Disclaimer: Nope---don't own it. I want to write Shore & co. about it, but I'm too shy.
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Definitely a Kodak moment
Abdominal pain—fever—vomiting—dizziness—nausea—severe headaches—prurutis
"Patient has some slightly enlarged lymph nodes; sent the results over to Wilson's office—" Foreman shared before a cynical voice interrupted his findings.
"Did you check her teeth?"
House was glad he turned around when he asked this; Foreman and Chase, despite the obvious, looked like a pair of twins with their identical expressions that bespoke of "What the hell?"
"Her teeth, men!" House cried. "Chase, stop snacking on that pencil and tell me how much of her medical history did you take?"
"A lot," the Australian replied sourly, removing the number 1 pencil from his mouth in order to add, "Family was very informative; Mum's side got diabetes, cancer, and one cousin thrice removed with autism. Dad's side of the family has hypertension and asthma. One of Anne's sisters had a cyst removed from her ovary ten years ago, two siblings had childhood cancer, and Anne herself has asthma and a mild case of hypothyroidism. I've got three more pages from the Mum's side of the family, all the way to relatives in the third degree. I'd say that's pretty detailed."
House raised an eyebrow at that; in the middle of Chase's drone of Anne's family history, he went to his office to pick up his red and gray "thinking ball" and was now tossing it up and down in the air. "Mrs. Anne's mother is very chatty—did she say anything else about the daughter who's presently in this hospital right now? Like, what she did, swallowed, slept with, and inhaled?"
Chase looked indignantly at House before replying.
"Anne's on some kind of diet, she's got some cuts from a biking accident—still healing—and she was recovering from an upper respiratory infection she got a month before…"
"And yet you still didn't check her teeth?"
"No—what am I, her dentist? Her sister's one…"
House didn't answer. He was hobbling for the door and to the elevators, heading for Anne's room.
--
The case was solved, yet Cuddy and Foreman had to talk with Anne's parents so that they wouldn't sue after House barged into the room, and—after asking Anne if she'd seen her dentist sister lately, to which she answered in the negative—grabbed her lower jaw and forced her mouth open.
"Tsk, tsk—Andie—" House began.
"Her name is Anne—and what the hell do you think you're doing to my daughter, you bastard!" Anne's father roared. The patient was gagging as House flicked open a light somewhere overhead and moved Anne's head towards it, tilting her head so that the light would hit the insides of her mouth.
"As I suspected," House muttered. "You know, there is a reason why it's called ascorbic acid…"
The moment House let go of Anne's head, a strong hand grabbed his shoulder, turned him around viciously, and a fist went flying to his jaw.
--
Earlier…
"Dr. Cameron's here," Wilson called cheerfully from the double-door entrance to Dr. Lisa Cuddy's office. Its sole occupant and owner glanced up briefly from the pile of paperwork she was poring over, automatically filing the goofy grin on Wilson's face as simply a friend's joy of a returning colleague.
"Well, where is she? I'd really like to see her in person, you know." Cuddy said, raising an eyebrow at him. "Did she bring her son with her? Good, excellent timing—Landers is doing the rounds at the moment; I'll page him so that she can check over Cameron's son."
Cuddy wrote something in a black leather organizer before she stood up and looked at Wilson closely. What the hell is up with that grin?
Her angular, beautiful face registered more confusion when Wilson ducked his head behind the glass-paneled wooden door, looking behind him for a moment, before he opened the door wide for the person approaching Cuddy's office. "She's here!" he said loudly, with a trace of repressed excitement.
The moment Cameron entered the room with Christopher, freshly changed, Cuddy's jaw dropped as she gasped, "Oh—my—GOD!"
