House's Angel - House MD Story

Acceptance

House walked into Cuddy's office right past her new assistant on a mission.

"Dr. House, we are in the middle of a meeting." Cuddy says to him

"What's with hiring a male secretary? J-Date not working out?" House asks

"He is cute. Be careful." Stacy says

"She's not like you. She can't just walk into a bar and pick up her soul mate in twenty minutes."

"I met Mark at a fundraiser that happened to be held at a –"

"You met me at a strip club."

"You were the worst two dollars I ever spent." Stacy said to House before turning to Cuddy. "We'll catch up later."

"Stacy, it's House. I know you can handle it." Cuddy says

"Nothing to handle. It's obvious he wants to talk to you alone." Stacy says before she leaves.

"If you have a problem working with Stacy you should have said so." Cuddy says to House.

"What was I supposed to do? Ask her to leave? That's just rude. As long as she keeps her distance from Aiden, I really don't care...Death row guy. I want the case." House says

"How do you even know about him? You don't have access to the hospital's mainframe."

"No, but 'partypants' does."

"You stole my password?"

"Hardly counts as stealing; it's a pretty obvious choice."

"Well, I have already assigned Death Row Guy to Dr. Nolo."

"Nolo? Well, I don't want to say anything bad about another doctor... especially a useless drunk..."

"You are addicted to pain pills."

"But I'm not useless. Tell Nolo I'm talking over."

"Dr. Nolo is a board certified cardiologist."

"So is Aiden."

"I figured you would want her far away from Death Row Guy."

"Oh, she isn't going anywhere near him. But that doesn't mean she can't work the case."

"It's Dr. Nolo's case."

"Oh, good. I'm sure he'll explore all the usual options for why a guy's heart starts beating so fast it pumps out air instead of blood. Wait a second – there are no usual options!"

"How badly do you want this?"

"I will give you two more clinic hours this week."

"Don't bend over for the soap." She says as she hands him the file.

House turns to leave when Cuddy calls out. "What did you mean by Stacy keeping her distance with Aiden?"

House sighed and turned to face Cuddy. "Stacy rubs Aiden the wrong way. When we were treating her husband, Aiden was acting more like me than usual and then snapped at Stacy." House says and Cuddy looks confused. "You didn't know?"

"No. What do you mean she snapped at Stacy? Aiden never snaps at patients or their families."

"Yeah, but Stacy wasn't just another patient's family. There was history there. She was already annoyed with having to see Stacy everywhere around the hospital and having to bite her tongue, on top of the fact she can't stand Cameron, but Stacy said something about me not doing the cocktail because I wanted to kill her husband for something that happened 5 years ago and Aiden snapped."

"But you gave the husband the cocktail."

"Yep."

"And you did it for Aiden." Cuddy says knowingly. House looks at her. "I thought you did it for Stacy, but you did it for Aiden to get them out of here and away from her faster."