"Yep, this looks about right." The woman crumpled the slip of paper, and struggling to keep the stack of books in her hand balanced, stuffed the scrap into her pocket. Job searching was a pain these days, especially with the lack of jobs floating around. She entered the double doors, taking a brief survey of the hospital entrance. "Nice." Ten o'clock, meeting room five. She made her way over to the counter, not seeing the man who was running perpendicular to her path.

"Crap!" She was soon on the floor, books scattered around her. The end of her scarf had settled on top of her face, and she blew it away with a frustrated puff of air.

"I'm sorry, are you alright?" the rushed question came from a man who appeared to be in his late twenties—very distinct Australian accent. The woman rose to her feet, smoothing out her clothing.

"Never better," she said. She gave him a quizzical look, her eyes moving from the man to the floor and back to the man again. "Well go on and pick it up doctor…" her sentence trailed off as she squinted at his name tag, "Chase. I don't drop stacks of books for my amusement." She folded her arms, setting a deep-set glare onto him. Chase let out an annoyed sigh, bending down to stack the scattered books.

"Hey." He looked up from his work, the woman hovering over him. She was young, with very distinct blue eyes. The woman bent down, much to Chase's surprise, and began helping him gather her books. "Do you always let complete strangers walk all over you?"

"No, just the ones that I attempt to walk over first," he teased. She choked back a laugh and gave him a half smile. He placed the incomplete stack into her arms. "It's also not nice to be rude to patients."

"Not a patient," she noted. The woman stood up, and sat the books on the counter.

Chase raised an eyebrow, "A librarian?"

"Nope."

"You're looking for a job, aren't you?" he asked. The woman nodded, tucking several strands of dark hair behind an ear. Chase's eyes widened. "You want to work for doctor House."

"Ding-ding, we have a winner," she grinned. Retrieving the stack of books she glanced in either direction. "Meeting room five is where?" Chase rolled his eyes and pointed to her left. The woman headed in the direction Chase gestured, leaving him standing there gaping.

"Do you realize what you're in for?" he asked.

"Judging from your question probably not," she stated, pushing the door open to the meeting room. She walked over to the nearest chair and set her books down, then went down the stairs to the front of the room where cards with numbers were messily piled onto a table. "Lucky number seven… interesting." She strung the card around her neck, and turned to Chase. "Are you one of his team members?" Chase nodded his head. "Well, I look forward to working with you," she said, extending her hand.

Chase took it, "That's quite a lot of confidence you've got there."

"I'll need all the confidence I can get, because I'm guessing your boss-man likes to stomp that out of people," she replied. Several people began filtering in. "I'm Taylor. Danielle Taylor."

"Nice to meet you," Chase gestured with his thumb toward the doorway. More people were entering, and the room was nearly full, "Should probably get going. Before House comes."

"See you around," said Taylor. She made her way back to her seat and plopped down. The chair next to hers had become occupied in her absence by a large nosed woman with frizzy blond hair. Taylor reached into her purse, pulling out a white, rectangular device.

"Is that a PDA?" The woman on her right asked. Her expression was like someone had just put a carton of spoiled milk under her nose. Taylor flipped the device open, and turned it on.

"No, it's an M-Y-O-B," she responded sarcastically. The blond, number 11 sneered. Taylor's hands dropped to her lap and she rolled her eyes. "It's a DS. It's a hand-held video game system."

"Well it doesn't seem very professional," the woman sniffed. Taylor snorted, inching away ever so slightly from her. Looking back down on her game, she smiled. "Ok Sabrina, I hope you're prepared to get your sorry psychic butt kicked." Just as she entered her battle, she heard the doors swing open.

"Good morning. My name is doctor House. As you have probably noticed, you were all assigned a number. Those with numbers 15 through 27 just so coincidentally happen to be men, and as it would happen, the person who just resigned from my team was a woman," Taylor glanced up from her game. A scraggly middle-aged man with a cane was now standing in the front of the room. He scanned his eyes over the room, smirking. "Sorry boys, thanks for playing. You're fired."

An outburst of murmurs irrupted from the room, heads turning in frenzy. Taylor ignored the commotion, focusing on her game.

"Are you serious?" a man from behind her asked.

"Serious as the plague," House mocked. "And I am serious. Get out!" A rustle of closing binders and shifting feet filled the room as eighteen men gathered their belongings and exited. "Okay! Next order of business—wait, did I mention she was pretty? Everyone likes a pretty girl, so that means…three, five, nine, eleven and twelve are also fired…and two. She's got funny eyebrows."

Eleven, flushed in anger, spoke out, "You cannot deny us the right to an interview based on our looks…or our gender!"

"By any other interview…no, but I'm the one whose hiring you. Well, in this case, not hiring you," said House. He sat down on the desk, and began twirling his cane. "Besides, who in their right mind would want to work for a guy who blatantly called them ugly?" The woman snapped her note book shut and stomped out of the room, the rest filtering out behind her. A few other numbers that were called followed as well. House smiled, "Six of you left then. Awesome. I think that's the most people I've narrowed down ever in one sitting…of course I've only ever done this once before, and I was looking for three team members." House flipped his cane up in the air and caught it. "Gather 'round, campers, don't be shy. Need you all in the front so we can start the evaluation process." Taylor snapped her DS shut, and surveyed the stack of books she had brought along, deciding to leave them where they were. However, she took the top piece of the stack, which was her notebook, and moved down to the front row. She unzipped her purse and picked up from where she had left off.

House began lecturing: "Let me tell you a story I told a group of med students a few years ago about legs. Three patients, six pairs of legs, though for this simulation one pair ought to do the trick," House paused, staring directly at Taylor. The woman on her left gave her a nudge and she looked up from her DS. "What makes you think you're allowed to play video games during a job interview?"

