Foreman fully intended to enjoy his Sunday. He'd had it planned since earlier in the week, when his dad's phone call had brought it back to his attention that it was Thanksgiving. He'd already missed the big holiday games because of the case. He wasn't going to miss the Bears-Broncos game if he could help it. Besides that, he'd been pissed off at House, and it seemed like the best plan was to block out House and the rest of the world by enjoying the game in the privacy of his living room.

He'd been a Bears fan since he was a kid. His dad was from Chicago, and even though he wasn't an obvious or a dedicated fan, he'd made the expectations crystal clear. In the Foreman household, you respected your parents, got the best grades, dressed smartly for church, and cheered for the Bears. One of the best weekends Foreman could remember was when he was about twelve--just getting over a growth spurt and taking more of an interest in sports after losing his chubbiness--when his dad had taken him and Marcus to Giants Stadium for the divisional playoffs. Foreman had worn his Refrigerator Perry jersey and spent all the time he wasn't on his feet screaming and stomping trying to explain the 46 defense to Marcus, who was nine and didn't care. Foreman nearly got sick on hot dogs, cheered himself hoarse, and was grinning his head off the whole time the Bears killed the Giants 21-zip.

When he'd been working his ass off in high school and university, Foreman hadn't had time to care about who was playing or when, and during his internship he'd had even less. It was after he moved to California that he began to get interested again, and he was surprised how fast he jumped to the Bears' defense in conversations with Raiders fans. Since then, he'd kept up with them, mostly by reading the paper, but some days--like today--he wanted to watch the real thing, live if not in person.

The game wasn't until the afternoon, though, and Foreman took complete advantage of not having work to sleep in. When he finally rolled over and ran into House, he didn't open his eyes for a minute; he was too comfortable. He pressed his cheek against House's shoulder, his nose buried in the crook of House's neck. There was still a warm hint of mango-scent on his skin. Gradually, Foreman woke up enough that he knew he should probably move, not give in to the temptation to see if House tasted like mango, too. He grinned to himself before he pulled away and yawned, blinking his eyes open and sitting up. The clock said it was nearly ten. Foreman pushed the sheets aside and grabbed his boxers off the floor, pulling them on before heading to the bathroom to piss. For once he could let House wake up on his own time, without forcing him out of the apartment on schedule. It made a nice break from a weekday, and Foreman realized, as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with his free hand, that they actually hadn't spent a day off together until now. The thought should have made him uneasy--how the hell was he going to put up with House, or entertain him, for the rest of the day?--but instead, Foreman only felt uneasy that he was, in a vague way, looking forward to it.

Foreman didn't wake up to the sound of an alarm clock. He roused slowly, his mind becoming aware of sensations before he opened his eyes. The heat of House's body pressed against him, the languid comfort of having slept himself out, the accommodating softness of the bed and pillows, and the slow, even rate of his own breathing. His body hummed with unhurried arousal, leftover from a dream he couldn't remember. Foreman rolled his shoulders, stretching lazily, not wanting to move more than he had to. When he extended his legs to work out a kink in his calf, his hips moved forward almost involuntarily, rubbing his dick against the material of his boxers and nudging House's leg. The undertone of pleasure coiled low in his stomach, warmer and slightly more insistent. Foreman wasn't hard--not more than halfway, anyhow--but it wouldn't take much, and it made him even less willing to open his eyes. He'd rather enjoy it for now, as long as he didn't have to wake up.

The only reason he could think that he hadn't been jerked out of sleep too early by the blare of the alarm was that it was Saturday. Had to be. He always set the alarm. The night before came back slowly. Taking House home. Being jolted awake when House's pain got bad. Arguing until he was exhausted, and finally forcing House to accept that he wasn't leaving when he didn't feel like walking out at two in the morning. But those memories brought back others, like finishing their lupus case the night before and learning about Thirteen's diagnosis, and Foreman finally opened his eyes when he remembered that yesterday had been Thursday, which meant it was Friday, which meant the last thing he should be doing was lying around in bed debating whether to do something about his hard-on now or in the shower, as if it was the weekend.

