Amber Chase: Glad you're back, I'm happy things went well with Jacob (I'm so jealous - I don't have a boyfriend! Maybe I'm too weird for most guys...:P), and thanks for reading! Also, I don't think it's possible to be infected with AIDS just because you kiss someone. :P You have to somehow get the infected person's bodily fluid into your system...:) Thanks for reading!
Dafina: Thanks so much, wow, you're just making my day with the insane compliments. :P Hopefully soon some brilliant idea will come to me and I can start another House fan-fic after this one ends. And yes, I am extremely OCD about grammar and spelling and all that jazz, and it makes me really happy that you noticed. :P Thanks for reading.
Thermy: Haha, I'm so glad you got to learn about the anatomy of a sausage biscuit...that's fascinating, I never thought there were so many ways to say it. :P Thanks for reading!
Mollisk: Agghhh, this chapter's going to be even sadder than the last one:( Sorry, but the next few will be slightly more lighthearted. Thanks for reading!
Sincerely Juicy: Hangover because of caffeine...LOL, it's possible, I think. I wouldn't know, I don't drink coffee. Gasp! Thanks for reading!
Irock708: Holy cow, I had no idea my writing could spark those kinds of emotions! This means I've reached a whole new level in the art of writing. :P Sorry, I think House is appropriately humbled in this chapter...There will be a semi-happy ending, I promise...And the mystery of the man in the dream is solved in this chapter as well..."The Mystery of the Man in the Dream." That sounds like a Nancy Drew novel. :P Thanks for reading.
Nikelodean: I didn't mean to make tears come to your eyes, I'm sorry! I promise, the Tinman finds his heart in this chapter...or at least what's left of it after Julia breaks it...unintentionally, I mean. Give it a read, see what you think. Thanks for reading!
Regina Halliwell: Haha, I'm suffering fan-fiction withdrawal because I didn't post yesterday. :P Here's the next chapter, and thanks for reading.
JacobedRose: I know it looks hopeless right now, but I promise things will work out for Julia! Her life is going to be short, yes, but this last portion of her life will be filled with good things! Trust in the writer...:P Thanks for reading!
The Lilac Elf of Lothlorien: I agree, this story is extremely depressing. It's been a lot harder to write than I thought because I'm trying to do justice to the story I'm telling. I also feel like such a jerk; in the moments when I forget Julia isn't real and I talk about all of these terrible things happening to her, it's like, "What kind of messed-up person am I to create this nice, innocent character and then ruin her life like this?" But I promise things will get a bit happier. Thanks for reading!
Reitashnehelena: Wow, that makes my day, knowing that people are out there recommending this story. :P Thanks very much for taking the time to read and review. House's pairing...meaning, his romance? Sorry, I'm an idiot, I'm not sure I know what you mean. If you mean who he's going to end up with, you've got to read and find out:P Thanks for reading!

Whew! I love the reviews; this is so exciting. :P I'm so glad you all are enjoying the story. This will be one of the saddest, if not THE saddest, chapters in the story. Sorry, ya'all, it has to be done. Anyways, enough from me, take a read, and see what you think.Catch you at the end of the chapter.

Dr. House heard a slight tap on his office door. At least, he thought he did. It was so quiet, he wondered for a moment if he had imagined it, but then he looked up and saw a strange young woman standing outside. "Come in," he said.

She did, and he was surprised to recognize her as Julia Peterson, herself. She was wearing street clothes, her hair hanging over her face as if ashamed of it, and the pretty blue eyes that mirrored his own had taken on a look of discouragement that made them unrecognizable.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm going home," she said. "I'm not going to die here. It feels selfish to ask Mom to take care of me, especially once things get harder, but I'm going to look into hospice. I think with everything I had set aside for college, I should be able to afford –"

He held up a hand to stop her. "Wait a minute. You can't go home. You need to be treated for this."

"I've already spoken to Dr. Foreman," she replied. "He's getting me medicine to keep me from being a pain in the ass when it starts to hurt the most." Julia gave him a small, understated smile. "He advised me against it, just so you don't go and rip his head off after I leave. It's my body, my choice. You understand."

"Yeah, I guess I do," House said. He took a deep breath, not sure if he was emotionally fit enough to get into this now. "But I'm having a hard time understanding how you can be so relaxed about this. If it's your body and your choice, that means you went wrong somewhere. You screwed it up."

