Ooh, lookie here, more lurkers! I love you people who reviewed, though! I also forgot to mention that any readers of my SVU series 'From LA to New York, it's all the Same' and my Kaleido Star 'Angel series', those sequels are in the works and will be posted as soon as possible. I haven't forgotten about you guys!
Chapter 3
"I have two things to announce," House proclaimed as he walked into his office. "First, Chase, for your bachelor party, the ice cream on the table is for everybody to taste."
Everybody walked forward to get some, excited by the prospect of free food, but House held Thirteen back. "I don't think you want any of that," he said, shaking his head.
"Why not? I'm hungry, and my baby says I want ice cream!" she exclaimed, trying to step around him to get some.
Chase licked his spoon uncertainly, then said, "It tastes like vodka."
House smirked and let go of Thirteen, rolling his eyes. "That's because it is- vodka flavored ice cream. And, Thirteen, if your baby wants vodka flavored ice cream now, then he'll be an alcoholic before he's three."
Sighing heavily, Thirteen sat down as far away from the vodka/ice cream and said, "That's nice, tempt me with good looking food that I can't have. So kind of you, House. Anyways, what's the other thing?"
"Alex woke up- she's got retro grade amnesia. It's time to forget about ice cream and work now."
The team gave a collective sigh at having to forget about the food, then started discussing their patient. After the test for drugs had come back positive, House had suggested a rapid detox program that only took one night, just in case her withdrawal symptoms were masking something more serious. After the detox, though, Alex had developed short term memory loss.
Foreman had just suggested cancer as a possibility when House spoke up from his chair in the corner. "PTSD," he said while flipping through a magazine.
Everyone looked at each other in confusion. "What, we've got models fighting in Iraq now?" Chase asked, walking over to get some coffee and shaking his head.
House tossed the magazine onto the table, revealing a shot of Alex advertising some new jeans. "In some cases, PTSD has been shown to be set off by rape and sexual assault. Now, you show me a teenage girl who looks like that, and I'll show you a girl that's been sexually abused."
"That's your proof?" Foreman asked slowly, looking at him in surprise. "That she's good looking?"
Thirteen drew in a shaky breath, trying to stay calm through House's response. She didn't like handling cases where the patient had been raped- not that had ever been particularly thrilled to be handed a victim for a patient beforehand, but now, it was nearly impossible for her to remain objective for cases like this.
"House," Chase said, rolling his eyes at the end of House's long-winded explanation, "your theory has the advantages of being completely improvable and also absolutely expiating you."
"Ask the father, that'll be your proof," House said with a shrug, heading back to his office.
"Oh, yeah, I'm sure he'll confess," Chase scoffed, Foreman nodding in agreement.
Rolling his eyes, House turned back to face them and said, "Of course he won't, but while one of you is talking to the father, Thirteen'll be talking to Alex. They're both females, and all that psycho babble shit says that it's best to put a female and a female together when asking about sexual abuse. You know what, I'll take the father, you guys would just screw it up."
Chase just shrugged and sat back to down to treat himself to some of the vodka flavored ice cream while Foreman tried to protest. "House, you can't just barge into that room and accuse the man of abusing his daughter."
"Sure I can," he said with a shrug. "Here's how it goes- I walk in there, accuse the man of abusing his daughter, and see where everything goes from there. And Thirteen, you're following me, because you're going to talk to Alex while I'm with the dad."
Thirteen hesitated, then decided she'd rather talk to a rape victim than the rapist and got to her feet to follow him out. "Fine, but this wasn't in my job description," she said as she walked out of the office.
HOUSE HOUSE HOUSE
"All right, let me see if you understand this, Sarah," Cameron started off. "People are not toys. You don't get to play with them, especially when they're dying."
Instead of nodding in agreement, as Cameron hoped but not expected, Sarah shrugged and said, "I heard your Doctor House does things like this all the time. You people don't seem to get concerned when it's your golden child doing things that are-"
"Wait, you're acting like a child because you heard House does so and gets away?" Cameron exclaimed, shaking her head and chuckling slightly. "All right, first of all? House is not someone you should aspire to be. And, another thing, he gets away with it for two reasons- first of all, he's a genius when it comes to diagnostics, and when you're that good, you get away with certain things, and they're diagnostic tests! He does them for medical reasons!" Cameron was hoping that this was simply a case of someone trying to be like House and not that Sarah really was immature enough to work in an ER.
Unfortunately for her, Sarah replied, "Look, it's not like I'm injecting poison into someone's wound to see what color it makes their skin turn or something. What I'm doing is just harmless little-"
"That is exactly the problem, Sarah! They are not harmless! Not in the ER! We do not have time to waste poking and prodding and laughing when someone's dying! You want to do that in the clinic, fine, I still think it's unethical, but there, it really is harmless! But here, I need to know that you are doing your job, and I can't have a doctor looking over your shoulder in case you decide to have a little fun instead of treating their injury!" Cameron's pager went off and she hesitated, then decided to continue chewing Sarah out later. "I have to get this, get back to work and I'll finish talking to you when I get back."
HOUSE HOUSE HOUSE
"Are you doing your daughter?"
That was House's less than subtle cue to Thirteen for her to go in and talk to Alex about her father. She smirked before heading off to Alex's hospital room, unsure of exactly how she was going to interrogate the fifteen year old supermodel about her sexually abusive father.
House waited until he saw Thirteen disappear into Alex's room before he added on, "We should probably do this somewhere more private. Come on." He gestured for the father to get up and follow him, glancing around at the shocked onlookers and saying, "He's probably not. I'm sure he's not!"
