Disclaimer: I don't own House, but if I did I would make him a very happy man! As it is, he's David Shore's problem!

This chapter is a little shorter than most, but it think it's pretty fun! I hope you enjoy! Also, thanks so much for the reviews. They make me very happy and keep me motivated!

Like Father Like Son

Chapter 18

House entered his home to the sounds of a goose being slaughtered.

"I hope you're not butchering that thing in my bathtub. I have plans for that tonight!"

"Dad, look at this," enthused Greg, as he ignored the less than complimentary commentary on his saxophone playing. "One of our customers just got a new tenor sax and was just going to let us put this one in the dumpster! It has a few dents, it had a couple of bent keys, and it needed a few new pads, but otherwise it was great! When I asked if I could have it instead, he said he didn't care what I did with it! The manager helped me straighten the keys and showed me how to replace the pads! I got a $4,000 horn for seventy bucks! I had them put it on your tab.

House's eyes grew wide! "Seventy bucks? You spend seventy of my hard earned dollars and you're not even a little concerned about how I might feel about that?" House sounded outraged, watched Greg go pale, and grinned widely. "Cool!"

Greg grinned in response. "We replaced the bad pads and I needed new reeds."

"You couldn't use the old reeds?"

"Dad, I wasn't going to put someone else's spit in my mouth, gross!"

"Just wait until you get a girlfriend; then someone else's spit won't seem so bad." House grinned wickedly and Greg blushed. "Oh, ho, there is already someone!"

"No, Dad, there isn't any girl. Well, she's old and I think she likes someone else." Even if he wanted to tell his dad how pretty he thought Thirteen was and how nice she was to him, he couldn't, because House didn't know he worked at the hospital.

House grabbed the tenor sax and looped the strap over his head. He played a scale from the instrument's lowest note to its highest and back down again. The doctor played a bluesy melody, losing himself in the mellow sounds.

"Dad….Dad…..You're slobbering all over my mouthpiece…..DAD!"

House looked at Greg and grinned. "I've always wanted to play one of these things!"

"You've never played a sax before and you sound like that." This was a statement rather than a question.

"I mess around with one sometimes at the music store and I fiddled around with one in high school. My dad said that it wasn't an instrument for serious musicians and if I insisted on wasting my time learning an instrument it had best be one intended for serious musicians. I chose electric guitar. He wished I'd stayed with the sax after that."

For longer than either of them realized, House shared his knowledge of the tenor sax with Greg. Before they retired for the night, the boy was well on his way to catching up with the man. House realized that a student horn wasn't going to be enough for his son for very long and once again House was glad that all the wine, women and partying that he alluded to was just talk. He had all the funds necessary to buy for his son whatever he needed for quite some time.

GH GH GH GH GH GH GH GH GH GH GH

That night, Wilson was in bed thinking about the conversation that he'd had earlier in the day with House. It wasn't the first time that House mentioned a son. The first time was not long after House had started spending more time at his own place, again. Was there any possibility that could be the case? Could House actually be hiding a son rather than a girlfriend at his home? It didn't seem likely, but then allowing anyone to live there while House lived with Wilson was completely out of character. House like his privacy more than anyone Wilson had ever known. The responses to the questions that Wilson asked were well thought out, not off the top of House's head. It began to dawn on Wilson that maybe House had been telling the truth all along. Indeed, House had a son that he was hiding from the rest of the world. Wilson chuckled to himself. No, it just couldn't be true. House probably couldn't even admit to himself that he had a son. There would be no way that House could acknowledge to Wilson the existence of a son. But then that didn't mean that one didn't exist…right?

Of course, House wouldn't hide a woman. He would take her out and show her off. Especially, if it had the added bonus of making certain people jealous! Cuddy liked House, maybe even loved him. She would be jealous. She wouldn't date House, she was even dating Lucas, but if House had another woman on his arm, Cuddy would certainly take notice. Cuddy claimed that she didn't like House that way, but she did and she was the only one that didn't see it. House had loved Cuddy for years and was too frightened, too aggressive, or his advances were too ill-timed for them to make any headway. This was probably a good thing, though. House would be good for Cuddy; she needed to lighten up and House would do that for her. On the other hand Wilson wasn't so sure that Cuddy would be good for House. She was demanding and liked things the way she liked them. She didn't really buy into compromise and House was all about compromise. He liked the fight as much as the results it bought….

"Wait! How I did go from House having a son, to Cuddy and House to House needing to win his battles?" Wilson said aloud. "I need to sleep." With that, Wilson rolled over and gave himself over to calming thoughts….until he remembered that House had said that he would hide a son from him because he would interfere….House had a son….If Wilson could figure out just who this son was and enough about him, he could have all kinds of fun with that kind of information! That is if House even had a son, which he probably didn't….or did he?