As always, I must thank all of the fabulous people on http/ for their time in reading and evaluating this story! You don't know how much I appreciate it.

So here's Chapter Five, and as far as I know, there's nothing special I need to tell you about it, so here we goooooooo…

Chase, Cameron, and Foreman sat across the hall in the lounge twiddling their thumbs.

"He's been acting so strangely," Cameron commented. "This morning he does his clinic duty, then he asks Cuddy about his patient's current condition, and then he actually goes to see her, and not just to put the fear of God in her."

"I don't understand it," Chase said, shrugging. "The man's gone insane."

"Hey," Foreman told them, raising his hands. "I'm not saying it's not the weirdest thing that's happened in this hospital since the last full moon, but if House is changing for the better, why can't we just be happy for him?"

"True," Chase mused. "Happy for him, happier for us."

Cameron grinned. "This could be the start of something wonderful."

"A toast!" Foreman decided. "We need a toast. Does everybody have their coffee?"

"Aye, aye!" Cameron said, raising her mug.

"Me too," Chase agreed, not exactly feeling piratey today.

"Cream and sugar, anybody?" Foreman continued.

"No, sir!" Cameron told him.

"No thank-you," Chase said politely.

"To Dr. House! May he change for the better and never look back!"

"To Dr. House!"

They toasted, sipped their coffee, and laughed. They knew how weird they probably looked, but whatever, it was good times when they all felt like this: elated. House was turning into a normal person!

"I wonder what he'd do if he could see –" Chase began.

He was interrupted by the sudden piercing yell of a man's voice out in the ICU. "I want to know where she is!"

Cameron stood up and glanced out the window. "If it's not one lunatic, it's another," she sighed. "Come on, let's go." They filed out into the waiting room, ready to assist the receptionist if she needed it.

"She's my goddamn step-daughter, and I have every right to see her!" the man continued, sending a stack of papers flying into the air.

"We're sorry, sir, but we can't let you see her right now," the receptionist at the desk said, sounding extremely calm under the circumstances. "If you don't leave, I'm going to have to call security and have you removed from this hospital."

"Jesus," he said, glancing around him wildly. "I can't believe you people. You don't know what the –" He stopped, gazing in the direction of room 116. They saw the corner of his lips turn slowly upward. "Thanks," he said, his voice and face taking on a very sinister edge.

"Sir, I can't let you go in there," the receptionist told him.

"See if I care," he boomed, pushing the door open.

Foreman glanced at the receptionist. "Call security right now." They couldn't do anything, and wouldn't know what it was if they could.

The man stared at House, tilting his head in confusion. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm her doctor. I have every right to be in here, unlike you, who obviously doesn't know the meaning of the phrase, 'Get lost,'" House told him.

"You're not the one I have a problem with, old man, now you get lost," he growled. Then the man set his sights on Julia. He stomped up to the bed, grabbed her by the arm, and shook her violently. "What the hell are you doing in the hospital?" he demanded.

"Look," Julia said, her voice trembling ever so slightly. It sent a pain stabbing into House's heart like a knife; that tremor in her voice wasn't sadness or remorse or even anger. It was fear. "I told you I was sick. I told you I needed help, and you wouldn't listen. I had to come here and get checked on because something is really wrong –"

The man slapped Julia, and she looked like she was expecting him to. That didn't make it hurt any less. "Look, goddamn it, we're on welfare. We can't afford to pay medical bills every time you decide you want to run away from home."

"You're so stupid," Julia spat at him, tears forming in her eyes. "That's why we have a little thing called Medicaid." She waved her card at him.

The man snatched at it. "You stole that from me!" he accused.

"Damn right I did, Len," Julia told him. "If you want someone you can beat up every time you get in a bad mood, you're gonna have to wait until I get out of this hospital. And if you touch my mother –"

"Marriage gives me the right to do anything I want to your mother," Len said, his eyes gleaming with a deadly pleasure in seeing her afraid for her mom. "Don't you ever forget it."

"Get out of here," Julia commanded, pointing at the door. Her voice was on the edge of hysteria, and it was killing House. Why isn't he doing anything? she wondered. He hates me, I know it, but you'd think he'd end this torture… "I'm not your child. I'm not a child at all. I'm 19 years old and I've been taking care of myself a lot longer. Go back to your drinking and whoring and beating and every other –"

Len Peterson didn't slap her. He punched her, right in the eye. She fell backwards onto the bed and swiped at the place where his fist had connected with her. "Shut up," he said. "Shut up, shut up, shut up…"

Like a brat on a playground refusing to listen to authority, House thought. "If you don't get out of here right now, I'm gonna fucking kill you." What shocked him the most was that he meant it.

Len laughed, a frightening sound that struck fear into everyone's heart. The entire ICU had been watching ever since he had walked in. No one would do anything. No one could do anything. "You couldn't take me even on two legs," he boasted.

House knew he could. He was ready to kill him, despite having a bad leg. He could have had one hand tied behind his back, he could have been paralyzed from the waist down, he could only see out of one eye…House couldn't believe him, he really couldn't. That man had hit his daughter…

The thought unnerved him. His daughter. He was certainly done for now.

Call it fate, call it luck, call it whatever you like, but security arrived at that very moment and caught Len aiming his large, grotesque fist in House's direction. They caught him before it collided with House's nose and dragged him, kicking and screaming, out of the room.

