readingrat | fic: The Cuckoo -- Chapter 2 (Reply)

Part I

Chapter 2: Pizza and Probability

Christmas 2015

"Any plans for this evening?" Cuddy asks casually.

House shrugs and looks at Wilson, who stares at Cuddy trying to read the subtext. Does she want him to mind Rachel while she gets some time alone with House to sort things out with him? She and House are engaged in a stand-off that he can't quite decipher. It's like the complicated dance they'd engaged in for years at PPTH, only without the spark and the banter. That had been the tango; this is the minuet. Not that he minds: he is all for them not being too friendly as long as they don't slip back into that miserable unease that reigned in the weeks following the disaster at the PPTH anniversary gala. So, while he doesn't mind babysitting Rachel per se, clearing obstacles out of Cuddy's path isn't on his agenda.

"I thought we could stay in and watch a movie with Rachel," he says diplomatically.

"Ellie, Baz, and John want to come to London to meet up with us," Cuddy explains with a side-glance at House. "I thought we could have dinner with them somewhere."

House is gazing at Cuddy with the look of quizzical admiration that he reserves for occasions when people best him. "And they know you are here because?" he asks.

"Because I friended Baz on Facebook ages ago, and I informed him that I was coming to London," Cuddy says, her expression daring him to object.

House pretends to be outraged. "That's cyber-stalking!"

"Feel free to get a restraining order," Cuddy counters.

House changes tack. "Who says I want to spend the evening with them?" he asks.

Cuddy leans back, smiling evilly. "That's okay; you don't have to come along. You can spend the evening with Rachel instead, while I introduce Wilson to your friends and gossip with them." The words 'about you' hang unspoken in the air.

House folds. "Okay, but I get to choose the grub house."

"Sure."

Wilson deems it is safe to walk between the enemy lines now that fire has ceased. "Who are Ellie, John and Bass?"

"Baz," House corrects absently. "My former boss."

"You – have a former boss who wants to eat with you?"

"I have former bosses who …," House leers.

"Pete!" Cuddy warns, glancing over at Rachel, who is luckily occupied in playing a run-and-jump game that Wilson installed for her on his iPad.

Wilson breathes an inner sigh of relief when they arrive at the venue House has chosen, an Italian restaurant not too far from their hotel. Given House's reluctance to mingle his past life with his present one, there was a good chance that he'd choose some awful tourist trap just to ensure that all conversation would be nipped in the bud. Or, conversely, that he'd opt for an upbeat establishment that would have Cuddy tearing out her hair within half an hour, stressed out at failing to get Rachel to behave in a socially acceptable manner. Rachel regards the food on her plate as legitimate material for art projects and considers silverware a waste of time.

"In India," she informed Wilson haughtily on occasion, "everyone eats with their fingers. Rajesh said so!"

Cuddy vacillates between considering it a 'phase' that will pass and bribing Rachel into superficial compliance with the strictures of Western society. House, needless to say, eggs Rachel on whenever he can.

House's English friends (Wilson still has to get his mind around the concept of House having more than one friend at a time) are half an hour late, which gives rise to an animated discussion on rush hour around London in general and the number of construction sites on the M4 in particular, neither of which Wilson is particularly familiar with. Nevertheless, the conversation gives him ample opportunity to survey the odd bunch House associates with in Bristol. They are as ill assorted as his notorious Princeton poker pals, probably because they are chosen according to the same random mechanisms that House applied back then. And they are as scrupulously uninterested in House's personal life as the poker group was: House's explanation that Wilson is a former colleague is accepted without any question or comment. The only one who displays a flash of interest is the short teacher called Ellie, who risks a sideway glance at House. No one asks the obvious question, which is where and when they were colleagues. Nor does anyone look the least bit surprised or bemused by Rachel's disability, so Cuddy must have primed them well.

They make it to the main course before House's cell phone rings. He doesn't bother to excuse himself or leave the table; his only concession to manners is tipping back his chair as though to indicate that he'd get up if it weren't such a bother.

"Yeah?" he says. Then he listens for a few moments. "Negative? What did you perform the ELISA on? … No, it's not obvious – it could also have been a semen sample."

The others at the table stare at him. Wilson flushes; Cuddy smiles her administrator smile.

"We're really lucky with the weather – I was told that London can be very rainy around Christmas," she says to no one in particular. It has the desired effect of drawing the three Brits' attention away from House for the moment – references to the weather apparently oblige everyone within hearing to voice an opinion.

