Spawn of House: The Awakening
Author's Notes – Couldn't resist jumping on the bandwagon, sorry. A few of these lines just drifted into my head and suddenly this all appeared. It's not a parody, but it is primarily humour.
I'm from the UK and haven't seen all of season 3 yet, so it's possible this will somehow counter canon. Although since it's set at some vague, non-specific time, it's unlikely, unless House is revealed to be a woman or something.
Disclaimer- I don't own any of the recognisable characters or concepts. No profit is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.
- - -
It was that time of year again. Open season for med students.
House had been forewarned that a couple of them would be waiting in his office, ready to tag after him like a couple of adorable puppies, except the average medical student wasn't quite as bright as Pavlov's dogs, who would have enough self-preservation to flee after the first surgical implement and/or sample of bodily fluid was flung in their general direction. Unfortunately, he had not been forewarned early enough to say.. switch the name on the door with Wilson's, or crowbar the door plaque from the janitor's supply closet and pretend his office was merely an unusually spacious, unusually broomless broom cupboard.
Neither had he been forewarned early enough to make a clean getaway. Cuddy had learned over the years that the best technique was to lie in wait in the hospital reception and tell him five minutes before he entered his office. Alerting him days in advance tended to result in a phone call, apologising and explaining that House had gonorrhoea or explosive diarrhoea or an enormous boil on his right buttock, or something else that would make whoever was on reception splutter and cough and avoid further questioning and say no, it certainly wouldn't be a problem, Dr. House.
So, now that it was too late to claim sickness, he simply decided to take the leisurely, scenic route to his office. Firstly, he strolled through the gardens to make sure none of the Alzheimer's patients were on the rampage again. Then, he called by the cafeteria and had a second breakfast. After that, he visited the labs to torment Chase and Cameron for a bit, since he'd apparently forgotten to tell them they could go home last night. Finally, he said hello to Cuddy at her office, since he'd also forgotten to tell her that her top was almost entirely see-through under the reception lights. Unfortunately, this once again slipped his mind, and so, almost two hours late, he finally made his way into his office.
"Goodness, am I late?" House said, sounding surprised as he limped past the two waiting students.
"You're right on time," one of them said, cheerfully. "Quarter to eleven, Dr. Cuddy told us."
Damn her.
"OK," he paused, turning around to face them. "Right. You, thingie, and you.. uhh, thingie-2-" he gestured, vaguely.
"Tracy," the first one chipped in eagerly, clearly out to make an impression on her first day. Her heels were a fraction too high, her skirt an inch too short, her makeup just a little too overdone and her hair styled in soft waves. House made a note to see how many colostomy bags he could get her to change before she cracked.
"Right. Tracy. Get rid of the nails, tie your hair back and wear something a little more saucy."
"What?"
"I said, watch out for that damn Aussie. Bit of a pervert," House told her, in a conspiratorial tone. "And.. Laura."
He turned to the other girl, but there wasn't much to say. Sensible shoes, normally dressed, no jewellery, minimum makeup and dark hair tied back from her face. Like a mini-Cameron, or pretty much any of the other female students who had spent their best years slaving over a hot Bunsen burner instead of out indulging in the reckless consumption of toxins.
"Pink isn't your colour," he told her instead, and began heading out of the room and towards the clinic. Cuddy was already waiting there, smirking, and herding them towards the first examining room. He gave her his most sunny, disarming smile (incidentally, House's sunniest smile could send Tritter home crying to his mother) and continued on his way, having once again completely forgotten to mention that her bra was now one of three landmarks visible from orbit.
House swallowed his third Vicodin of the day, and noticed the two still watching him intently in that fascinated, faintly hypnotised way that all students did, as if he would reveal some pearl of medical wisdom every time he swallowed a pill, picked his nose or checked out Cuddy's assets.
"Oh, better write that one down," he told them, eyebrow raised. "'How many painkillers did Dr. House take on September 15th?' will definitely be on the test."
"Should you be taking those while you're working?" Laura asked, uncertainly. "Dihydrocodeinone can cause drowsiness, and euphoria-"
"And the euphoria is precisely what gives me my cheerful, sunny edge," House told her. "Do you really want to see me minus the euphoria?"
