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The One With the British Doctor
by Dana
Title: TOW The "British" Doctor
A/N: The story was 100% inspired by Hugh Laurie's guest appearance on Friends, the clip of which you can (and should!) watch right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GbfGbEaEF8. In case you don't watch it, I'm attaching the transcript of those two scenes for your enjoyment... and I do hope you enjoy :-) Much, much thanks to Morgan for the beta and the title, which I find particularly brilliant. Thank you!
Hugh on Friends Original Transcript:
[Rachel's on her way to London to tell Ross she loves him before he marries Emily. She's sitting next to our dashing Gentleman On The Plane]
(Rachel's tapping her fingers annoyingly on the seat.)
GOTP: "Er, er... excuse me."
Rachel: "Yeah?"
GOTP: "If you're planning on doing that throughout the entire flight, please tell me now. So that I can take a sedative." (Mutters) "Or perhaps slip you one."
Rachel: "I'm sorry, I'm , uhm, very sorry. Sorry." (Sigh.) "It's just I'm, uh... I'm kind of excited. I'm, um, I'm going to London to, uh, to tell this guy that I love him."
(GOTP makes bored face and puts on earmuffs.)
*
Rachel's explaining the situation with Ross to another passaenger...)
Rachel: "And I realized all this stuff I'd been doing, proposing to Joshua, lying to Ross about why I couldn't come to the wedding, was all just a way of--"
GOTP: "Whoa, oh, oh, oh! I'm sorry, can I interrupt? You know, I just want to say that you are a horrible, horrible person."
Rachel: "P-pardon me?"
GOTP: "You say you love this man, and yet you're about to ruin the happiest day of his life! I'm afraid I have to agree with your friend Pheebs. This is a, this is a terrible, terrible plan."
Rachel: "But he has to know how I feel."
GOTP: "But why? He loves this Emily person. No good can come of this."
Rachel: "Uh. Well I think you're wrong."
GOTP: (with mock-distressed face) "Oh, no!"
Rachel: "W-h- he doesn't really love her, it's just a rebound thing from me! You'll see."
GOTP: "Fortunately, I won't. And by the way, it seems to be perfectly clear that you were on a break."
*
[\transcript]
*
The One With The "British" Doctor
The thing is, too many years of friendship with House have (god, I hate the word) conditioned me, more or less, to naturally accept behavior from him that I still try to call `quirky', and most people more accurately describe as `deranged'.
For example, one might look at that enjoyable phenomenon of House barging into my office to interrupt confidential conversations with random exclamations. ("You've gotta see this, Jimmy, there are actual green spots on his leg!" or "Demi! Ashton! I still don't get it!" or, occasionally, "Out of peanut butter again!" - presumably just to keep me informed.) I'm sad to admit that by now I take these things in stride.
It was therefore not much of a surprise when on this particular morning, in the midst of one of the most awkward appointments I had had this year, the door to my office was unceremoniously shoved open by a cane.
"You and your stupid bets!" shouted an angry disembodied voice. "I am totally never speaking to you again!"
As quickly as it had arrived the cane disappeared, the door swinging shut with a bang. The woman sitting in front of me jumped; I hardly blinked. "Escaped mental patient," I murmured automatically.
Her forehead furrowed slightly. "Wasn't that--?" She snapped her fingers a couple of times. "Condo? Bungalow? Schmuckface?"
Oh, right. I forgot ex-wives didn't fall for the old `I've no idea who this madman is' line.
"No, that's just what you used to call him," I sighed. "It's House, actually."
"Oh, yeah..." She smirked. "Still alive and kicking?"
"Very painfully, with one leg too many." I didn't even know if I was referring to the leg or the life. "Listen, Susan," I said, returning to track, "I gotta tell you, I'm pretty uncomfortable with what you're asking me for."
Susan stared at me blankly. "Uncomfortable?"
