Chapter 21

House stood outside the office marked Dr. Quigley with a pained look on his face. Of all the things he'd had to agree to with the board, this was absolutely the worst. If there was one thing House hated above all others, it was talking about his feelings. He didn't see how he was going to survive three months of psychotherapy.

"Dr. House?" A voice asked.

House turned, startled. The man in the doorway was, he assumed, Dr. Quigley. He was an older man, tall and lean, with snow-white hair. He had clear blue eyes, and a surprisingly deep, but pleasant voice.

"Dr. Quigley." House replied. The man nodded, and motioned for House to come in. House followed, reluctantly.

Once inside, House looked around the office to see what sort of quack Cuddy had set him up with. While Dr. Quigley busied himself with some papers at his desk, House noticed a small television set on a credenza to his left. There was also what looked like an older Nintendo system on the shelf. House smirked a bit. He continued looking about the room, relieved to see there was no couch. Instead he saw two brown leather chairs, facing each other across a small glass table. On the wall behind the seating area, were several black and white photographs, all of a young man playing golf.

"I played on the amateur circuit for a while before I finished medical school," Dr. Quigley said, noticing House looking at the photos. "That was quite some time ago."

House nodded. He figured if he didn't talk, he couldn't be analyzed. He took a seat in one of the leather chairs and stretched his legs.

Dr. Quigley sat in the chair opposite him. Neither man spoke for a few moments. House was beginning to think it reminded him of that scene in 'Good Will Hunting' when Matt Damon and Robin Williams spend their first session just sitting, when Dr. Quigley began to speak.

"I'm not Robin Williams," he said. "I won't let you sit here for the whole session and not talk."

House looked at him in surprise. Dr. Quigley laughed.

"Do you thing you're the first patient I've ever had who didn't want to talk to me?" he asked, amused. "Please. Half the patients I see are ordered here for some reason or another. None of them want to tell me anything, and half of what does come out of their mouths is total bullshit."

House just gaped at him. What the hell kind of psychiatrist was this guy?

"Don't look so shocked. If even a third of the stuff I hear about you is true, you feel roughly the same way about all your patients," Dr. Quigley continued.

"Everybody lies," House replied simply.

"Yes they do." Dr. Quigley agreed. "And do you know who they lie to most often?"

"The IRS?" House quipped.

"Themselves." Dr. Quigley answered.

House groaned. It was like talking to Wilson, but without the beer and a ballgame on TV.

"Look Dr. House, let's set some ground rules here, okay?" Dr. Quigley asked. House nodded his assent. "First, what you prefer to be called? Dr. House or Greg?"

"Just call me House, it's what everybody else calls me." House replied.

"Fine, House it is. And call me Quig; it's what most people call me. Okay, here are the rules. First, we need to acknowledge that you don't want to be here," he paused while House gave him the 'duh' face. "Fine, I accept that. Now you accept this, I don't want you here." House gave a surprised look.

"I have other patients who actually want my help, and believe me I'd much rather be talking to them. But we both have to be here, so the first rule is no bullshit. I won't hassle you about your feelings, too much, and you make the best effort you can. If you think I'm pushing you too hard, just say so. I'll give you a break on whatever it is for the rest of that session and the next one. And if I don't, you can tell Cuddy I'm a shitty doctor and get a new shrink. You make an effort, and I won't tell Cuddy to fire your as. We agree?"

House again simply nodded his consent. So far, he kind of liked this guy.

"Okay, rule two. I don't care about your childhood if you don't. So talk about it or don't, I don't really care." Seeing no resistance from House, he continued. "Final rule is this, pretend I'm your friend. From what I've heard about you, you may not be familiar with that concept, so I'll explain. While you are in here, you can talk to me about pretty much whatever you want. Sports, sex, drugs, the weather, anything. As long as you're talking, I'm listening. But, if you treat me like you treat everybody else, which is to say like dog shit that you'd desperately like to get off your sneaker, you should expect to get treated that same way. Just like a real friend would do. Deal?" Quig looked at House expectantly.

"Deal." House said. "By the way, your bedside manner sucks."

"I skipped that day in med school," Quig replied, "had a hot date."

House laughed. Maybe he could survive this. He pointed to the Nintendo on the credenza.

"Got any good games?" House asked. Quig laughed, and the two launched into a discussion about their favorite video games.

Having survived his first therapy session without incident, House was napping on the couch in his office. He had somehow wrangled Cameron into covering his clinic hours. Actually, it wasn't that hard. It seemed the entire hospital already knew he'd been forced into rehab, so he just told her he was having a rough day and she offered.

