"Dad, you can avoid me all you want, but that's doesn't change the fact that I'm here, and I just might need you to be a father right now. Fine, don't answer your messages," Alexis hissed into her cell phone.

She sat patiently at the bar of a restaurant she had never been at before. Alexis swirled her martini before kicking back the last of the clear liquid. Chase had promised to meet her tonight. He said that he could give her a primer on Princeton-Plainsboro and all the people entangled in it. She looked forward to seeing him. Alexis imagined that this might be the only friendly face that she would encounter at and outside of work. If anything, she hoped Chase would have some insight as to why her father was bound and determined to push her away.

Watching her mother die was the final tailspin that induced all the rash decisions she had made. Running across the country to a job she was leery about taking and a father that was never much of a father weren't the best laid plans. Alexis clung to the hope that being near the last of her blood relatives would be enough to make this upheaval of her life worth it.

"Lexy, it's good to see you again," Chase said as he sat next to her.

"At least someone feels that way," Alexis sharply countered as she watched Chase wave down the bartender and order for both of them.

"House is House. You cannot expect him to deal with change well," Chase said as he turned to her and put his large hand over her much smaller one.

"I needed to be near him. It's insane, but I feel like I need to be here," Alexis replied softly.

"I know. I'm glad you're here. I always thought someday you would wind up here,"

"Only by the way of bad luck and Cuddy's desire to build a pediatric emergency room."

"Your bad luck is my gain," Chase replied as he squeezed her hand.

Alexis smiled. In an instant, she felt safer than she had in the last year. She had spent a year learning the foreign territory of taking care of a dying parent. Alexis had learned the finer points of accessing ports, administering TPN, sponge baths, and intractable vomiting. She could only shake her head and go straight into the crash course from hell. There was no one left to share that burden with. Her grandparents were dead and she came from two single children. Alexis never mentioned her pain and her mother's suffering to her father, despite knowing he might understand.

"You're still cute, Robert. Always saying the right thing," Alexis said with a smile.

"Lexy, you know me," he replied.

Chase enjoyed her company more than he would ever admit. She wasn't an 'easy lay' like Foreman had described so many of the other women he had been associated with. Lexy was a vacation from Cameron's insecurities, demands, and pressures. Lexy read like a book. She never asked for commitment; she didn't seem at all interested in discussing a future.

"So are you still going to take me home?" Alexis asked as she sipped her drink.

"Are we still going to sneak around?" Chase replied.

"Only if that's what's going to make you happy. I wouldn't want my father to punish you any more than the punishment you already asked for by working for him."

"It's wouldn't be the last or the first time I pissed him off," Chase replied.

"Well, I am a source of eternal disappointment and embarrassment for him, so . . ."

"Lexy, I'm sure that's a little bit of an overstatement. I cannot imagine you disappointing him more than Cuddy," Chase replied with a soft chuckle.

"So does that give you carte blanche to do whatever you want to your boss's daughter?"

"If she lets me."

"She's your daughter," Wilson said exasperated by the man laying across his office couch.

"That's the problem. She might as well be a stranger with the same last name," House replied as he stretched a little deeper into the cushions.

"Well, you might as well get to know her. She's the last of your family to be alive and interested in forming a relationship with you."

"It's not that simple. You don't just make up for thirty-some years of not being around just like that," House said with a snap of his fingers to illustrate his point.

"Well, you could start by talking to her."

"About what?"

"I don't know. Talk about work, the weather . . . something," Wilson replied as he shook his head.

House sighed. He couldn't begin to imagine what Alexis could possibly want from him. House couldn't even fathom what to ask her. Their last conversation was about a medical conference that she presented at. He didn't dare ask about her mother. She didn't dare to bring it up.

"House, listen to that voicemail again. She needs you," Wilson said.

"So you really think I'm going to like it here?" Alexis asked with one eyebrow raised as she ran a finger in lazy circles on Chase's abs.

He pulled her closer and kissed the crown of her head. Chase ran his fingers through her hair. She was just as he remembered; she was soft and her lips tasted like vodka and cherry lip gloss. He smiled.

"Lexy, you will. You will have your own pediatric ER to run," he replied.

"Robert, that's not why I came here."

"I know, but one day at a time. I'll be here . . . "

"Robert, I've always liked being in your bed. This might be the only place in New Jersey that I like," she replied.

"Well, then I need to work harder to make this the only place you love to be."

"What if I resist all your attempts?"

"Resistance is not an option, Lexy."

She couldn't help, but to laugh at his self-confidence, if not arrogance. Alexis was fully aware that she would call any other man with Chase's sexual prowess a player. She wasn't the type of woman to allow herself to be played. Alexis counted Chase among the few constants in her life. He was always more than willing to keep her distracted while she was in New Jersey. She was more than willing to follow his lead. Chase felt safe. He, for some unknown reason, made her forget why she hated New Jersey.

"You drive a hard bargain, Robert."