AN: So... I wasn't planing in this type of reception (I was never known by my writing skills). In consequence, I'm posting this chapter sooner than the predicted.

Again I loved your opinions and I'm waiting for more.

Disclaimer: House MD is not mine and I apologize ahead for my mistakes...

Without a single word, House reached for the kid and direct him towards the exit, only his younger kid to force him to go to the principal's office. It had been a surprise to witness Benjen's newly developed personality. In his case the problem had always been there. The abuse that he suffered left many marks of a troubled childhood and an even more problematic adolescence. However she had changed him for the best. The years that they spent together made him better and worse. The good things got better and the bad worse. She made him feel everything, which probably hadn't been such a good thing when the worst happened. They had changed. He just ran, he couldn't deal with her broken self. He couldn't do anything, he was broken and no one could repair them. Stacy had appeared in his life in the right time, the time that he most needed an escape.

"Dad, I -"

"Sure, come on. Let's get out of this hell." Benjamine was the proof that she still loved him. He spent most of his time convincing himself that he had made the right choices. That being with his family only would be worst, that only would remind them of what had happened. That Stacy was the answer, that she was the one for him. Needless to say that everything crumbled to earth about almost three years after their divorce. In that case it hadn't been exactly an ultimatum but he was in no position of denying his boss's order. He couldn't stay unemployed while paying three pensions, considering that Lisa supposedly didn't want anything to do with him or his money. However she still wanted him. A lousy convention about auto immune diseases, that's all that it took. And Benjamine was conceived. Three years after the beginning of his relationship with Stacy. To aggravate the situation, his kids were pretty sure that Benjen was his son. However it confused them why he would stay with her, why he had chosen her over them. The answer was simple. She meant stability. If he wasn't incredibly happy, he couldn't get fatally hurt. There was no pressure. He liked that, but he didn't love it. Unlike Stacy, Lisa would do anything to pick a fight, to get a reaction, to blame him of something. Their relationship had always been based on fights and make up sex. But that made everything so real that most of the times it was too much to handle.

How much he had been mistaken...

After an excruciating walk to his leg, they had finally reached the bike. Benjamine quickly put his helmet and threw his father's to the place where he stood with a hand on his thigh, trying to relive some of the pain, while doing a huge effort to not take a couple of pills in front of the kid. One thing was to mess with her. Another was to remind the kid why he had, again, his parents separated. After a great amount of strength, he was on his bike while his son was holding him in a thigh embrace with his ridiculous helmet.

His apartment had been the first destination on his mind, yet it wasn't such a good idea. The place was full of empty bottles and there were pills everywhere. If Benjen had done this a few months ago, he would have taken him home, search for clues and then talk to him. Considering the state of his inexistent relationship with Lisa, that idea wasn't better than the previous one.

While his father headed to an unknown direction, Benjamine was extremely proud of himself, getting out of school, passing time with his father and try to play with him a little. Benjen had always been a show off and undefeated. Yet in this particular case, he hoped that his dad would figure it out before it was too late. But if he was going to lose, at least he would do it with the satisfaction of pissing his father off.

The big buildings were getting behind, ahead there was just the highway. When they reached to their destination, there was just a breath-taking view of the morning sea and the far shadow of Brooklyn. After forty minutes, they had arrived to Perth Amboy. He used to go there when he was much younger with his older siblings and their father, even before the infarction, before the drugs... When his father was admitted in Mayfield, his sister had dragged him there, hopping that she could make him understand that it had been worth it, for him to realise that they could have their dad back. Things will be much better, she said. At this moment, Benjen only could think about the things that he had lost in the past months.

In House's mind, this was the best that he could get, at least for the kid. Like in many other places, this one reflected the pain and disappointment. However it seemed like the right place for Benjamine to open up.

Over the years, House never understood completely that child. None of his kids were easy to deal with or comprehend, yet Benjen was the worst. With Rodrick, being the eldest had its weight; however it was just like dealing with a more subtle and enigmatic self. In Alexander's case, everything was a discovery, yet usually it didn't get out of hand. He was predictable at being unpredictable. Then there was Grace, in her yearly years she had been exactly like him, still was but she had grown so much... Rachael was as stubborn as Lisa, but a great liar. And Benjamine ... He was the best metaphor for what House was nowadays, without reason or understanding.

"Don't want food." the fourteen year old was standing in front of an old and deteriorated restaurant, which by a miracle was still standing in the middle of wet sand and rocks. When they had moved to Princeton, this was the first place in Jersey that they stopped. Alexander had run to the place, disregarding every warning coming from his mother, that clearly was wondering how such place had survived to inspection. Since that day Beth, the proud waiter and owner of the dinner, had been a good acquaintance.

Beth Summers was a redheaded with a Brooklyn accent, who had the gift to be able to deal with House and all of his kids at the same time. The women had endure a lot in her life, being a single mother, providing a good environment for her kid and running the dinner on her own. She had like the children at first sight, Rodrick's comebacks, the fearless present in everything that Alexander did, Grace's rationality and observation. Later, Beth had loved the residual paradox within Benjamine.

"You will eat and ask for more." House was dragging the kid by the ear towards the entrance of the beaten dinner.

Everything was the same as Benjamine remembered. The walls varied from bloody red to dirty white, the traces of humidity and the floor with a chess pattern changing white to black in each step. His dad had pushed him in the direction of one of the vintage booths, the one that remained by the door. Benjen sunk in the sit with a smirk on his face. He loved his dad, but sometimes he got off track and Benjen was probably the only on to bring back to the game. It could be counted by the fingers the number of people who truly had interested him and it would decrease even more where tricking him was related. This type of situations characterised their relationship; of course, it wasn't the common between a father and a son, but then why worry, they had never been conventional.