Oh, like it actually had to be justified. "I mean, if you were asking me to treat you it would be one thing. If you were asking me to treat your husband, it would be one thing. Hell, if you were asking me to treat your wife, it would be one thing. But you're asking me to treat your wife who is incidentally the same person I slept with that caused our divorce in the first place! That's just a whole other thing altogether."
Susan just kept staring. "So?"
"So? Medicine and family don't mix. Add an ex to that recipe, and you can be sure something's going to explode. And I don't want that in this hospital, because it would be my fault and machinery is expensive and frankly, I'm scared of my boss."
This actually managed to replace her unnerving expression with one of interest. "Your boss? Is she the one with the--"
"Yes," I breathed, nodding at Susan's breasts. I missed them, occasionally.
Susan whispered appreciatively. "Nice."
Picturing my boss naked in the presence of my lesbian ex-wife, however, was definitely the most awkwardness I could handle in a day, and I was looking for an excuse to kick her out before House or Cuddy found out she were here (possibly by reading my mind) and ridiculed me for the rest of their lives. It was fortunate that the door opened again.
"Seriously, man, never speaking to you again!" the cane yelled.
"I think he wants to talk to me," I told Susan, rising from my chair. "It was aw--uh, good seeing you again, I appreciate your coming, and I'll email you the names of some great doctors."
"James, please, just think about it."
I looked at her pleading face for a moment, and sighed. The preliminary scans looked pretty good anyway - the tumor looked to be benign, but Susan trusted me (with conscious irony) and wanted to play it safe. "All right. I will."
She breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, James. You don't know how much I - both of us - appreciate this. Thank you. Also, have you ever considered donating sper--"
"Uh, no, don't think so, kay bye," I said cheerfully, ushering her out the door. When I spun back around, House was already there. "I know I'm going to regret this for the rest of the day, but for now - thank you for getting me out of that meeting," I said gratefully, moving back to my seat.
It was a sign of House's distracted state of mind that he didn't express the slightest bit of curiosity in what my ex-wife was doing in the hospital. Not that I was about to bring it to his regularly devastating attention.
"You!" he barked, pointing his cane at me. "If only you'd reigned in your uncontrollable passion for gambling a few years ago, I wouldn't be forced to spend my time escaping the clutches of socially-dysfunctional clinic patients!"
"Okay," I stated calmly, "A, you hiding from clinic patients can hardly be called setting a precedent, and B, what the hell are you talking about?"
House drew in a deep breath, and let it out in a frustrated explosion of words. "I'm being stalked - stalked! - by a woman, who, who thinks she had a right to act like she knows me only because I happened to criticize her love life eight years ago, and I never would have even considered instigating a conversation if it weren't for you."
A nagging part of my conscience was whispering that I should feel bad for what House was accusing me of and really, my monthly quota of guilt wasn't near filled, but the larger part of me (the one that remembered who I was dealing with) was in favor of rolling my eyes. "I'm still... drawing a blank." I even took a clean white paper, scratched a square on it, and dangled it between my fingers. "See? Blank."
House sighed with tremendous exasperation - rightfully so, since I was still chuckling at my own joke. "Eight years ago," he said testily. "I flew to London for that conference."
"Okay..." I tried to recall the one he was talking about.
"You mocked my British accent?" he snapped.
"I..." The situation seemed familiar, and suddenly I got it. "The two-hundred bucks!"
"Yes!"
I remembered now. House had insisted that he could pass as British, which was completely ridiculous - his British accent has always been about as believable as Keanu Reeves's acting. The (unavoidable, in these cases) "betcha I can" seemed like a safe bet, especially since I added the complication of him having to act British as well - ergo, be polite and communicative. Dr. Jennings, who was attending the same conference and had a plane seat behind House, was to act as witness and judge whether House managed to go the entire flight without anyone suspecting he was American. "But you won that bet," I reminded him. "I don't get the problem."
"God, I hate it when you're being deliberately obtuse." House started pacing the room, small twitches in his body screaming irritation. "The problem is, your stupid bet got me actually exchanging words with the woman sitting next to me, and you know how I hate doing that. I ended up getting involved -" he made it sound like a curse - "in the pathetic little soap opera she called her life."