Julia bit her lip, the expression on her face sad but her eyes taking a turn for anger. "Don't reproach me," she warned him. "I didn't do anything wrong, and I don't feel the least bit guilty. If you weren't such a cynical, blind asshole, maybe you'd understand."

"Good to know you remember how things are between us," he shot back at her. "Then at least you know not to come to me for sympathy. You won't be getting any from me."

"I don't want your sympathy," she told him. "I want you to get on your knees and beg me to forgive you. I want you to grow up and stop hiding from me and mom, because sooner or later you're going to have to face reality. And most of all, I want you to please take a goddamn fatherly interest in me just once and ask me every question on your mind! You think you've gotten enough surprises this week. You haven't seen anything yet."

"I don't owe you any of those things," House said. "And you don't owe me any explanations. It's your body, your choice, remember? Your decision whether to own up to your mistakes."

"It wasn't a mistake, House," she fumed. "It wasn't a mistake, or an accident, or anything. It wasn't even my fault."

"Oh, yeah, I'm sure," he said sarcastically. "Then how did it happen then? Was your self-esteem in a depression because of Len, the step-father from hell? Does that give you an excuse to go out and try to feel good about yourself because you're hot in bed? Or did some kid fool you into thinking he loved you just so he could get laid?"

"Shut…up…"

"Or was it drugs, Julia? Did you decide to get sloppy with the drugs one day because you felt low and needed a fix to get yourself through the next day? Did you have some good friend that got you the needles you needed to shoot up and you just didn't feel like questioning their assistance?"

"What do you want me to do, cry?" she asked helplessly, wishing she'd never decided to try this. He didn't want to hear it, and what would she say if he made a miraculous turn-around and decided he wanted to know every little detail? How would she ever find a way to put it into words?

House stopped. "Oh, God. No. Please don't cry. Anything but crying." Could this day get any worse? he asked himself.

"Too late." Julia began rummaging through her pockets for a tissue or a napkin – anything she could use to mop up her face. She must have given them all to her mother after they had been informed of her diagnosis…

House sighed and put his hand on her shoulder. "Sit down," he told her tiredly, steering her towards a chair.

"I really shouldn't," she protested as she sank into the chair. "Haven't I caused you enough trouble today? Between diagnosing me with those devastating results and then having to watch me sit here in agony like you can't believe, Jesus, this must be impossible for you."

"It's kind of hard to take you seriously when you're pretending to break down," House told her. "Most women usually aren't rational enough to be sarcastic when they've reached the point where they just can't take anymore. At least, not around me. You're my daughter, though; I guess you inherited it. You'd be invincible if you weren't dying."

Julia's response was to glare at him and then look away as she felt more tears welling up in her eyes.

He mentally kicked himself, knowing that was probably not the right thing to say.

"Tell me," he said. "Tell me how it happened."

"You really mean it?" she asked hopefully, swiping at her cheeks.

"You seem to need closure," he said, shrugging.

Julia shook her head. "I'll only tell you if you want to hear it for you. I can't burden other people with my troubles, not even my biological father. Everybody else has their own problems to deal with; they can't be bothered with what I have to say."

"Come on, Julia, if you're going to tell me, do it now."

She shook her head again, more forcefully this. "I won't do it. I can't tell you. You'd…I don't know what you'd do, but it wouldn't help."

"I'm getting tired of this."

"So why are you still asking me to tell you?"

"Because I want to know, damn it!" he shouted. I really do, he thought to himself. Foiled again…I think this is known as reverse psychology.

"Okay, okay, I'll tell you," Julia said. She took a deep breath and sighed. "I haven't really told anyone this before, so hopefully you can excuse the tears and dramatic pauses and stuff."

"I'm listening," House said, bracing himself.

Julia opened her mouth to speak, and as she began he knew she wasn't really with him anymore, but now in the past as an observer of events completed long ago. He considered in the time it took her to breath before she spoke that time travel really was possible. If this was what it was, seeing your memories played out like they were movies, then the human race had already achieved something they had condemned to remain in their dreams.

