CHAPTER 2

House returned to work and a new case was waiting. He and the team were in the early stages of a differential, having run no tests yet and only having the patient's symptoms to go on. His phone rang.

"House, you need to come to my office immediately," Cuddy told him.

"Excellent," he replied, "Should I bring anything? Wanna play doctor?"

"House," she continued without the slightest laugh at his joke, "I am telling you as your boss. Right now." She hung up.

House knew immediately that the Bauer thing was here to bite him in the ass. "Get an MRI and keep checking for any vision loss in the other eye," he told the team. "I'll be back to look at the scan." He started down to Cuddy's office.

When he entered, she was in full force already, tangling it up with Bauer. When House walked in, Bauer whirled on him, yelling "Enjoy yourself, House, cuz this is gonna get ugly, real fast. You think you're so slick, but guess what, asshole? Once your pull your shit outside of your protected little fortress, with no Cuddy there to cover your ass, you're no longer invincible. I'm going to the ethics board about you having the nerve to impersonate me to a group of colleagues."

"That will be an interesting conversation with the ethics board," Cuddy explained calmly, "Seeing as you're the one who stole another person's work."

"Which you have no evidence of," Bauer retorted.

"That you know of," Cuddy threw back.

"If you wanna go in that direction," House joined in, calmly sitting down even though they were both standing, "You, Bauer, have no evidence that I was even present for what you are accusing me of. I didn't have a hotel room. I wasn't registered for the conference. So if you want to play the 'I'm a bastard, but you can't prove it' game, I can play too."

"That will put your girlfriend in the precarious situation, House, of having to lie to officials about you," Bauer countered.

She's done it before, House thought, a little sadly actually. "Bauer, this isn't even going to get that far. As soon as the counter accusation is made, they are going to turn over every rock surrounding your research. And if you did this to Wilson, I imagine there were others. How secure do you really feel about that kind of digging?" he asked.

"How secure do you feel about what happens to both of you if you get discovered impersonating another doctor and that it was endorsed by your superior slash girlfriend?" he was looking at Cuddy now, knowing she cared more about what there was to lose. "How would that reflect on you, Dr. Cuddy, and this hospital?"

"Not well, Dr. Bauer," she admitted, "But neither would having a doctor who steals research from a colleague. I'll let you guess which I think is the lesser of two evils."

Score Cuddy, House thought.

"You two can act as unfazed as you want," Bauer threatened, "But if I go down, I'm taking you both with me. I know House is capable of anything. But you don't have the stomach for this, Cuddy. You're not going to lie to investigators."

"Bauer," Cuddy took a deep breath, "As a human being and as the head of this hospital, you might be surprised what lengths I will go to to protect my good doctors and to get rid of my bad ones." She met Bauer's eyes and didn't even blink.

"I might not," he said, staring at House and stalking out.

As soon as the door slammed behind him, Cuddy released a huge sigh and sunk into a chair. "Damn, Cuddy," House exclaimed, "Nice work. You didn't let him intimidate you a bit."

"I didn't let him see that he was intimidating me," she corrected. "I'm scared shitless about him going to the ethics board with this."

"Look, Cuddy, don't worry about lying for me. I can handle the heat from this. You can't risk yourself," he told her.

"House, I can't risk you either," she explained. "If you had to lose your job you'd drive me fucking crazy!"

"You could be my sugar mama," he reasoned, smiling at her.

"Yeah, and come home to a restaurant's worth of food and files on 'patients' you're treating via internet?" she foresaw. "No thanks. Anyway, that's not even the point. The point is, what you did was technically wrong, but morally in the right. What he did is just horrible. I'll do whatever I have to do to make sure he gets what's coming to him."

"He might be bluffing," House posited.

Cuddy thought about it. "Maybe. But even if you think someone's bluffing you try to get the best hand you can, right?" House looked at her, gears turning in her head. "I have an idea," she told him.