He was in House's bed. He'd known that, but he'd forgotten the corollary--House was always, always late to work. Foreman lifted his head, blinking. House was lying beside him, looking the worse for wear after the night he'd had, hair tangled with dried sweat, exhaustion darkening the bags under his eyes, his stubble looking even more unkempt than usual. Foreman firmly ignored the twinge of concern and tenderness at seeing House not in any immediate pain, and even more firmly told off his dick for still being interested. The light was strong enough in the room that it had to be well into the morning. Christ, it was probably ten or eleven, and they were both disastrously late, even by House's dismal standards.

Foreman scrubbed one hand across his face, stared at the nightstand, trying to figure out why the hell he hadn't set the alarm, even if it was House's. But he and House had been fighting most of the night, first over checking his biopsies and then over his pain, and Foreman hadn't thought of it. He hadn't even realized House had books and journals and pill bottles all over his bedside table, but no alarm clock. "You don't have a clock?" Foreman said, loud and incredulous, pushing away from House even though part of him definitely didn't want to go.

"What the hell did you do?"

House's candidates looked up, startled, as Foreman pushed into the lab. He glared around at them, looking for some sign that one of them, or several, felt at all guilty. They stared back at him blankly, although for at least some of them--Thirteen, he thought, and Cole--the blankness was put on just to deal with him. Anger burned his throat, and Foreman swallowed down the desire to shout at the lot of them. House was an idiot, volunteering to be transfused when he knew he'd probably have a reaction, but his crew of misguided mini-mes were worse. None of them seemed to have any clue about just how stupidly they'd acted, or what the consequences might have been.

Taub raised his eyebrows and glanced at the others, apparently gauging Foreman's anger. "We...did what had to be done," he said cautiously.

"You're running biopsy panels," Foreman said, in case they thought he was just too dense to have figured them out. "Which means that you biopsied House."

"We had to," Thirteen said. "We're running stains to check for infections--"

"Somehow," Foreman interrupted, clamping tightly to control of his voice, "I don't think you got him to sign an informed consent."

"Amber drugged him!" Kutner volunteered, with a wide grin. "It was pretty badass."

"I did not!" Amber protested, looking completely innocent for about two seconds before she eyed Foreman calculatingly, checking if she'd get credit for dosing House. Foreman stared at her in wide-eyed disbelief. The amount of cluelessness surrounding him right now was unbelievable.

"Yeah, she won't take credit unless House tells her it's badass," Kutner explained, smirking at Amber.

"You drugged him with narcotics," Foreman said, laying out exactly the progression of good ideas into unmitigated idiocy, his voice rising despite his attempts to reasonably show them exactly where the huge fucking problem entered into the timeline. "You took biopsies without consent, and you left him alone when he was recovering from the transfusion fever!"

"We had to do a biopsy," Thirteen said. "The patient would have hemorrhaged--"

"The patient is not the point," Foreman shouted.

"He is to House," Cole said.

Christ, House had raised a crop of ethical nightmares. "All House cared about was proving a point," Foreman said. A stupid point, but one that Foreman couldn't have stopped him from. If House hadn't gotten the transfusion, then he probably would have tried to treat the patient for amyloidosis secretly, by-passing Foreman's veto. "All you should care about is not letting your boss bleed to death before he can hire you." How did they not get it? Anything could have gone wrong. The dosage of whatever they'd drugged him with. The biopsy could've led to a bleed, if House had gotten tainted blood. The fever, even, couldn't be dismissed out of hand. As far as Foreman could see, they hadn't even attempted any aftercare; they'd left House to fend for himself, which he was probably doing badly, since House wouldn't know how to take care of himself if Wilson tied him down and forced him to.

"So--" Kutner's face scrunched up, as if he wasn't sure whether to be worried. "Are you going to fire us?"

"He can't fire us," Amber said with complete assurance. "He's not the one in charge."

"He stopped the amyloidosis treatment," Kutner pointed out.

"Which is what made House get the transfusion in the first place," Taub said. He raised his eyebrows at Foreman. "So really, this is your fault."

Foreman resisted clenching his hands into fists by the barest of margins. "Did the liver panel show anything?" he asked, repressing his fury to tolerable levels.

"No," Thirteen said. "Everything's within normal range."