There was silence. He banged open the door to the first examining room, limped in, cast a single glance in the waiting patient's direction and announced. "Could be lupus."
"I think he's hurt his leg," Tracy offered, tentatively, after a long minute's silence in which the two of them scrutinised the increasingly uncomfortable, pantless man to see what signs of autoimmune disease their eagle-eyed teacher had somehow detected at ten paces with a single, fleeting glance.
"Yes," House agreed. "But we like to get lupus out of the way early. Don't want to jinx ourselves."
He prodded the man cautiously, with the end of his cane. There was a yelp of pain.
"Are you..."
"Poking him with a stick? Yes," he prodded again, thoughtfully. "Patients are filthy things. No idea where they've been. Better not to get too close."
He prodded a third time, harder, in the middle of the swollen area. Laura and Tracy, who had apparently decided their esteemed tutor was quite mad, were advancing on the patient to examine things for themselves. There was an unpleasant squelching noise, and both shrieked as something large, wriggly and maggoty flew out with astonishing speed in their general direction.
"Botfly larvae," House told them, his day beginning to brighten up already. "If you squeeze them just right, they pop out like a cork. It looks like there's another one left for you to practise on. Try covering it with something gooey until the head pops out, then grab it. Make sure you don't leave any bits behind," He paused, thoughtfully, and then addressed Tracy. "On second thoughts, keep the nails."
He began limping out of the room, satisfied it would take them at least forty minutes or so to extract the larvae.
"How about a syringe?" Tracy asked. "I read in the Journal of Tropical Medicine that venom extracting syringes were safest-"
"And what would you do if you were in the middle of the jungle with no syringes?" he asked. "Pick a syringe from the syringe tree?"
At this point, one of his usual minions would have probably asked if they should also start splinting bones with tree branches, or performing heart surgery with pointy bits of wood. House had forgotten how enjoyable minions were when they were still too young and timid to say anything back.
- - -
House managed to enjoy almost half an hour of peaceful TV-watching in his office before Laura showed up, interrupting him just before he'd have found out whether Desiree would wake up from her three year coma at the sound of hunky Bradley's voice, when he returned from military service to once again keep his vigil by the bedside of his high school sweetheart.
"Did you get it out?"
"Yes," she looked slightly nauseous. "But that wasn't what I came about," She sort of untidily folded herself into a chair, wearing the sort of expression that in interns, usually meant they'd accidentally prescribed Viagra instead of painkillers, or performed a colonoscopy with a craniotomy drill.
"Spit it out," he told her, one eye still on the TV screen. Desiree's luscious, well-mascara-ed eyelashes were just beginning to flutter delicately as Bradley took her hand, moved aside her waves of surprisingly well-maintained blonde curls, and began whispering nostalgically about the first date they had ever had, and how she was the only woman he'd ever thought about during the three years he'd spent in the army.
"I think I'm your daughter."
There was a long silence, which Desiree chose to ruin, by coming out of her coma with a tearful, choked "Bradley?", as she realised her teenage sweetheart had been waiting for her all this time.
"Congratulations," House informed Laura, quite nonchalantly. "Then Mommy was a hooker."
He turned his attention back to the TV. Bradley had now swept Desiree into his arms, since fortunately, she was wearing a short, floaty negligee with no sign of a catheter or adult diaper, being a surprisingly continent sort of coma patient who had also had the foresight to have laser hair removal before being hit by a car driven by her jealous ex-boyfriend.
"I didn't think you'd believe me," Laura said, her voice small. "I can prove it-"
"People show up here claiming to be someone else all the time. You could have aimed a little higher though. There's a neurosurgeon on the next floor who makes three times my salary. And best of all, he's had so many affairs he'll probably believe you," House turned the volume up.
"Her name is Maria. You were an intern, and she was a nurse. I know you didn't have anything serious going on, she's told me from the start that you were never really together."
