House arrived at work at his normal late hour and he run into Nurse Brenda almost as soon as he set his foot inside the building. The clinic was full of patients and House was the only one who either wasn't in the clinic already or didn't have an urgent patient waiting for him.
"Get your butt to the clinic, now," Brenda insisted. She sounded almost like Cuddy which made House grin. Brenda eyed him suspiciously and asked: "What?"
House didn't say anything at first he just bent towards Brenda and kissed her full on the lips. The action was so unexpected that Nurse Brenda didn't even react to it. She just dropped the files in her hands and stared House with wide eyes. House straightened up, grinned even wider and said: "Sorry, I was just feeling all warmed up." Then he sauntered to the lifts and towards his own office.
Brenda stood rooted to the spot trying to understand what had just happened. "All warmed up?" she repeated to herself and suddenly she, too, grinned from ear to ear. She had remembered the House-warming gift she and the other nurses had given to Dr Cuddy. Obviously Dr Cuddy had decided to use it and apparently to a very good effect! Brenda turned to go back to the clinic and realised that it was still full and she was – still – a doctor short. She stopped smiling. Drat the man!
House was still grinning as he got to his office. He disposed of his bag and then went next door to get his first mug of coffee. As he walked in he found his team sitting at the table perusing a file and Wilson was standing next to them. On the white board there was a list of symptoms.
"Who has touched my markers," House demanded. "Oh, wait, I know that handwriting. Can't read it, but I know it."
"Don't try House," Wilson told him. "I happen to know for a fact that you can read my handwriting. Unfortunately you can read it even upside down."
"What is unfortunate about that?" House wondered. "There is many a piece of interesting information I would have missed were I not able to do that."
"Yeah, and each one of them has been none of your business," Wilson pointed out.
"But they were still interesting," House insisted insouciantly.
"As is this case," Wilson brought the conversation back to the relevant point.
"Abdominal pain, swallowing difficulties, enlarged lymph nodes, arrhythmia, fever," House read the symptoms. "Looks like an infection of some kind."
"Yeah, but what kind," Wilson demanded. "Finding out is your job now."
"Since when have you been my boss," House complained.
"Since Cuddy went on maternity leave, as you well know," Wilson reminded him. "Besides, this gets you off clinic duty, so I don't know what you're complaining about."
"Fine," House sighed taking up a marker. "So, any ideas team?"
"He has had a few tests done already," Chase said looking at the file. "If any of them are correct, it could be a parasite: Leishmaniasis, Malaria even. The problem is that we cannot find any way he could have been exposed – and yes, we did ask about sexual partners, too. And we did it when the wife was not present."
"You have been busy," House noted. "Since he is a guy, I think we can trust him as far as his sexual escapades go. Men seldom lie about sex if their lives depend on the answers. Women may want to rather die than hurt their loved ones. That of course means that our guy may not know everything about his sexual partners, so let's not completely discount anything. Anything else come to mind?"
"Toxoplasmosis, Myocarditis," Petra shrugged. "Even Esophagitis."
"That's two opinions, then," House accepted. "We just need the opinions from Dr Cameron and everybody has had a say."
"He could have some coronary artery anomaly and the infection causing the fever could be secondary symptom," Cameron said. "Though I agree with Chase, we should look for a parasite. Some parasites don't cause problems until years later, so he may not even remember the circumstances of the exposure."
"Ok, you have alternatives," House nodded. "Go, test! Especially try for any and every parasite you can think of. And be quick, before the arrhythmia becomes worse and kills him."
"If we test for everything you want," Petra informed House. "It will take probably at least 24 hours to get it all done. And that's with us all three working on it."
"Better hop to it, then," House shrugged. "You know what they say: Arbeit macht frei."
All but House observed how an icy silence descended over Petra. She stopped dead and turned to glare at House: "I would appreciate it, if you refrained from being flip about Concentration camps."
"Fair enough," House nodded almost making Chase and Cameron dislocate their jaws. Wilson, however, sat down and buried his head in his hands. House turned to face Petra. "I'll keep it in mind should I ever desire your appreciation. Now, can we go on trying to save this patient or was there something else, personal and irrelevant you wanted to share?"
