8:49 the next morning…
She loves you, yeah yeah yeah, She loves you, yeah yeah --
House pounded the snooze button before the moptops repeated themselves again. The only time he ever slept until his alarm went off was after a night of drunken debauchery. Turns out alcohol is a depressant.
Trying to tell himself he didn't have a headache, he reached for his morning dose and then got up, shuffling/hopping caneless to the bathroom. An hour later he was contemplating breakfast. The crucial hangover morning threshold had been reached. Did he forgo breakfast entirely, like his stomach wanted him to do, or did he eat something heavy, the greasier the better? The thought of pizza or a sausage biscuit turned his stomach, but he knew it was the only way he would have a halfway decent morning at work. Good thing he didn't have any big cases right now. He'd probably be in the clinic in the afternoon again. Groaning, he decided on a sausage biscuit and, reaching for sunglasses and helmet, walked out the door and to his bike, contemplating where to stop.
Another hour later, House struggled open the front door and walked past Cuddy's office to the elevators, still wearing his sunglasses, trying to blend in with the woodwork and not bounce too much and attract attention. He thought briefly of those nature shows with the camouflage bugs with fake eyes. Cuddy. If I thought you'd screwed up because you were drunk, I would have fired you. House once said that to Chase when he claimed his mistake was the result of a bad hangover. The one person who had the power to fire him couldn't know about this current example of what appeared dangerously similar to a lack of professional responsibility.
It wasn't till he was at the door to the conference room that House remembered that Wilson, whom he'd called and hung out with late into the night after he'd left the bar, ought to be in much the same condition as House. Wilson was another person to avoid until after lunch.
The night before, laughing and drinking at home with Wilson as a cheesy horror flick with half-naked cheerleaders paraded across the TV screen (twice – they replayed the DVD when it went back to the menu), House had everything he wanted. Good friend, for once not nagging him, and for some reason not bailing out early, pleading that it was a school night. Good scotch, good feeling, or lack thereof.
Inside the conference room, Chase and Cameron were doing what suspiciously looked like paperwork.
"Shouldn't one of you be taking care of my mail?" House asked by way of greeting. "And where's Foreman? Downstairs shining shoes for some extra crack money?" Not even pausing to acknowledge the outrageousness of that last question, House turned and limped through the door into his own office, not turning on the lights.
Just then, Foreman appeared. It seemed as if he'd been waiting in the hallway for House to show up.
"House, we've got a case. A referral from Princeton General, from Marks in the ER. A guy who presented at the clinic yesterday with abdominal pain and was sent home. He had a bleed in the stomach lining and respiratory complications."
House froze. Acting casual and battling a sudden wave of hangover-induced nausua, he asked, "What idiot released him?"
Foreman consulted the file in his hand, and for a fleeting moment House thought back to Hamburglar guy.
"Johnson. It was around 3 yesterday."
Relieved, House reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. The nausea passed. "Well, gimme the file, and go get some images of the guy's stomach. And a chest x-ray. Those jokers at Princeton General couldn't find a third nipple."
Close call. But not close enough. Instadiagnosis wins again! House thought.
After lunch, still waiting on test results from non-Hamburglar guy, House decided to round Cuddy off at the pass and begin his shift in the clinic uncoerced. He was really feeling much better, or at least his head and stomach were. His leg hurt like a bitch, of course, right on target with the ever-so-slight upward slope the pain had taken these past few weeks, and listening to mindless slackjaws for a couple of hours would be a welcome distraction.
Juggling a Thermos cup of coffee and a patient file in his left hand, House took a deep breath and pushed into the exam room with his left hip. Just as the elderly woman opened her mouth to speak, his pager came to life, shrilly announcing its presence on his left pants pocket. "911 Ulcer Foreman" it read. Without a word, House dropped the patient file on the counter, about-faced and strode to the elevator. This could be an interesting development, and probably didn't involve Metamucil. With an impatient glance toward the door to the stairwell, House waited one full minute for the elevator to come down.
As he neared the room of the Diagnostic Department's newest patient, House blinked. Through the frenzy of activity in the room, he could nearly make out the patient's face and body type. Coming to the doorway, he saw him – it was Hamburglar.