Now that she felt safe, she jumped down and looked up at House.

"You got me into trouble!" she shouted with her hands on her hips, just as she'd seen Cuddy do when she'd been caught running from the nurses.

House laughed as the little girl attempted an air of authority.

"This means war," she declared and stomped into House's office to get a spare pair of clothes from her duffel bag stuffed under his desk.

House shrugged off the declaration, and followed her back into his office.

"Just stay here until I come back to get you, I'm only going to the floor below to deal with a patient. You can play on my game-boy, okay?"

Pan looked up at him, still angry, but the emotion had difficulty holding for long on her angelic face.

"As soon as I finish this case we can go and bail your dad out."

She nodded as she unzipped her bag.

House hesitated a moment.

"It was pretty funny though?" he smirked.

Pan smiled, she tried to hide it as she searched through her bag but House saw. They caught eyes, House nodded and left.

"And it is going to get a whole lot funnier," Pan grinned to herself, pulling a tube a super-glue and pink paint out of her bag.


Pan sneaked down the hallway; unfortunately she was a little more conspicuous now that she wore a pink fairy-princess dress, compete with small wings, sneakers and odd socks - but she had a plan.

She spotted House standing over his patient, wearing a face mask and sterile scrubs. His cane, Pan noted with a sly grin, was left outside the room - this would be much easier than she had thought. She tiptoed towards it, pleased that he hadn't left it in the chamber between the hallway and sterile room. She took the tube of pink paint from her pocket - she knew her crafts set would come in useful despite her dad's reasoning. Then she smeared it all over House's cane using her hands. She covered as much of it as she could, getting bits of paint in her hair, which bounced into curls as it continued to dry, and accidentally wiped a massive smudge across her forehead as she moved her hair out of the way. Then she smeared the handle with superglue, and fled back up the hallway to watch from a distance.

Soon House came out of the room, leaving a woman sobbing on the man's bed, and the man looking rather angry. He disposed of his scrubs and limped out to retrieve his cane. He paused and cursed, looking down and then back up the corridor. Pan jumped out and pulled a face, House scowled as she giggled loudly. He grabbed the cane to pursue her, limping fast, ignoring the strange looks the pink cane brought.

Pan giggled, standing still as House approached her. He stopped and looked down at her, like they were meeting in the battlefield. She raised her bright pink hands in surrender.

"It wasn't me," she laughed.

House's glare turned to a smirk and lifted the cane of the floor in disdain, but then his face fell again. His hand was stuck to it.

"You glued it?! Oh, just wait until I tell your dad on you!"

"No because I didn't tell Doctor Cuddy on you! You got me in trouble, so I painted your…your walking stick pink."

"I know - I don't want it to be pink."

"Yes - but it's prettier now," she nodded knowingly.

"Why are you wearing a fluffy pink dress with fairy wings?" House asked, taking her mucky pink hand in his and walking quickly back towards his office.

"Because I'm playing princess," she shouted skipping alongside him, "What's wrong with your patient?"

"His liver's failing."

"Does that make him breath like this?" she asked, breathing short and shallow, as though she was hyperventilating. They stopped walking and House looked at her with curious eyes.

"No."

"Then why is he?" Pan asked, and they both turned to look down the hall, where the patient was just visible through the glass walls.

"He's having a panic attack," muttered House, turning and limping back towards the room.

They stood outside, House went to bang on the glass wall with his cane, but remembered it was still stuck to his hand. He pulled it off with a wince, glad it hadn't set too well against his warm skin. But in the process he did manage to smudge pink paint up his leg from the cane, and a splodge on his cheek after pulling his hand off the sticky wood.

"It's spontaneous bacterial peritonitis," House shouted at a nurse. She frowned at him, and hurried into the room, tying a mask to her face. House rolled his eyes and paged his team the diagnosis. Sometimes it paid to wear a lab coat, he thought to himself, and to not be covered in pink paint.

"He needs a paper bag - stat!" Pan told the nurse.

House smiled, but perhaps only at solving the case.

"That's why his symptoms didn't fit; they weren't symptoms. They were symptoms of symptoms of a psychological consequence of a hidden infection. Turns out he's not a depressed alcoholic. Damn," he sighed.

Pan just looked at him with wide eyes as he explained this to her.

"What would happen if everybody got amnesia at the same time?" she asked.

House looked at her with a frown, distracted from his puzzle, then his face softened as he pondered the question.

"Maybe people would be happier?" he said, turning and limping with his pink cane down the hall, hand in hand with his granddaughter.

"Everybody would forget they left the oven on…and blow up and…and lose their mice from the hospital."

"Mice?"

"Yes, I found some mice in a room. I think they were doctors once but they forgot and turned into mice. So if everybody forgot…"

The two walked down the hall, continuing their strange conversation until they reached the lift.

It opened to show Cuddy, Wilson and the four doctors on House's team standing in the lift. They stared at the pink stained pair before them with shock.

"That's her!" shouted half the people in the lift; eyes wide with confusion, surprise and anxiety.

"I think everybody would pull that face," House decided.


Foreman, Thirteen, Kutner and Taub all jumped to their beepers at the same time. They were sat around a table in the cafeteria, convicing themselves that House couldn't possibly have a granddaughter. They shared a look and headed straight for the lift.

It opened on a frustrated Cuddy having a heated conversation with Wilson, they stepped back a little as the four doctors entered.

"Well she said you were her grandfather!" Cuddy said as the doors closed.

"But I told you, I don't have -"

"I know, I know, it's just strange that she would -"

"Does House have a granddaughter?" burst in Kutner.

"What?" asked Cuddy, turning to face the other doctors, "no, he's…no he couldn't, why?"

"A little girl ran up to him and called him grandpa," explained Foreman, "But it was probably just a patient…"

Cuddy's eyes widened.

"A little girl's been running around the hospital all morning. But it's impossible, she couldn't be…"

The doors opened onto House, smudged with pink paint, clutching a badly painted pink cane and holding hands with a little girl wearing what appeared to be a fairy outfit.

"That's her!" declared Cuddy and House's team at the same time. Then they looked at each other in shock, then everybody looked back to House.

"I think everybody would pull that face," House said to the little girl.

"HOUSE?" Cuddy shouted.

He and Pan both raised their hands in surrender, pink with paint.

"It wasn't me," he said.

Pan sidled behind his leg, leaving pink fingerprints on the edge of his jacket.


To be continued...


Thank you all for the delightful reviews! :)