Sophia Wilson sat on the balcony outside of her brother`s office with a pout and a book. She`d been there for a couple of hours before Dr. House finally stopped hiding from Cuddy and returned to his office. He spotted her out there right away.

"Sophia!" he called, limping out to her. She turned to look at him and he wasn`t at all surprised to see the bruises on her face. "Staying with Wilson again?"

"Yeah," she said bitterly. "He literally dragged me away from another-"

"Asshole," House finished with a smirk.

She rolled her eyes at him, "You`re one to talk."

"Well, since assholes are your thing, I`m free anytime you want," he winked.

Wilson looked up in time to see and stormed out onto the balcony.

"Leave her alone House!"

"We`re just talking James," Sophia mumbled under her breath. Timid and shy again; House wondered what the latest loser had done to her.

She was always afraid of almost everyone after Wilson dragged her away from one of the abusive boyfriends. Somehow, she had always been ok with House though. Wilson, in his usually psycho-babble, theorized that it was because he openly objectified her and treated her like crap. She hated herself and, according to Wilson, seemed to think that everyone would eventually either leave her or start treating her like crap. She went for the people who already treated her badly, because she thought that they would stay with her, as long as they didn`t have to pretend to like or respect her. House usually rolled his eyes at Wilson when he said things like that, but Sophia had never had a boyfriend who didn`t abuse her. The few nice guys that Wilson had set her up with never made it past the second date before she came up with a reason to stop seeing them.

It always amazed House that she seemed to fear her big brother. Wilson certainly wasn`t the type to do anything to hurt her. In fact, he was overly protective. He called her just about every day. She avoided him, but he kept trying to see her and make sure that she was ok. House knew that he worried about her constantly. He also knew that Wilson was somewhat obsessed with building his little sister`s non-existent self-esteem.

"Ok," Wilson said in the way-too-gentle voice that was reserved for Sophia. But he glared when he looked up at House, "Don`t you have clinic hours?"

"We`re just talking James," House repeated Sophia`s words and smirked. Wilson didn`t seem to find it funny.

"Just go House," he raised his voice a little and both men saw Sophia flinch. Wilson looked at her a sighed, "Why don`t you come read in my office?" He put a hand on her shoulder and faked a smile. She nodded. As always, Wilson felt a little bit guilty when he told her what to do, because he knew that she was too timid to tell him no if she didn`t want to listen. She was his half-sister, her mom was a nut. She wouldn`t tell Wilson what her mom had done to her, but it seemed pretty clear that she was abused as a kid.

Sophia followed Wilson into his office and sat down on the couch. "You don`t h-have t-to see any patients today?" she stammered.

Wilson shook his head, smiled, and sat down next to her, "Actually, I was thinking about taking the rest of the day off. We can get you unpacked and watch 'Psycho' and 'Halloween.'"

Sophia finally seemed to lose some of her nervousness, she turned to her big brother excitedly, "You bought my favorite movies?"

He nodded, "Of course," he hesitated before saying what he`d been wanting to say all morning, "I was thinking you could stay with me for a while this time. Maybe get settled in around here."

Sophia`s expression quickly changed to sadness and she looked down at her hands. "I... I-"

"Sophia, you`re my sister. I love you. You can stay with me where you`ll be safe."

She was crying before he was done speaking, and this time when he reached out to comfort her, she quickly backed away from him.

"I was safe," she sounded defensive, but the way she was putting distance between herself and James, he knew being defiant was scary to her.

"He hit you."

"Because I was talking back. I deserved it and now he`s going to be mad because you made me leave!"

"You can have a relationship where-"

"No! No I can`t James," and with that she was storming out of his office.