A/N: Hullo !!! This is a companion fic to afflicted, it has the same sort of funny yet serious housish nature to it. Another one-shot that takes place at no particular time in the spectrum of things. Just a really bad day for Cuddy, and really fun one for House.(in my opinion it's one of my best) HUDDY!!!!

Nefertiri/ISW

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Work, Not Play

Sometimes, when things are getting out of hand around here, I get a little over zealous in my efforts to end the all reigning jackass that House can become if not properly contained. In all honesty, he's a lot like a time bomb. If you clip the wrong wire the whole squadron goes to hell when he blows up in my face. Of course, he doesn't go down without a fight; kicking and screaming the whole way. And then sometimes it gets to the point where I just can't deal. Today hadn't been one of those days, no au contraire it was a glorious day. A day when House was almost a non-existent in my life That is, it was up till about two seconds ago.

"I demand another doctor for my mother!"

"Let me guess, Dr. House did something with out your permission," I said to the poor woman.

"Chemo Therapy! She doesn't have cancer!"

"Nooo, of course she doesn't. She has death, and you do know that death is hereditary, right?" House. The asshole, what was he up to now? Yeah, you guessed it making my entire existence miserable.

"House," I said to him in that voice with that look that says to him, not again you don't so don't try me cause I'm peeved right now.

"What, what was I supposed to do?" he's acting incredulous.

"Call a consult!" I say like it's the most obvious thing in the world. It is the most obvious thing in the world.

"A consultant is someone who takes a subject you understand and makes it sound confusing, otherwise, everyone would call consults," He replies in the know it all and I - know - you - know - I – know - it - all tone of voice he has perfected when talking to me in situations like this. He certainly has to do this an awful lot, and I'd certainly hope, with the amount of time he does spend talking me up that he'd have perfected it by now. But I had to reply eventually. And he was right, I sort of was wondering if he was right.

"House, don't argue with me, and give this woman full authority over what happens to her mother in my hospital!"

"Look Cuddy, there are three sides to any argument, there's my side, your side and the right side. None of those three mentions anything about a disgruntled daughter of just another idiot patient getting any say in our argument. You know that I have my reasons, and you know that I'm right," again, he's indignant. But the daughter is too.

"Dr, Cuddy, I want another doctor for my mother's case!" But, as always, House won't back off.

"Oh give me a break! You think your mother's pretty bad of right now? Well cheer up, cause the worst is yet to come, that is if you don't let me continue treatment for-,"

"House!" I just have to yell at him, that was uncalled for.

"Cuddy!"

If I were English and a man, or rather if I were an Englishman I think I'd have called him an indignant pert. He certainly thinks my ass is pert, and my breasts probably look perky to him. Or it could be the other way around, with House you never know. Again, I had to respond, it's my job and duty and this poor woman's close to tears.

"House, I mean it," It's a lame excuse for a come back, but he knows that I actually do mean it and that I'm saying what I honestly and truly mean to say.

"So do I Cuddy. Obviously this woman doesn't want her mother to live to see her 70th birthday. Where there's a will, there's usually five hundred eager relatives waiting with bated breath,"

"That was the last straw House. Clinic duty. Now, before I have to break open the separate file I keep for legal expenses needed because of you," And your unkind, unethical, ways. And yet…And yet again, how did I ever like this man before? Well that's not too hard to understand. Well, maybe for you…

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After House had left, I watched which way he turned, and yes, he was going back to his office; just as I had figured he would. I quickly consoled the daughter, who was probably just as ignorant if not more so than her patient mother, because, I had an inkling, House was probably right. I told her to hold on just a second and rushed myself as fast as my heels and short, tight, professional -looking skirt would let me.

I came up to the office and I could already hear House's rough gravely voice, slightly accented from having spent so much time speaking other languages. He and his new fellows were talking together. Foreman was the least happy of the bunch.

"Usually, when you're right, no one remembers. When you're wrong, no one lets anyone forget," House was telling them. "And everyone make mistakes. The trick is to make them when no one's watching. That way, when you're wrong, no one knows enough to remember that you screwed up," There was that slight pause that told me he was letting his 'lesson' sink in. "Now go and start the treatment again,"

No one had moved. House stared at them incredulously . "What?"

It was Taub who spoke up. "Even you don't have that kind of money! That check will break your balance, turn up void! Where are you gonna get that kind of money?"

So that was the slip of paper he had been waving in their faces.

"I'm gonna do a lot of clinic hours," he replied dryly. After a pause he continued "That's why I always borrow money from a pessimist. He won't expect it back," another pause. "Who'd you think I'd get it from? Cuddy? A bonus in my pay check?"

