A/N: Chapter 5 and no plot. Arugh. Anyway, thank you for the kind reviews!

Chapter 5 - Things Seen

"What the HELL are you doing?"

That was the first thing out of my mouth as I found my fourteen year old about to burn something that could very well change her future. There had been a message on the answering machine by the lawyer, explaining that he'd sent the letter and the check in Allie's name. I had come upstairs to see if she'd opened it and found her sitting by a trashcan, a lit match in her hand, about to toss it into the basket.

I felt pretty bad for sneaking up on her like that, she screamed when I did so. I asked her if she'd gone completely mental, did we need to give her another cat scan to see if that brain was working alright? What kind of person burns twenty-two million dollars? That money could pay for her education and everything else she would ever need for the rest of her life, yet she is ready and willing to give it up in the strike of a match. She just looked at me rather sadly and turned her back, unwilling to give an explanation - but more than willing to give me the cold shoulder.

I'd been sensing the growing void between my daughter and myself the days following her return from the hospital.

When James found her that day, putting aside the fact that I'd tried to kill myself seemed like the easiest thing to do. It was already a sketchy subject with House, I figured that once I had my daughter back in my life, I'd be able to pick up where I left off eight years ago and all would be well. Everyone had tried to warn me if I expected that, I'd be in for a great surprise. Eric told me I needed to stop and realize something very important - she was not the five year old little girl I remember, but a fourteen year old teenager...and one that had been through tremendous hardship in her life. He told me that I shouldn't ignore that fact or I'd be asking for a lot of trouble.

I suppose the way she looks at me now means that I didn't listen to a damn word of advice. I know I may be going a little bit overboard with the mothering, but it scares me. Every time I look at my daughter I can't help but see the worst in things. I look at her and see not the woman she is growing up to be, I see the five year old girl clinging to her father. I see the little girl I left sleeping in the office, so soundly, unaware that in the next ten minutes life as she knew it would be destroyed. I see the lonely years I spent by myself, crying for my only child with my husband no where by my side. I see the white pills that offered me an escape from all of the pain. I see the melancholy look on my husbands face as he sat by my bedside, wondering if the person he fell in love with would ever be happy again. I see the balloons that flew up into the air, the balloons that represented a little girl I would never see again. I see the breaking news segment on television, telling me there had been an accident. I see my husband, holding the hand of a girl in a hospital bed, broken and bruised and just barely hanging onto life. I see my long lost child walk back into my life eight years later and give me back all that I'd ever wanted.

I see new things now too.

I see myself losing her all over again. I see the sadness in her eyes, the empty shell of someone once so vibrant and full of life. I see her one day asking me the question that is sure to come. I see her looking at me and asking how I could have let anything happen to her. I see her hating me for not being able to find her so many years ago.

I think the problem is that these things I see...I shouldn't be seeing at all.

I told her that I would really like it if she told me what was going on inside her head lately and she just snorted in a manner eerily like her father.

"Do you really want to what is wrong with me?" she said.

I nodded, attempting to take her hand. She let her hang linger for a moment in mine before she pulled away and stood to look out the window.

"I need you to stop doing this to me. I need you to stop looking at me like I am going to break. I need you to stop looking at me like I'm a damaged piece of goods you're dying to fix. I need you to stop treating me like a child, watching my every move and making sure that I'm okay every second of the day. Most of all, I want you to stop acting like you know what I went through all those years ago. I need you to just leave me alone and forget about me...I will be fine, I made it eight years without a person giving a damn about me. If it makes you happy, I won't burn the damn money." she told me, starting to cry halfway through her little speech. She grabbed her crutches off her bed and walked out of her bedroom as fast as she could.

I sat there for what seemed like the longest time, taking in everything that she had said...knowing very well that she was partially right.

I walked over to the wastepaper basket and dumped it's contents onto the desk. I took the check and put it into my pocket...I would open a bank account in her name and make sure she knew it was there when she needed it. I glanced down at the other object I'd pulled out of the trash and immediately became surprised at what I'd found. It was a medical journal, but not just any journal. It was the journal House had been published in - the first article he'd worked on since they'd taken Allie. I noticed that the pages were dog eared and showed signs of being read hundreds of times. I opened it up and flipped through the pages until I came to House's article.

They had included a photo of the diagnostics team and around that photo, drawn crudely in crayon was a red heart. Next to the photo, in a childish print, the following words were written:

"Don't ever forget"