"I assume you'll get to the point eventually."
"She's here!" House cried with disgust. "She came all the way down from Manhattan just so I could treat her lamentably-conceived offspring." He had a desperate look on his face now. "I can't get involved in this again, Wilson. I've never met a woman who talks as much a she does. She just goes on... and on... and on... Somehow, I just know deep inside my gut that if I get sucked into this I'll end up sitting around a coffeehouse for the rest of my life and going on incestuous dates with her friends. I can't do it."
It was so rare for House to admit inability to handle something, even as a joke, that I could only take it as sincerity.
"All right," I said finally, resting my elbows on the desk. "What do you want me to do?"
His face softened with relief. "Keep her away from me."
With my lasso? I wanted to ask, but for once it seemed House was openly grateful for something I'd agreed to do and I didn't want to ruin the moment with sarcasm. Instead, I asked him what she looked like.
"Hot," he replied, peering down the hallway through the half-closed shades with the air of a paranoid watchdog. "Extremely, mind-blowingly, pants-tighteningly smoking hot, carrying a small Baby Gap consumer, kind of like the woman walking down the shit she's heading in our direction." House looked around the room frantically and before I could blink he had hobbled over behind my desk and ducked.
There was a polite knock on the door, and very unpolitely it opened without waiting. The person who stepped through was neither carrying a child nor hot, and the only way he could shrink my pants was by over-drying the laundry.
"House!" Foreman growled. "I know you're here."
The cane, which was sticking between my feet, quavered weakly. "House isn't here!" it piped in a high-pitched voice.
Foreman's general annoyance with House was bound to leave him prematurely wrinkled someday, and I suppressed the urge to tell him that as his face set into his usual homicidal frown. "Doctor House, there are patients waiting for you in the Clinic, and if you don't get your ass down there now Cuddy swears she's going to use a nail file to -"
"Going!"
Both Foreman and I took a moment to stare at House in shock. "What?" he asked innocently, carefully rising up from his crouch. "Clinic, patients." He stretched his legs. "Me, doctor. Seems like this thing could work." Three quick strides had him out the door, not waiting for a response from either of us.
Taken-aback, Foreman looked like his world was collapsing around him. "Did that just happen?" he asked nervously. "Because from where I was standing, it looked like House didn't argue about Clinic duty."
The door swung open for the one-too-manieth time that morning, but I could hardly complain - literally now, because my jaw was on the floor. The woman who walked through the door was beyond a doubt the most gorgeous creature I had ever seen, and I could only thank god I wasn't currently married because if she started flirting my bank account would never forgive me.
"Excuse me?" She inquired hesitatingly. "Hi! Did I just hear you talking about Dr. House?"
"Uh." Foreman shook his head. "Doctor... Yeah, he was just-"
"I'm sorry," I cut in, "Dr. House has left for today."
Foreman raised his eyebrows, while the woman - goddess, really - pouted exquisitely. "Oh, no! But I came all the way here to see him, and he was about look at Emma and then he just disappeared!"
"Such a shame," I agreed with a sigh, managing not to flinch at her high, distressed tone. "But you'll be happy to learn he's not the only competent doctor in this hospital, Miss...?"
"Mrs. G--" she stopped, took a closer look at me, and suddenly her expression turned positively feline. "Oh, heck, I can be Miss Greene for you," she murmured in a low, sexy voice. Foreman let out a whistle. I could only try and control my heartbeat.
"Right, then," I said after a pause. "So, uh, what seems to be the problem?"
Greene glided over me, swaying her hips and flicking a lock of golden hair behind her ear.
Foreman cleared his throat. "I'm actually a doctor too--"
"ShutupI'll handle this one." I flashed Greene a charming smile.
She returned it. "Well, a few weeks ago my daughter developed this rash..."
"Your daughter?"
"Yes, Emma--" she froze. "Oh, my god. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod--"
*
"She forgot her daughter?"
