TITLE: The Apple and the Tree
AUTHOR: Moi
PAIRING: Gen, with allusions to House/OFC
RATING: PG
WARNINGS: Do not use a metal fork to get your bagel out of the toaster.
SUMMARY: House cleverly has no personal life. At least, that's what he wants everyone to think. But that idea's going to get a shake-up when a new patient arrives at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.
DISCLAIMER: I own it. No, actually, I don't. I just felt like saying that.
NOTES: I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on the Internet. Please excuse any medical misnomers or doctorly deviations found in this chapter (and the rest of the story, for that matter).

THE APPLE AND THE TREE – CHAPTER THREE

Foreman sat at the table in the Diagnostic Medicine lounge, completely baffled. "There are dozens of conditions that account for fierce headaches," he said in frustration. "And Nicole doesn't have a single one of them!"

"Any other condition would cause a headache and something else," Cameron said. "All Nicole has is a headache."

"Twenty-two year old female, healthy as a horse, no history of headaches or neurological problems, comes in with a whopper of a headache and we can't tell why," Chase crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "The one doctor in the hospital who can figure out what's wrong with the girl is the one doctor who can't get anywhere near her. How's that for irony?"

"Are you sure she has no neurological history of any kind?" Foreman asked.

"We need House," Cameron said.

"We can't have House," Foreman told her. "Though, this is one time I actually wish he was here."

"No, I mean," Cameron took her glasses off, "we need to ask him if she's had any problems."

"I don't want to do it," Chase said immediately.

"None of us do," Foreman said. He looked at Cameron. "You do it."

The young doctor looked indignant. "Why me?"

"He likes you," Foreman said.

"No, he doesn't," Cameron rebutted.

"Get Wilson to do it," Chase suggested.

"I don't know what it is, but I want no part of it," a disembodied voice that sounded an awful lot like Dr. Wilson said from the doorway.

"We're trying to decide who should grill House for Nicole's medical history," Cameron said.

"No thanks." Wilson shook his head. "I don't think he really wants to talk to me right now."

Foreman thought about asking why, but decided it was best not to. "He definitely won't listen to me," he said. "It's down to you and Chase."

Both doctors looked at each other. "How should we settle this?" Cameron asked.

Chase seemed to think for a moment. "Rock-paper-scissors-shoot?"

Cameron snorted. "What is this, third grade?"

"You got a better idea?" Chase challenged. "We don't have time for a poker game."

Cameron sighed heavily. "OK; fine."

Foreman bit his lip to keep from laughing. This was going to be rich.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

Two papers.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

Two rocks.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

Chase had a rock, Cameron scissors.

"Ah!" Chase exulted, triumphantly crushing Cameron's scissors.

Cameron glared at him. "You planned that."

Chase smirked. "Have fun."

"Dr. House?"

"Cameron." The thin brunette looked like she'd rather be anywhere than here. House deduced that this had to be about Nicole.

"I need to ask you something," Cameron said.

"If it's about Nicole, I'm not interested," House said dismissively.

"I just need to know something about her medical history," Cameron said. "It won't take too long."

"Go ask her." House started to move away.

"It'll get you off the clinic for a few minutes!"

House stopped. "OK; fine." He turned around and faced his employee. "Fire away." He reached into his pocket for the Vicodin.

Cameron glanced at his hand for a second, then asked: "Does Nicole have any history of neurological problems?"

"When she was thirteen she had optic neuritis," House answered quickly.

Cameron's head snapped up. "No vision problems, though," she said.

"Doesn't always present with vision problems," House told her.

"All right," Cameron said. "Thanks." She started to leave.

"Cameron," House called her back. "How…how is she?"

Cameron paused before answering. "She's in pain, but otherwise OK. Why so interested?"

House tried to shrug it off. "Just…just curious." He really hoped Cameron would go off into being gooey and compassionate like she could get.

She probably didn't believe him, but wisely chose not to press the matter. "OK."

Cameron stood in the doorway, observing Nicole. She sat with her head cocked to one side, staring off into space. The resemblance was always strong, but right then Nicole looked like a carbon copy of her father.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Cameron asked brightly.

Nicole slowly turned her head in her direction. At least she could move it again, though it was probably more a result of drugs than anything else. "If you really want to know," she said, "I've been taking a hop backwards on my Yurchenko-full vault. If I opened my arms a little sooner, maybe I could stick it."

Cameron laughed before she could help himself. "OK, I'm gonna pretend I know what that means." She stepped into the room.

Nicole tapped her right forefinger against her chin-another Houseish mannerism. "Or I might be pushing off the table too late…no, that would make me land in a pike position…"

"Have you always thought out loud like this?" Cameron asked as she checked Nicole's IV fluid.