Definitely a Kodak moment; Wilson was so glad he dropped by his office first to get his digital camera…
--
Later…
"Ow! Jesus, woman, haven't you heard of something called the hippo's oath!" House sniped. He was making it sound worse than it really was; after Cuddy sufficiently calmed down Anne Mendoza's father, she grabbed House's arm and frog-marched him into Exam room 1 and drew the blinds, even after House said, loudly, into a waiting room full of patients: "How many times do I have to tell you, you sex fiend—I'm not into that!"
"The Hippo—cratic oath?" Cuddy sneered as she sharply dabbed more antiseptic onto House's broken lip, causing the man to wince. "Stop moving, I'm not done with you yet, you psycho! Yeah, I've heard of it—but I forgot about it when Mr. Mendoza let you have it after you scared the living daylights out of his daughter, which I assumed was the time you forgot the Hippocratic oath!"
"She wouldn't open her mouth! I had to prove she had rotting teeth before I can tally it up next to her other symptoms on my whiteboard and file it under 'Vitamin C overdose'—gaaaaah!"
House snapped his head away from Cuddy's ministrations—if a masochist would even call it that—before adding, "And she definitely didn't want to tell her folks she tested positive for diabetes like her mother at her age when her wounds weren't—yow!—healing properly. This is what happens when a kid in an unhealthy family becomes a hypochondriac…"
"I know," Cuddy muttered, patching up House's split lip, cleaning the mess, and retrieving a cold compress from the mini-fridge hidden behind one of the cabinets, which she slapped onto House's face. She looked at the results of her handiwork before continuing, "Hopefully, Christopher wouldn't inherit your need to prove everyone wrong by assaulting them. I have my hopes that Cameron would guide him in the right direction."
House was about to quip about Cuddy's lack of bedside manner when she beat him to it. "You talked to Cameron."
It wasn't a question.
"I did," Cuddy said softly. Until seeing Christopher, aside from the auburn hair, Lisa Cuddy never thought she could actually picture Gregory House as a baby.
--
Earlier…
The moment she got a closer look at Christopher—she momentarily forgot about discussing Cameron's new contract with the hospital—Dr. Cuddy knew who fathered him. The flash from Wilson's digital camera brought her back to the present.
"Dr. Wilson!"
"Sorry," Wilson said sheepishly. "I promise not to share this with House, and to make copies for each of you." Wilson hoped that mentally crossing your fingers would count—
Cuddy glowered at him for a few moments before turning back to Cameron and her son—she found it alarming to see House's look-alike so cute, knowing his father. It's rather fortunate that someone like Allison Cameron would raise him, certain that the younger woman would make sure the little innocent would avoid turning into another Gregory House.
Christopher also stirred something inside Cuddy—a maternal yearning. She stretched out her arms to the baby, "May I?"
Cameron smiled as she handed Christopher over to Cuddy, who carefully eased him into the crook of her arm. Cameron and Wilson looked at each other, a little bewildered—first House, now the formidable Lisa Cuddy, tweaking Christopher's nose and murmuring something to him that sounded like, "You won't terrorize nurses when you grow up, won't you, hmm?" In a cutesy, high-pitched, baby-talk voice, no less!
Wilson couldn't help it; he took another picture in Cuddy's office. House wouldn't have believed him even if he told him.
--
"He's a beautiful baby—hope he doesn't inherit his father's wonderful sense of right and wrong," Cuddy said to him, not bothering to hide how funny she found the situation all of a sudden.
House glared at her. Cuddy just raised an eyebrow at him before she sobered a little as she walked to the door.
"Count this as a piece of advice from…a colleague, House: regardless of the present state of your relationship with her, you do realize she's going to need your help in bringing up the baby. He needs his daddy, and despite your being an ass, you're going to be a good ass about it. I don't think you have enough of your father in you to screw him up."
House still continued to glare at her. Cuddy sighed.
"Landers is the best," Cuddy continued softly. "She and Dr. Cartwright are the best in their fields, and they'll be able to fix Christopher's leg. Count on it."
--
Vitamin C overdose information at: http/www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/uspdi/202071.html