"My great-grandmother is a Holocaust survivor," Petra informed him tightly.
"Good for her," House responded heartily. He paused to muse for a moment and then went on: "I wonder if she ever met my mother's Uncle Jozef."
"Her uncle was in a concentration camp?" Petra was suddenly feeling almost ashamed. Maybe flip remarks were just House's way of dealing with that part of his family history.
"I suppose you could say so, in a way," House inferred. "Obersturmführer Jozef Van Husen worked for the Gestapo. I believe at one point his duties did include inspecting the Concentration Camps."
A stunned silence followed that announcement. Chase and Cameron turned to look at Wilson who was still holding his head and shaking it at the same time. Obviously none of this was news to him, though that still didn't mean that House actually had an uncle Jozef. Petra, however, was staring at House only.
"You descend from a Nazi?" The question was full of loathing.
"You need to pay better attention," House admonished her. "We don't descend from our uncles. Unless there are some very twisted skeletons in the family closet, that is."
"Ok, so you don't descend from him," Petra wasn't feeling very forgiving. "But you do share his blood."
"True," House accepted. "That I do." He was watching Petra like she was an interesting specimen under a microscope.
"Are you expecting me to just go on working like I didn't know you come from a Nazi family?" Petra asked indignantly as House didn't explain anything else.
"Are you a doctor?" House asked her.
"Yes, I am a doctor," Petra snapped. "You know perfectly well I am a doctor."
"Then yes, I do expect you to go on working on our patient," House announced unconcernedly. "Our dying patient, I might stress."
"You can't really expect me to work for you anymore!" Petra was flabbergasted.
"Fine I'll accept your resignation. You can work your two weeks notice in the clinic. In fact you can go there right now," House ordered briefly. "They could use some help and our patient certainly doesn't need a doctor who puts her itsy-bitsy feelings before the care of a patient."
Petra glared at House. Chase and Cameron were standing at the door observing the scene. They didn't really know what House was up to now, but they deemed it better to stay out of it. There was no knowing what might make it worse. Wilson was almost moaning in distress, but he still didn't lift his head. He knew trying to curb House when he had the bit between his teeth was useless. Petra tossed her hair.
"Fine, I'll go to the clinic," Petra huffed. "But you might tell your minions to test for Trypanosoma cruzi too, if they are testing for parasites. It's possible to get that from blood transfusion as we don't test for it since it's so rare."
"Chagas disease," House nodded. "Very good. It's common enough in South- and Central America, and there are cases every now and then among the Latin population."
"Well, that's it then," Petra said tightly and stormed out of the room.
"House," Wilson finally lifted his head. "Did you really have to do that?"
"Does your mother really have an uncle who was a Nazi?" Chase wanted to know.
"Yes, she did," House answered. "Uncle Jozef is dead by now, and that is all you need to know. Go, do the tests. And don't forget the tests for Chagas."
Cameron apparently wanted to say something but Chase pulled her out of the room with him. Wilson shook his head at House exasperated.
"You just have to push, don't you," Wilson stated.
"I just wanted to see her reaction," House shrugged. "And I have to say, it was fairly good."
"You can't throw something like that at people just to see their reactions," Wilson complained.
"Why not?" House asked. "I did it to you."
"Yeah, but I already knew you better then than Dr Gilmar does now," Wilson insisted.
"But this isn't about her reaction to me," House explained. "This is about her reaction to an unexpected piece of information and how that affects her ability to care for a patient."
"And what good did that do?" Wilson nearly shouted. "What does it matter that you know how she reacts to something like that when you just fired her?"
"It satisfied my curiosity," House suggested.
"You..." Wilson threw his arms in the air and stormed out of the room, too.
-----------------------------
House was in his office playing a game when Cameron walked in. She had a sheet of paper with her. House got an immediate sense of déjà vu.
"I need your signature on this recommendation," Cameron said as she gave the paper to House.
House took a pen and signed: "I heard there is an opening in the Penn. Applying for it?"
