AN: Yay, more filler...and still no traces of a plot! Thanks for the great review, J.Daisy - you posted it before I could post this chapter, which hopefully elaborates on a couple of the matters that you asked about! I'm in desperate need of ideas, so don't hesitate to drop some along with the constructive criticism that I love so much. Next chapter I'm going to attempt to throw in some thoughts from Cameron's POV - even if I don't write her very well. Updates might be a bit slower now that I have no idea where this is going - but thanks for reading anyway!

Chapter 4 - Could Be Worse

"So I managed to survive another three weeks. I promised Uncle Jimmy I would try and talk things out instead of staying quiet...I'm not sure if I managed it fully, but I hopefully got my point across. I suppose I was worried about disappointing them, but I don't see why I should be unhappy with whatever arrangement they come up with. Okay, so it was partly my fault for telling mom I was fine about going back to school, but what was I suppose to say? Shove it? I'm never going back? Stop trying to act like you know what's best for me? Dad ended up calling the school the day all of this started and told them I wouldn't be coming back. When they asked him why, he just demanded a refund check for my tuition and hung the phone up on whatever poor soul it was, just trying to do their job.

Mom sat me down for another one of her "What's wrong, please tell me" sessions that night, and dad just went straight for the bottle of scotch. I really don't understand why she can't see that I'm no longer a child. Okay, maybe I DO see why, I just am afraid of what's going to happen if I DONT. I ended up telling her to please just leave me be , went up to my room and pounded out some songs by the Sex Pistols on my drum set, which never fails to make me feel better. Well, it was more like two songs, because dad came upstairs and told me if I didn't cut out that racket and play something more quiet, like the piano, he'd throw the damn thing out the window.

Last night was a small victory on the family front though, as I managed to pry what had happened during the eight years I was gone, out of my Uncle Eric. He told me about her suicide attempt and the emotional struggle both of them had gone through - how they'd been so close to divorce. I realized at that moment, it's not really that she thinks I'm still a child - she's trying in her own way to compensate for all the years she missed with me. How can I be annoyed at somebody who just wants to make everything up to me? It's irritating as hell to have her constantly watching over me and waiting with the milk and cookies - but what can I do?

I really thought I'd get away with never going back to school ever again after the whole "let's play hooky" incident, but I was soon proven wrong. I'd spent the rest of that day in the conference room, dodging my dad, who wanted to know how in the world I'd come up with what turned out to be the correct diagnosis on their patient. I told him I watched a lot of "ER" during the eight years...watching Noah Wyle spout out medical terms in that hot white coat really inspired me to learn the ways of the medical world! He just rolled his eyes and said he'd figure it out sooner or later. Covering it up with humor was a lot easier than coming forth with the actual truth. I don't like to talk about those eight years very much because I really don't know how it's going to effect them once they DO find out.

Books were my only friends growing up - the only times I could break up the monotony of being isolated from the world. Books were the one thing that allowed me to travel to foreign lands, to read about places I'd only imagined going, the only thing that Marie and David allowed me free reign over. It was the year I turned six that books and reading really opened up a new world for me.

As some sort of a sick joke on David's part, he'd dropped a copy of a medical journal on my bed one night - including a long article written by my father on diagnostics. I remember clutching the journal to my chest at night, reading and re-reading, imagining that at the end of the booklet my father would be waiting to take me away from this place. I'd glance at the small photo of the hospital's diagnostics team included in the article and think back on the six years of memories I'd shared with them. My dad whispering into my ear to call him Chase instead of Uncle Rob...just to piss him off, my Uncle Eric giving me wheelchair rides all around the hospital when I'd been bored, my Aunt Lisa telling me about women's rights and how I should deal with people like my dad when I grew up, my lunches with Uncle Jimmy in the hospital cafeteria...my mother, bringing me along to the clinic and letting me call patients to each exam room because I had so much fun "playing doctor"- these memories brought tears to my eyes, but remembering them was all I had.