House paused, his mouth open ready to say he absolutely did not remember a Maria who had been a nurse, wearing a particularly saucy little uniform, assisting on that study into EEG patterns in the REM stage during early dementias, in that secluded little sleep laboratory-
"I know I'm a complete stranger to you," Laura said, pressing on determinedly while House was still waiting for a cutting comeback to show up. "I'm not expecting anything. I just wanted to meet you-"
House glanced at his pager and made an exaggerated expression of shock and disbelief, suggesting that every one of his patients had simultaneously flatlined, and every doctor for miles around had also simultaneously forgotten how to use a defibrillator.
"I really have no idea who you are," House said, standing up. She shut up, abruptly. "Sorry," he said, briefly, since no snappy comeback had decided to show up. Instead there was just a distracting memory involving a saucy little uniform, the romantic glow of wobbling EEG lines, the distant snoring and gasping of elderly patients..
"So I thought I'd find you once I was in medical school. I always wanted to be a doctor. My mother said that my father was a famous diagnostician-" Laura was still following him as he began making his escape.
"And you thought you'd somehow be closer to him if you went through med school too? Touching story," House banged the door open noisily, not bothering to hold it for her.
"Actually, she said he was lazy and an asshole to pretty much everyone, and still earned six times her salary just for showing up in the morning," Laura said, her eyes narrowing slightly before a look of mild apprehension came over her. Fortunately, she was interrupted by Cameron, who came down the corridor at that moment, followed by Chase and Foreman.
"I'm not your father," House said, shortly, and then turned away from her. "Emergency, you said?" he asked Cameron noisily, wriggling one eyebrow pointedly in a way that supposed to signify some sort of conspiracy and instead made Cameron look down to check she hadn't suddenly sprouted a pair of heaving DD cups.
"No," she told him, irritably. "I didn't." She swept past him, back into the office. House frowned. There was definitely a downside to one's minions finally getting some spine. He gave her a dirty look indicating that she was the highest sort of traitor, before limping back down to the clinic, Laura still trailing after him determinedly.
- - -
"What happened to your leg?"
"Progressive ataxia. Mommy didn't tell you that spongiform encephalopathy runs in the family? Your brain will start to irreversibly unravel in another twenty years. Sorry about that."
She still hadn't shut up a couple of hours later, when his clinic duty was up. Tracy had disappeared half way through her time, after the third patient had unexpectedly vomited on her head while she was listening to his heart. House wished the patient had the decency to spray their vomit around a little further, since then he wouldn't have to put up with Laura almost bursting into tears after a fairly hysterical scene in reception with a mother just diagnosed with aggressive, small-cell lung cancer.
Worse yet, it was beginning to get out that one of the medical students was definitely, positively House's daughter. Although thanks to the nature of rumours, the last House had heard of it was something along the lines of Laura being heir to a small country, spawned by a princess who House had met backpacking in Peru during his little-know first career, when he had followed his early dreams of being a champion hod-carrier, and that paternity had been confirmed since they both had identical birthmarks on their right buttock, in the shape of prancing winged unicorns.
He managed to lose her after clinic duty, but after spending a peaceful couple of hours watching TV with one of his coma patients, she was waiting nervously outside his office when he made his way back there. The rest of the diagnostics team were inside, giving House the sort of Knowing Look that indicated they too had heard the rumours.
"Fine," he said, throwing his hands up in an irritated way after she followed him through the door, apologising again. "I lied. I didn't really lose all external genitalia in an unfortunate med school incident twenty five years ago. I donated my chromosomes. I knocked up your mother. Give Daddy a hug," He waited, arms open, eyebrow raised irritably. After a moment or so, she hesitantly hugged him and backed away almost instantly, in a way suggesting she was expecting a scalpel in the back at any moment. Cameron had the sort of dazed, jaw-dropped look that one might assume upon spotting Elvis in examining room one. Or upon having one's frontal lobes suddenly and instantly sucked out.
"It's okay. Go back to work, and we'll talk later," he told her, and after a moment she nodded, uncertainly. House watched her go, eyes softened and a distant, far-away expression on his face. Then, as soon as the door shut behind her, held the three hairs in his hand up to the light and squinted. "Score. Two intact hair bulbs."
He tipped out the last two Vicodin pills and triumphantly folded the hairs into the empty bottle before throwing it to Chase. "You know what to do. I'll bring some of my DNA along to test later."
"You're DNA testing your own daughter?"