Unfortunately House sabotages Cuddy's efforts before John can complete his rambling exegesis on the effects of global warming on Britain's climate. (According to John Britain is headed for the next Ice Age.) He effectively kills the conversation by yelling into the phone, "Biopsy the spleen! … You have? Great! Phone again when you have the results." He slips his phone back into his jacket muttering, "Morons!", and attacks his food with renewed vigour.

The phone rings again. House throws down his fork and huffs into the speaker. He frowns at whatever the person at the other end is saying.

"I read somewhere that the Brunel got an award for its superior cuisine," Cuddy says to Baz, plucking Rachel's fingers out of the salad bowl.

Baz tears his gaze away from House in order to respond to her. "Yes, we're trying out traditional British recipes, and the response has been amazing."

Ellie chimes in on cue. "Their roast lamb is amazing. It melts on the tongue."

"Would you give me your recipe, please?" Cuddy asks Baz sweetly. If Wilson didn't know that she hates red meat, he'd be fooled. She listens to Baz enumerating ingredients for all the world as though she intended to make the dish one day, both of them markedly ignoring House. John, however, stares at House with mouth agape while Ellie eyes him with the enthusiastic doubtfulness of a robin who suspects that the nestling it lavished extensive care on is in actuality a young cuckoo.

It suddenly strikes Wilson that House's Bristol friends have never experienced him working, really working. They've never seen him on a roll, doing his 'diagnostic' thing; it is possible that they've never as much as witnessed him take a phone call in all the years they've known him.

House holds the phone against his chest and says to the table at large, "What looks like malaria, but isn't malaria?"

"Is this a game?" John asks.

House rolls his eyes. "No, it's not, you …"

"Lyme disease," Cuddy says quickly.

House nods his approval of the suggestion even as he shoots it down. "That was our first thought, but the serological test was negative, no EM, no memory of tick bites, no improvement under doxycycline."

"What are the symptoms?" Wilson asks, drawn in despite himself.

House puts the phone on speaker and props it up against his plate. "The symptoms are fever, flushes, headache, nausea. Did I miss anything?" This last is directed at the phone.

There is silence, then the person at the other end says carefully, "Enlarged liver. Are you discussing our patient's symptoms with non-hospital personnel?"

"No," House says airily. "I'm in a restaurant loo, talking to myself. It helps my process."

"Then what's the noise in the background?"

"Muzac. I hate what these places do with their hygienic facilities. Time was when there was interesting graffiti on the walls and you could spend a happy hour or two reading the crudest imaginable jokes, but nowadays everything is a sterile white and the music drives you away before you're had the time to wipe your arse. Can we continue?"

"Dry cough," the phone says reluctantly. "White blood count slightly elevated."

"Was the patient abroad?" Cuddy asks.

House gives her his 'duh' look. "Ob-viously, otherwise we wouldn't have been talking malaria."

"There is someone with you," the phone squawks.

"What's Pete doing?" Rachel asks.

"Diagnosing," Cuddy answers her. "Hush, otherwise he won't be able to hear what the doctor at the other end is saying."

House clears a space in front of him by the simple expedient of pushing everything, including Ellie and Wilson's plates, to the side and then leans forward to pluck a pen from John's shirt pocket. John's surprised squawk at being robbed dies on his lips when he sees what House does next, namely jot down the symptoms on the white linen tablecloth in front of him.

"I don't think that'll come out in the wash," he says.

"No, death tends to stick," House agrees absently.

"Could be leishmaniasis," Wilson says.

"Geoff," House says to the phone, "what do you say to that?"

"Serology negative, nothing in the splenic aspirate. The spleen isn't enlarged. Dr House, you can't do this!"

"What did that fellow call him?" John says.

"He's a doctor?" Ellie asks. She doesn't seem all that surprised.

Wilson looks helplessly at Cuddy. What does House want them to say, what would he prefer this crowd not to know?

Cuddy, twirling pasta around her fork, says carefully, "He's a diagnostician."

"Oh," John says, pushing his food around his plate. "I didn't know you could, you know, just do that. I mean, without medical training."

Cuddy smiles her end-of-conversation smile and says curtly, "He's got medical training."

John is patently oblivious to the vibes in the room. "Then why didn't he – ouch!" Ellie must have kicked him under the table. John looks up, finally registering Wilson and Cuddy's discomfort, and once more says, "Oh!"

Wilson leans forward to talk into the phone. "Could be an atypical presentation. Patients with compromised immune systems often have false negative tests and no enlargement of the spleen. Any history of cancer?"