I instinctively blocked House's fork, which was slowly edging towards my plate, with my own. "She left her stroller in the hallway."
House rolled his eyes. "I told you she was an idiot."
"She's not an idiot," I protested, "just... occasionally flighty?"
House raised an eyebrow. "Look at you. You're pathetic." He made a swipe at my plate again, and I parried with a beautiful left-handed move that I'd honed to perfection. Lunch break was rapidly becoming a legitimate excuse for fencing with utensils, and it was getting harder and harder for me to pretend I disapproved.
"You know what? You're the one you should be worried about," I pointed out. "Did you actually look at Rachel? She's not just a woman, she's... a tribute to aesthetic perfection. People like that don't walk into the clinic asking for you every day. People like her hang around Brad Pitt, okay? Granted, you're on medications and there's no accounting for your twisted psyche, but if you don't want to treat her you should seriously get yourself checked."
"You know what you are, Wilson?" He threw me a pointed gaze, and answered without waiting. "Shallow."
I snorted. "As opposed to Dr. Sensitivity House."
"Hey, not all of us can forget that a woman is a neurotic, self-centered moron just because she looks hot in a hospital gown."
"Her daughter, and god, what did Rachel do to you?"
"Your Rachel," House sneered, fiercely stabbing a pickle, "led me to the expression of phrases like, `this will ruin the happiest day of his life' and `he loves this Emily person' and, in retrospect, become a British man-Cameron. We were on a break, we weren't on a break, who the hell cares! I spent an entire flight praying for an end to my misery via poisonous snakes."
"You know, only you can..."
I trailed off, and House smirked. It was pointless. There were fifty different ways I could complete that sentence, all of them could be negative, all would be true, and House knew it. I rubbed my forehead tiredly. "You know what, forget it. You're done with your clinic duty, I've got you covered with the allergic kid; let's leave it at that. And will you stop that! You don't even like pickles."
House took an experimental bite from the pickles he had arranged as a toothpick shish kebab, grimaced, and neatly dropped them back on my plate. "Actually, I'm not done with clinic duty."
I glanced up from the half eaten pickle slices I was somehow expected to eat. "What?"
"The patient I was working with had some interesting symptoms, so I told him to stick around."
"And you're here now because...?"
House scrunched his face, as if not comprehending the question. "I was hungry."
"So all this time he's just been-- waiting in the exam room?"
"He's a doctor." House shrugged, picked up his tray and placed it over mine. "I figure he feels right at home."
*
Emma Greene was a healthy girl, and the erratic appearances of her rash indicated nothing more than a simple allergy, probably nutrition-based. Patch-testing on a four-year-old was uncomfortable but necessary, and since Rachel was prepared for spending a few days in New Jersey (outlets) anyway, I scheduled Emma in for a test that afternoon, and offered them the use of my office in the meantime. Because yes, having Rachel Greene place a hand on her chest and flutter, "Oh, you're so sweet!" at me (or at my pecs, it was hard to tell) was worth it.
After the lunch with House I returned to Oncology so I could check on the girls and catch up on some paperwork-- or at least that was the plan. As I passed by Diagnostics, I heard my name called out gleefully in an Australian drawl. "Dr. Wilson!"
I spun around, to be confronted by the truly mortifying sight of the Diagnostics team (thankfully, minus House) all leaning back in their seats, smirking madly, and behind them sitting prettily by the glass desk none other than my obviously fatally talkative lesbian ex-wife. Who had absolutely no business here, and I was definitely going to have to chat with House about Cameron's dangerous habit of inviting random strangers in for coffee.
"Come in, have a chat," Chase invited earnestly, eyes wide with delight. You could tell he was in a good mood - there were hardly any bite marks on the pencil he was twirling. I was doomed.
An instinctive reflex of self-preservation, my hand flew to my pager and set it off. I pretended to look down, and frowned with mock regret. "Oh, so sorry, House needs me for a consult. Maybe next time!"
