tell it since I was asleep when she hit me." House smirked at his friend's wide-eyed shock. The only thing missing was Wilson's hair standing on end. "It was my wake-up call, so to speak. Tell Lisa I said hello."


"The panic in his voice was terrible," Cuddy went on as the oncologist hung on to her every word, fascinated by the tale that unfolded. "Believe me, it was the last thing in the world I wanted to do, but I couldn't stand to listen to it for another second, and I couldn't let Greg go through that nightmare again."

Wilson looked at the fatigue that enveloped his boss and knew every letter of every word she spoke was true. "He wasn't mad at you?"

"No, believe it or not. He was shocked, not that I could hardly blame him for that. Then he thanked me for waking him up before the grand finale. The way he wakes up screaming, I guess my slapping him would be the lesser of two evils."

"He really wakes up screaming?"

"Screaming, shaking, dripping with sweat."

"Damn..."

"It just started right out of the blue, like it fell out of the sky and into his head."

"He's turned into a case. Another mystery for him to solve," Wilson remarked languidly, knowing his friend was going to turn over every rock for a clue.

"You got that right. There's still a whole mountain of articles and papers in his apartment that he's going to look through tonight. He even broke down and looked at stuff from Freud on the internet for a couple of hours this morning," Cuddy said.

"Freud? Now that's funny."

"What's funny?"

"House and Freud? You must be joking."

"Dr. Wilson," the Dean of Medicine said in a low, stony voice as she leaned forward to her guest with narrowed, cold eyes. "If you could look into his eyes when he wakes up, you'd see this is hardly a joke to him or to me. Now get the hell out of my office."