"No, but who are you?" There is a hint of desperation in Geoff's voice.

"God, these kids are irritating!" House remarks. "He's an oncologist, obviously; that's why he thinks of cancer first when the immune system's off. But that's not the only cause for abnormal immune responses." He puffs up his cheeks and lets the air out with a plop. "Test our patient for HIV."

There is a hushed babble at the other end, then a female voice says, "We can't. We haven't got his consent."

"Then get his consent."

"He won't give it: he's a bishop."

House leans back and lifts his eyes to the ceiling, enunciating slowly, "I agree that his belief in God could be a sign that he has no grey matter. An HIV test, however, requires blood, not brain matter, and that even idiots have in abundance. Test. Him. For. HIV!"

There is further muttering, then the woman says, "Dr House, you may not be aware of the political ramifications of this case. Our patient is aiming to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. If news of an HIV test leaked …"

"Does he want to die?"

"He wants to make sure he has a career to go back to once this is over, which he won't if tales of Hep C and HIV tests get around," the woman says. "He doesn't even want it known that he's been hospitalised: if health issues become public, his, uh, extracurricular activities will be looked into. And that would be the end of his bishopric."

"If he doesn't do the test, he'll be exchanging his mitre for a halo. And no matter how much these men of God talk about wanting to exchange their crosses for crowns, when push comes to a shove they'll cling to the certainty that this life offers them. Have you still got some blood?"

"Yes, but …"

"Then do the test. That's an order!"

Silence. (At the table all conversation ceased long ago.) "I'm afraid we can't really do a test to which the patient has not consented."

"Do it or you're fired!"

The man, Geoff, is back on the line. "Dr House, I'm afraid you can't dismiss us; we're not your employees. We're merely delegated from our respective departments for the duration of the case."

"You don't have a team of your own?" Cuddy asks, shocked.

"Nope," House replies, his brow furrowed in concentration. He speaks into the phone. "You're saying you can do as you please, and I can't fire you."

Geoff clears his throat. "Well, I wouldn't put it that way, but …"

"Send me the liver scans," House orders, a gleam in his eyes that bodes ill. (The unfortunate Geoff, however, can't see that, and even if he could, it is doubtful whether he is capable of interpreting the augurs correctly.) "You can do that, can't you?"

Without waiting for an answer he severs the connection, then leans down and pulls his laptop out of his backpack. "Get me the password for this place's wi-fi!" he barks at John.

Ellie gets up instead, returning a few moments later with a slip of paper that she dumps wordlessly in front of House.

"Why haven't you got a team?" Cuddy asks.

House ignores her; he is staring at the screen, his forehead furrowed in concentration, one elbow propped on the table with the fingers of that hand scratching his brow.

"The hospital administration thinks it would be more economical for him to have doctors assigned from other departments as and when needed than for him to have staff of his own," Wilson answers for House.

Cuddy gives him a 'you're kidding!' look. "That'll never work," she says to House.

"Saves me the bother of conducting interviews," House mutters, staring at the screen.

Wilson and Cuddy exchange glances. Some things never change.

"Liver doesn't look good," Cuddy remarks, coming around the table to peer over House's shoulder.

"This isn't a state-the-obvious contest," House says testily.

"Could be either of them, leishmaniasis or malaria," Cuddy says. "The scans are inconclusive."

House leans back and tips his head to look up at her. "Are you even a doctor?" he gripes. "Come up with something we can test for or shut up!"

"It could be hepatitis," Wilson suggests.

"Or your bog-standard liver cirrhosis caused by years of alcohol abuse." House's eyes widen. "Now that's something we can work with," he says with a burst of manic energy, smacking his lips and waggling his fingers over the keyboard. "Clickety-click-click, off to my favourite site … Then we upload it – there. … Add a few hashtags – there. … Save, and post. Voilà!" He leans back, grinning happily.

Then he picks the phone up from the table, scrolls down his contacts and dials, one eye on his screen all the while. "Geoff," he says amicably, "you really need to be more careful with patient confidentiality. I've found your scans on Tumblr, tagged #bishop and #alcohol cirrhosis. … Oh, wow, they just got 'liked' by someone! I wonder whether they've been re-blogged yet."

Wilson shakes his head in dismay. Cuddy throws up her hands and returns to her seat next to Rachel. "I hope his job contract includes insurance cover for HIPAA violations," she says.