"I'm DNA testing someone else's daughter. My chromosomes would have spontaneously unravelled if they'd got wrapped up in that fluffiness," House said, turning back to the whiteboard eagerly. "What have you got for me?"
- - -
"Found out about Spawn of House yet?" Foreman asked, the next day.
"She isn't his daughter," Chase said. "Or rather, her daughter, since I also found out that House is apparently a woman."
"What?"
"He's genetically XX. But on the bright side, he's definitely not her mother either."
"It's not his DNA," Cameron said. "He used someone else's just to be sure they'd get a negative result. One of the coma patients, probably."
"Yeah, but don't you think he'd be smart enough to take DNA from a man?"
"A relative, maybe," Cameron shrugged. "Their elderly wife hugs them, or maybe a nurse was turning them over. Some shed hair ends up caught in their own, House takes a sample, you just happened to test the bulb from that hair. Try the rest. Oh, and check for the presenelin-1 allele to see if that's early-onset Alzheimer's patient he's been spending time with."
- - -
"Yep," Chase said, joining them some time later in the cafeteria. "House is now a man. A man with no daughter, and early-onset Alzheimer's."
"Explains a lot," Foreman said, quietly, as House came limping towards them looking unbearably smug, in the way that a man might if.. say, they were expecting negative results on a certain paternity test.
"Any news on that DNA test?" House asked.
"Test your own DNA," Cameron told him, irritably.
"I did."
"Then why do you have Alzheimer's?"
"Then why were you looking for presenelin-1? That's not a marker used in a paternity test," House told her. "Were you snooping around my genes again, Cameron? If I've told you once, I've told you ten times. I promised Cuddy I'd father her babies first, then you can get in line next, then that little blonde from-"
"Because the first sampled hair came from your patient's wife. Fifty years old, short greying hair, thinks that nice Dr. House is wonderful for spending so much time with her Norbert?"
"Oops."
"Just test your own DNA. She isn't looking for financial support. She just wants to know where she came from," Cameron stood up, and neatly ripped three hairs from House's head in a surprisingly vicious manner.
"I need every spare hair I can get," House protested, as she set off towards the labs, her back stiff and irritated.
- - -
"She's your daughter," Foreman leaned back in his chair, speculatively. "We've just answered two of the longest running debates in human history with one paternity test. Firstly, we now know that nurture beats nature every time. And secondly, there really is no god."
"And we can confirm that all the best genes are either recessive, or carried on the Y chromosome," House said, moodily throwing his ball against the wall.
"Can't you think of one nice thing to say to her?" Cameron asked, flicking through the students' files. "Her grades are quite good."
"Mine were better," House said, pettily. "I suppose her name could be worse," he added, grudgingly. "It would be downright embarrassing to have a daughter named Solace Destiny, or Moonflower Sprinkles."
"Well, she won't be around here that long," Chase said. "Unless she's looking for a job afterwards. Maybe she wants to join the team," He smirked.
"No chance. I don't need another white middle-class girl. I've already got the cute female one, the big black one, the gay one-"
"I am not gay," Chase protested.
"Well, I've already got disabilities covered," House told him. "You can't have that one. Mine."
- - -
"Are you okay?" Cameron asked, sitting down. Laura was in one of the empty examining rooms, having very obviously been crying.
"It's not House," she said, a little defensively. "One of the patients.." she gestured, vaguely.
"The one with small-cell cancer?" Cameron glanced towards reception. "She's been here a lot. It's not your fault, if she said anything to you. She's just scared, and there's no one else to blame except the doctors."
"I don't know if I'd be able to cope with that sort of thing," Laura confessed.
"I probably couldn't," Cameron said. "That's why I didn't go into cancer. But you're going to see a lot of seriously ill people in diagnostics, too. We don't always save them," She fumbled around in her pocket, and found a pack of tissues. "You have his eyes, you know."
"Just nothing else," Laura said, resigned, and then looked up. "What happened between you two?"
"Nothing," Cameron shrugged. "Just as well, I guess. I'd make a weird stepmom."
There was a moment or two of silence, then Cameron's pager beeped.
