TITLE: Chapter 14 You make me

AUTHOR: new_raven

PAIRING: House/Chris

RATING: R-ish

WARNINGS: Violence/Vomit

SUMMARY: House makes Chris throw a temper tantrum.

DISCLAIMER: House and his pretty friends don't belong to me.

A week later Chris was in House's office dropping off some day old muffins. The team sat at the table doing nothing in particular since they didn't have a case. House was in his desk chair bouncing a tennis ball off the wall. He was so deep in thought that Chris didn't speak as she walked into the room.

"What do you think the maximum fine for perjury is?" He said without looking at her.

"A lot. Why? Is this about my mom's hearing? Are you still going to testify?"

"I'll still testify if you want, but you're the one committing perjury." He tossed a file folder onto the desk in front of her.

"Is this her file?"

"No."

"Are these police reports?" Chris skimmed the pages.

"You said your mom didn't have a history of violent behavior."

"She doesn't. She hardly even spanked us."

"According to that she got in a few good blows before he put her in the hospital."

"That doesn't make any sense. This is Sarah's dad, my stepdad. They never fought. I would remember. He was perfect. He adopted me when mom got pregnant." She looked closer at the report. "I remember this. I was six. They slipped on the ice. She slipped and he fell trying to catch her."

"You saw them fall?"

"No, I was at school. We had to stay with the neighbor a few days. Oh my god." She flipped to the next page in the file.

"That's where it gets interesting."

"He got hit by a car. My mom was never the same. She never dated again."

"Strange, that says he

down the stairs during a heated argument. I guess there's no lesson to learn about looking both ways before you use the stairs."

"She didn't push him. She loved him. He was… he was perfect."

"He deserved it. Her medical records indicate he was beating the crap out her on a regular basis."

"House I was almost eight. I would have known. I would have heard or seen something. If she pushed him she'd be in jail."

"No witnesses and his blood alcohol level make a tough case to sell. It probably wasn't worth the DA's time."

Chris was shuffling through the other pages. "What is this? Daniel Allen? August 1990? I wasn't even born yet."

"Second page." House told her. "You probably saved her life. He's in prison for killing the last one."

Daniel Esposito had been arrested for beating his obviously pregnant girl friend Sherry Sanders. There were pages of domestic abuse complaints from other women. "This is my dad?" Chris whispered.

"Assuming she's a one abuser kind of gal."

"Why? Why would you do this?"

"You were about to perjure yourself."

"Was all my talk about my happy childhood too much for you? Did you need to take me down a notch? I've got plenty of great memories. Why not destroy a few?" She threw the file down.

"You needed to know the truth."

"Bullshit!" She yelled. "You needed to know the truth. I was perfectly happy being ignorant."

"No you weren't."

"You had to prove how fucking smart you are. You know my life better than I do. You can't go a day without making someone else feel like shit." She stood and snatched the file off of his desk again. "I'm taking your fucking car. If you don't see me for a few days report it stolen."

Later that night House was screening his calls. "Um Dr. House, this is Rachel." Came from his answereing machine.

"What?" House barked when he picked up the phone.

"You really need to come and pick up Chris. She won't leave and it's almost my curfew. I can't take her to my house like this anyways. My parents would…"

"Where are you?"

"The Benigan's by the college. I couldn't get into any of the real bars."

"Take her keys and go home. Where's my car?"

"We parked it in front of your place like three hours ago."

"I'm on my way."

House walked into the restaurant and straight to the bar, ignoring the hostess. Chris sat with her back to him. She was talking to the man beside her and gesturing wildly with a cigarette in one hand and bright green drink in the other. The man put his arm around her shoulder. She shrugged him off and continued her rant. "but it's my dad you know?" House caught a few broken sentences. "How can just…"

House pulled a waitress aside and pointed to Chris. "How much does she owe?"

"Get in line man. She closed out two hours ago. That guy's bought her at least six drinks since then."