So he was talking about Wilson. I would have gone to warn him but if I wanted to get House, I'd have to be good. That meant no warnings for poor Wilson quite yet. If House really intended to even bombard him. It could just as easily have been a ruse to get his new fellows scared out of their wits. And he had been doing that lately. It was defiantly something for me to ponder.

I waited for him to get a distance ahead and then sped up to catch him. It had to look good, as always. And so far I hadn't been caught. And so far no one had died, well almost no one.

I heard the footsteps coming after me before I saw the owner of the feet. It turned out to be Taub. He was following House with a gait that suggested he was on the brink of urgency. I suppose that house must have been threatening to get rid of him again and his job was on the chopping block, quite literally.

I could hear House, and apparently he had heard Tab too, so I thought maybe he had heard me. But after waiting for Taub to catch up to House who was going at a relentless pace for a cripple (yes, I do in fact make cripple jokes) I decided I was safe from him for the moment.

He was speaking. "Many people quit looking for work when they find a job," he said gallingly. I wish Taub would punch him, instead of sucking up to him.

"What if there's nothing wrong with her, what if it's just the extreme conditions and protein overload. We could have everything, she could be fine, and there could be no underlying cause. She hasn't experienced any other symptoms, nothing is progressing here, House, she's fine. We should keep her on fluids and then send her home after a night,"

House had stopped walking. "House, we don't need to do this, she's fine. The underlying cause is that there is no underlying cause,"

"If you had said that the underlying cause was that there was no underlying symptom, then you'd be right. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something. And since, as you say she's fine it means that we overlooked something. The something we missed was the underlying cause and that is that I don't know what the underlying cause is. Which is why we're going to go find out,"

By now he's slide the door open with his cane and is hobbling inside. I'm supposing that it's the first time he's actually seen his patient. I've caught up to them and can just see House from the back where I'm positioned behind the shades.

"Hello. By now you are wondering who the strange man with the cane that is taking the fancy medication off of your IV is. I am Dr. House. I'm here to tell you that you are not fine, yet. Which is why I'm taking you off all your meds. You are now only on fluids. And if what I think is wrong with you actually is, then in about half an hour, we'll know,"

"And where's my daughter?"

"She's not allowed to be in here right now, you're special, you get the attention,"

"Really?"

"Yes. Trust me,"

What's coming next I know won't be good. When House says 'trust me' like that, I know that it can't be good. Not a single bit.

"Always remember," he says to her, "You are unique, absolutely unique," here it comes, "Just like everyone else,"

Offended silence follows.

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He'd given me the slip. Once and a while I think that I agree with House about nurses. One told my newest assistant that she had seen me outside of one of House's patient's rooms, and low and behold she finds me and takes me away to do my job. Which is of course what I had been doing in the first place, she just wanted me to be doing the more important kind of work, sort of. , once I got back, House was of course no where to be found. I checked most of the usual places: Wilson's Office, the faculty lounge, even though his soap doesn't come on till four, Exam Room Three, the Men's Room on the Third Floor, Coma Guy's room, and the Autopsy Lab. No such luck. Cafeteria – Ditto. Even his own office was empty, and his ducklings hadn't seen him. One last place. And yes, I found him. Eating the lunch I supposed Wilson had ended up paying for. I vaguely wondered at that point whether it was still worth it for me to let Wilson know about the check. I guessed that my efforts would be futile. I'd let it be for now, and pay for it later in guilt. I figured he had come down to the morgue to think and eat because it was oddly enough a good lace for that sort of stuff. Lonely. Inhabited by dead and rotting corpses that could have been buried 'neath someone's Rhododendron Bushes, if you get my mean, cadavers and all that.