"What difference does it make if I'm playing a game or jotting down useless notes of every word you say like that suck up all the way at the end?" Number four, a very thin Asian woman, immediately stopped writing. Taylor closed her DS, tucking it into her purse. "While I am able to multitask well, you do take some priority over Pokémon."

"Aw stop, you're making me blush," House remarked smarmily. Just about to further his case, he paused, "Got a PSP?"

"Sitting at home on top of my kitchen counter," replied the woman, smiling.

"Huh," said House, scratching the back of his head. "If you know any good games, let me know later. Anyways, middle aged man comes in with leg pain. What's wrong with him?"

"Most likely cause for leg main is muscle trauma," said number thirteen.

"Your obvious answer put the old thirteen to shame," said House.

An Indian woman, number one, spoke up, "Well, shouldn't we have taken a history?"

"Yes, but that only tells us what it tells us. Patient could be lying. Though I give you more props that bad Thirteen replacement over there." House continued spinning his cane.

Taylor scrunched her eyebrows in concentration, "Most likely source of the pain is where the pain is coming from. Check the leg."

"Bing! Two points to Seven. Double Jeopardy bonus—Farmer Brown's got a puncture on the leg…" House flicked his wrist and extended his hand, motioning to Taylor.

"Could be a snake bite," said Eight.

House stared at eight, "I wasn't asking you."

"The guys a farmer, right? He's not that much of an idiot not to know that there are snakes out and about the farm. You're not going to ignore a sudden shooting pain in your leg and not bother to look down at it," said Taylor. She grabbed a pen from her pocket and began twirling it. "Snake bites are common…what did the bite look like?"

"A bloody blotch with some bruising around the broken skin."

"Then it's not a snake bite. A snake bite would have two puncture holes, also likely to start causing a spiked fever or paralysis. So suppose Farmer Brown knew about the bite."

"Why would he know about the bite and not tell anyone?" Four questioned Taylor.

Taylor stopped spinning her pen, "He didn't want anyone to know about the bite. If… if it was a dog bite, it would have to be reported. So on that farm… he had a dog."

"Eee-yi-eee-yi-oh," House retorted, snorting. "Number Seven isn't an idiot. And despite recently graduating from med school, shows much more progress than the students I lectured five years ago." House had stopped spinning his cane now, and begun dropping the end of in the floor rhythmically. "Though I am a little disappointed, we missed a whole bunch of screw ups."

"You said the skin looked like it was bruised?" asked Taylor. House nodded. "If it's a dog bite it wouldn't normally be that serious, but based on your story it probably was. I would clean the bite and monitor it, see if anything abnormal happens."

House ran his tongue over his teeth, "The bruising wasn't bruising, and it's gotten bigger."

"Necrotizing fasciitis," Taylor said after a split-second. "It's very possible for it to live in a dog's mouth. I'm assuming it hasn't spread too much, so start the patient on strong broad-spectrum antibiotics, remove the infected area immediately. If it still doesn't clear up, you'd have to amputate his leg."

"Which they did," said House. "But only after the bite had developed into a large, gaping, rotting flesh wound. You, however, saved the patient's leg."

"I got lucky," said Taylor. She flipped open her notebook, and started scrawling in it.

"And now you're starting to sound like Cuddy," House hopped off the desk, and began to hobble out of the room.

Eight piped up, "You're just going to leave?"

"Isn't it obvious?" House turned back to the six doctors, all of them with their eyes hard pressed on house except for Taylor. "Doctor Seven here has clearly wowed me with her diagnostic skills. So much so that I'm going to keep her on for a week before deciding to hire her. If she just got lucky like she said though, you'll each receive a phone call next week."

"This is ridiculous…"

"Who does this guy think he is?"

The buzzing in the room picked up as House turned around and took two more steps before turning back to them. "Seven—Doctor Taylor, be at my office at six AM sharp. We'll discuss games before the rest of the hommies arrive."

Taylor grinned, and gave House a salute, "Aye Aye, Captain."

XXXXXX

House had hoped the interview would have been short, but he hadn't even predicted that it would have been this quick. He'd promised Cuddy he would meet her for lunch at noon, only for her to remind him that he shouldn't be screwing around with the new applicants, and that he should take his time. As House pushed through the doors, he spotted Chase sitting on a bench: a cup of coffee in one hand and another sitting beside him. What are you doing down here?" asked House. Chase took a sip and sighed.

"Wanted to see how the interview went," he answered.

"Funny, I don't peg you the type to bring me coffee," House quipped. He sat down next to chase, leaning his cane on his good leg. "Already got the color's picked out for the living room."

"You found a new fellow this fast?" There was a bit of shock in Chase's voice.

"Who's the coffee for?" House countered. Chase rolled his eyes and shook his head, picking up both coffees and standing up. House ignored the response, and this time shouted. "Who's the coffee for?"

"To cheer someone up, because you probably weeded her out of your applicants without hesitating and broke her heart," replied Chase. Five distinctly upset women passed through the door one-by-one, until finally Taylor emerged from the double doors, a small smile on her face.

Chase nearly dropped the coffees. "Are you…"

"Team House, real men don't sparkle," she responded wittily. Her smile spread when she saw the cups of coffee in Chase's hand. "Are one of those for me? I like tea a lot better, but the gesture was nice." Chase's lips parted as his mouth stood gaping. Taylor swiftly grabbed the coffee out of the perplexed Aussie's hand and headed off in the direction of the Hospital entrance.

"See you two tomorrow!"