** CHAPTER 9 **

The morning after, House woke up with a throbbing headache and an excruciating pain in his leg. As he was lying on his back in his bed, he tried to open his eyes but couldn't. He needed his pills first. He stretched his arm to the side to get them on the nightstand and hit something with the back of his hand. It dropped on the floor with a loud noise. He sighed, guessing it was probably the sound of the empty bottle of bourbon falling down and shattering to pieces on the ground. Groping around, he tried to locate his bottle of Vicodin and when he finally reached it, he hastily fished out two pills and pushed them into his mouth, tilting his head back to swallow them dry. Rubbing his eyelids with the tip of his thumbs, he tried to force his eyes open and winced as day light hit him.

Staring at the ceiling for a while, he waited for the pills to take effect, then reluctantly gathered the strength he needed to get out of bed. He finally sat up straight, grabbed his injured thigh in his hands and guided it to the edge of the bed where he let it rest, groaning as the feeling of pain awoke in his dead muscle.

One quick look at his clock told him he'd overslept but he really didn't care because – especially that particular morning – he really wasn't in the mood to rush to the hospital. He sighed heavily and tried to push the images that kept on invading his brain since the previous night to the back of his mind.

Ok, she had left. Maybe, he deserved it. Ok, he should have known better. Maybe, it wouldn't take long for him to get over it. Because maybe, it wasn't such a big deal, after all. Pulling himself together, House finally found the strength to stand up and walked to the bathroom to take a shower.

# # # # #

It was almost ten in the morning when House arrived at PPTH. He made his way into the main lobby, limping to the information desk and leaned over to take his mails and messages. He should've kept walking, but he couldn't avoid glancing through the clinic glass door to search for Cuddy's presence there. When he spotted her, facing away from him, chatting with the nurses, it felt like he'd been stabbed right in the heart by another pang of unwanted bitterness. Still, irrepressibly drawn to her silhouette, he found himself unable to look away.

She wore a black pencil skirt, which fell just above her knees and revealed her feminine forms just perfectly. His eyes lingered on her beautiful round ass a little while. He looked up and continued his examination: White shirt underneath a light pink woolen tank top. Her black high heels forced her to arch the small of her back to stand straight and she was doing so in such a natural, offhanded way, her legs crossed at the ankles, leaning with her elbow on the desk counter that he almost forgot to breathe while he stared intensely at her.

Blurry, overwhelming visions of her naked body inside his arms, stretching on his piano, her legs sensually wrapped around his waist, her hips rocking with his hips, her beautiful face, leaning to his mouth, her lips kissing him, the thoughts came tumbling down in his mind all at once and it triggered a train of sensations in his body that would soon probably become inappropriate if he didn't stop staring at her or get out of here. Fast.

She left, remember? a little voice in his head said. Okay. He totally got that! So now, what was the point of standing there? Get a grip, House! he told to himself.

House shook his head to chase the visions out of his brain and looked away. The woman at the information counter had followed the whole scene, turning successively her eyes from him to her, and she shot him a disapproving look, convinced he was again naughtily fantasizing about the boss, just as usual. She was indeed right about the fantasy part, but totally wrong with the feeling that came with it.

House stared back at her, raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes in a purposely provoking fashion that screamed: "Yes, I'm that obsessed! Call the Vice Squad if you're not ok with it!" but he promptly walked away toward the elevator before she had the chance to understand what had just happened.

# # # # #

House entered the conference room and greeted his fellows with an annoyed smirk. He hung up his leather jacket and backpack to the coat rack and walked straight toward the coffee pot, poured himself a full cup and swallowed a long sip out of it, squinting inside the mug, his back turned to his team, purposely remaining silent and ignoring them.

"And good morning to you, too," Taub exclaimed, vexed.

"Oh, little cheating man is in a bad mood this morning!" House sneered. "What is it? Cheated wife still isn't willing to forgive and welcome him back in the marital bed?"

Taub looked up and opened his mouth to answer something, trying to come up with the best, witty comeback to shut House up but he was, fortunately, saved by the bell when someone showed up at the conference room's door, carrying a blue folder in their hand. By the color of it – blue folder meant new patients - House immediately understood that, apparently, things between he and Cuddy had now moved to the awkward stage of mutual avoidance and it greatly upset him. He glared at the unwelcomed visitor: A young man in his mid-twenties, dressed in a suit, who was shifting uncomfortably on his feet at the threshold, visibly uneasy to be here.

"Who are you?" House snapped.

"Hi, I'm Warren Levine. I'm Dr. Cuddy's new assis-"

"Never mind! Don't care. Don't wanna know," House cut him short, dismissively. Pacing toward him, he pointed at the folder with the tip of cane. "What's that?"