House nodded. He looked up as the man put his hand on Chris's thigh and whispered in her ear. Chris tensed and then shoved him away with her elbow, while at the same time wrapping her leg around his barstool and pulling towards her. The man crashed to the ground cursing and flailing.

"You still wanna be my daddy, motherfucker?" Chris took his beer off the counter and poured it on him.

"Fucking bitch!" The man started to stand up.

"Don't" House pinned the man down with his cane.

"Go away. You obliterated my childhood!" Chris glared at him. She'd been planning on saying that for hours. She looked down at her drink and shook her head before reaching across the bar for the drink of a women sitting at the corner. She threw the contents at House and then finished her own drink.

House laughed and threw some cash on the bar in front of the woman who was yelling at both of them. He took the empty glasses away from Chris and set them on the counter. Then took her hand and pulled her towards the door.

"Don't touch me. I'm not going anywhere with you." She jerked her hand away.

"You don't want to go to jail this drunk." House told her. He put his arm around her waist and all but carried her out the door. A manager stopped them at the door. "She's nineteen. Do you really want the cops to pick her up here?"

The man let them pass as Chris yelled. "I will hit you in your fucking leg. Let me go!"

"Get in the car." House let her loose when they were standing next to it.

"NO!" She screamed.

"Fine. Go to jail. I guarantee the cops are on the way right now."

She thought for a minute and then climbed in the backseat. She lay across the seat, facing away from him. As he drove home, House could hear her crying.

"Well are you coming in or sleeping in the car?" House asked as he parked.

"Oh fuck. Pull over." She groaned.

"We're not moving." He told her.

She scrambled out of the car and House heard her retch as he got out. He came around to her side to survey the damage and was relieved to find she'd gotten it all in the gutter and not on his car. Chris leaned on the car and groaned. House unlocked the door and turned to see if she would follow.

She pushed past him and went straight for the toilet. House settled on the couch and turned up the TV so he didn't have to listen to her. After the bathroom had been quiet for about ten minutes he stuck his head in and threw a few towels at her.

"Are you done or do I have to stay up and make sure you don't drown in your own puke?"

"Fuck you." Her voice echoed in the toilet bowl.

"Alright, but I'm going to have to insist on doggy style until you stop puking."

Chris started to laugh and then stopped abruptly and gagged again. "Oh God, I hate you so much right now."

She spent the night on the tile floor. The next morning when House went to check on her she was curled beside the toilet with the towels around her. He tapped the sole of one of the shoes she had never taken off and she groaned.

"You're going to want to move before I finish my cereal."

"What time is it?"

"Almost eleven. Do you need to call work?"

"Stop yelling. I called in last night." She groaned as she sat up.

House left and returned with a glass of water and bottle of ibuprofen. "Here. Hydrate."

"I'm never drinking another melon ball. Nothing should ever be that shade of green." She drank half the glass at once.

"Take two of these." He handed her the bottle of pills.

She looked at the bottle and then at him. "Fuck Advil! Give me one of your Vicodin." She threw the bottle at the wall.

House pulled a bottle from his pocket and handed her one white pill. She took it and leaned back against the wall with her eyes closed.

"Go to bed." He held a hand out to help her up.

"I'll take the couch." She pulled herself up.

"It's Saturday. I'll be on the couch."

She pursed her lips and scowled, but after a moment standing was more that she could handle. She pushed past him to the bed and collapsed on it. Even her side of the bed smelled like him. She willed the Vicodin to let her sleep and tried not to cry anymore.

A few hours later House came in to check on her. She was wrapped in the sheet hugging his pillow against her chest. When he sat next to her she opened one eye and squinted at him. He sat on her side of the bed, so that his right leg was nearest to her. It made him seem vulnerable and she had to wonder if he knew this and was using it to his advantage.

"What now?" She grumbled half into the pillow.

"Drink this." He handed her a bottle of Gatorade.