Turning on my heel, I fled to the sounds of Cameron and Foreman erupting in snickers, and, alarmingly, the sound of footsteps following me. "Wait!" Chase pleaded, hurrying to catch up. I quickened my pace, but he reached me just as the elevator door was closing.
"What do you want, Chase?" I scowled at him.
He smiled innocently. "I'm joining in your consult!"
I grunted. There was a miniscule chance that if I followed up on my act he would just let it go, and maybe word wouldn't get to House and Cuddy, and just maybe I wouldn't have to move to Kurdistan for the rest of my life to escape their eternal taunting.
As we got off the elevator, Chase looked like he was about to burst from curiosity. "So--"
"Shut up, wipe that smirk off your face and act like a professional."
"Later, then," he changed course smoothly, pursed his lips and then politely covered them with a hand, utterly failing to hide his amusement.
I walked briskly to the nurses' station in the Clinic. "Dr. House?"
"Exam room three," Brenda replied without looking up.
"Thanks," I muttered, and behind me Chase echoed, "Thank you."
When I reached the door I didn't bother to knock. "Dr. House, you paged me?"
House was leaning against the wall, absently rummaging through a pack of gummy-bears, and his patient, a tall, black-haired man who looked vaguely familiar, was tidily perched on the cot. Please play along, I begged silently.
House scratched his head. "No, I don't think I did."
Bastard.
"Well," I narrowed my eyes, "I'm here, so I may as well help." I turned to the patient. "I, I'm Dr. Wil--"
"Doctor James Wilson!" the patient screeched. I jumped back, knocking into Chase, who yelped.
Even House looked startled. "Well, this is interesting," he remarked, pleased sadism glowing in his eyes.
Slightly perplexed, enormously dreading the possible outcome of the question, I turned to the guy. "I'm sorry, do I... know you?"
"Oh, so rude of me!" he squeaked, slapping a hand to his cheek. "Ow. Um, I'm Dr. Ross Geller, and it is such a great honor to meet you!" he gushed breathlessly, attacking my hand with a death grip. "I've been a fan of your work for years. It's a shame you haven't done anything recently, but believe you me--" The fanatic gleam in his eyes was truly frightening--"everybody in the field is anxiously awaiting your next masterpiece. Wow. Such an honor."
Oh, crap.
I didn't dare look at any of the others. "Well, I definitely won't be doing any more work if they amputate my hand," I said finally.
"What?"
"You're kind of cutting off my circulation," I explained calmly.
Dr. Geller released it with a frantic apology. "Damn it, I've been looking forward to meeting you for so long, I knew I'd mess it up somehow..."
"Ok-hay, time out!" House interjected, thrusting his cane between Geller and myself. "I'm not asking you, Wilson, because I'm sure this guy's version's gonna be a lot more interesting. So." His blue eyes swiveled to Geller. "Just how do you know our Jimmy?"
Geller gulped. "Jimmy. I can't call you Jimmy! You're- you're James Wilson!" he stressed maniacally, clutching his hands in front of his heart like a love-stricken fan girl. "I mean, you were my hero! And then, right after my third marriage it was rumored that you'd gotten married for the third time, and to a nice Jewish, girl, and it was like - I felt like we were brothers, you know?"
I did not, in fact, know any such thing, I had to remind myself with growing horror.
"So I, um, met J--Dr. Wils--Jimmy...lson? Right, at, aha..." Geller's eyes darted to the eagerly twitching cane with alarm, but his tone was reverential when he uttered those fateful two words from my past:
"Dino camp."
House swallowed. Chase let out a whimper. I buried my face in my hands. Geller, meanwhile, continued. "Not in the same years, of course... When I went, he was already a legend."
"W-why..." House cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, why a legend?"
"James Wilson was the youngest person to ever memorize the names of over five-hundred scientifically-accepted dinosaur genera, the names of all three-forty-seven prosauropod bones, and above all else--" Geller took in a deep breath, covering up my groan-- "he single-handedly constructed the biggest paper mache model of a Supersaurus Vivianae ever built. It towered seventy feet over upstate New Jersey, greeting campers every summer and inspiring them for fifteen years, until one winter it toppled during a snowstorm, and James Wilson, dinosaur prodigy, was said to be so heart-broken that he shunned paleontology forever, never to be heard from again." Geller softly wiped a tear from his eye.