Meanwhile, Cameron was really suffering down in the clinic. Normally, she enjoyed clinic duty, but not today. She'd already seen three cases of stomach flu, and been vomited on. After dashing to the ladies locker room to shower and change into some clean scrubs, she was back in the clinic, toughing out her last hour.

She entered the exam room to find a young mother with an extremely sick little girl. The girl looked to be about 10 or 11 years old, and looked completely exhausted and in pain.

"Courtney Pevensee?" Cameron asked. The mother and girl both nodded. "My name is Dr. Cameron. I see here you've got a fever, fatigue, vomiting and a headache."

"We thought she just had the stomach virus that's been going around, but then today when she got up she was complaining that her neck hurt. I'm probably paranoid, but I was afraid maybe she had meningitis." Mrs. Pevensee stroked Courtney's hair softly while she spoke.

"How long his this been going on?" Cameron asked. She was looking through the questionnaire the patient's mother had completed when she came into the clinic.

"About a week and a half," Mrs. Pevensee answered.

"Okay, Courtney, let's take a look. Let me know if you feel nauseous, I'll make sure to get you a basin, okay?" Cameron wasn't looking forward to another change of clothes.

The girl turned over, and Cameron was surprised to see how tired she looked. If she only had the recent stomach virus, she really ought to be feeling better by now, not worse. Cameron began the examination, and noticed while looking in her ears that she was sweating. Cameron took her temperature; it was 103 degrees.

"Has she been exposed to anything else at school, chicken pox, something like that?" Cameron asked, peering into Courtney's mouth. Something about this was making the hairs on the back of Cameron's neck stand up, and she didn't like it.

"Nothing I know of. The only thing going around school has been this stomach virus." Mrs. Pevensee replied.

Cameron nodded her response. She was trying very hard to figure out why this case gave her such a bad feeling.

"My legs feel weird," Courtney said suddenly.

"What do you mean, weird?" Cameron asked.

"Heavy, like I can't move them," Courtney replied. Suddenly, Courtney began seizing. Cameron rushed to give her a dose of Ativan to control her seizure.

House was awakened from his nap by his pager going off. He looked at it, and saw he was being paged to the clinic for a consult. House closed his eyes again; if it was really that important someone would come get him. Not two minutes later, his pager was going off again. House groaned and looked again. The clinic. He shut off the pager and closed his eyes. This time his pager went off within a minute. Annoyed now, House sat up and looked. The clinic again. What the hell was going on down there?

Reluctantly, House got up from the couch, stretched and exited his office to go down to the clinic. By the time he had reached the nurse's station, his pager had gone off three more times. He slammed his hands down on the desk, making as much noise as possible without his cane.

"Somebody better be dying," House barked.

"Dr. House," the nurse said, coming around the desk, "Dr. Cameron needs you for a consult in exam room six. She asked me to…" the nurse's voice trailed off as House was already half-way down the hall.

"Cameron," House barked as he barged into the exam room. "Perhaps I was unclear earlier. When I asked you to cover my clinic hours, I meant that you would handle all the doctory stuff, not drag me down here for it."

"This is Dr. House," Cameron said to Mrs. Pevensee. "He'll be consulting on your daughter's case. Could you excuse us for a moment?" Cameron grabbed House by the arm and dragged him into the hall.

"We need to take this case," Cameron said, handing House the file. House took it and looked it over, then rolled his eyes at Cameron.

"Are you joking? As unbelievable as these words are going to seem coming out of my mouth, the mother is probably right, she has meningitis. Do the LP, and then treat her." House shoved the file back at Cameron and turned to leave.

Cameron grabbed his arm again, holding him back. House looked at her, then at her hand on his arm, then at her again.

"Cameron, just because I don't have my cane any more doesn't mean I can't still get you off me. I'm not averse to simply kicking you in the shins. Let go." House said.

"House, I'm telling you, something else is going on here. The symptoms have been going on way too long for her to just come down with meningitis this morning. Look, call it woman's intuition," House rolled his eyes, "I'm telling you we need to take this case!" Cameron practically shouted at him.

House lifted Cameron's hand from his arm and dropped it. He opened his mouth to snark at her when Mrs. Penvensee opened the door to the exam room and stuck out her head.

"Dr. Cameron? Her face is twitching." Mrs. Pevensee called.

House raised an eyebrow.

"We'll take the case," he said, and walked away.