That medical journal was my only link to the past - and the link that ended up inspiring my future. From that point on I read every bit of medical text I could get my hands on...retaining all of it and apparently, gaining the means to shock the hell out of everyone in the process. At times when I question what my future holds, I make elaborate plans of going to medical school and following in my parent's footsteps. I imagine a future where there's no recollection of the painful past - just happy memories about what's in store.

I still have the medical journal...one of the few things I took with me that fateful day. I look at it from time to time, but all the good memories associated with it are gone...replaced with eight years of verbal, emotional and physical abuse. Twenty five pages filled with memories I try so hard to forget, yet cannot seem to get rid of. Twenty five pages full of memories I long to share with my family - yet twenty five pages I'm deathly afraid to share.

I guess things could be a lot worse." -A.H.

I sighed to myself and looked down once again at the damn diary, who managed to creep it's way into part of my daily routine. I suppose sharing my thoughts with a piece of paper is better than the alternative - sharing them with the shrink I know my Aunt Lisa wants me to start seeing. She actually found somebody in this hospital who would be willing to listen, even though I have the last name "House". I love how you say that name around here and people start looking all over, in a fit of terror for the nearest corner to dunk behind. I've affectionately earned the nickname "House's Spawn" from the nursing staff, and they all grimace when they see me and dad hobbling down the hallway, trying to trip each other - him with his cane and I with my crutches.

I've been spending most of my days here at the hospital, working on the homework my home study teacher has assigned me (boring!), running errands around the hospital for anybody who asks, playing lookout for my dad when he wants to avoid clinic duty, or hanging with my newest friend - a girl named Bridget who's parents work in oncology with my Uncle Jimmy and always seems to be loitering around my Uncle Chase…salivating at his accent. I'm going to go back to the PUBLIC school next semester, when my mom can get over her overprotective streak that she seems to be on. I hear them arguing about it at least two times a night and it worries me. I don't want to be the glue holding their relationship together...

I also don't want to show them the letter I received yesterday afternoon from an attorney who is handling David and Marie's estate. I got the shock of my life when I opened it, I really did. Enclosed was a letter with something that made my eyes bug out:

Dear Miss House,

My name is Jack Shepard and I'm the attorney at law, handling the estate of your former abductors David and Marie Williams. I'm writing to you today on behalf of the daughter of your abductors. In the weeks following your kidnapping, it became known that the daughter they supposedly lost, was indeed very much alive and well, living with the family who became her legal adoptive parents, upon David and Marie's surrender of parental custody. The daughter was completely shocked to find out that her biological parents had left their entire estate to her, and even more shocked to find out that her parents were the center of your kidnapping.

In talks with their daughter, it became immediately apparent that she knew exactly what she wanted to do. Enclosed and made out to you, Alexandra Anne House, is a certified check in the amount of $22,400,000.00. The daughter feels strongly that the money left in the Williams estate belongs to you for the hardships they inflicted upon you. The $30,000 stallion Marie Williams purchased for you is also part of this deal - it is being housed in the Princeton Stables and a key to it's new stall is enclosed. She wishes to express her sympathies over everything you have had to endure and hopes that the enclosed will give you a start on a bright future.

Sincerely,

Jack Shepard, attorney at law

I know I should share something like this with mom and dad, but part of me wants to take this check and rip it into a million tiny pieces. Money isn't going to make me forget what it's like to be pushed down the stairs. Money isn't going to make me forget what it's like to have your head bashed into a wall. - repeated times until you pass out. Money isn't going to take away all the nights I cried myself to sleep, dreaming about a life that was no more.

I picked up the check and the letter and placed it into the waste basket under my desk. I went to my closet and took out the medical journal I'd been saving all these years and threw it in there as well. I grabbed the box of matches I kept on my dresser to light candles with and struck one against the side of the box - watching as it ignited, and held it over the basket. What was any of it worth if I couldn't have the one thing I'd been searching all of my life for - what was it all worth without happiness?

I raised my arm to toss the match into the basket, when all of a sudden someone grabbed my wrist.