Awed silence stretched in the room. I cold hear my wristwatch ticking, a black fly frenziedly head-butting the window, and the hospital loudspeakers calling Dr. Struass to the OR. Unable to stand it any longer, I finally lifted my gaze to face the humiliation head-on. "Thank you for that, Dr. Geller," I exhaled deeply. "House, buddy, you might wanna hand that over before you hurt yourself."
Wordlessly, House tossed me the gummy-bears. "I think you just cured me of Vicodin," he stated with wonder. "Jimmy--"
"No."
"Jimmy--"
"No, really, don't. Whatever you're about to say, curb yourself."
"But Jim--"
"Seriously, man, control your instincts. Do not speak. Do not say a word. If you've ever valued any aspect of our relationship, remain silent - just, give me a couple hours response time. Give me... time to evaluate real estate in Kurdistan."
"Dude--"
"Dr. Geller, are you a medical doctor?" I questioned, eyes still locked with House, desperately hoping for a distraction.
It worked.
"Um, a medical doctor? N-ooo." Geller fidgeted modestly, flailing a hand near his chest. "I'm a doctor of paleontology."
House's eyes snapped to him. Ah, success. "You're a what!"
Geller drew back. "I'm a doctor of--"
"Don't you I'm-a-doctor me!" House shouted, waving his cane around haphazardly. Chase ducked. "You're a paleontologist! You didn't think this was important enough to mention?"
Geller's eyes widened. "Oh, my god. Do you think I have Prehistoric Protozoa?"
Even House halted. "What? What the hell is that?"
"Well, it's an ancient dinosaur disease," Geller began confidently in a lecturing tone, "hypothesized to have caused--"
"Jesus Christ!" House exploded. Chase was sitting on the counter, watching the show and munching on gummy-bears like pop-corn. "You can't possibly be that stupid."
"So... I don't have Prehistoric Protozoa?" House searched the ceiling with frustration. "Then why is it important that I'm a paleontologist?"
"You told me you were a doctor," House spat. "I thought you had the sense to rule out the boring stuff yourself and come here for a real diagnosis. Instead, I spent a full hour of my time on a simple case of--oh, please tell me you're not a vegetarian."
"Actually, I've been cutting back on meat recently, I've found it doesn't agree with my constitu--"
"--`With your consti--'-shut up, Barney. You've wasted my time on a B-12 deficiency," House proclaimed with disgust.
"Oh." Geller suddenly looked very small. "That's not too bad, then?" House shot him a death glare. "In my defense, for forty-five of those minutes you were having lunch."
I had to admit that after what I had just been through and further grilling that was sure to come, this small exchange was pretty satisfying to watch. From Chase's smirk, I could tell he agreed.
Obviously, my temporary peacefulness couldn't last. At that moment Rachel Greene burst into the exam room, carrying her daughter with excitement. "Ross! Oh, my god, Ross, you do not know who I just bumped into!"
House jerked up at the voice, a deer definitely noticing the headlights ahead. "Damn it, it's her!" He lunged behind Chase, taking cover. "No matter what, I'm not here," he hissed.
"Rachel," I addressed her, pleasantly surprised. "The test isn't due for a couple of hours. What are you doing here?" Stay, I prayed, stay for as long as you like, please make House as miserable as you can until he forgets everything he's learned in the last couple of minutes.
"Dr. Wilson!" she exclaimed, setting Emma down, straightening her blouse. "I was--this is--oh, damn it, this is my husband," she admitted.
"Yes, it was surprisingly easy to figure that one out myself."
No, I was not disappointed at all.
"I'll be gone in a sec, I don't wanna bother you guys with your doctor stuff, but Ross, you won't believe who I just met upstairs!"
"Who?"
"Susan!"