Since the father even willingly followed him instead of punching him, House already knew everything he needed to know, but his team would never accept that for an answer, so he still had to work it out of the bastard. The moment they were in the men's room, he shouted, "What the hell was-"
House reached up and felt the bastard's glands- he was going to have to be content in calling him 'bastard', since he didn't remember the bastard's name- and when his hands were shoved aside, he said, "There. Your glands are fine. See, you're my patient now, so we have doctor patient confidentiality and I can't tell anyone what you tell me."
The bastard stared at him for a moment, then shook his head and walked away. "I did not have sex with my daughter!"
"Oh, come on, I can't imagine anybody not wanting to do her."
"Hey!" The bastard shouted at him, but House just shrugged it off.
"Hey, it's a compliment! That heart-shaped ass, those perky, perfect, all-natural breasts-"
The bastard advanced on him, yelling, "That is my daughter you're talking about, you son of a-"
"No, that's your daughter you were talking about." He produced the magazine from earlier with Alex's picture, pointing to the article. "Written by her father- Everyone just loves that heart-shaped ass, those perky, perfect, all-natural breasts- she just naturally knows how to walk."
The bastard swallowed and looked away, his jaw clenched. "I'm her manager. I have to write that sort of the stuff."
Based off the bastard's nervous expression, this was going to be simpler than House had previously thought. "Ah, I see. You divide yourself into categories. When you're driving her to the mall, you're her dad. When you're writing sexy articles for her, manager. Helping with homework, father- but when you're making sweet, sweet love, you're her manager."
"I told you, I never slept with her!"
House sighed, then approached him again and snapped, "Some psychological conditions can manifest themselves with physical symptoms, and, in rare cases, these can be severe enough to kill. There are treatments, but only if there is a diagnosis made."
"I would never have-"
"Do you love Alex?" House interrupted, prodding him towards the answer he wanted.
"I'm not going to say it again-"
"Do you love her enough to admit that you slept with her?"
There was a short silence in which he looked away, biting his lip, then finally said, "One time. One time, that was it." House nodded, not willing to say anything more, and left the bastard to wallow in guilt or do whatever it was child abusers did.
HOUSE HOUSE HOUSE
"Daddy did her," House told his team, who gathered together in the lab to wait for Alex's latest blood test. "Case closed."
Thirteen raised an eyebrow at him, then said, "Alex doesn't think so, and neither do I."
"Daddy thinks so."
Everybody looked back at him in shock, eyes wide. "You got him to admit he abused his daughter?" Chase asked in surprise, and it was clear that he was at least skeptical of what House was saying.
"Doesn't matter. Her last blood test came back; high protein levels in her CSF. Daddy didn't do this to her, and neither did we," Foreman said, handing House the blood tests.
Thirteen looked over her shoulder at Foreman, staring at him in surprise. "Okay, first of all, does nothing surprise you? You find out our teenage supermodel drug addict patient is being sexually abused by her father, and all you have to say is 'doesn't matter'?"
Foreman just shrugged, and House cut in, "Well, this blood test isn't symptomatic of PTSD, so he's right, what the bastard did isn't diagnostically relevant. So now, we have this new protein level to work with."
After a moment, Chase suggested a tumor, and Foreman started poking holes in his theory. Thirteen looked between them with a raised eyebrow, and when they continued to hold their differential, she interrupted with, "Wait just a second- am I the only one who cares that our fifteen year old patient was raped by her father?"
"Oh, relax," House told her, waving it off. "He can't do anything now that she's in the hospital; the room's got windows, after all."
Thirteen stared at him, somehow still able to be surprised by House's 'logic'. "That's not what I'm concerned about, House- we have to call child services! We can't let him get away with just-"
"Look, he can't do anything while she's in here, and I need the father here with her, in case he's got any more secrets I need to know about! Jesus, you're acting just like Cameron."
She blinked, shocked at his callousness, then shook her head and got to her feet to go get the father away from Alex. As she headed down the hallway, she had to admit, she had sounded like Cameron back there. The woman had gotten personally invested in nearly every case House had run across, but this was different. Most every case was still just a patient to her- but rape cases were always personal to her now. How could they not be- after all, she was carrying her rapist's baby.
When she got to Alex's room and saw her father sitting next to her and holding her hand, it took all of her strength to stop herself from going in there and kicking the shit out of him. She clenched her hands into fists and forced herself to remain in control, then stalked into the room and growled at the father, "What the hell are you still doing here?"
"Um... excuse me?"
Thirteen walked closer towards Alex, still glaring at him. "Why are you still in here with Alex? You shouldn't be here."
"She's my daughter, of course I should be-"
"Oh, she's your daughter? You enjoy raping your daughter, then, you sick bastard?"
The bastard looked back at Alex, who sat up straighter and said, "What are you talking about? I told you before, everything's fine."
Thirteen glared at her father before stepping in between the two, focusing on Alex. "Alex, everything is not fine! He even admitted to having sex with you!"
The teenager shrugged while her father got to his feet and snapped, "You have no proof of that conversation ever taking place, and my Alex doesn't need to be stressed over this right now! Get the hell away from us!" Thirteen hesitated, remaining in her protective stance in front of Alex for a second before deciding to go and tell Cuddy that House was shielding a child molester on the off chance that he might have information to help diagnosis Alex. She couldn't do anything to help the teenager in her current position. With another scathing glare at the bastard father, she stalked from the room and slammed the door behind her.
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