Here we are, first chapter of the doggy story as per request.

As usual, I don't own any of the characters from the show and I definitely don't have a House-dog on leash.

Companion art piece is on my deviantart account, sum of y'all have been over to see me there but there are huddy pictures over there!!!

Seriously, I lie not, I got huddy-ness.

Aye…so, review me.

Chapter 1: Knock-Knock, Shit Happens

House practically bounced up to the clinic desk and slapped his palm jovially on it. Brenda looked up at him with an almost equal measure of glee.

"Checking out?" She asked on a smile.

House smirked and nodded like a ten year old. "Yep." He paused an instant his eyes meeting Brenda's and they said together.

"Finally!"

Brenda flourished her pen over the ledger. They were both under no illusions at exactly how much of a misery each made of the other's life, but this was a happy day for both of them. House was going on vacation.

For. Two. Whole. Weeks.

That was cause for celebration in and of itself, but Brenda was particularly ready to be rid of the man that took it upon himself to pay special attention to her if his favoured target of Dr Cuddy was nowhere to be seen. Which had been happening rather frequently of late. Brenda pondered over that for a moment. It was common consensus among the staff that the two senior doctors hated each other. Brenda had thought similarly at one time, but there was something underlying all the bitching and banter between the two. Not to mention how Dr Cuddy had put her job, and the hospital on the line more than once to pull a certain diagnostician's fat out of the fire.

Oh no, whatever it was that flared so readily between the two was not hatred. Perhaps similar, the line being a fine one and all that, but not hate.

"Going somewhere nice?" Brenda asked absently, filling out the last of the paperwork putting the details straight into the computer lest he called back to sort something if she forgot to do it later. He shrugged, their conversation taking an almost civil turn.

"Somewhere hot with a lot of half naked women and a low drinking age."

Brenda rolled her eyes but hid a smile. She'd never let him know that sometimes his antics amused her. It didn't do to encourage infantile misanthropes. She rushed through the post clinic check up and only faltered at the last question.

"All patients content and charted away?"

House blinked at her. "Sure." He said after a moment.

Brenda narrowed her eyes. She was pretty dam sure the bastard was lying but…if she called him on it that meant she had to suffer his presence a while longer. Her finger hovered over the keyboard a long moment and he held her gaze comfortably with the ease of a practiced liar.

"Okay then." Brenda made her decision and finished clocking the infernal man out.

"Am I free."

"I don't want to see you for at least another two weeks."

"Alas, if only all our partings could be extended so." House lamented hand on heart and Brenda's parting gift was to throw a red lollipop at him.

"Get!"

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"I am so sorry, Mrs Hallowell." Cuddy repeated for what felt like the hundredth time. "Had I known you were here I would have come to the clinic myself." Translation; she wouldn't have let House anywhere near the sweet old lady.

Mrs Hallowell waved a hand as if to dismiss it. "That's perfectly all right, dear. But the young man does need to be taught some manners."

Cuddy's bit back a smirk at exactly how she'd like to go about doing that. Judicious application of his cane to his cranium might finally succeed in beating some sense into him…or fitting him with an electro-shock collar might have benefits. They could have a public button. Insert a quarter and zap a bastard. Brilliant. Get some discipline in there, boost morale and raise money for the hospital. Why had she never thought of this before.

Oops, Mrs Hallowell was talking again.

"You just call him in here to apologise and I'll be on my way." Mrs Hallowell beamed at Cuddy. She was an aged woman somewhere between eighty and prehistoric but still filled with the vigour of life, judging by the way she'd been half treated for a strained muscle by House. A strained muscle produced by slightly overzealous marathon training.

"Ah…about that." Cuddy pondered how exactly to phrase this. Mrs Hallowell tilted her head, her steel coloured bun glinting in the late afternoon light. The wind buffeted outside and red leaves spiralled this way and that. The janitor battled with last week's Halloween decorations and wrestled them inside the storage boxes before carting them inside. "Dr House is…no longer with us."

"He's dead?"

"HAH!" Cuddy clapped a hand over her mouth and shook her head rapidly. "No, ahem, it would solve a lot of my problems, but no. I simply meant he's on vacation. He left this afternoon." Her voice lowered a dangerous note in irritation. "Before he'd finished treating you, apparently."

"Well, that is unfortunate. Perhaps you could call him on his cell phone? Everybody seems to have on these days. I'll take an apology over the phone." Mrs Hallowell offered and Cuddy was entirely inclined to try. The woman reminded her somewhat of a cross between her grandmother and Malifecent from Sleeping Beauty there was a cold kind of beauty in the older woman's face and something a trifle…otherworldly. Those green eyes lanced Cuddy's and her hand was on the phone before she'd fully registered what she was doing. She was dialling the number from memory and holding the handset to her ear without ever breaking eye contact with the compelling woman across her desk.

Mrs Hallowell blinked and looked away. Cuddy felt as if cold water had just been sloshed over her and she shook her head against the feeling. Focusing on the grounding sound of the phone ringing on the other end. It clicked through to the answering service after a few moments and Cuddy let the handset hang in her hand uselessly.

