DISCLAIMER: I do not own House, MD.
NOTES: Apparent tetchiness in this fic can be accounted to reading some things here and there. Information for the plastic surgery patients were inspired from www DOT awfulplasticsurgery DOT com.

--

The moment I disconnected from Al, my cellphone rang and vibrated in my hand. I look at the LCD and groan. Knowing the caller, I knew that I'll be asking Al for a rain check on that "meeting her soon" thing.

"Medina," I say, injecting as much weariness in the tone as possible. (Did I mention that I am lousy at hellos?)

Dr. Warrick Page's—Dr. War to his closest friends and colleagues—deep chuckle reverberated in my ear. "You miss me that much already? I'm touched—how's Luz and Dominic?"

"On their way to wedded bliss," I reply. "Surprising, knowing my sister's reaction to doing nothing—allergic."

"Fantastic," Dr. War remarked.

Something in the way he said that made me pace around my room and testily say, "Cut the pleasantries, Dr. War. The only time you dial this number is to give me work. The only difference in this phone call is that you're buttering me up. And the only reason you're buttering me up is—oh no…"

"Medina…"

"Mrs. Womack's new tits turned into stone again?! She's the Medusa of silicone implants! I told you we should've given her the saline—"

"It's not Mrs. Womack!"

I pull the cellphone away from my ear before Dr. War's yelling provides irreversible ear damage. "Are you going to keep yelling at me?" I yell into the lower half of my phone.

I hear Dr. War's tinny yell of "NO!" come out of the receiver. I place the receiver on my un-yelled-at ear and ask carefully, "Is it interesting?"

"Oh yeah…" Dr. War drawls, and I'm all a-tingle with anticipation.

--

When I returned to Princeton, Dr. War immediately had me assist in the case of one Debbie M, victim of two cosmetic surgeries gone bad. Her "before" pictures showed her as a pleasant-looking girl with wide, thin lips and high cheekbones. The "after", unfortunately, left her with "lips like an anus" and "inability to smile due to presense of long, hideous, jagged, DEEP dimples" (not mine—I'm reading out of the form Debbie filled out while waiting her turn—the spelling is hers as well). The money she's getting from the lawsuit will be paying for the fixer-uppers (no pun intended).

"I just wanted to look like Angelina Jolie!" Debbie wailed while I examine her face. "Everything was fine—I was beautiful and popular until my lips shriveled up and the Miranda Trenches appeared on my face!"

"Marianas Trench," I mutter out of the corner of my mouth.

"WhatEVER!" she snarled.

I told her I was done. I walked out as fast and calm as I could to wash my hands as quick as possible before I come up with a witty retort that will have Dr. War's clinic coughing up the dough next. I took my sweet time washing up, forcing Dr. War to console Michael Jackson's new twin Debbie and explain to her what will be done to correct the mistakes. Personally, a guest slot with Dr. Phil or Maury, but Dr. War told me to "cool it".

If only this is the interesting case Dr. War told me about, but it isn't. We also got to meet "Mr. Man-droid" (a "straight" man who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars "reinventing" himself with just about every cosmetic surgery known in the medical world) who wants his pectoral implants to look more "manlier" instead of the miniature girly boobs they turned into and Mrs. Tremorton, a 40-something breast cancer survivor who wants new breasts now that she's in remission.

It is because of Mrs. Tremorton that I agreed to cut my San Francisco trip short. I enter the room and find the slender, pale woman holding her robe close to her body. It looks like she's cold, but her trembling lips and tense body language tells me otherwise.

I learned quickly from numerous survivors before Mrs. Tremorton how hard it is to feel comfortable in your skin after losing part of you that makes you a woman.

I smile and ask, "Have you decided on a cup size yet, Mrs. Tremorton?"

--

Things got pretty hectic at Dr. War's. I already informed Al about that, and she's cool with that because she of all people understands, being in a similar situation working for a big-shot jerk like Dr. House. I know—I'm working on making people look good while Al works on making people feel better—but that's what keeps our friendship solid. We're not, nor ever will be competitors in advancement because our specialties differ so much. Our work provides an endless supply of conversational fodder for our carefully scheduled girl-talk sessions, taking a break from our respective lives by taking note of the other woman's interesting patients.

It's a doctor thing, I guess.

Al and I managed to find a common free day a few days after the New Year. For reasons born of hormones or stress or both, we agreed to meet back at the hexagon-shaped pizza place. I'm ready to vote on the hormones when I entered the pizza place; I find Al at our old table, resting her head on the red and white paper placemat.

Uh oh.

Al raises her head carefully as I take my seat across from her, my jaw slowly dropping. Al looks like shit—deep circles around her eyes, more crucial weight loss, and parts of her neck that weren't successfully covered by long auburn hair had the telltale red imprints of large hands.

I place both my hands on the table and look at her in the eye. "I am going to rearrange his face—!"

"A patient attacked me," she cut in wearily. "And I'm quitting."

Well, that's one way to cut off a tirade.

"Why?" I ask. I pick up the menu and gestured for some service. Without looking at the menu, I order a plate of pasta for each of us, a large pitcher of beer, and a small pepperoni pizza. I didn't forget the disastrous mistake I made the last time we were here—medium-sized pizza AND a plate of pasta each. Yikes!