"How did you know?" Cameron wondered.
"You always do," House pointed out. "Especially when I have done something to upset you."
"This has nothing to do with you," Cameron denied. "Other than you told us to find new jobs."
"So you're perfectly ok with Uncle Jozef?" House doubted.
"None of my business," Cameron replied – lying blatantly. "But if you want to talk about it..."
"No, I don't," House stated and turned back to his game. Cameron hovered in place for a moment so House looked up again and asked: "Was there anything else?"
"No," Cameron shook her head. "Nothing." And she walked out.
That, however, was not the end of interruptions for House. Cameron had barely had time to get back to the lab where they were running the tests when Petra walked into House's office. She, too, was holding a piece of paper.
"Your resignation letter, I presume," House observed.
"Yes," Petra responded biting her lip. "But before I hand it to you, I need to ask you something."
"Ask away," House invited. "I'm not giving any promises about answering, but then that doesn't mean you can't ask. And since you're about to leave my employ I cannot really order you about anymore, can I?"
"I can accept your position that nothing should get in the way of patient care," Petra was obviously finding it difficult to talk about the subject. "Should I find some unsavoury fact about my patient, I would need to set my feelings about it aside and still give my best to the patient's care. Ideally I would, of course, refer him to another doctor, but that is not always possible. However, a patient is someone I deal with for only a short time. You are someone I need to associate every day, all day. Before I decide to hand in my resignation, I need to know more about your Uncle Jozef. I need to know ... I need to know how you feel about him."
"Sorry, I left my feelings in my other pants," House replied. Then he sighed and put away his game. "I never met him, I never knew him; he died before I was born. He is as abstract and irrelevant to me as his brother, Gerben Van Husen. I never met Uncle Gerben either. He was shot by the Germans for hiding Jews and helping them escape from the Netherlands to Sweden. They are ancient family history. Just names in my Grandmother's memory. There is nothing personal about them to me."
"Then why did you tell me about him?" Petra was totally lost.
"To see how you react," House said. "And you reacted pretty well. Even when you were huffing and puffing with indignation, you still came up with a possible diagnosis. Well done."
"You do understand that I hate you," Petra stated calmly.
"I don't care," House shrugged. "Hate me as much as you want as long as you don't let that get in the way of your work and as long as you do what I tell you to do."
"So why should I stay?" Petra wondered.
"Because I can teach you to be a better doctor," House asserted.
"There are others who can do that," Petra pointed out.
"Yes, there are," House accepted. "Only they will not push you to your full potential. Only with me will you find out how good a doctor you really can be."
"Modesty is really not one of your shortcomings," Petra announced almost bitterly.
"Modesty does not come into this," House said. "I know what I know. I know myself and what I can do. Nobody is served well by my denying my skills and knowledge. Sure, it would be easier for people's egos if I pretended to be lucky instead of brilliant. But my business is not to save people's egos, but their lives. So, are you in or out?"
"I'm in," Petra vowed. "And I promise I will not let my dislike of you get in the way either of my care for the patient or my career."
"Fine," House nodded. "I'll stand warned."
---------------------------
When House got home that evening Cuddy was waiting for him.
"What were you thinking," She demanded. "Why did you make Dr Gilmar resign?"
"She didn't," House placated Cuddy. "She is still working for me. She just hates me now."
"Oh, I'm so relieved," Cuddy scorned. "Why would you go out of your way to make her hate you!"
"Well, now that you and I are an item, I couldn't run the risk of her falling for me that way Cameron did," House explained with wide-eyed innocence.
"You really are impossible," Cuddy sighed. "You will give me a full account of it all tonight."
"In person or over the walkie-talkies?" House asked hopefully.
"In person," Cuddy responded, though there was still some belligerence in her voice. "But you better make it good."
"Which one?" House leered. "The account or the in person?"
"Both," Cuddy told him. "Because you really need all the help you can get to make me accept this one. Now, come along, your kids want to say hello to Daddy."
"In the kitchen?" House asked as he followed Cuddy.
"As always," Cuddy smiled back.