Title: What Makes Good Boys Good

Series Title: The Inner Child 4

Author: Goddessof7s

Summary: A tow headed boy wanders into the Clinic and the team has its most interesting case yet.

Rating: PG

Notes: Now I would like to warn all of you fans who like plausible stories, with no fiction except characters. This is not the story for you! This will require heavy suspension of dis-belief, YOU ARE WARNED! Flames regarding scientific accuracy will be printed to be scoffed and mocked in front of all my friends!

Warnings: There is no slash in this story. It is more of a character study. Major characters are Chase and House with bit roles from everyone else. UNBETAED

Everyone say thank you to Jules-foil for if she hadn't nudged I might not have pulled this back out. Let know if you guys are digging it.

Gregory House found himself surfing the internet. A wholly boring and thankless job that he usually regulated to one of his ducklings, but couldn't bring himself to do so this time. Worried as he was that something might get missed, but then you'd think that if some one discovered the fountain of youth that there would be something, House was sure there was. The question was what. House hissed slowly under his breath massaging his leg roughly. He desperately wanted to dry swallow a couple of Vicoden but he was still unable to figure out where Robbie was stashing the pills. Every time he got a new prescription the next day it was gone. While Robbie was napping or in the shower he'd searched the kids clothes, shoes, hell he'd even tested the soccer ball for a hidden compartment, but it seemed that anything less than a strip search wouldn't work. Wilson was even enabling damn the man! 1:30 fuck, class.

"C'mon Robbie" House directed at the boy lounging on his sofa doing a cross word. Heavens knows where he got it. Probably rummaging through Chase's locker. House almost sighed with exasperation as Robbie picked up his soccer ball and followed him down the hall. Everywhere Robbie went he brought that damn ball with him.

Oh well it wasn't like Robbie owned a whole lot, really he was just grasping the few things he possessed with a vengeance. He walked into the lecture hall that was standing room only with amazement. He whispered to Robbie, "it seems we're popular." Robbie nodded dumbly wide eyed at the crowd. "Well apparently it's all the fad to be in my class."

A brown-noser that sat in the front row piped up, "when it got around that you were actually teaching a diagnostic class for the whole semester the class filled up. Some of us are here and aren't even getting credit." She was probably one of them and got there an hour early to grab a seat. She had that smug seat-getting air about her.

"Well lets get down to it since you know who I am and I don't care who you are then we can proceed." House turned away and directed this to Robbie, "you can sit over there if you'd like or play with your ball quietly." Robbie nodded solemnly and taking his ball walked off the stage area. Everyone's eyes followed him. "I see you've all spotted my mother's brother's daughter's cousin twice removed. His name is Robbie." He glared at them all. And started in on his standard pain in the leg lecture. This he felt drove home three basic and most important things: patients lie even with their life on the line, doctors can be wrong, and thoroughness can be good, bad and expensive all at the same time.

He had started to get into the bite on the leg of the Carmen Electra when he noticed that the quite and steady thud thud thud of Robbie's ball was absent. Glancing over he saw that Robbie was holding the ball with a thoughtful look to his face, as if he was thinking about asking a question. 'Yes Robbie?"

All the eyes in the class turned to the boy, who seeing this blushed and looked down, "It's just that, what did the snake bite look like?"

Huh. Chase hadn't asked that. But then now that House thought about it he hadn't told Chase about the bite per sec or showed it to him. Rather called and ordered him and Foreman to go and get the snake, not mentioning the suspect nature of the bite. "It was a single puncture, shallow a glancing blow."

Robbie looked at him seriously. "It doesn't sound like snake bite."

One of the students in the class snorted, sounded female, maybe smug seat girl, but it served to put Robbie on the angry defensive. House didn't ever use the word cute and mean it without being violently sarcastic, but really there were very few words that could adequately describe a 4 foot three inch flashing eyed Robbie Chase whose hair continually flopped in his face. So House just didn't try. It was defiantly smug-seat girl that said, "what are you an expert on snake bites or something?"

"A month ago my friend Mal and I were walking home and he got bitten by a brown snake, he nearly died. Australia has almost a hundred venomous snakes and the 10 deadliest." While that was hardly an expert level it was more knowledge than smug seat girl, and they both knew it. Smugness looked much better on Robbie.

"People this is sad! A 12 year old is out diagnosing you!"

Suitably chagrin they turned their attention back to House and focused intently, in vain, to impress House. Smug seat girl has been shot down and House hopes that she's been suitable discouraged enough to either sit in the back or not come back. Another less annoying voice piped up, "so does that mean that Robbie is right?"

"Ahh well he's certainly asking smarter questions than you lot." House snorted dismissively and continued with the lecture/discussion which despite having different students in the class the content didn't change much. No one got the muscle death, but then he wasn't very hopeful in the first place. All of the students seemed suitable impressed and chagrined by the end. A few even looked a little queasy perhaps from the idea that, yes, indeed people's lives would be in their hands and that they would kill a person at some point. Robbie however didn't look affected, perhaps a little vindicated in that he was right, but then at this point he probably didn't want to be a doctor and didn't think that these lectures affected him personally.

House froze momentarily in mid-stride. It hit him, really hit him, that Robbie wasn't Chase. That if they didn't find a way to reverse it (which didn't look likely they couldn't even figure out what cause it) then Robbie would grow up different. Maybe this time he would be a priest, or a professional athlete. Who knows what changes might come from not watching his mother slowly kill herself, or a father that barely acknowledges his existence. Robbie was a REAL KID! This wasn't Stevie McQueen some random rat that he picked up. This wasn't his adult duckling in convenient child-sized packaging. This was a 12 year old boy who probably already had all kinds of emotional problems on top of being displaced in time and space. And he wanted to accept responsibility for him? God, he could barely take care of himself. Actually now that he thought about it, Robbie had been taking better care of him than he was of himself. House resolved to give it a week in trying to figure out what happened before they looked for somewhere more permanent for Robbie.