"I have to go," she said, standing, and then paused. "Don't worry about it. There's only another couple of months to go, and he'll get bored. Where's your next clerkship?"
"Psychiatry."
"Give it another try. You'll learn to train him," Cameron smiled. "He's very food-responsive. Failing that, a rolled-up newspaper works well too."
"Okay," Laura nodded, resigned, and set off to find House once more.
He was inside one of his current cases' rooms, watching the patient with the brooding expression that meant he was preoccupied with thinking of increasingly odd diseases and medical abnormalities to test for.
"Go away," House told her, without looking around. "Saving lives."
"I know," she said, hovering in the door. "Can I meet you later? Or tomorrow."
"At home? That would be very awkward. Me, you and Wilson."
"Who's Wilson?"
"My boyfriend. Unless your mom has more stubble than he does, it's not very likely I'm your daddy."
She wasn't quite as surprised as House had hoped. Next time, he'd tell her he was in a loving, committed relationship with a Yorkshire terrier.
"You're not gay. You were flirting with that doctor, Cuddy-"
"Formerly known as Jeff McTruckerson. Don't be fooled by the spectacular bosom and luscious ass, she kept a little memento of her former days, just for me-"
"-and that nurse on the second floor."
"Well, I'm straight on Tuesdays," House said, now prodding the patient in their left eyeball, his expression distant.
Laura sighed, and left the room to find Cuddy.
- - -
"Can I sit here, mister? You look awful lonely."
House glanced up. A tiny, bald girl in a wheelchair beamed back at him with her sunniest, gap-toothiest grin.
He used his cane to hook one of the chairs from the table and dragged it out of her way. "You can save yourself the cute act though. Doesn't work on me anyway."
She shrugged and drove forward, her disarmingly sweet grin instantly gone. House gestured at her. "To the left a little. And back up a bit. Try to think tall thoughts."
The girl backed up, then manouvered herself into the requested place.
"Perfect," House slouched down in his seat. Between the wheelchair and the large potted plant he was lurking behind, he should be relatively invisible from the cafeteria doorway.
"Who are you hiding from?"
"My daughter. Can you not steal my drink? I have syphilis. Very bad for you."
"What does syphilis do?"
"Makes your head fall off."
The girl thought about it, then resumed drinking House's Coke, unconcerned. "My doctor says I'll be dead in a year anyway. I don't think it'll matter very much if I get syphilis."
"You should talk to some of my patients," House said, protectively removing his fries before she started on those. "They get so whiny about being terminal. And please don't tell your parents I gave you syphilis. That would be a lie, and lies are only big and clever when I tell them."
"What did your daughter do to you?"
"She happened to be a little gamete in the wrong place at the wrong time," House told her. "A little gamete that didn't have the decency to have any lethal genes written into its DNA that would cause it to spontaneously abort when it was still an adorable little blastocyte."
"That doesn't sound like her fault."
"Don't get all precocious on me. You have no idea what a gamete is," House looked up, and noticed Cuddy advancing on him. "Could you possibly burst into tears round about now? Start crying to your Uncle House about how you don't want to die or something equally awkward and touching that she won't want to interrupt?"
"Nope," the girl said. "But I will run over her toes if you like."
The girl zoomed off, taking House's drink with her, and leaving him to the tender mercies of one slightly irritated Cuddy. But true to her word, Cuddy winced visibly as the wheelchair passed by, gave the girl a forced, strained smile before she limped over to House's table.
"Is it true?" she asked.
"I'm sorry," House told her, sincerely. "Nine out of ten doctors agreed. There is nothing more the world of structural engineering can do for you. They'll be resting on your knees by Christmas."
"You're unbelievable," she told him. "You have a daughter-" Cuddy shook her head, disbelievingly. "You know how much I wanted to get pregnant, and now you've found out you have a child and you don't even want to know her. She's thinking about leaving, House."
"If you still want one, she's all yours," House offered.
- - -
"I've asked to be rotated to another clerkship."
"Have fun," House said, without looking away from the TV.
"Why are you so bitter?"
"Oh my god! The insight you have into my mind- it's startling! No, really. Cute little six year old cancer victims try that one on me all the time. No amount of tugging on my sleeve and asking why I'm so sad will work any more."