The young man promptly handed the folder to House. The poor guy looked really nervous, and it was obvious he was hoping to end the exchange as fast as possible. House narrowed his eyes at him, then glanced at the file without taking it.

"Where's Dr. Cuddy?"

"Err, she's sent me to give you this. She said she's sorry she can't bring it herself, but she's currently busy getting ready for an important meeting scheduled later this morning," the young man reeled off practically without drawing breath.

House took a step closer then squinted at the folder suspiciously. Abruptly, he practically ripped it off Cuddy's new PA's hand and opened it. He rapidly sifted through the pages before slamming it shut and handing it back to the young assistant.

"Well, tell Dr. Cuddy that her so-called case is not a case and that I don't want it."

Without taking the file, Cuddy's PA took a step back, and walked his way out of the conference room, cautiously putting some distance between him and the scruffy, grumpy doctor in front of him.

"Err, Dr. Cuddy said you'd say that and that I should leave it to you, nonetheless," he said, gulping.

Then, visibly unwilling to wait for whatever reaction would come next, he promptly turned on his heel and hastily left the room. House watched him walk away and smirked, thinking that Cuddy had, indeed, read right through him because he didn't want that case. Before he would even consider taking it, she would have to come in person to ask him to take it. He firmly set up his mind on that childish whim and threw the file on the table. Foreman reached out for it and started fumbling through the pages.

"What's going on between you and Cuddy?" Kutner asked, looking puzzled.

"Well, obviously she's avoiding me. Must be because she resents me for dumping her right after our one-night stand last night," House replied provokingly.

House's comeback was said with such cynicism that none of his ducklings suspected he was actually telling the truth. Except for one little detail about who had dumped whom…

"Isn't that the very purpose of a one-night stand?" Thirteen said breezily, not even bothering lifting her face up from the medical review she was consulting.

"Doh!" House said, rolling his eyes. He looked at the others with wide-opened eyes. "Hear that, guys? This girl probably knows more about women than you will ever do. She definitely could teach you some stuff!"

"Too bad you don't do men," he added, turning in Thirteen's direction again.

"I do both," she sassed.

"Ooh, is that a proposition? Well, resign first, then bring one or two or your bed mates with you and maybe I'll consider this."

"Resign? Why?" Thirteen asked, all game.

"Because Rule number one says so."

"Rule number one?"

"Never have sex with someone at work," House said, looking away and smiling bitterly, sounding more serious than he had wished.

Only Foreman seemed to notice the slight change of tone and he lifted up his gaze to study House's face. Thirteen persisted, unaware of her boss' unusual reaction.

"And why is it so?"

"Because of Rule number two!" House exclaimed cryptically.

Thirteen looked intrigued and lifted her eyebrows in disbelief.

"Because if you're having sex at work, then your mind is elsewhere, and patients start to die!" House said, hoping to cut the conversation short.

"You and Cuddy slept together?" Kutner suddenly asked, as if following his earlier point.

"Why, did someone die?" House retorted sarcastically.

Foreman was still looking at him, trying to decipher where this was all coming from. He perceived a slight change in House's behavior. His morning grumpiness was not of the usual grumpy kind. There was something else to it… Disillusion, anger, both?

"No, but someone's mind is elsewhere," he said looking House right in the eyes.

"Oh really? Where's yours then?" House deflected, caught off guard by his fellow's insight.

"Right here," Foreman answered evenly. "Reading a medical file that says we actually do have a case."

Taub and Kutner exchanged explicit glances over the table.

"No, we don't. That girl just had too many drinks. She had trouble sleeping because of the dizziness, so she took some pills, pushed up the dosage, mixed it with more alcohol and then, she OD'd. Plain bore. End of case. Send her to urgent care and tell them to do a stomach wash."

"Tox screen showed very few remaining traces of alcohol and no drugs," Foreman said observing House's reaction. "Her loss of consciousness isn't due to that."

"Bradychardia," House grumbled. "Low blood pressure causes the heart to slow down, causing-"

"Actually, BP's fine," Taub interrupted, thoroughly scanning the file's pages. "House, have you even read the file? It's all mentioned here."

House frowned at him, annoyed, and turned to Foreman, shooting him a contemptuous look.

"Fine!" he snapped. "Run your damn tests! EEC, EKG. Test blood for poison, too, while you're at it. And don't come back here unless you have solid proof that I'm wrong."

Without further comment, he grabbed his leather jacket and stormed toward the exit.

"Where are you going?" Taub asked as House was about to leave the room.

House stopped at the door and, turning around, looked at all of them with an undecipherable gaze.

"Daddy has to go. You'll have to play doctors on your own. So go make him proud!"