Yes, again he was eating. No, it actually wasn't a Rueben, this time he was biting into an Italian style sub. They must have gone out, and that made me sure that Wilson had paid for his lunch, unless, maybe what Wilson said was true. House had seen a psychiatrist. And although he had said that it wasn't working I'd decided that was only because Wilson had found out. That's the thing about House. If he even remotely decides to do something good form himself and one of us finds out then he had to get rid of it, flush it out of his life like it's all the Vicodin he's killing himself with. And all we have to do is care and he spoils it. Just one 'good for you' and it's over. And it doesn't only hurt him, it hurts Wilson and I, too. Personally. It's also bad for his team. And I can't help but wonder, if we did just leave well enough alone, would he take care of himself for once, with no one to do it for him? I doubt it to much to take the chance. I care about him, too. A lot. We both do. And he knows it. But he negates everything. Why? He doesn't even thinking about all of this has gotten to my head, and a migraine is forming. If I'm going to have to take on house later then I don't fell like dealing with him right now. If he's right he'll get paged soon enough and be out of my hair. I hope. House once told me that if everything was coming my way, then I was obviously in the wrong lane. He also told me not to argue with a fool because the people watching might not know the difference, and the people watching were important. I've ignored the latter of the two for a long time, otherwise I'd never argue with House. Today, I've decided that for the time being I'll let him be, I'm NOT a thing House didn't say was the one thing he could never do. Always forgive your enemies - Nothing annoys them as much. At least that's what they say. In this case, House is the enemy and either I'm the forgiver, or Wilson is. The statement of course isn't completely true. House and Wilson made up, and House wasn't annoyed. He'd missed Wilson. House invokes a lot of feelings in people. They can stem anywhere from hatred, to annoyance, to disgust, to mild dislike, to terror, to worry, and caring. For Wilson and I worry and annoyance are the two biggest. We worry collectively about House about 24-7. And yes, that is bad for us, but He'd be dead by now if we didn't. Once, Wilson told me that House had said dealing or messing with him was a step removed from suicide. At first I didn't get it and practically put myself and Wilson and the team on suicide watch. Even I could see the relief was plain on my face when Wilson told me what he had meant. But we still both thought it was ominous. See, that's what I mean about worrying, he even so much as says the s and the u and we're both pointing pistols at his heart, daring him to so much as move.

And that's why I have migraines. It's not from running the hospital; it's from caring for my best doctor, because I worry that he'll do something that could hurt himself, and that this time he might not wake up. He's stuck a knife in a wall socket, been shot by an angry former patient's widower, been in a bus crash, had a heart attack, a cracked skull, and a brain bleed the same day, and deep brain stimulation not even a week later. He'd been on Methadone and fell asleep almost killing himself, and just recently gotten in a motorcycle accident on the way to his out of town is why I have migraines. This is why they invented extra strength non-drowsy Tylenol. Tylenol – If you are Dean of medicine at PPTH and have to deal with a near suicidal brilliant genius employee, named House, then we are right for you. Comical, yet so true.

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So he was going himself to get the patient ready for the procedure. I had been right about House being right about his newer theory, and wrong about him being right about the old one. He had gotten paged and the patient was seizing. They went with Autoimmune, it fit the best. It was also NOT the answer.

Again I was stuck watching from in between the shades, and listening. "So, we know I was right about being wrong," he says.

Poor old lady. "What do we know?"

"Nothing, except that you're dying, fast," Typical.

"God will watch out for me, he hears the call of his servant," Religious, that's bad for the both of them, from House's point of view.

"So you think that there'll be something better afterward?" So far he seems polite enough, respectable even. I should have known better. The patient couldn't have guessed, but I wish for her sake she had.

"Yes, I do. God keeps heaven for those who do well on earth,"

"Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. You believe that this life is just on big test? Cause if it is, I don't think I'd like a god who'd test us when most of us wouldn't even make it into the waiting room,"

And here, I know him just well enough to see that he's pulling from Revelation, by Flannery O'Connor. And he's done a very nice job of it too. Although it's a twisted way of looking at it, it's true enough. And it's brought silence to the room. Today he's not in the mood to make fun of believers. Today he's, well depressed isn't the right word. Today House is deflecting.

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Again, I had seemed to have lost him, till I realized that it was just nearing four. Prescription passion time. Oh goody. I try his office first, then the lounge. Last but usually the one that revels my missing employee, the comatose floor, in Coma Guy's Room. How about that. One Coma Guy pays for Cable.

With that migraine and all of those serious thoughts going through my head I'm in no mood to be playful. Professional is the best thing I can e right now. "House, get back to work,"

"But they're just going to have the big reveal! Will Brock choose Anna? Is he the father of the twins? I need to know!" he whines. He's in a bad mood.

"Don't' you watch anything worthwhile, like the news?" I ask, knowing full well that the answer is a big fat NO.

"The evening news is where they begin with 'Good evening', and then proceed to tell you why it isn't," he begins as the screen changes to a less interesting commercial than the previous one for Britney's Circus Tour." They say things like join the army, you get to visit exotic places, and meet strange people, and then kill them. And this is supposed to be good for you?"

I look up from House to the words flashing across the muted screen. Go Army. Army Strong. I can't help but think that he's somewhat right. But still… He's deflecting internally again.

