ok, here's officially the first chapter, since the last was an intro. I think I did a good job with Cam/Chase/Foreman well, but I'm not sure Wilson's lines were completely in character. Tell me what you all think.

Chapter 1

Boredom

"Late again," Chase said casually as he tossed House's ball up in the air.

"I wonder what's wrong with him," Cameron queried. "He's been late every day this week."

"He's House," Foreman interjected in a condescending tone of voice. "There haven't been a dozen days this year when he wasn't late."

"I know, but hasn't he been acting strange lately?" Cameron argued. "I mean, he has me answering his mail…"

"…and me reorganizing his filing cabinet," Chase cut in, as he continued playing catch.

"Exactly," Allyson finished. "House doesn't do these types of things to us unless something's wrong."

The look on Foreman's face betrayed his disagreement over this point, but he said nothing. And so the room went quiet, with only the intermittent sound of House's ball softly landing in Dr. Chase's hands to break the silence.

It was true, Foreman reflected, they had not had much work to do in the past week. Ever since Stacy Warner had quit nine days ago, House had been unwilling to give them anything but busy work. He had refused to look at any of the dozen or so cases that were offered to him, which in Foreman's opinion should have provoked threats of pay docking from Cuddy. Strangely though, no amount of listlessness or disrespect out of House was enough to illicit an aggressive response out of her these days. All because of the whole ordeal with Stacy, people were now giving preferential treatment to House, as though the crotchety old jerk were in some way vulnerable. He shook his head slowly. When were people going to stop giving House a free ride?

"Do you enjoy driving us all insane?" Dr. Wilson asked challengingly. "This is the fifth day in a row that you've been a half hour or more late."

"What, did Cuddy make you my watch dog?" House jabbed. His tone was different, more bitter, and with none of the mockery that his voice was usually rife with.

Wilson ignored him and pressed on. "How about we play a game; you keep arriving late, and we'll see how many days it takes for Cuddy to fire you."

House just rolled his eyes and stepped into the waiting elevator.

Puzzled by this response, Wilson stepped in after him. "It's Stacy, isn't it?"

"Stacy Lee? No couldn't be. Haven't met her. But I hear her turn-on's include guys with canes who have annoying best friends. You know, you're right, maybe I should send her a fan lett…"

"You know who I mean," Wilson cut him off. "Ever since she left, you've been showing up late, refusing to take cases and avoiding talking with your friends." His confidence rose audibly as he realized he was on to something. "You've driven the love of your life out of your life for the second time, and now you can't live with yourself. So instead of talking about it like a normal human being, you've decided to run away from life, and since your job is your life, you've run away from that."

The elevator opened, and House stepped out. Determined to get in the last word, he turned to Wilson. "Stop playing psychologist. You suck at it. I don't need help, the only thing I need are my meds."

Wilson held the elevator door open, hoping to prolong the conversation. "You need to start doing your job before you get fired," he said simply. Then an uncharacteristically nasty smile crossed his face. "Find a case to work on, or I'll tell Cameron all about your secret sensitive side that can't bear to be without your true love, and I'll sit back and watch as she tries to comfort you."

All Wilson could see before the elevator door closed was the resentful sneer that played on House's face.

Feeling suddenly energized by Wilson's threat, House picked up his lop-sided pace. As he quickly hobbled into his office, Cameron, Chase and Foreman all turned in their chairs to face him, evidently bored to the point where his fifth consecutive late arrival was a matter of interest.

"Where have you been, we were beginning to get worried," Cameron said, obviously ignoring Foreman's snort of dissent. The sound of metal sliding along the table drew his attention to her left hand, which was playing host to a diamond ring. Judging by the way she was prominently displaying her hand on the table, the ring was clearly new.

"Slept late," responded House matter-of-factly as he limped over to the table carrying a stack of file folders.

"Wait…wouldn't your leg wake you up when your Vicodin wore off…" questioned Chase in a misleadingly confused tone of voice.

"Shut up, lover boy." House shot back as he began browsing through the files.

Now it was Foreman's turn to be confused, as he raised his eyebrow while he glanced first from House to Chase, then from Chase to Cameron.

"Come on, people, there's a cripple here in need of help!" House said impatiently, as he continued flipping through folders.

"What happened to the House who was trying to turn his three over-qualified doctors into personal secretaries?" Foreman asked skeptically.

"He got bored and decided it was fun to watch you yap while he tried to find you something to do," House said sarcastically. "Dig in. You are to find the most interesting case in this whole pile of melanoma patients and paraplegics."

"How about this one," Cameron asked. "thirty year old burn victim, whose skin is having trouble regenerating."

"Too boring."

"Stage three pancreatic cancer patient…" Chase started.

"Too depressing…send it to Wilson."

Foreman, who had just started searching read for a moment and then showed House one of the many files lying on the table.

As he looked at it, House's eyes grew a little more intense. "Not bad…"