"No, not always," Nicole said. "Only since I could speak."

Cameron smiled a little, amused. Definitely House's daughter. "We think we may have figured out what's wrong with you," she told Nicole.

Nicole sat up straighter. "Do tell,"

"Your dad told me you had optic neuritis when you were a teenager," Cameron said. "Is that true?"

Nicole nodded a little. "Yeah. I thought I told you…?"

"I don't remember hearing it," Cameron said. "Neither does Chase or Foreman."

"Oh," Nicole looked embarrassed. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Cameron reassured her. "You're not the first patient to make that kind of oversight. Dr. Foreman's going to do a test to make sure, and if that's it we'll get you better and send you home."

"Sounds good," Nicole said. "So…you guys talked to my dad?"

Cameron nodded. "Just about your medical history; nothing more." She just had to mention it. "Dr. Foreman said he came to see you last night."

Nicole shrugged a little. "Yeah. Just a courtesy thing."

"He asked how you were doing today," Cameron offered, hoping that would lift Nicole's spirits a bit.

Nicole blew it off. "He just likes knowing stuff."

Well, that was certainly true. "He never asks how people are doing," Cameron said.

Nicole had gone from looking bitter to just looking sad. "We used to be inseparable, you know that?" She said softly, talking to herself more than Cameron.

"What happened?" Cameron asked.

"My mom died," Nicole said. "That was the end of it. He never even talked about her again. I thought things couldn't get any worse, then his leg went sour." She paused a moment, and Cameron wondered if she was crying, but she spoke again and her voice was steady. "And that was it. I was sixteen. Doing the whole dating game, typical adolescent angst, and on top of it all my dad stopped loving me."

Cameron put a hand on her shoulder. "He didn't stop loving you," she said gently. "He was just…he was scared and confused. People react to things like that differently. Some people externalize it and others internalize it. Your dad internalized it. That doesn't mean he stopped loving you and caring about you."

Nicole glanced up with a dejected look that made Cameron's heart ache. "I was scared and confused, too. I needed him, and he wasn't there for me."

Wilson bent over the nurse's station, squinting at a patient's chart. Sighing in frustration, he batted a piece of hair out of his eyes. He needed a haircut.

"Julie went home to her mother."

Wilson glanced up at the familiar voice and, though a screen of hair, found its owner standing above him. "What makes you say that?" He swatted the errant lock back, but it just flopped back into his face.

House flicked at the hair in question. "She'd have gotten after you about this by now," he said. "And seeing as you've let it go this long, she's left for an extended period of time and taken all styling products with her." He smirked, clearly certain that he'd hit the nail on the head.

It really bothered Wilson that House had made this observation, and it was even more bothersome that he was right. He decided to give the scruffy doctor a taste of his own medicine. "Heard you went to see Nicole last night."

House sighed petulantly. "Why is it that everyone in this hospital knows more about my life than I do?"

"You can speculate as to whether or not my wife has run out on me, I can ask if you've spoken to your daughter," Wilson quipped. "How'd it go?"

"Oh, just great," House said sarcastically. "We hugged, we cried, everything's all hunky-dory now. It was beautiful."

"You should go see her again," Wilson said bluntly.

"Whatever for?" House asked. "She wants nothing to do with me." He walked away.

Wilson was a patient man-he had to be; being House's friend and all-but his patience was wearing thin. He took off after House. For a guy with a game leg and a cane, House could actually get along pretty fast.

"Stop following me," House said testily.

Wilson decided the only way to get House to listen was to be the biggest pain in the neck he possibly could. "Go ahead, outrun me." House glared at him, but stopped moving. Satisfied that he had the other doctor's attention, Wilson continued. "You love her."

House just stared at Wilson for a moment. "I do love her," House admitted. "I love her more than anything in the world."

"So why are you avoiding her like the plague?" Wilson challenged.

"Because she stopped loving me a long time ago," House stated.

"That isn't true," Wilson rebutted.

"Yes, it is!" House said, loudly enough to draw some stares. He gave the onlookers a glare that would freeze ice water in July and they quickly looked away. "Look, I love Nicole, OK? But she's made it abundantly clear that she wants me out of her life. It's better for both of us if I just stay away." He started to leave, then turned back. "Oh, and Wilson? Get a haircut. Seriously. You're starting to look like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo" He hobbled away.

Frustrated, Wilson blew his hair out of his eyes. And this is my friend, he thought wryly, deciding to procrastinate a bit more just to get on House's nerves.

"The test came back," Foreman said in the DM lounge. "Nicole does not have optic neuritis."

Chase and Cameron just stared at him.

"Then what does she have?" Cameron asked helplessly.

Chase sighed wearily and dropped his head into his hands. "We really need House."