I froze. Oh, no. The odds were... unbelievably underwhelming.
Geller shrieked, "My ex-wife's Susan?"
No. No. No.
"Yes!" she squealed. "Apparently before she met Carol she was married to some doctor who works in this hospital!"
No... crap.
And there it was, out in the open exam room air. Chase started choking on a gummy bear, brought on by the whopping smack on the back House had given him out of shock.
"No way," House slowly whispered with amazement.
I tilted my head back and banged it against the wall, closing my eyes. "Way," I said painfully.
"This is too good to be true."
"Would you believe me if I said that it's not?"
"You've been lying to me all these years."
"Not really lying. More omitting--"
"Carol, Jimmy." I opened my eyes, defeated. House was rubbing the tip of his cane with glee. "I'm pretty sure you said Susan had hooked up with a Carl."
Ross Geller finally made his own connection. "Wait a minute!"
"Yes," I sighed.
"You were married to Susan?" he blurted.
"For a... very... short period..."
"Then gosh!" he squeaked, "We really are brothers-in-law!"
"Okay," I said, trying to ignore the gasping sounds of Chase, who was literally on the floor in hysterics, unable to hold himself up any longer. "Right. So I'm just gonna... go look up the price of camels and mules." I waved my hand in the air vaguely. "You all can carry on without me."
"Oh, no you don't." A cane handle caught me by the sleeve. "You're not leaving me here alone with these weirdoes."
"They are your patients," I pointed out.
House frowned, and apparently the expression struck a note with Rachel. "Dr. House, it's you!" she cried. "I thought you'd left!"
"I did," he retorted. "This isn't really me."
"Oho, you joker." She made as if to punch him in the arm; his murderous glare held her back. "Anyway! This is great. We have so much to catch up on. You know, I was going over People magazine a few weeks back, and they had that, that profile on the doctor from New Jersey who got shot? And there was a picture - by the way, great lighting on your eyes - and all of a sudden I realized it was you! I mean, who'd have thought that the British tightass who warned me against telling Ross I love him would turn out to be the most famous doctor on the east coast? And Emma got sick, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to drop by and tell you how everything turned out! I'll just--Emma's test is in a few hours, so I'll just make myself comfortable here... Anyway, so Ross and Emily ended up getting married, even though he said my name at the wedding, which was this whole big deal. They divorced a few weeks later, because she gave him an ultimatum - can you believe it? I mean she was just threatened because she knew he really loved me--"
"Oh, for god's sake, give me the thing!" House burst out.
Startled, Rachel paused her inexhaustible monologue. I had an unsettling suspicion of what `thing' House was referring to, but Chase was the one who actually went and handed him the child.
"Where's the rash?" House demanded.
"It's on her--"
"You, shut up," House cut Rachel off. "You. Flintstone. Where's the rash? And when were the last couple of times it emerged?"
Geller took a moment to think. "It's usually on the back of her neck, or on her wrists. Sometimes on her ears, or like now, below her collarbone. The first time we noticed it was during her birthday - right, Rach?" Rachel confirmed with a nod. "And then again at the Bing's birthday, and... when we came back from that fashion show? And once, after Joey's new play premiered. I think that's it."
House examined the dry, reddish skin below Emma's throat intently. Then he bent even closer, and... sniffed her. "Do you let your daughter use perfume?"
Completely thwarted by the question, Geller looked to his wife, at a masculine loss.
"Sometimes," she replied, puzzled.
"Sometimes, like when your husband's cheating on you and you're having a girl's night in, or sometimes when you're going out to events, like weddings and fashion shows?"
"Hey!" Geller raised voice with affront.
"Oh, relax, you were entitled," House replied scathingly. "After all, you were on a break."
"Thank you!" Geller declared triumphantly, arms raised-- and then wilted at his wife's glare. "I mean, uh, no, no cheating, not now not ever and the break argument is so last millennium."
Rachel stepped in, taking Emma from House and putting her arms around her. "I only give her perfume on special occasions."
