Summary: House and a clinic patient.
Pairings: None.
Category: General
Timeline: Doesn't really matter
Rated: K+
Charm
"You…don't know?" House repeated slowly, voice bordering on entertained but laced mostly with annoyance.
"Yes." The petite teenager nodded. "I don't know."
"Ah…" House looked through her file again, before looking back up at her, moving on. "You're overweight."
"Yeah," she didn't sound at all offended, just nodded her agreement.
"But all your lab work looks fine. Normal. Healthy." He looked back to her. "How much do you weigh?"
"One eighty." She said unashamedly.
"And you're…" he glanced down again. "Five foot four. That's not too bad. You workout?"
"Every other day." She nodded.
"But you're still overweight?" He eyes her critically.
"I like food." She smiled. "Fast food generation and whatnot."
"McDonalds's was our Lord and Savior." He muttered. "Your cholesterol is fine. Blood pressure is great. You smoke?"
"Used to. Quit about three weeks after I turned eighteen."
"Well, that's ironic." He grunted. She'd quit almost as soon as she could buy them legally. He was starting to like this girl. This…he scanned the chart again…nineteen-year-old. "Do you drink?"
"Yup." She nodded, swinging her legs back and forth from the edge of the table.
"Drugs?"
"Used to use weed regularly, but I stopped when my dealer got arrested – that was when I was about…sixteen? Fifteen and sixteen." She looked up contemplatively. "Also, when I was fifteen, I went through a phase, for about five months, when I took all sorts of pills. Painkillers. Vicodin, Oxy, Tylenol fours, Percoset, etcetera. And Serquel."
"That's for bipolar and Schizophrenia." House eyed her with much more of a keen interest. He was really starting to like her.
"Yeah…" she had the decency to look at least marginally embarrassed. "First time I took it, I half passed out and it felt like I had three arms for a while."
House made a mental note to check the Psych Ward samples for Serquel.
"It had a sleep-aid built in, but the guy I got it from-"
"The dealer who got arrested?" House couldn't help but chime in.
"Yeah," and there was no shame there. "He told me that if I snorted it, I wouldn't get that side-affect. So I did that for a few months."
House raised his eyebrows in interest, "So, what made you stop?"
"Ran out of disposable cash funds." She shrugged. "I was only fifteen. Got tired of stealing from my grandparents."
"Okay…" he moved on. "Any other drug habits?"
"Well, none now." She shrugged. "I've tried - other than what I just told you – ecstasy, 'shrooms and cocaine."
"And your…" he was actively suppressing a smile at this point. "Sexual habits?"
"Casual sex with guys I meet online?" She shrugged again. "I don't do serious relationships."
"Ah," House looked insightful. "Which almost surly leads us to my next invasive question…how's your parent's health?"
"My dad has a bad back and I'm about ninety present certain he's ADD – you'd have to know him to get that. But otherwise…he's healthy as far as I know."
"As far as you know?" House had developed an interest in this girl, thus the next step for him was to ask invasive and unnecessary personal questions.
"We still talk." She raised her own eyebrows at him. "Just never about anything serious."
"Fine." House all but huffed. "And your mother?"
"Her health kinda sucks," she nodded grimly. "What with having been dead for five some years."
That didn't actually surprise the ageing doctor all that much – something about this girl seemed, to him, deeply damaged. "Were you two close?" He'd had no intension of asking that, though he supposed that could have been taken as a politely phrased medical question.
The girl just shook her head. "She bailed when I was four, so I didn't know her at all. No health background there. Sorry." She shrugged.
"Okay…" he moved on. "No history of illness in your family, then?"
"Like I said, I'm pretty sure my dad's ADD. But other than that…we have a history of bad backs. That's it."
"Boring."
"Tell me about it." She nodded.
"Alright…any life-risking tendencies? Jump out of airplanes for kicks?"
"Only once." She smiled. "Couple months ago, actually."
House took a deep breath. "You're really making this hard for me." He gestured to the paper in his hand.
She shrugged. "Just lie."
"That's what you're supposed to do." He mock-hissed as if he was telling some great secret.
"I have an ethical code, thank you." She mocked a stuck-up pose and House couldn't help it – he grinned.
"Fine." He rolled his eyes. "Any history of mental illness? Depression, paranoia…"
She took a deep breath and sounded serious for the first tome since this started. "I've been depressed. It's actually why I kept taking the Serquel for as long as I did. Had anti-depressants mixed in with all that other stuff."
"And do you think you're still depressed?" He couldn't help but feel a little bad for her.
She shrugged. "I'm not a doctor, I don't really know. I'm not suicidal; I don't stay in bed all day. I can function pretty well in the real world. I'm kind of anti-social, but so are a lot of people." She paused, House was silently waiting. "I'm just…kinda sad sometimes."
"Is it out of context?" He asked almost softly. She nodded. "Have you ever thought about getting on anti-depressants? The real kind, I mean?"
She smiled and nodded again. "But I'm a poor college student. I can't afford them."
"I might be able to help you out there." He mumbled and when she asked him to repeat himself, he just shook his head and moved on.
"Ever been pregnant?"
"God, no." She sighed. "Don't get me wrong, I like kids. But I think I'll wait another decade or so before I have any."
"Good call." House grumbled and then looked at the chart he was holding, "Well, I think that about covers it. Insurance company's gonna love you."
"I have a sparkling personality, thank you." She smirked a little and House grinned yet again. This was the most interesting clinic patient he'd had in some time.
"Your form should come in the mail in a couple weeks." He said professionally.
"A'ight," She hopped off the table and the Diagnostician had to wonder if she'd meant to sound ghetto just then. "Thanks for your time, effort and cooperation, Dr. House." She didn't try to shake his hand, which the older man appreciated for some reason. "Don't forget to change my answers and lie on a few of those, I want health insurance."
"I'll see what I can do." He smiled.
He was smiling when she walked out the door, waving absently in his direction. Taking a deep breath, the crippled drug addict resigned himself to fate and limped out of the clinic and to the elevator, pressing the button for the floor to his office.
If nothing else, he'd have an amusing story to tell Jimmy over lunch.
Fin.