As his cries of obscenity faded away, the entire ICU was silent. Staring at them, House and Julia, their faces unreadable.

House stood up and went to the door. "Get back to work," he growled, slamming the door shut. Before the lock clicked into place, he noticed his team and Cuddy watching him intently. What would he do now?

House looked at Julia. She was staring at a place on the floor, biting her lip, scarcely breathing. Christ, he'd never seen anything that affected him like that. Nothing in his life had prepared him for that. Sure, House had heard the horror stories, seen the aftermath of domestic violence. Never anything like this, though. Never seen it happen, never had it hit so close to home…

He cleared his throat. "Julia…" he began. What could he possibly say to her?

"I suppose I should be thanking you now," she said quietly, almost apologetically. He wondered why. It wasn't her fault her step-dad was a crazy psychopath. "So…thank-you. Thank-you for not making me go through that alone."

"Jesus, Julia," he said. "How could I have done any less?" Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought of Alma. How had she been deceived by that pig? Or worse…how could she have known his nature and decided she loved him anyway?

"You were going to fight him for me," she said observantly, wondrously. "You were going to take him."

"Yes, I was."

Julia smiled sadly. "I think you could have done it," she told him, almost choking on her own lie.

"No, you don't." House watched her react to these words.

"I don't," she whispered, tears streaming out of her eyes. "But I know you would have tried so hard, and that's all that matters to me. And I'm so glad you didn't have to. I would have felt like…like shit…" She began weeping, swiping at her eyes violently.

There's that denial thing again, House thought, sinking into a chair beside her bed. She wants to pretend that her worst nightmare didn't just happen. She wants to pretend somewhere in the world she has a father who isn't an asshole.

Good luck, kid.

House, not realizing it until it happened, took her hand in his.

Wilson walked into the ICU, his shift done for the day, and stopped cold. The place was a mess, files and papers strewn everywhere on the floor and desk. Everyone was talking in hushed voices, and they all kept glancing towards room 116. 116. Julia Peterson's room. He had been planning on stopping in to say goodnight to her before he went home to face "The Beast" as he had not-so-affectionately nicknamed his wife, Julie. Now, he wasn't sure if that was such a good idea. Wilson found some familiar faces, Cuddy and Cameron and Chase and Foreman. He walked up to them and, lowering his voice involuntarily, asked, "What's going on?"

"Damned if I know," Chase said, dropping to the floor, his face in his hands. He had a lot to think about what he had just seen.

Wilson questioned the other three with his eyes. "What happened in here?"

Cameron shuddered. "Something terrible." She looked at the closed door of room 116, remembering the look on House's face as he had shut the door. What was that expression? Did it have a name? He looked…protective. Of what? Of Julia Peterson? She couldn't believe it. House? What was going on?

"Some man came in here looking for Julia Peterson," Foreman explained, giving Wilson the concrete answer he had been looking for.

The sentence hit him in the stomach like a kick in the guts. "What do you mean?"

"He was crazy," Foreman told him. "He was carrying on, insane, mad as a hornet when no one would tell him what room she was in. He saw her, though, and went into her room anyway. And he started screaming at her and hitting her, and House…" He stopped. "House…was ready to kill him."

"Oh my God," Wilson said disbelievingly. "Is Julia okay? Is House okay?"

"Yeah, they're alright," Cuddy replied, patting his arm. She glanced at the team, and they read her eyes. Chase stood up and the three walked away silently. "Physically, they're both going to be fine. Julia took a slap in the face and she'll probably have a black eye later on, but he didn't even get a chance to touch House before security showed up."

"What's his relation to her?"

"Step-dad, I think," she said. Cuddy looked at the room. "I would go in there and offer her my apologies, but I think she just wants to be alone right now."

"Where's House?" Wilson asked.

Cuddy narrowed her eyes. "Wait a second…He never came out. He's in there with her." She squinted into the room and a surprised look crossed her face. "Sweet Jesus…" Cuddy turned back to Wilson. "He does have a heart." Cuddy walked away slowly, stunned.

Wilson, alarmed by this statement, glanced into the room himself. He understood Cuddy's surprise immediately. Why in the world was House cradling Julia in his arms?

"Dear God," he mouthed. "He has a heart. House has a heart."

It was, admittedly, almost ridiculous and would have been comical under different circumstances. Dr. House, a stoic of epic proportions, appeared to be comforting Julia Peterson, a girl who had just gone through what probably seemed like hell to her. He had one arm draped over her shoulders, and in his right hand was her left hand. What shocked Wilson the most were House's eyes. They held something in them…sadness. That was something you didn't see everyday. Not in House, anyway.

Suddenly, Wilson's mind played a trick on him, and for a moment he went back in time, to this morning in room 213. After the seizure, helping Julia to her feet, promising her she'd be healthy…He had looked her dead in the eyes and thought they looked very familiar…

"Dear God," he said again. "I know where I've seen them before."

I realize that this is one of those kinds of scenes where you have an opportunity to make it one of two things:

1) Very moving and emotional; it can seem very realistic and be very good to read

2) Extremely cheesy and unintentionally hilarious, thus making it very bad to read and very unrealistic

Let me know which one of these two things this is! If I am going to attempt another scene like this in the future (not necessarily in this story – haven't they already been through quite enough?), I would like to know where I stand. Reviews would be greatly appreciated, as always! Thanks for stopping by!