"It was three years ago, when I was 16," she said, sounding like she was reading out of a textbook. "I had just gotten my driver's license, and I was feeling pretty smug because I thought now maybe I could get out of the house more often and not have to deal with everything there as much. But when I came home with it, the lamination not even cool yet, Len decided he had a much higher purpose for me now that I could drive. So that night, he forced me into driving him and his friends to some bar they like to hang out at. It was my job to get them there and back to their homes because I was the only one who wouldn't be trashed at the night's end. We got into the parking lot, they all went inside, and I waited out in the car.

"They were taking so long, and I really hard to go to the bathroom, so I went inside. It was about one o'clock in the morning at that point. When I came out of the restroom, I noticed this man looking at me strangely from across the room. I didn't like the way his eyes felt, like they were scrutinizing every inch of me, considering if I was good enough to be bothered with. I don't know his name, and he wasn't one of Len's friends. I was stupid enough to think that maybe if I just left he'd forget all about me. So I hurried out the door and started walking fast to my car, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to know he was following me. I started jogging, grabbing at the car keys, trying to get ahead of him enough that I would be safely locked inside by the time he caught up, but he was already too close for that. I reached the car and fumbled with the lock, and he came up behind me and…pulled out this knife…"

A wave of nausea hit House, and he leaned forward, closing his eyes. Somehow, he knew the story already and knew it was going to rip his heart out.

"He held it up to my throat and told me to open the car and get in. So I did." Julia gave the floor a petulant little stomp. "I shouldn't have done it. Looking back, I probably could have gotten away if I had thought to put up a fight. But no, I just did what he told me, and look at this: I'm still paying for it, three years later." It had taken her this long in the story to work up some tears. "I got in, he shoved me in further, then motioned me into the backseat with his knife. I was the sheep, he was the shepard. Then…" She shuddered violently, not wanting to say the next part, because it would be like having to go through it all over again. "Then, he told me to…take off my clothes…"

"Jesus," House said under his breath, not sure how much more he could bear.

"And then I choose to say, 'No! I won't!' but that doesn't matter now because he has nothing to be afraid of, with the tinted windows and a rain that had started pouring thunderously outside in the few seconds it had taken for us to get into the car. No one can hear or see us; he's calling all the shots." She was talking faster now, eyes darting, breathing rapidly, the tense she was using suddenly changing from past to resent. House reached out his hand to touch her and remind her it was all over, but he knew even before his hand collided with her shoulder that she was already gone. A flashback. He had to wait it out, forced to watch her relive every disgusting detail behind her eyes. He couldn't be there with her in her mind, but he'd be damned before he let her return to face it alone. "I'm frozen in the position I'm in; flat against the seat underneath him, my arms over my chest as my only defense. So he decides to take matters into his own hands. He has the knife, he makes the rules. He cuts away everything in his way, strewing all the scraps everywhere in the car. I wish it was winter so I could be wearing more layers, because the end comes too quickly, and the next part begins too soon…

"When he penetrates me, I close my eyes so I can pretend I'm not really here and this isn't really happening to me. The only thoughts running through my head are, This isn't the way it should be! This isn't right! My body. My choice. And somehow, none of that counts for shit because I have a large, sweating, crazy man on top of me, and the fact that he is bigger and stronger than me gives him the right to decide things for me that only I should be allowed to decide. Considering these things makes the time pass faster…although I suppose when you enter eternity faster doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. But the worst is yet to come.

"After he finally hears me begging him to please get off me, he listens. He almost politely rolls over and moves himself off of me, allowing me to scramble in every direction to gather up every piece of fabric I can find so I can cover myself up. I'm halfway to having my modesty back when he takes out that knife again. It looks less petrifying now that I've already lived through my worst fear, but not by much. He grabs my hair and brings me up so close to his face I can smell his breath, rancid from too much alcohol and cigarettes for my taste. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the knife coming up to meet my throat, grinning at me as it catches the moonlight for one brief second. It's so sharp against my skin, and I know it's only going to get sharper once he embeds it in my throat and Jesus, I don't want to die like this! He begins to slice it slowly, tauntingly into me, and I feel the first drops of blood leaking out of me and I just wish he'd hurry up and get it over with…" Julia halted her story, jerked back into reality as she saw what happened next, relieved by it in a strange way.