House holds the phone away from his ear, a wise move in view of the pandemonium issuing from the speaker. After it dies down he says, "Geoff, are you suggesting that I posted those pictures?" It is a pity that Geoff can't see that puppy-dog look of innocence. "Why would I do that? … You were the one who sent patient scans to a public hotspot where anyone with minimal IT skills can access them. If you feel like explaining your indiscretion to Wesley, then go ahead and send him a link!"

He grins smugly at whatever Geoff is saying. Then he says with fake sincerity, "I'm so sorry to hear that you'd prefer not to work for me again. But until we've diagnosed this patient, you'll have to stick it out. I suggest both of us do what we're best suited for: you go get that HIV test, while I figure out who cracked the security code for this hotspot and make them take the scans off Tumblr again. … Great!"

He throws the phone down and pulls his plate back towards himself again, attacking the cold remains with gusto.

Wilson wordlessly rearranges his and Ellie's plates so that they, too, can continue their meal.

"You know," Baz says conversationally to Cuddy and Wilson, "I used to believe that he behaved so badly at the Brunel because he was taking advantage of our friendship. Now I see that he was well-behaved – by his standards."

April 2016

"I want food," House said. "Pizza. What do you want, Wilson?"

"Can't it wait?" They'd had a humongous breakfast – the full British works, House had boasted – merely two hours ago.

"I'm hungry now!"

"Fine, maybe those salt-and-vinegar chips," Wilson said, resigning himself to conducting the remaining interviews amid a pile of greasy cartons and the smell of cheese and garlic.

"Okay," House said, grinning malevolently for no apparent reason as he turned back to the interviewee with an expectant look.

"Sorry?" the candidate, a hopeful young man with a speciality in neurology, asked.

"You heard," House said impatiently. "Pepperoni pizza and chips. And two cokes. No, make that a coke and a beer."

"You want me to get you pizza?"

"No, I want you to dance the quadrille. Of course I want you to organise pizza. And Dr Wilson's order."

The candidate looked helplessly at Wilson, who shrugged. It could, after all, be worse: they were both lucky that this was the first time within House's memory that he was hiring. Goodness only knew what he'd get up to if he could remember the (admittedly few) other times he'd hired staff, because then he'd be even more bored than he was already, and likely as not he'd be trying to outdo himself with outrageous stunts.

Four hours later Wilson privately revised his estimate: it was worse. It wasn't that House's caprices were more extravagant than usual. The problem was that his place of employment wasn't attuned to him yet.

"A fire alarm, a broken centrifuge, patients in panic on the second floor, and a complaint about sexual harassment. Dr House, would you care to explain in what manner this is related to 'hiring a team'?"

House leaned back comfortably in one of the visitor chairs in the Chief Administrator's office. "They were morons." He must have noticed Wilson tense up, because he amended, "Some of them were morons."

"That doesn't explain why your staff interviews have left a trail of destruction."

House blinked innocently at Dr Wesley."So that in future, when I actually have a team, this sort of thing doesn't happen on a daily basis. That's kinda the idea of staff interviews, isn't it, to separate the wheat from the chaff? Just imagine what would happen if Miss Louboutin ever operated an MRI instead of a centrifuge!"

Wesley blinked at the list of names in front of him. "Miss, er, Louboutin?"

Wilson felt obliged to intervene. "That was Veronica Chiltern, I think. She was wearing Louboutin heels. House sets the candidates tasks to make sure that they are able to deal with the daily challenges of diagnostics."

"We have technicians for our lab equipment," Wesley said.

"My staff run their own tests," House said, all relaxation wiped from his features.

"I'm afraid that …"

"I didn't make a request; I stated a fact."

"I see," Wesley said, frowning down at his desk.

"And you'll find a clause in my contract saying as much," House continued inexorably.

"Ah," Wesley said. "That's, well, awkward."

"For you, maybe," House conceded. "Not for the patients."

"Are you insinuating that our technicians are incapable of operating their equipment?" Wesley asked.

House leaned forward, his fingers steepled. "Your office is broken into, but all that's missing is a prominent politician's medical file that unfortunately contains the result of his crotch swab. Whom do you call, hospital security or Scotland Yard?"

"Scotland Yard," Wesley said automatically, "but I don't see …"

"House's team," Wilson translated, "specialise in dealing with rare and puzzling cases. They are trained to spot patterns where other people merely see negative test results, to see the whole, not just the part currently being tested, and to look for abnormalities in places that normal lab technicians aren't taught to consider."