"No answer." She murmured and Mrs Hallowell turned back to her with those same green eyes lancing her in a gimlet stare.

"Then you can just give me the address, dear, and I shall collect on my own."

"Giving out employee information is against hospital reg…" Cuddy found herself entranced by Mrs Hallowell's gaze. She could neither look away nor resist it. She was telling the aged woman House's address without conscious thought. The details emblazoned on her brain from the many times she had contemplated going around the tiny apartment with the express reason of kicking some sense into the man. Mrs Hallowell smiled and rose to her feet. Cuddy stood too and shook her hand. "Good to see you, Mrs Hallowell." Cuddy murmured.

"Lovely to see you too, dear." Mrs Hallowell turned with a swish of her skirts and left the office. Cuddy sat as she watched her go. She blinked rapidly as if finally coming back to herself and looked about her office.

She put a hand to her temple and winced. She had a blinding headache. What had she been doing? Had she been in a meeting. Cuddy stared about her desk for inspiration and came up empty. She looked at her watch and shot to her feet. She had a meeting to be at as of five minutes ago, and it wasn't like she could blame it on House because he was no longer in the hospital for the next two weeks of, what would no doubt be, monotonous quiet.

Cuddy stilled, her hand on the door, something about House. Had she just been thinking about him? Had she been meaning to call him about some last minute thing?

Cuddy rolled her eyes at herself. The better question would be when was she not thinking of House? The man seemed to be on her mind twenty four seven. She scowled at that thought and threw the door open. She was going to her meeting and she wasn't going to give Gregory-damn-House another thought for the next fortnight.

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House looked up in surprise when a knock sounded at the door. It couldn't have been Wilson, Wilson had just left. It wouldn't be his regular woman from the, ahem, agency because it wasn't Thursday and he'd cancelled for the next two weeks and it wouldn't be anyone else that he could think of because no one else would think to trot around and wish him well on his journey.

Especially considering he might need it since even he didn't know where he was going but the car was loaded up and, for once in his life, he was just going to get on the road and see where it took him. He didn't feel like being particularly sociable today anyway.

"Go away!" He yelled at the door. Maybe it was just some Jehovah's Witness come to make his life a misery.

The knock sounded again. Okay, so it was an insistent Jehovah's Witness that was on the other side of the door. House resolved to open the door and give them the glare of doom and send them on their way. He wasn't in the mood. He threw open the door, a blistering insult on his lips to send whoever it was scurrying…and promptly swallowed it when what looked to be a nine hundred year old woman strode past him and into his apartment.

"Dr House, so nice to be seeing you again."

She was old but, judging by the way she moved, she could probably outrun him. Not that it would be difficult, but at nine hundred and change, he liked to think that even he was a little spryer than that.

"Whatever you're buying, or selling, I'm not. So get." House gestured to the door and the woman smiled, a steely glint in her jade eyes.

"No, I don't think so, Gregory."

House blinked at the shiver that went through him at the use of his name. He narrowed his eyes at her and looked her over checking for a weapon. One did not get shot in one's own office without becoming at least a little paranoid. But the old lady had nothing but a huge leather bag slung over her dark sweeping clothes and a faintly cold smile gracing her lined mouth.

"Alright then, I'll play, what do you want?"

"An apology."

House frowned and then shrugged. "Sorry." He looked at her and then the door. "Well?"

She stepped closer to him and met his gaze fiercely. "A sincere apology."

House hissed as if caught out. "Damn. Fresh out of those."

The woman arched a steely brow. "I've met dogs with better manners than you, boy."

"Actually, dogs have impeccable manners, it's the cats that you've really got to watch for. Cat's are even more dismissive than I am." He smirked at her and then she slowly smiled back. A criminals grin if ever there was.

"That is true, dogs at least know the lesson of humility." She glanced around the apartment with a raking disapproving glance. "And affection."

House snorted, where the hell was this going?

"Perhaps you would be better suited to life as a dog. At least until you learn." The woman noted absently and House rolled his eyes.

"Listen, lady, I don't…" House trailed off his eyes going wide when her hand landed on his chest and a shock like a set of defibrillator paddles on full charge went clean through his body and passed out the other side. House shot backwards, the charge causing every muscle in his body to spasm simultaneously. He crashed into the couch and sent the entire leather confection smashing backwards with a colossal thump.

Ethel Hallowell dusted her hands off carefully and stalked to the couch, looking down at the mortal man she's just seen fit to educate. She smirked when the handiwork of that particular spell was revealed.

A huge dog was sprawled on its side behind the couch. It was massive with the ranging build of a hound but of no recognisable breed. Its ears were flopped loosely over its eyes and a thick ebony pelt of shaggy fur covered slim ribs that rose and fell steadily. The hound was nearly completely black but with silvery streaks through the raven. White splashed his mouth and chest, his paws as if he'd dipped them in paint and a lightening score up his right hind leg.

Ethel smirked and wondered if he might like to play fetch with his cane when he awoke.

Then she turned and strode out of the apartment never to be seen again.