"What made you decide, Al?" I ask calmly after the waitress left. I prodded and poked Al's forearms until she swatted my hands away and forced herself to sit up and glare at me.

"He's killing himself, Joy," Al said softly. She didn't look at me when she said this, choosing to stare at her hands while she twiddled her thumbs. "I went to his place while he was suspended—did I e-mail you about that?"

"Yeah—a rehab deal for a dwarf girl's life—who's not a dwarf, but a regular kid with a tumor in her head." I shake my head and ask, "Did I get that right?"

Al nods. "What I didn't tell you was that House had been cutting himself for relief."

I stare at the beige wall behind Al's head, trying to recall something—"Causing pain to relieve pain?"

"Actually, cutting to release endorphins, which helps relieve the pain." Al raises a hand and begins to rub her left forearm. It takes me a moment to realize that Al is giving me additional information.

"Here you go, girls," the waitress pipes up (not Miss Red of the previous year), clearing a space in the middle of our table in order to place the pitcher of beer and mugs there. Al and I murmur our thanks as she leaves.

"So, you're leaving because he's finally convinced you of his insanity? What, he hasn't been insane before?"

Al glares at me. "He's in pain."

"Yet, he's a brilliant doctor, a fucking genius. He knows what gives people ticks. He's so damned smart, he's going to jail all by himself. Excellent, my hero!"

I'd say more, but the look in Al's eyes stops me. I inhale deeply and exhale slowly; as her friend, I have the right to find out once and for all if she can go through with this plan.

"Allison," I say in a low voice. "You can do nothing for this man." I gesture at the marks around her neck. "How did he react to that?"

"He didn't say anything about it," Al mutters. "But he did have that trial; his mind is somewhere—"

"When your co-worker stole you article, did House do anything about it?"

"No; he told me that—"

"When he told you 'I love you', did he mean it?"

Al was weakening. "I refused to take the HI—"

"When his ex-girlfriend came back, did he pay any special attention to you?"

"No—he was chasing Stacy Warner," she says in a subdued tone, which then brightened when she added, "He freaked out when Dr. Sebastian Charles was a patient at the hospital."

Crap. "Why'd he freak out, Allison?" I ask.

Al shrugged. "I don't know—I was trying to convince Dr. Charles to take some meds to relieve him of some discomfort as the TB progressed, and we were holding hands. Next thing I knew, House went ballistic inside his room."

I snort. "White man try steal Jane from Tarzan?" I said in my best Captain Caveman impersonation.

Al tries hard not to smile. "That's terrible and cute, Joy."

"I'll try to stick to my day job," I deadpanned.

The food finally arrived. I waited until the waitress was out of earshot before saying, "I'm going to regret this someday, but here's my advice: don't go through with the resignation, Al."

She raises an eyebrow at me. "Why?"

I sigh and bite into my pizza slice. "You've done it before, remember? How will it look if—and I do mean if—House manages to find you and convince you to stick around? It'll make you look like a flake."

Al raises her chin in the air and sucks in a strand of spaghetti. "I've thought of that," she says in a superior tone of voice. "I called Dr. Yule at Jefferson—he told me that there's another opening at their Immunology Department and told me that I can start as soon as I get everything settled here. I also sent my resume to other hospitals as back-ups—I can't fail."

I look at her skeptically—and with hope. "What about—?"

The triumphant chin went down a few notches, but the look was still there. "I looked at the resumes of the old applicants. I called half of them; half are already hired somewhere or weren't interested. The other half is interested and asked me when they could start. No way would Cuddy say no to my resignation now."

I'm still dubious; it's apparently on my face when Al added, with finality, "I've already hugged him goodbye, and he doesn't like it. No way is he going to convince me to come back."

--

It's been three weeks since Al made that momentous decision. We planned R-day carefully: obtain leave of absence from Big Boss Cuddy in order to go to interview at Jefferson. Hand over letter of resignation after a successful interview with Dr. Yule. Kiss asshole boss goodbye. Find another place for girl talk meetings.

I feel so proud of Al—she's finally getting away from the source of her heartache. If there's anything I can say about House, it's that he's put her through so much shit and fire, she's ready for whatever life throws at her the moment she hightails it out of that hospital.

Norah, the receptionist at Dr. War's clinic, looks up smiling as I enter.

"Finally got that boyfriend, huh, Ligaya?" she teased. She's the only one aside from my mother and grandmother who ever calls me by my birth name—and pronounces it correctly.

I grin at her and reply, "Not yet. It just feels so good helping people out, it's finally pierced into my skull." I reached out for the files she handed to me. "New patients today, Miss Norah?"

"Just one, Ligaya," Norah said in a motherly-hen voice. "He's filling out the forms as we speak. I let him in the examining room already, poor thing. His leg is hurting him so badly."

"Hurting—leg?" I whisper.

Then I shake my head—no way, impossible!—but I had to know. I speed-walked to the examining, praying quickly that Dr. War wasn't in yet and that it wasn't who I think it is. There are loads of people with hurting legs—hurting after an accident, hurting in different places in the leg, taking something other than Vicodin for the pain…

I open the door and look inside.

--

Is it House? For real? Find out soon!

P.S. - If I'm hurt, who'll continue this fic?!?