"Super," House pronounced. He drew his prescription pad from his pocket and started writing even as he explained. "Your kid has a fragrance allergy. Keep her away from perfumes, use only fragrant-free products, and take this." He tore up the note from his pad.
Rachel read the note and frowned. "This is just a phone number."
"Of an excellent doctor who lives in New York. Far, far away from here. Good-bye."
"But wait! You can't just spring this on us and then kick us out!"
House narrowed his eyes. "Can't I?"
`Oh, he can,' mouthed Chase, though I doubted they could lip-read through his accent.
Geller looked ready to leave at House's hostile command, but Rachel held back, still clutching Emma. "But... I don't understand what this means. Isn't there medicine for the dry skin or something?"
"Yes," House ground out, poking them with his cane to guide them out the door. "It's called moisturizer. Get out of my exam room."
"Come on, honey," Geller prodded, taking Emma by the hand and leading Rachel out.
"But," she repeated again, tearing up. "I can't believe she's allergic to perfume. My baby's allergic to Ralph Lauren. Oh, my god! My baby's allergic to fashion!"
"Oh, boo-hoo," House snapped, brimming with irritation. "So no one told you life was gonna be this way!" He clapped his hands sharply. "Chop-chop, out the door in an orderly fashion, do not pass Go, do not return. Ever."
The Geller family finally exited the exam room, and House slammed the door roughly behind them, shoulders sagging with relief.
A moment later the door opened again and Geller had my hand in a tight handshake. "I'll call you," he giddily promised- or maybe it was threatened? - and was gone in a flash. (I'd have to remember to tell him about having slept with Carol, sometime, just to keep the guy off my back.)
For a few minutes, there was only blissful silence. I thumped my head against the wall again, and concentrated on five scattered gummy bears littering the floor. House pressed the tip of his cane to his forehead, looking like he was trying to ward off a migraine.
"Well," Chase piped up brightly. "This has been a fun day."
*
I was still in the shower when I heard the fifth ring of my phone. I let the machine pick up, and caught the end of the message just as I stepped into my room, predictably delivered in an all-too-familiar voice.
"...when you leave the House. Oh, and Jim! I'm sorry to hear that Susan dumped you, I say c'est la vie. So let her be a lesbiaaaaaaaaan! There are other fishies in the sea. Love, Mo-om!"
The next day I stepped into House's office.
"You've been quoting `Rent' at me for a week. How long is this going to last?"
"Let me think. Never?"
"House." I laid my palms flat on his desk. "Seriously. It's getting old."
"Don't bother with escaping to Kurdistan either." He leaned back smugly. "I know better Kurdish than you do, I'll sic `em on you like a T-Rex on an Ornithomimiforme."
"Ooh, smart," I scorned. He'd probably spent hours researching dinosaurs, the stubborn jackass. It was time to switch tactics. "I'll tell you what. You owe me two hundred bucks..."
"I'm sorry?"
"Well, as the new data verified last week, you were the one who lost the bet."
"She never knew I wasn't British!"
"No," I conceded, "but according to the terms of the bet, you were supposed to act British, and therefore be polite. And we both know you weren't doing that."
"Because I called her a terrible person? Not relevant. She still didn't know."
"Not relevant?" I tsk-tsked. "A term's a term, and a bet's a bet, House."
House pursed his lips. "This is ridiculous," he scoffed.
"Be that as it may, the evidence says you owe me money." House grumbled something under his breath, and I was willing to bet it wasn't PG. "However," I added.
"What?" House asked suspiciously.
"I am willing to give you the two hundred dollars..." I leaned closer, so that my face was at his level, "...If you promise to finally drop the god-damned subject."
House's piercing eyes met mine for a long, sky-blue moment, and by god I hoped that wasn't amusement I saw sparkling there but a serious consideration of the offer.
"Well?" I prompted hopefully.
Carefully, House drew two hundred-dollar bills out of his wallet, placed them on the desk, and broke into a grin.
"No chance in hell. I'm having too much fun."
~*~FIN~*~
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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