Broken And Beautiful, a House (Gregory House/OC) Fan Fiction
Chapter One: "You're Abused."
A/N: Hi. New fic. Please tell me what you think.
~ Jane
May 2nd, 2004
Gregory House was walking down the hall at a fast pace (well, as fast as a man with a bum leg can walk), open case-file in hand. Tara Markov, twelve year-old girl, fell down the stairs in front of her widowed father's apartment. A couple of bruises, a broken wrist. Simple enough of a fix. He didn't have any idea why Dr. Cuddy found it necessary to tear him away from patients that were actually sick (not that he ever visited them. The horror!), to take care of some snot-nosed twelve year-old who couldn't manage to walk upright without tumbling down a couple of stairs. House thought back to Cuddy's cryptic answer to his questions: "House, I really need you on this one. For some bizarre reason, patients tell you things, things they normally wouldn't tell anyone, let alone a doctor. This isn't a request House. You're doing it."
He snapped the case file shut, looking up as he walked in the patient's room, and immediately halted in his steps. Sitting on the bed his twelve year-old patient was supposed to be occupying, was a girl, who looked to be at least sixteen years-old, taking notes from an advanced chemistry textbook unnaturally fast. He stood there, watching in awe as her left hand took down note after note without pause, while her eyes quickly scanned the pages, never leaving them. She had finished six pages in the short time he'd been standing there, which was less than five minutes. He then noticed that her right arm hadn't moved once in the whole time he had been there, and there was severe bruising on every visible inch of her body. How can she even move when I know she must be in severe pain? House thought. Suddenly, and without warning, the girl snapped the textbook shut, having moved the notebook to her left side. To House's displeasure, he flinched at the sharp sound. Actually flinched!
"Dr. House, are going to stand there all day with your mouth open like a trout, or are you actually going to say something?" the girl said, in a manner that could have easily been adopted for asking someone to tea. She finally looked up at him, and he almost fell over. She was so… well, 'thin' didn't even begin to cover it. Upon first seeing her, somewhere in the back of his mind he'd catalogued that she was underweight, possibly even anorexic, but… She looked like she hadn't had a square meal in her life, let alone in the past year. Her cheekbones stuck out so sharply when she looked at him, and yet, she had this… glow to her. Her eyes were lit up like it was Christmas, and the way a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth when she teased him… It was like she was on the best holiday of her life. But at the same time, when he looked in her eyes, it seemed she was a hundred years-old, regardless of the fiery spark of life that was there.
"Dr. House? Are you alright?" the girl said, genuine concern filling her voice. House would have laughed at the absurdity of one of his patients asking him if he was okay, but the severity of her condition made him refrain from being his normal cynical bastard self. Then something occurred to him: he hadn't given her his name. He wasn't wearing any i.d. – hell, he wasn't even wearing a lab coat, so how did she know that he was a doctor, let alone his name?
"How do know I'm Dr. House, or even if I'm a doctor at all? I mean, for all you know, I could be a serial killer, or the boogey-monster, or something," he said, using sarcasm to disguise his curiosity.
The tugging at the corners of the girl's mouth filled out into a wide grin – an actual grin!
"Wouldn't you like to know?" the girl teased.
"Well, I wouldn't have asked if I didn't, little girl," House said snarkily.
"You have a doctor's hands. Gentle. Fine-boned, but strong," she said, looking him squarely in the eye in a way that unnerved him.
After a moment House broke her gaze and cleared his throat.
"Well, um, ding ding ding, kid. You win. I'm Dr. House. Now why don't we cut to the chase. You didn't fall down any stairs. I'm not stupid, so-"
"I have a name. If you had actually read the chart you'd know that – just like you'd know that I did fall down the stairs."
House's head snapped up at the acid in her tone as well as the sudden change in her. One moment she's happy go lucky Britney Aguilera, or something like that, the next she's the Ice Queen. House shook his head and recovered from the whiplash she'd given him from the sudden change, ready to give a lashing right back.
"Ha ha, Miss Smarty-Pants. As it so happens I did read the chart-"
"Gee, good for you, Doc Hollywood. Now can we wrap this up? I've gotta get up early. School, you know."
Outsmarted by the damn kid again! House was beginning to wonder if Cuddy hadn't set him up. It had to be that or the fact that she was obviously abused.
"Do you ever stop interrupting people, kid?" House asked sharply.
"Do you ever stop talking, doctor?" the girl replied just as sharply. Her pale blue eyes were hard as diamonds and cold as ice. She wasn't giving anything. She was used to being on the defensive, that much was obvious.
Oh, it was on…
"Do you ever stop being a brat?"
"Do you ever stop demeaning people to make yourself feel better? And I'm not playing this game with you, Dr. House. It's childish," the girl said with an eyebrow raised challengingly.
"You started it," House mumbled irritably.