Foreman exhaled, clenching his jaw. At least there was that. "Get out of here," he said. "We're treating for amyloidosis. Schedule the irradiation." They all stared at him a moment longer, and Foreman glared. "Go," he said, not caring if he sounded exactly like House, dismissing a pack of morons.

Fuck. Foreman shouldn't be this worked up. So House had pulled a boneheaded, self-destructive stunt, based on one inconclusive test result. Just trying to prove he was right. That shouldn't matter to Foreman. House had done stupid things before and Foreman had no doubt that he'd do more stupid things before he finally managed to kill himself. Foreman hadn't tried to stop him this time, because he'd never tried to stop him before. It wouldn't have worked, anyway. He wasn't House's keeper. That was Wilson's job and Foreman wasn't interested. But when he'd realized that the candidates had biopsied House, against his wishes, and that House might have--well, there was no point thinking about it, since apparently House was fine, so there was no reason to worry. Foreman wasn't worried. He was furious that House's band of minions had merrily forced an unwanted procedure on him with absolutely nothing to show for it.

It didn't matter, anyway. House was his usual insufferable self when he solved the case. Foreman didn't hang around to watch him fire one of the fellows. He worked on Finn's follow-up care until he was sure he wouldn't run in to any of the candidates in the office when he went back to get his stuff.

It had been a few days since he and House had made their...agreement. The night Marty had phoned. Foreman had called him back the next day, telling Marty again he wasn't interested. He agreed to getting together whenever Marty was in town; an easy promise to make, since Marty lived on the other side of the country. Since then, Foreman didn't know if House had been avoiding him because of the call, or if it was just that House had been involved in his cases. They'd both been busy. And House had fired Terzi without any more prompting from Foreman. But Foreman hadn't tried to approach House; it wouldn't feel casual, no matter how off-hand he tried to be about it. Tonight was the first time Foreman actually had an excuse to stop House before he left the hospital. Not that checking up on House over his transfusion fever would count as much of an excuse, in House's opinion.

Foreman wasn't going to ask House how he felt, though. If House wanted to play fast and loose with his health, that was his responsibility. It might be nice to find out exactly what House was thinking about the fact that one or more of his candidates wouldn't hesitate to drug him. Foreman set his shoulders and walked into the office. House was standing behind the desk, looking ready to leave. Foreman stared at him for a second, all the anger and frustration that he'd directed at the fellows earlier bubbling up. "You do know you didn't fire the one who drugged you?" he asked.

If the alarm hadn't been set to go off automatically at the proper time, Foreman doubted he would have woken up. He rolled over to slap the off button, his muscles protesting, and ran into another body--House. Oh, God. Foreman sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with one hand, and then reached across House to turn the alarm off. He thought about saying something, but he really didn't want to have that conversation--any conversation--before coffee. He got out of bed instead, on the wrong side, feeling subtly disoriented just from that.

After he'd showered, and pulled some clothes out of his closet, Foreman felt better. House was still a lump in the middle of his mattress, but Foreman supposed he couldn't really be asleep. Foreman hadn't felt like moderating his noise, although he'd made the concession of not turning on the morning news on the radio. He left House, sleeping or faking, and went to deal with the rest of the place.

Foreman didn't mind getting his apartment messy in a good cause, which, he thought with a satisfied twist of his lips, last night had been. He could keep on being smug all through the cleanup, remembering why it had to be done.

After starting the coffee, Foreman went to the front hall and collected House's shirts and suit jacket. Good thing House wouldn't look any different wearing them after they'd spent the night in a crumpled heap on the floor. Foreman suspected that was about what House did with them in his own apartment anyway. He took them back to the bedroom and threw them in the general direction of House's other clothes. It would be far too obvious if House tried to steal some of his clothes for work, but Foreman flushed anyway, remembering how easily House had helped himself to his pajamas. Those were on the floor too, although House had ended up wearing them for all of an hour, if that. Foreman smirked at the memory of stripping them off him. He picked them up and threw them in his hamper, knowing he'd be reminded of everything they'd done while he was doing his laundry, and again when he was folding them before putting them away.

