<[img=http://i.imgur.com/RjqjFJD.png]> [i][u]___Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital[/i][/u] The small-town buildings surrounding the hospital ended abruptly, holes now patchily covered by wooden planks and (in some places, still) tarps. Part of Prospect street went uphill where the Red Flash cut it off, and there was an abrupt small mound where the road met the newly-lowered terrain. A short distance away were the vague foundations where new houses would be built - dirt houses, mostly, except for a few using pre-Red Flash materials that people had lying around. Nobody had ventured far afield enough to find a forest yet. Then there were the attempts at farming (nobody even knew what season it was, really), and a track hacked west through the grassland toward the coast. People would have to start getting used to fish, once the hospital food ran out. House woke up in his office. His leg hurt. Fumbling around his coat pocket, he grabbed the bottle of vicodin. Two pills left. He considered cutting one in half before swallowing it. Wouldn't be worth it. One pill could take the edge off. Half a pill would just be annoying. The TV in front of his cushy leather chair was still paused on some scene from [i]Prescription Passion[/i], the only thing worth watching any more. Unless you liked static. Groping for the remote around his chair, he knocked his cane over. He was eyeing it suspiciously when someone knocked on the glass door to his office. [i]Cuddy.[/i] "Can't you see I'm sleeping?" he asked, waving Cuddy away. She opened the door anyway. "At one in the afternoon?" she retorted. "Generally waving someone away means 'go away', not 'barge right in'." "You haven't been helping the building or exploration crews." "Technically this is my residence now; I could have you arrested for trespassing." "Technically I own the entire building. Why haven't you been helping the crews?" "Because I'm a doctor, not a construction worker." "You think anyone else is? Of the thousand people with us, only three were construction workers." "But how many are your top diagnostician?" "House, we need to build permanent homes for people. We can't keep them scattered through the hospital forever. Let alone food-" "Gee, I'm sure glad there are another nine-hundred-ninety-nine people to do that for me." "It's not like you've even had a case for a month!" "Which will make it all the more exciting when that one idiot eats the wrong mushroom." House said. Cuddy sighed. "Join a crew or else I give your meeting room to the Wilkinsons." "Go away." That was when Cuddy knew she'd won. So she left. ===---=== "Cuddy's on a power trip," House said, limping his way to the pickup truck. Some former patient was helping Dr. Wilson load the truck full of supplies - batteries, flashlights, food, water, rope, canvas, and other survival gear. Dr. Wilson sighed and turned around to greet the intruder. "What are you doing here?" "Queen Cuddy ordered me to join a work crew." "You could have picked any of them." "Actually, no. Apparently this one is 'off-limits to Dr. House.'" "So you just had to satisfy your curiosity. Well, now you know. Go away." "'John Booth' traded me a spot for a candy bar," House said, holding up said Snickers bar, "I think he has to assassinate President Lincoln." House got into the passenger seat, ignoring the bundles that still had to be loaded. Wilson sighed. "You're just doing this because you can't stand the thought that nobody would enable you. You're desperate." "No, I'm hungry," House said, opening the candy bar and eating it. "You're desperate, running away from your girlfriend's death." Wilson slammed the last bag of provisions in the truck bed. The former patient was awkwardly trying to get into the back seat, as far away from both Dr's House and Wilson as possible. "I'm not having this conversation again. Get out of the truck and pick a different work crew." Wilson said. "Can't. The roster says I'm here with you. Hate to disappoint Queen Cuddy - she might cut our heads off!" House turned on the radio to static, raising the volume level to obscene levels. "House!" Wilson shouted. House mimed that he couldn't hear Dr. Wilson. Wilson sighed again. "Fine," he said. "I guess one of us has to be mature about this, and it's not going to be you." Wilson got in the driver's seat. He turned off the radio. "So, Lewis, where are we going?" House asked Wilson. Wilson ignored him, and started driving northeast. "You prefer Clarke?" The silence dragged out. "Can't ignore me forever." "Northeast. To where the big fire was?" the former patient said. House glared at her. She shut up.