"Oh yeah, 'cause that's real mature. Can we please just get on with this very painful process of interrogation. I'm sure that you have more important things to do – like shooting spit wads at your other patients, and playing patty-cake with your coworkers."
House wanted nothing more than to drug the crap out of the kid just to get her to shut up. And there was no way in hell that she was twelve years old…
"Fine," House said, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Do you have any problems at home? Say, an abusive parent? Brother? Teacher? Puppy dog?"
The girl raised her eyebrow in obvious distaste.
"Not very subtle are you? Nope, no problems. Everything is butterflies and ice cream. How about you? Is your girlfriend knocking you around?"
House gritted his teeth, vying for control over his darker impulse to just strangle the girl in front of him.
"Ms. Markov, I-"
"Oh, so you really did read the chart?" Tara said in mocking rapture. "I'll be sure to tell Dr. Cuddy so she puts a golden star on your file."
"You're abused," House said firmly.
"I'm not," Tara replied neutrally, almost smiling in confidence.
"You are."
"I'm not."
"You are!"
"I'm not," she said, her tone never changing. "I thought we were going to try and rise above your normal level of childishness? Can you please just cast my arm so that I can go home and we can end this fracas of stupidity? I'm not going to admit anything and we're both simply wasting one another's time."
Before House could come back with a response, the door opened, and a middle-aged man entered that had a striking likeness to Tara.
"Ah, there you are, Terry!" the man said cheerfully, walking past House to wrap his arm around Tara. "I wondered where they'd hidden my little girl."
Tara didn't flinch when her father put his arm around her, nor did the expression on her face change. It wasn't anything quite that obvious that gave away exactly who had put her in her current condition. It was that the light in her eyes seemed to die a little that made House want to rip the man's throat out.
So he's the asshole who's been knocking the kid around…
The middle-aged man turned to look at House, his greasy false smile not fooling House for a second.
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?" Mr. Markov said, holding his hand out for House to shake.
"I didn't give it," House said coldly, ignoring the man's hand. It didn't escape House's notice that Markov's smile faltered a little when he dropped his hand.
"His name is Dr. House, dad. He's the one Dr. Cuddy said would be in. The specialist," Tara said, her tone a little too cheerful to fool House.
"So when can my baby girl come home? An hour? Two?" Markov asked cheerfully, his arm still around Tara.
House looked at Tara, who was refusing to meet his gaze, and felt an unusual shot of guilt and pain through his heart at the thought of sending her home with her tormentor, to endure God knows what.
"Actually," House began, his eyes never leaving Tara, "I think she needs to stay a few days. Maybe even a week."
Markov's smile grew colder, and more forced.
"Excuse me?"
"There were complications," House said, using his best 'doctor voice.'
"What the hell kind of complications could there be? It's a broken wrist for God's sake!" Markov said on the verge of shouting. Tara just seemed numb. She hadn't even blinked since House had said that she'd need to stay.
"Occasionally with broken wrists, the marrow has a chance of seeping into the blood, poisoning the patient. We need to keep Ms. Markov here to ensure that doesn't happen. Being the concerned and loving father that I just know you are, I'm sure you want to make sure you're daughter has the optimum chance of recovery," House said icily, using as many big and impressive words as he could think of in the hope of making the piece of trash in front of him feel as small and unimportant as possible. The smile twitching on Tara's lips didn't escape House's notice.
"Can't you give her an antibiotic or something?" Markov said, almost desperately.
"Unfortunately, due to Ms. Markov's severe underweight, she's about three times more susceptible to infection than the average patient."
Markov didn't miss House's allusion to Tara's malnourishment. His expression was that of someone who had just swallowed a bug, and his face seemed positively green.
"I'll be back tomorrow, Terry," Markov mumbled as he quickly walked around House and headed for the door.
"I don't know that that would be such a great idea, Mr. Markov," House said, stopping the man in his tracks. "Ms. Markov needs as much rest as possible over the next two weeks, so it would be best for her if you made yourself scarce."
Markov was in such a rush to get out that he ignored House's extending of Tara's time in the hospital and simply nodded his acquiescence before nearly jogging out of the room.
House smiled in satisfaction before turning back to his patient. Tara was staring at him intensely.
"What? You look like someone just ran over your cat," House said defensively.
"That was the biggest load of crap I've ever heard," Tara said quietly. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you do that for me?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about. You're delusional from the pain," House said, as always the king of avoiding question that he didn't want to answer – or couldn't answer.
"I'm going to go get you some painkillers. Maybe it'll finally shut you up," House said, after he could no longer tolerate her silent, intense stare.
"Dr. House?" Tara called just as his hand touched the door.
House turned back to look at her, and he found that her icy blue eyes had turned warm and smiling while her mouth remained an immovable line.
"You can call me Tara."
House nodded his acknowledgment of her unspoken 'thank you', and walked out the door, feeling more confused than he ever had before.