"Then Len and his friends came and started crowding around the car, banging on it and yelling at me to unlock the doors. I ripped myself out of his grasp, slid into the front seat, and let them in. I thought Len might finish this guy off for getting in his car and messing with his step-daughter, but all he did was comment on the new odor the car had suddenly taken on and tell me to get going. What kind of man doesn't notice an extra person in his car and blood pouring from his step-daughter's neck?" she asked angrily. "By the time I got all of his friends and that man home, Len was asleep. I drove back home, left him laying there in that rotten stench, and went inside. I was going to tell Mom about what had happened, but she was already asleep and I wouldn't have had the words to tell her anyway. So I just cleaned myself up and went to bed." Julia buried her face in her hands. "The next morning, I decided to just move on with my life, because I didn't want to go back and relive it, not for anything in the world. I never thought it would come back to haunt me like this…"

House felt a tear slip down his own cheek. He quickly flicked it away, wondering if she was just trying to torture him, describing the whole thing in such detail. He hadn't understood what it was that rape victims experienced that kept them from getting back to normal like they wanted to, not until now. He felt his grief change to rage, and he wanted to kill someone. That man, obviously, whoever he was – he wanted to kill him a thousand times over, making him experience a thousand times the torture Julia had felt. But he wanted to kill Len, too, now more than ever. What kind of man doesn't notice his step-daughter has just been raped and almost murdered? What kind of man puts her in the situation in the first place?

Jesus, he thought disbelievingly. It's my fault too. I'm her dad, and I let her go through that alone. It didn't matter that he didn't know she existed when it happened. It didn't matter that when he had met her, he wouldn't have known her from Adam. It didn't matter that he had himself almost convinced that he didn't like her. I caused this pain to my child. I am killing her.

"Daddy?" Julia said suddenly, unaware the word was slipping out until it had already passed her lips. She took his hand, knowing he needed her to tell him it was okay. "Are you alright?"

"God, Julia, I am so sorry," House said, not able to look at her. "I didn't think it could be that bad…"

"It's okay," she whispered.

"No, it's not," he said. "I'm so sorry."

They sat in silence after that, hand in hand, able to communicate now without words. It didn't take an interpreter specializing in telepathic messages to be able to tell what they were saying. I never meant to do this to you.

Julia felt strong enough to speak now. "Look, Dad, I –"

"Why do you call me that?" he asked strangely. "I'm no kind of dad. I'm the worst father you ever could have gotten stuck with. Jesus, your family situation bites."

She smiled sadly. "I think you deserve the title. You just let me relive something I've been trying to forget about for three years, and you didn't make me do it alone. You're already more of a father than I've had for the past 19 years. Thank-you." She paused. "Now, I should probably get going. Dr. Chase was going to drive me and Mom home, and I don't want to keep him waiting."

"I could drive you," he suggested.

Julia shook her head. "You've probably got a lot to think about, and as Chase pointed out, his car already smells like vomit anyway."

House smiled, almost forgetting everything that had just happened. "That's true," he admitted. "If your mother tossed her cookies in my car, I'd sue her."

Julia giggled, then looked away as an awkward silence came upon them. "Take care," she said, then hesitantly put her arms around him and gave him a hug. She held on a few seconds longer than most hugs last, but that was okay with House because it gave him time to react. When was the last time anyone had given him a hug? When was the last time anyone had been truly concerned that they had hurt him or offended him in some way? When was the last time anyone had cared enough about what he thought of them to tell him the truth? He couldn't remember, but it didn't matter, because for the first time since he'd found out that he had a daughter, he felt like a real father.

House wrapped his arms around her, and told her he'd miss her.

"I'll give you a call sometime," she said as she pulled away. "Maybe we could hang out, watch a football game or something. I'm into that manly shit."

"Maybe I should give your mother some credit," he admitted, grinning. "She did something right if you like football. That would be fun, I think. Thanks."

She smiled and waved, and then she was gone.

Okay, people, just take some deep breaths. That was really hard to write, and now I'm kind of mad at myself for doing this to poor Julia! It's all in your head...Julia lives in the world of my imagination and she isn't hurting right now...OMG, what's wrong with me? I'm a strange one. Anyways, I think I've got some more lighthearted chapters coming after this before we get down to the really sad stuff. Reviews happiness. :P Thanks for reading!