I feel like a tool – I completely forgot about this story! But I do have another chapter, and am actively looking for a co-writer for this one, must get over to the House forums for that.

Love. –Anna.

Chapter 7.

Thirteen's Perspective (don't forget, she's in House's body)

I wasn't entirely certain why I'd done what I did, but a big part of it was wanting to get House into trouble. I knew that Cuddy would approach him (seeing him as me… damn it was hard to get my head around that one) and be sympathetic, before hunting me down for a severe tongue-lashing.

What I wasn't expecting was to finish two hours of clinic duty without being interrupted, before the pager I'd been given started to go mental.

"need you for diff. idiots not taking me seriously stupid boobs. come in. tell them I'm right and we can be home by four"

Gee whiz, I wonder who that could have been from?

I dropped the last patient file into the tray on the nurses' desk and made my way to the office, taking the elevator and wondering how long I was supposed to wait in between ibuprofen doses – the tablets I'd taken that morning had barely put a dent in the pain radiating from my thigh.

I found my team sitting at the conference table, the three boys staring at the girl like she'd grown a second head.

"We need to get him onto a steroid treatment, can't you see? It'll fix the breathing problem and give us access to see what's causing the rest of it. House! You agree with me, don't you?"

"Steroids would just make it worse! A broad spectrum antibiotic would work better." Foreman argued, looking from me to the girl with her mouth set in a hard line, hedging his bets on which of them 'House' would side with.

"Oh, and why don't we put some leeches on his neck at the same time, Foreman? Because they'd do about as much good as an antibiotic when the problem is clearly viral! House, back me up on this one!"

I wasn't really in the mood to argue with anyone, my leg was killing me and I'd been spit up on by a six-month-old whose mother thought it was a good idea to feed him cow's milk, in spite of a family history of lactose intolerance and the fact that he was, you know, six months old. I was beginning to understand why House avoided the clinic – the pain in my leg put me in a bad mood from the get-go, dealing with idiots who did idiot things and expected me to fix the results just made it worse.

"Shut up the pair of you and show me what you've got."

"Hey!" The girl objected, I just couldn't think of her as House, so instead I labeled her Hadley and decided to treat her like I'd seen Gregory House treat every other female doctor on staff... which was marginally better than he treated the nurses, but slightly worse than he treated his male fellows.

"Shut up, Hadley. You too, Foreman. Blondie. Tell me what we've got." I settled myself into the chair at the head of the table as Hadley took the seat right next to me and began scribbling away at a legal pad, while Chase began to go through the results of the most recent tests.

"Hadley's right, Foreman. It's viral."

"But-"

"Shut up." I cut him off, reveling in the authority even as Hadley smirked at her co-worker. "Start the steroid treatment, I'll be in my office."

I waited for them to leave, leaning back in the chair and closing my eyes as I rubbed a hand up and down the scar on my right leg, but a few seconds later I realized that I wasn't alone in the room – I could hear her breathing.

"What?" I asked, not bothering to open my eyes.

"You're a jerk."

"No, you're a jerk. I'm just acting like one so your reputation doesn't get tarnished by people thinking you're actually human under all the attitude."

"Cuddy sent Dr Hadley an e-mail with a link to the HR department's policy on sexual harassment." Hadley informed me after a thoughtful pause.
That made me open my eyes. "She did?" I rolled my head to see Hadley standing next to me, hands on hips, trying (and failing) to look incensed.

"Like it's the first time you'll have had a sexual harassment claim made against you." I told her, and she rolled her eyes.

"Nurses don't count."

"Hang on, how did you get into my e-mail?" I asked, realizing that she shouldn't be able to get into Dr Remy Hadley's e-mail account; she was Dr House.

"I'm your boss, remember? Master password. That and Cuddy CC'd the entire department."

"So what's your panic? It was just a general reminder, not a comment on what happened. Maybe she's sending Chase a message."

"You groped me in the clinic. In front of her!"

"Oh, come on, like you wouldn't do the same thing on a dare!"

"Who the hell dared you?" Somehow, House being upset made me think there was something more to it, but I dismissed that possibility.

"Don't tell me that Wilson's never dared you to do something stupid?" I asked.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"He never told you about the lockdown? He dared me to flash Taub. I did it, too, in the lobby on my way out."

"You mean Taub saw these before I did? Aw, now that's just not fair." Hadley looked down at her chest and it was all I could do to prevent myself from smacking her upside the head. Instead I took a deep breath and asked the next question.

"How's the patient doing?"

"Like I said, it's a viral issue. Give the steroids four hours to treat the symptoms and he'll be fine."

"If that's the case then we're taking the rest of the day off to see if we can't solve the other problem."

"You call this a problem?" Hadley asked, reclining in a seat opposite me and stretching her arms above her head.

"Yes, I call the pain in my leg a problem, and you're turning into a pain in the ass, can you at least do a few buttons up on that sweater? I can see your bra."

"That was the point, duh." But Hadley still did up the next button.

"Well, I just e-mailed Cuddy that Thirteen has requested some time off, and seeing as you tend to just vanish whenever you want to, I figure we can go missing for a couple of days and nobody will really care." I told her, making her head snap up from contemplating her own cleavage.

"You should probably at least tell Wilson what's going on – he'll get suspicious about why Thirteen's in your condo instead of at her own place."

"You seriously think Wilson will believe a word of this?" I asked, hearing my voice crack as it tried to go up an incredulous octave and failed.

"I think he'd want to sit us both down for an intervention if he thought we were sleeping together."

"Intervention is preferable to getting committed." I told the dark-haired girl, and she nodded, albeit reluctantly.

"Yeah, I don't really want to go back to Mayfield, even in this body."

"So we're heading back to your loft. Now."

"Fine, whatever. I should probably find your purse…"

"Don't tell me you left it in the clinic!"

"No, Cuddy told me to put it in the locker room."

"So go and get it, I'll meet you at the truck. As long as the patient doesn't die we'll be fine for a couple of days."