"Do your job, House," I say before I turn and walk out. He will eventually.

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Sometime between when last I'd seen him watching commercials and now House had gotten up and done his job, and during that time had his Eureka! moment. And now I got to watch him dish out his diagnosis to the mother and daughter. He was in a much better mood now, as always.

"Basically, I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder," he explained metaphorically so that the two could understand. "If your Kidney's back up again, you can scream louder," he's cruel when he's happy with himself. But then again, who isn't?

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I've finally found him again, the bastard. Right were he should have been, sort of. He's in the clinic, but not doing his duty. He's sitting in the waiting room, reading a magazine, People or maybe it's just got a People cover, for all I know he could have Playboy plastered to his face.

I've done my little strut up to him. That important walk that I've never had to work hard to perfect, the one that I was born with. My walk says 'Cuddy's the boss' all over it. That's something more than once House had acknowledged freely, along with all the good hard work I did to get a job where I could put it to use.

I'm standing in front of him now. It's time to make him pay. And it never gets old, which is why we've continued to bicker and bitch at each other for so long. We actually enjoy beating on each other with that slight sense of sexual tension and browbeating humor, as always. But this time I go for the serious approach.

"House, get your lazy ass up out of that chair and into Exam Room One, so help me I will make your poor sorry ass go without Vicodin for a week,"

He's acknowledged the fact that I'm here, let the battle of wits commence.

"But Doctor Cuddy, I am but a poor cripple, and cannot work," this is in his best faux Shakespearian sounding tone. It's lame, but funny.

"They say that hard work never hurts anyone, and if you do work, you get paid. Who knows maybe I'll pay all the cripples who work in Vicodin?"

"Even though they say hard work never hurts anybody why should I chance it? I might fall, like Icarus did,"

"Icarus had wings and a cliff to fall off of, you have solid ground and a cane," he's play pouting now. Soon he'll start-

"Please, mommy? Can I go out and play now? Pleeeease?"

Like I was going to say, he'll start with the mommy stuff, which is pathetic, and yet…And yet. No, no and yet, it's just pathetic. But I'll respond in like anyway, and he knows just what I'm thinking.

"No, not till you've finished your chores, and then you can go out and play," I've given the smiling condescending Motherly look in response to that one way too many times. I've head that one way too many times. He's already formulated a comeback and it's on its way out of his mouth right now.

"But mommy, it'll be to dark outside by the time I'm done," there's more pouting going on. He's at his best when he's in tune with his inner child, or his outer child, which ever you prefer.

"To bad so sad," I've had enough of the joking around now. Devil Woman's working the night shift, as House would say. And yes, today when I woke up and put on this sexy little red two piece suit and the pointy, sexy red heels, the devil said, ' Oh shit, my mistress is awake,'.

But now he's back into his Playboy or whatever, ignoring me completely. I grab it right out of his hands. He's in for a lecture now; I've had enough of him for one day.

"Look, House, just look, for once at all the people here, busy people, who know that they aren't important enough and rich enough to not do their jobs, working their asses off. Now tell me, why aren't you?" His smile is back all of a sudden and I know I'm in for a real witty comeback.

"I like work," he says, "I really do. It fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. These people really do have the work ethic for it. How about I conduct a study?"

"Exam Room One. Now," At least he knows that the game is over. He's stood up and is walking dutifully over to the exam rooms. But as he begins to turn the handle of the door of Exam Room One he turns and looked at me. This was going to be bad. In the loudest voice he could muster he shouted for the entire waiting room to hear (no surprises there),

"Dr. Cuddy! Have you mixed up your little red pills with my little blue ones?!" As if he'd admit to needing the little blue pills. As if.

But then. Shit. The hospitals newest donor walks in. House's comment came just in time. Just in time for Party Pants' Martini break. And he knows it. I'm smiling, too. That's the worst part. I'm sure he can see it through the back of his head. Maybe, he turned and looked, and I'm too busy being red in the face to notice. But either way I know he's smirking on the other side of that twisted head of his. And I'm still smiling. Shit. And he's doing the slight turn of his head before opening to door to the exam room. Yep. Smile's still there. And he's seen it.

And once again, Shit.

~Finn~

A/N: So Review, please!!! It goes back and forth a bit between funny and serious. Was it too much, was it perfect? Characterization? It is by far one of favorite, so don't disappoint me! My BFF Amazing beta is The Elf!!!!!!! She read this aloud in chipmunk voices, and we screamed with laughter because she was envisioning little chipmunks running around PPTH in human clothes (one hobbling with a cane and had stubble!!!)