Coming back to the living room, Foreman gathered up their dishes, a bit crusted with tomato sauce, and their empty beer bottles. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad sitting down with House to an actual meal at some point. Foreman had eaten with him often enough at the hospital, although only when they had a patient to discuss. He frowned as he brought the dishes into the kitchen and ran some water over them, planning to leave them to soak for the day. It was hard to work out exactly where the sex ended and everything else started. Was it just convenience, or some kind of prelude, to invite House over for a meal before they fucked? Or did eating together matter? Maybe as long as they kept it in front of the television, not a real meal, Foreman wouldn't have to decide. He tossed the bottles into his recycling with a clatter, and pushed the remains of the lasagna and salad into the sink, running the garbage disposal. He hoped the racket he was making would force House to get up without Foreman having to prod him. Experience told him House was not a morning person, and he'd like to be out of range whenever House decided to crawl out of his bed.

For a long moment, Foreman stood at the counter--the same place he'd stood last night, gripping the counter, as if he expected House to sneak up behind him again. Touch him. He scowled down at the tile, feeling caught between wanting that and knowing just how stupid he'd be if he kept wanting things House wasn't capable of giving. He frowned even more when he saw two little indentations in the edge of the counter. He ran his finger over the marks, but they were definitely scratches, and they weren't coming off. A beer cap sitting on the counter, and another one on the floor, were all the explanation he needed. Foreman swallowed a disgusted sigh. He'd been considering leaving a cup of coffee for House, but since House apparently didn't give a shit about his things, he didn't really feel inclined. He poured all of it into an over-sized travel mug and took it with him when he opened his door and picked up the paper. Time to light a fire under House's ass, since he'd shown no sign of stirring. Foreman had no intention of leaving House in his apartment alone--he'd had enough lapses of judgment like that--so he'd be hauling him out, ready or not, when it was time to leave.

"Your ride to work leaves in ten minutes," he called down the hall to the bedroom, and settled down at the dining room table with his coffee and the paper.

Foreman paused before the doors of the clinic and took a deep breath. He had no idea what to expect when he walked in. The whole nursing staff might be lined up to gape at him incredulously, or worse, there would be nothing but carefully blank expressions and little sideways stares, and whispers that would follow him up to the fourth floor. Even if no one looked, Foreman knew he'd feel their eyes on him anyway. House could have gone through Chase and started a pool, or simply let the wrong word fall too loudly in the wrong ear. Or he might have done nothing. Foreman wouldn't put it past House to have told everyone or no one that they'd had sex. He hoped like hell that House had decided that his privacy was reason enough to respect Foreman's. If it came to a battle of wills over who'd blurt out the most embarrassing parts of the weekend, Foreman knew that House had the advantage of not caring in the least what anybody else thought of him, that fucker. Foreman had arrived early, but that was never any guarantee, not when House felt he had some juicy news to spread. Tightening his shoulders, he walked through the clinic, glaring straight ahead and not pausing until he made it to the elevators.

After House had walked out on him, Foreman had thrown himself back into bed--it had still been five in the fucking morning on a Sunday--but House's restlessness seemed to have infected him, because he tossed and turned and was completely unable to get back to sleep. Every time he thought he'd managed to excise House from his mind, the bastard popped back up, and Foreman was furious all over again. He refused to touch himself--he wasn't going to give House that satisfaction. He knew it was irrational, that House would never know if he'd jerked off or not. But Foreman wasn't interested in replaying the sex. Not in his mind; not at all. He wasn't going to think of it.

Finally getting up, still exhausted, he'd turned off his cell phone and taken his landline off the hook, locked the chain on the door, and spent the rest of the day glaring at the television and not taking in a single minute of it. He wouldn't have put it past House to break in all over again, although he couldn't imagine for what purpose--he'd already done a hell of a good job already at humiliating Foreman. What more could he possibly want?

When Foreman finally went back to the office, it was only to make sure that House hadn't had time to do even more damage than he'd first thought. There were papers everywhere--House wouldn't know organization if it punched him in the fucking face--but from what Foreman could tell, he hadn't spammed Foreman's entire contact list with penis-enlargement emails, or even answered any of Foreman's reference requests pretending to be him and destroying whatever goodwill Foreman had left. Foreman ignored his inbox, even though several people, Cuddy and Hamilton among them, had answered him.