"Very well," Wesley conceded, "but that doesn't explain the rest. Or why I'm being billed for …," he looked at a greasy cash receipt on his desk, "chips."

"It didn't seem fair to make Wilson pay for chips that he didn't want. Our first candidate got him chips with salt and vinegar. Wilson wanted crisps."

"That's what they call them here?" Wilson said, diverted. "Then I guess it was my fault."

"It was his fault for not making sure he got you right," House corrected. Turning back to Wesley he said, "My patients come from all over the world. If a young doctor whose daily television fare probably consists of American series can't understand an American, how will he get a decent patient history from people who speak no English whatsoever?"

Wesley had no answer to that.

House continued, "We also now know that Oxbridge Oaf would probably cause a mass panic in the Greater London area when confronted with rare infectious diseases like polio or the plague, if the way he communicated a potential meningitis break-out is any indication."

"You told the patients on the second floor that we have a meningitis epidemic?" Wesley said hollowly.

"Technically, I didn't. My candidate did."

Wesley swivelled to his phone and punched in a few numbers – rather violently, Wilson thought. "Mrs Cribbs? If the press call, please tell them that there is no meningitis at this hospital, and there never was. It was a false alarm. Tell them we were testing our new guidelines for containing infectious diseases within the hospital environment, or something like that. … No, there are no new guidelines, but there will be."

"Was that all?" House disentangled his limbs from the chair and made to rise, acting for all the world as if he had been asked down for an informal cup of afternoon tea.

"Excuse me for a moment, Mrs Cribbs," Wesley said into the phone. Then, pointing with the receiver at the chair House had just vacated, he said, "The sexual harassment, Dr House."

House sat down again, grimacing. Wilson tugged at his collar. He was having difficulties breathing.

"Yes, thank you, Mrs Cribbs," Wesley said, and put down the phone. "Ms Young informed our personnel department that you offered her a job in return for sexual favours. Is there any truth in her accusation, Dr Wilson?"

Wilson froze. Why was he suddenly being held responsible for what House had done? Before he could protest House's (partial) innocence, House interrupted indignantly, "That is total rubbish! Did she seriously think I'd pay her a full salary in return for a few blow jobs? I can get a much better deal from the ladies at Earl's Court."

"House!" Wilson gasped before a coughing fit rendered him speechless.

Wesley drew himself up behind his desk. "Dr House, I can make concessions regarding technical equipment and I can close an eye to a few disruptive incidents that were undoubtedly accidental and hopefully deeply regretted." Here he paused, but House looked smug rather than contrite. "However, we have a zero tolerance policy towards sexual harassment."

"Ah, I love hospital policies. So universally applicable," House murmured.

Wilson, still coughing into his handkerchief, held up a beseeching hand. Wesley politely waited for him to recover. "It," Wilson wheezed, "it was a stress test. House launches verbal attacks on people to see how they react."

"It was not!" House protested, ignoring Wilson's glare. "It was a simple test in probability." Snagging a letter from Wesley's desk, he turned it over and sketched some squares on the reverse. "You've got a parcheesi or ludo board, tokens, and a single dice. One of the spaces is 'Chores'. If a player's token lands on that space, that player has to do a chore for me."

"For example, wash House's car," Wilson interjected. That was the chore that House had suggested in the first interview.

Wesley frowned.

"Or take my laundry to the cleaner's," House continued. "Or clean my bathroom. Or, in the case we're discussing, give me a blow job."

"So you did ask her to, uh, perform oral sex?" Wesley asked, blanching.

"No," House corrected. "I didn't even ask her to play. I asked how many rounds it would take on average before a player would have to go down on me."

"You hinted that you'd be amenable to receiving favours of a sexual nature," Wesley said tightly.

House's eyes glinted. "I don't 'hint'," he said, making the last word sound dirty. "If I had wanted sex, I'd have said so. I think we're done here. Good afternoon!"

"Umm, Dr House?" Wesley called after him, but House was out of the door already. Wilson wasn't quite as fast – or rude – so Wesley latched onto him instead. "I'm not sure whether Dr House understood what I was getting at," he said, looking at Wilson expectantly.

Wilson sighed as he tried to suppress the next coughing fit. Wesley would have to learn to deal; Wilson wasn't going to be around all the time. "When you fight a bull," he finally said, "you wave a red cloth to distract him, and you have to be prepared to jump aside really fast when he charges."

Wesley gave him a long stare. "I'm not sure whether this habit of talking in metaphors is particularly helpful."

