Hailie flicked through a worn medical textbook, skimming passages she’d read hundreds of times before. Flicking her short brown hair out of her eyes, she glanced for the thousandth time at the phone on the coffee table beside her. However, despite how much she willed it to, it didn’t ring. It just sat silently, propped against a large book dedicated to her specialty, infectious diseases. Hailie quickly realised she’d been staring longingly at the phone for a good thirty seconds and dragged herself back to the text she was reading. He would call. She would get an interview and she would do it without Cuddy’s help, as her mother had suggested she do.

‘It doesn’t hurt to take favours every now and then, you know,’ Jason, her fiancé, called from the kitchen, restarting an argument they’d already had the night before. Hailie sighed, praying for patience. She loved Jason to bits, she really did, but he was infuriating when he thought he was right because, like a bull terrier with lock jaw, he couldn’t let it go.

‘It would hurt in this case dear,’ Hailie gritted her teeth. She hated arguing with him. ‘I would loose all credibility with the man before I’d even met him.’

‘I don’t know why you want to work for him, House is a complete jerk.’

‘He also happens to be the best diagnostician in the country, so why don’t you just drop it?’

‘I don’t know why you don’t take one of those million other jobs you keep getting offered.’

Hailie decided the best thing to do for the time being would be to ignore her future husband and get on with her studies. It was only early in the morning, but she wanted to be prepared if her interview with Doctor House finally happened. In the kitchen, Jason mumbled something through mouthfuls of toast as he ate his breakfast.

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