He'd stayed up too late again Sunday night, and woke up with gritty eyes and a tension headache. He'd taken care dressing, wearing his charcoal suit, even as he told himself that trying to prove to House that he was missing something was the most infantile revenge tactic he could think of.

Foreman breathed a tiny bit easier to find Diagnostics dark when he got off the elevator. After turning on the lights, he hung up his jacket and started a pot of coffee, then opened the Financial Post and determinedly lost himself in tracing his portfolio back over the last quarter. They didn't have a patient; he only had to be present from eight to five; House could play his little head games on the idiots who'd signed up to work for him as if medicine was a brainless reality show; and Foreman was going to sit through it all and not say one word. He was not going to react to House. He wasn't going to even fucking acknowledge him.

Let the day of hell begin.

Foreman spent the rest of the day working on his CV. Yeah, he'd been blackballed from most diagnostic programs on the East coast, but right now, that didn't bother him in the least--he wanted to get as far away as possible. There was no way he'd get a department of his own, nothing as important as Mercy, but he was a good doctor. Under the right department head he could do the work of proving himself again. He'd take pretty much anything, diagnostics or neurology, maybe even a research position for a few years, until the memory of his last mistake had blown over.

His last mistake--Foreman couldn't stop thinking about it. The busy work of writing professional yet pleading cover letters, even going so far as to email Cuddy and ask her for a letter of recommendation, should have taken up his entire concentration. No matter what he did, though, House kept interrupting him. Flashes. Images. House's hand clutching at his chest, House's aggressive, unrelenting kiss. The sting in Foreman's lip served as a constant reminder, and he found himself reaching up to touch it again.

Before long, he was up from the computer--after only sending out a handful of queries--and pacing, unable to settle down to anything. It was just like House to get into his head and then refuse to give him any peace, that bastard. Foreman considered jerking off, something quick just to relieve some tension, and arousal sped down his spine at the thought. It would be too easy. And he wanted to stop thinking about House, not encourage this pointless disaster in his subconscious.

Going in to work on Monday was going to be hell. He'd have to endure House's looks, and probably his snide, pointed comments. The only thing Foreman could do was be the bigger--the better--man. Rise above it. Not react. Stare House down with the knowledge that he could say anything at any time, about exactly how much House had participated in the kiss, how much he'd enjoyed it, how shaken he'd been.

But Foreman didn't want to say any of that. It was nobody's goddamn business. The last thing he wanted was for everyone to know.

Shit. He had to stop thinking about this. Get out, do something, anything, to serve as a distraction. He wasn't hungry, no matter how long ago that burger at lunch had been. Foreman wasn't the type to self-medicate--he wasn't House--but a drink, right now, sounded good. Away from his apartment, with people, where he could force himself to think of other things. Foreman grabbed his jacket, wallet, and keys, and headed for the pub near the hospital where he, Chase, and Cameron sometimes met after work. When he got there, he took a seat at the bar, hunching his shoulders forward in a definite sign that he didn't want conversation, and ordered himself a Scotch, neat.

The Diagnostics conference room hadn't changed, but filling it with six eager, contentious doctors made it seem much smaller. Foreman couldn't imagine what had possibly brought them here. Did they think House's reputation as a doctor outweighed his reputation as the worst department head in the country to work for? Did they think there would be some sort of glory in playing the part of the man's lackey, without even knowing if they'd get the job? House was playing games again, dangling a future and a career in front of these people.

Foreman ignored their looks. They were here by their own choice. He wasn't going to warn them. He doubted any of them expected to get the rug pulled out from under them at the last minute. Even he'd been naive enough to assume that House wouldn't stop him from leaving. One sabotaged interview was all it took, and he knew that it wasn't going to be easy to escape Princeton-Plainsboro.

He'd still never expected to be back. He poured himself a coffee and glared around him, trying to put as much stand-offishness into his posture as he could. They knew he was Cuddy's spy. Nobody wanted to start a conversation.

That was fine with him. Foreman shook his head at himself, crossed his arms, and stared out the window. It was the same old balcony and the same old view. He'd never felt so trapped.

A minute later, House opened the door from his office. He stopped short and blinked at his six applicants--playthings--as if he'd never seen any of them before, and then started barking out orders.