"Your method," Wilson pointed out, "wasn't any more direct. You sat him down and asked him a lot of questions when all you wanted was for him to stop his disruptive behaviour. Don't ask him to explain his behaviour if you aren't interested in understanding him, because he'll out-explain you any day. And if you want to stop him, you need to put in a sprint to get in his way, no matter how ridiculous it makes you look. That, by the way, wasn't meant metaphorically, but literally."

Wilson found House back in his office, his feet on his desk, staring at the ceiling, one hand tapping an irritating rhythm on the pile of applications sitting on his desk.

"Was it really necessary to mention blow jobs?" Wilson said wearily. He'd witnessed House progressing from mild ennui to unmitigated, mind-blowing boredom as the afternoon progressed, and it had come as no surprise that House's manners had deteriorated rapidly while the hypothetical chores had become more and more outrageous. He'd been a disaster waiting to happen.

House shrugged. "It's always a good idea to get your superior involved in the selection process," he dead-panned.

Wilson looked hopefully at the application files. "Which ones are you going to take?" he asked.

House swung his feet down and took the top file off the pile. "Ms Louboutin." He flicked his wrist and the file landed in the bin.

'Chips'n'Crisps' joined his colleague, as did 'Oxbridge Oaf'. Then another three applicants landed on top of them. And then House swept the remaining files off the desk into the overflowing bin.

"What was wrong with those?" Wilson asked, blinking. Rescuing the top three, he opened the first one to refresh his memory. "This one's fine. He answered all your questions satisfactorily, has good grades, and seems open and curious."

"How many candidates did I ask the 'chores' question?" House asked, piling up empty pizza cartons on the cleared desk space.

"Every one of them, I think," Wilson answered after a moment's thought.

"And how many got it right?"

"Most of them?" Wilson hazarded. He had loathed probability at school: one problem and twenty students had equalled twenty different solutions, none of which had ever turned out to be right.

House snorted in disgust. "The answer isn't 'six rounds', Wilson. Use your brain!" He rooted around in his desk until he found a twelve-inch ruler.

Wilson wisely ignored the slur on his intelligence. "So, you're refusing to hire a number of otherwise perfectly qualified physicians because they won't be able to break the bank in Vegas."

"No," House said, leaning the ruler against the pizza cartons to form a ramp that ran towards the edge of the desk. He fished an empty beer can from the trash and gauged the distance between the desk and the bin. "I'm refusing to hire a number of them because although I asked the same question in every interview, not one of the later candidates was curious enough to do the obvious – find out what the previous candidates were asked and prepare accordingly."

He placed the beer can at the top of the ramp. It wobbled along the ruler, but made it all the way down before it fell off the edge of the desk, landing on the floor a few inches beyond the bin. House scratched his head. "We need another pizza carton. Or maybe two."

"No," Wilson said. "Definitely not! You are not testing any further applicants by asking them to order pizza. Or by making them build a beer can run. Or do chores. Do something diagnostic with them: give them an imaginary case and ask them what tests they'd run, or something like that."

"Okay," House said. "The three whose suggestions make the most sense get the job. Satisfied?"

"Fine," Wilson said, more than satisfied.

His satisfaction lasted till the next morning, when it turned out that House intended to judge the efficacy of the tests and procedures suggested by the candidates by seeing if the results provided a valid diagnosis. Which, of course, could only be done if he had a real patient:

"Our Patient of the Day has a persistent, irritating cough – irritating to me, if not to him. Ten points for a test that provides a definite diagnosis, three points for a test that successfully excludes a condition, and minus five points for tests that are inconclusive, redundant, time consuming, or expensive," House elucidated to the assembled candidates.

"But … there are tests that are time consuming and expensive, but necessary in order to get a definitive diagnosis," the Dumb-ass of the Day said.

"Totally," House affirmed. "And there are bosses who are going to put money before medicine. My selection process mirrors life's realities."

Wilson felt that in real life, he'd be told without further ado that he had a viral infection and would have to live with it until it had run its course, rather than be subjected to blood tests, lung x-rays, and the like for the entire day. Apparently some of the candidates felt the same.

"What if he only has the common cold?" one of them asked rather desperately.

"Then narrow it down without blowing the hospital's resources," House advised. "You have today to run your tests, take blood for the blood work, do scans, and so on and so forth. Then you have two days to find a diagnosis. We meet again on Friday at 10 am."

He gave them a friendly wave, and then he sauntered out, leaving Wilson in the midst of a crowd of applicants who closed in on him like vampires too long deprived of blood.