"Soooo... Can we go home now?"

"No, you're my reason for skipping work. Sooo..." House said very slowly to the boy. His biggest objective was to provoke a reaction, to make him talk. With Benjen everything was there, the worst was to figure that out. A word or an expression was the key to unlock what his son was keeping from him. While House analysed the boy, the angry voices from the kitchen filled the place. House always had questioned himself about the origin and type of relation that the owner and her chef maintained. The grumpy man rarely left his post, however in a way or other he made sure that she would be there to take the boredom of the whole situation. Grace used to say that he and Lisa were having glances of the future.

"What do you want to eat?"

"I'm not hungry." his kids never said no to food, especially the boys. Yet Benjamine still said no.

"You are a fourteen year old boy who needs to eat in order to pass the midget phase, besides Wilson is paying."

"Doesn't he always? Doesn't he notice that he's feeding unaccounted mouths?" Strange... His son had changed the course of the conversation to 'Wilson the oblivious idiot'. The boy was clearly thinner than before, his sweatshirt hadn't been that loose a couple of months ago. Like he could see in him, the structure of his son's face was more pronounced than usual; the eyes were sunken, common for dehydration. Yet the boy was wearing too much clothing for this time of year, fever... The kid doesn't want to eat.

"So you don't mind if I eat one of Ruth's especial burgers?" there was a big difference between not wanting to eat and not being able to actually do it. For a doctor or even a psychologist, they would diagnose an eating disorder in a flash, yet the eyes, the possible fever... No, an eating disorder wouldn't be the answer, even though that the number of cases in boys of Benjamine's age suffering from it had increased astronomically.

"Whatever you want..." the boy's pale face was turned to the window, paying close attention to the small fishing boats that had come from the stormy sea after a long night of work. He couldn't lose this quickly. His father was a great adversary but he couldn't lose this easily. To be at his level he needed to remain emotionless and to not give more leads to his father. However to House the abnormal effort had given it away, he was on the right path to win Benjamine's game.

"Ruth!"

The redheaded gazed from the small window that connected the kitchen to the main room of the dinner in search of the source of the calling. The regular clients didn't dare to call for her in the middle of her discussion with her lazy chef, so finding the person that had called hadn't been that hard. A doctor with a cane and a pair of Nike shoes, accompanied by a teen looking to the sea, seated near the door.

Gregory House had been one of those clients that she feared to have, but in the end those were always the funniest. However the owner hadn't seen that specific client in years. Benjamine had been there more recently, maybe three years ago... Yet he still maintained the same defeated posture.

"Finally here to marry me?"

"Keep dreaming... My new wife is a European babe. I'm totally taken." now, Benjamine was sharply looking at him. He hadn't been there for the marriage, but he had been the one to put his mother in bed and calming a fuzzy Rachael. That night he had ended up sleeping with his mother and Rachael, that had been the only way to sooth them both. The next morning few words were spoken until Rachael made the usual question of the day 'Where's House?'. His mother had broken a dish and two glasses by the time that he picked up his sister and ran for the door. Fucking marriage.

"Sure... So Benjamine, what's going to be?"

"A coke." her curious gaze was quickly dropped by a warning look from the boy's father. It was very unusual for a House to turn down food. She still remembered, Alexander entering with a gigantic back pack from moths away from home. That boy was by far her best client, the main problem was that he only appeared when he went home, which occurred once in a blue moon.

"Doctor?"

"The specialty with a milkshake and sprinkles." the man still acted like a child. Her first impression was that Lisa had four kids inserted of three. In those times Benjen wasn't even around. Ruth turned and screamed the request, starting that way the second round of the fight with the chef.

The boy wouldn't break. His pale completion and obvious weight lost... Benjamine's arms remained in the same position. House could swear that he had heard a flinch of pain coming from his son's mouth when his son detached himself from the tight embrace that he kept during the whole trip.

"How's lacrosse?" his son wouldn't dare to lie, due to his inherited cross called hypersensitive guilt system. In times like these, his kids didn't have a chance, not even Rachael.

"It's not going." the boy continued to stare at the horizon. "Don't play anymore."

To Benjamine, the first thought that crossed his mind was that due to the stress of seeing his mother in the hospital, witnessing his father's return to drugs and being the only one able to control his three-year old sister, was the reason of his sudden symptoms. Yet, then he started to remember everything that his siblings and parents taught him about medicine over the years, a stress related issue came out of the table. From that point on he had been attentive towards very thing that happened in his body. The diagnostic became clearer with time, what he had was attacking him from inside out.

"Do you know what the problem with fever is? It's good for you."

"And that's a problem?"

"Your corporal temperature raises, more chemical signals are sent to the hypothalamus, your blood vessels dilate in order to facilitate the passage of phagocytic cells that are a consequence of the same anterior chemicals that were release from pathogenic agents. In that way, phagocytic cells a.k.a. good guys are able to destroy what they acknowledge as foreign enemies. So it's good to a certain point." Benjen still had his gaze fixated in the sea, yet the small and sudden movements indicated that his father was getting closer.

"Thank you for the Immunology lesson, but you know that I don't really care."

"However when the fever is so high that the little kids aren't able to control it with the meds in mommy's cabinet, things can get out of hand. Or the kids simply want to end up with irreversible brain damage or without little Benjamines down there, if catch my drift..."

"Well... Yeah, just like it happens with drug addicts."

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