Great. Just great. Not only was the case getting out of his hands--because of Brennan, Foreman was sure--now Amber was bristling at him like he'd insulted her. All he'd wanted was the fucking benefit of the doubt. He hadn't gotten that from anyone, not since he'd cured his patient at Mercy General. Get fired for being right. It was turning into the story of his life. He wasn't doing anything differently than House usually did--including getting a few wrong answers--but everyone thought he was failing where they'd take it from House like it was standard operating procedure. He felt tense, his stomach knotted; it was practically stage fright, he was so worked up about something as simple as running a differential, which he'd done a hundred times before. All he wanted was for Amber to let him do his job. Her job was to come up with ideas, his was to make treatment decisions. House had a room full of tyrants instead of a team, and it wasn't working.

Glowering, he followed her into the hall. "What we don't have time for is people going off on their own and getting in the way," he said, anger in his voice, although he spoke quietly and it wasn't directed at her; he was nearly speaking to himself. Why was it so fucking hard for them to listen to him? He knew what he was doing.

Foreman stalked down the corridor and turned in at the conference room, shoving the door open ahead of him. Everyone else was already there, which only made him and Amber walking in--late--together--look even worse. Well, he wasn't going to indulge their curiosity or their judgements. He went straight to the whiteboard and picked up the marker, adding the symptoms in an untidy scrawl instead of taking his time to make his handwriting legible. "It's not Miller-Fisher with the fever and delirium," he said, jumping in immediately. "It's more likely MS."