A/N: Very brief scene. Rather, the prelude to a scene. I didn't mean to break it here, but the upcoming conversation gets complicated (would have been a very long chapter all together, I think), and this is just how much time I had today in and around elsethings. You'll have to take it in the bite sizes that wedge into the schedule. Hopefully more before long.

Here's a story idea for anybody who cares to run with it. Just something that occurred to me this week - not to my muse, but to me. There is a difference. The muse hasn't shown any signs of being interested, and she's in charge of the writing, but I can imagine a couple of ways this could go, and it would make a fun story. So if you wish, have at it. House must go to the DMV. :) Having a House there definitely would have livened up my trip this week to retag the car.

Back to Process, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and thanks for reading.

(H/C)

Cuddy's office door burst open, and House entered and scanned the room in a quick inventory. "They're not here yet," he said with relief.

Cuddy was sitting at her desk deep breathing, preparing for the coming conference. She would have far rather dealt with hostile lawyers or inflexible insurance companies instead. "No, not quite yet. It's only ten till."

"Thought they'd probably be early."

"The correct time to arrive for a business appointment is between five and three minutes before the scheduled hour," she recited. Well-learned lessons from childhood. "They wouldn't forget that, even now." She looked at him as he stood in front of her desk. He was running on pure adrenaline, she could tell, and the crash into the wall had to come at some point soon. She wished he had waited until a routine day following a full night's sleep to start PT. That energy he'd spent was going to be needed before the end of this day. He also looked especially tightly wound at the moment, even more than she had expected, and his leg was clearly hurting. "What's going on, Greg? Sit down."

He dropped into a chair in front of her desk, one hand reaching for his thigh briefly before he caught himself. "Kutner woke up again just a while ago."

"Did you talk to him? Was he any better?"

"No and we think. He was only awake for a minute. Sandra happened to be checking him over at the time. She said he woke up exactly like they'd described, looked like he was terrified but staring at the ceiling at first, not even trying to see who was in the room or where he was. Pulled away from her hand on his arm. She managed to keep his parents from crowding him all at once and immediately calling themselves Mom and Dad this time." He shook his head. "Idiots. It didn't take Mensa to work out what the theme of his delirium had to be. They played straight into it."

"They're worried about their son, Greg. They were just eager to see him awake and talk to him."

"They still should have thought of that. And he's not technically theirs."

"Rachel is ours," she countered. That jolted him. For the first time, she could tell, he considered that morning's episode from the perspective of a parent instead of a doctor.

Then, predictably, he dodged. "Anyway, Sandra tried orienting him to situation this time before anything else, like I'd suggested. She said he did seem to respond to that. He even asked her what his diagnosis was after she'd repeated a few times that he'd been sick." House grinned. "He is in there, I think. Just having a hard time climbing back up and realizing the bad part is over. She answered his question, but he passed out again right after that. I examined him, but I didn't wake him up. Probably get more accurate neuro checks in a few more hours than right now, anyway. He's still got a bit of a fever. I will talk to him this afternoon some time."

"What Sandra said sounds encouraging." Cuddy filled in the gaps from there to his tempestuous entrance. "So you got a call about Kutner and went to check on him and talk to Sandra and only then realized how close it was to 11:00." He didn't answer, but the tension in him was visible, afraid of being misunderstood. "I don't think you would have forgotten all about me, Greg. Besides, I'd understand if an emergency came up. But you should have called to say you'd had to see Kutner and were on the way here now instead of pushing yourself from ICU to try to beat them. We would have waited for you."

In his tiredness, he took it as a more pointed comment on his freshly annoyed leg than she had intended. Or maybe she had made it sharper than she meant; she wasn't sure which. Both of them were on edge. "I'm fine," he grumbled. "Perfectly capable of walking across the hospital. And I did not forget you."

It was at that moment, of course, that the intercom buzzed. "Your parents are here, Dr. Cuddy," her secretary announced.

"I'll be right there." Cuddy stood up and walked around the desk to her husband, putting a hand on his shoulder in silent apology. His muscles felt like stretched, strained ropes. Probably her shoulders did, too. After a brief hesitation, he leaned into her hand, just for a second, then heaved himself to his feet.

"Let's get it over with," he said. He walked right beside her all the way to the door.