"We really have nothing in common, do we?"
"I can give you a limp," House offered, threateningly. "You can walk with a cane, just like Daddy does."
She gave him a wounded look. "You don't need to keep driving me away. I told you, I'm leaving. You won't have to see me again."
"Fine. But you're not leaving just because of me," House said. "Blame me if you want, if you don't want to admit that you can't handle patients blaming you because you're not God. You're not going to make a diagnostician."
She was silent.
"You're not cut out for this. Go try a discipline with a lower mortality rate. Orthopedics, or dermatology or something. They might be full of angst and teenage rage, and you're still going to get blamed for every thing wrong with them, but at least you won't lose many patients to acne."
"I always wanted to be a diagnostician," Laura said, her voice rather small.
"Well, it's not working out. If you're going to waste my genes like this, I want them back."
"What else did you want to be?" she asked. "Before medical school, I mean."
"Astronaut."
She laughed, very slightly.
"I should probably see if I can do my rotations at another hospital, shouldn't I?"
"Probably."
A deep sigh. "Okay then," she stood up. "I'll go talk to Dr. Cuddy about it again. I'm not in the next two days, so if they can find me another place soon-"
"Yeah. I won't see you again. I get it."
She nodded, and quietly left House alone, with nothing but the flickering light of the muted TV.
- - -
"House?"
Wilson had been knocking for several minutes, with no answer. He cautiously opened the door, and automatically ducked, but nothing shattered above his head. He stood up again, slowly, watching out for House moving towards him with ninja-like stealth.
House looked up, and scowled at the sight of Wilson and his stupid, cheerful cancer-doctor face. That was one of Wilson's few redeeming features, actually. House liked to imagine there were many tragic misunderstandings when Wilson would come into the room looking so cheery and good-natured, only to break the news that the patient's pancreas would explode, their limbs would drop off and they'd be dead in three months.
"Morphine," Wilson said. "You only need morphine when you're feeling extra guilty." The last time, in fact, had been an unfortunate incident in which House had accidentally left Steve the rat completely bald.
"It's a special occasion," House protested, yanking his tourniquet tighter. "I was having a party."
"You, whisky and a syringe full of morphine. Maybe you should all wear some novel little hats. Or get some noisemakers in here," Wilson shook his head, picked up the bottle and went into the kitchen to find himself a glass. "You know, most fathers celebrate the day they acquire a daughter, not the day they toss one back out into the cold, cruel world to fend for itself."
"She's in her twenties," House said. "It's a little late to cheer it on at volleyball, or ferry it to sleepovers, or frighten the life out of its boyfriends," he trailed off, looking slightly wistful. That part did sound entertaining.
"I heard she's transferred," Wilson poured himself an inch of whisky, and added enough water and ice to make it semi-civil. "Probably not going to see her again, then."
"They're no fun once they get passed ten or so. Not young and tender enough to mould in your own image."
"Not feeling just the tiniest bit wistful that you missed out?"
"Cleaning up vomit, running an unpaid taxi service, spending the best part of my salary on shoes, ponies and medical school? Nah."
"Doing normal family things, House. You could still watch her graduate from medical school, get her first article published, walk her down the aisle, see your first grandchild. Why'd the mother never contact you anyway?"
"We were never serious. Probably knew it would all go horribly, horribly wrong."
"Don't come out with any of those pseudo-noble reasons again," Wilson sat down on the couch and began searching for the remote. "None of that woe-is-me-I-destroy-everything-I-touch. You deny yourself happiness. You sent Stacy away, and you've done the same with your daughter."
"Why are you still here?"
"To make sure you don't go into respiratory depression," Wilson reminded him.
"I see. By drinking all my whisky before I get to it."
"A plan with no flaws. I don't want to have to explain to your daughter why Daddy choked to death on his own vomit the day she left," Wilson found the remote, only for House to whisk it away, yank the batteries out and toss them somewhere over his shoulder, sending them skittering away into the corridor.
"Fine. Wrestling it is," he said, resigned, settling back into the sofa.
"Shut up," House said, comfortably, loosening the tourniquet and reaching for the bottle as he dropped the syringe onto the table, unused.