"It's green." She looked suspiciously at the bottle.

"The irony is part of the treatment."

"If this tastes like melon I will literally kill you." She propped up on her elbow and took a sip of the lime flavored drink. She relaxed and decided to let him live a bit longer.

"There's take-out in the kitchen."

This brought to mind deep fried bits of meat in syrupy spicy sauce and she made a face. "Are you trying to make me puke again?"

"We could go get a Monte Cristo?" He grinned

"You're a terrible person."

"I got you soup."

She pressed her lips together as she looked at him. She didn't want to thank him, smile, or let him off the hook, but the harder she tried to summon up the anger, which se new was still there bubbling under the surface, the harder it was to find.

"Chicken noodle?"

"Wonton."

"My mom used to make chicken noodle whenever I was sick." She felt a touch of that anger tightening her chest. "Unless you have a folder somewhere that says she was actually feeding me the tears of orphans and bread made from their bones, and that some biology class dissected my favorite pet."

House rolled his eyes, but was actually pretty relieved that she was mocking him again. "Fluffy didn't feel a thing. The orphans on the other hand…"

She threw the pillow at him. He watched as she untangled herself. Her jeans and t-shirt gave the linen enough resistance that her efforts had a slapstick effect. Her matted hair made a wild mane around her face. If he could have been certain she'd brushed her teeth at some point he would have wrestled her back down onto the bed as soon as she managed to get out of it.

She went to the restroom to wash her face and rake her hair into submission. When she went to change clothes she found her hopelessly crushed pack of cigarettes. She pulled each one out of the box and inspected it. Most were broken in several places. A few didn't even resemble cigarettes anymore and came out in a rain of tobacco and bits of paper.

She threw them in the wastebasket and her clothes into the hamper. She selected a clean tank top with polka dotted boys shirts. She considered the implications of running around in her underwear, but didn't put on pants. She didn't have the energy to pretend she wasn't interested in sex, not convincingly at least.

"Oh fuck." She groaned.

"Gimme a minute. I'm eating." House called from the other room.

"I forgot my birth control." She shouted back and pulled her frumpiest sweatpants out of her drawer.

She read the insert that came with her packet pills every month, and new that taking one pill late wasn't likely to have any effect on their effectiveness, but just having to think about it was enough to cool her jets.

After taking the little white pill she got her soup and joined House on the couch. He was squeezing a line of spicy mustard down the length of an egg roll when Chris noticed the fresh pack of Camels next to her ashtray. She abandoned her soup momentarily and smoked one immediately.

When she finished the cigarette she ate the soup. When she finished the soup she eyed the square carton in Houses lap. It was still half full and he seemed to be more focused on Iron Chef than the basil chicken. She reached in with her spoon and stole a bite.

"That's really good." She stretched her spoon towards him again.

"That's why

ordered it." He pulled the carton away from her and took another bite. "Get your own."

She frowned and lit another cigarette and watched as he took a few more bites. When she put out the butt he held the carton out to her with his eyes still on the TV. She took it and finished it as the chef's presented their dishes to the judges.

"Twenty bucks on Morimoto." House said.

"No way, Morimoto always wins."

After a while she showered and went to walk the dog she cared for on weekends. While she was out she called Rachel to tell her she had survived and bitch about House. Something got mixed up though and House came across as the good guy for buying her Gatorade and soup. She left the cigarettes out, to avoid any more of Rachel's anti-smoking campaign.

When she got back to the apartment House was at the piano playing a song she thought she recognized, but didn't know. She tried to ignore him, but she was just a sucker for that damn piano. She resisted sitting next to him on the bench or climbing into his lap, but lay on the couch watching him and listening. She didn't even realize she was dozing off until she woke alone in the dark living room.

She thought about staying on the couch all night, just to drive home her point, whatever her point was, but decided that making herself uncomfortable was not the proper approach. Waking him as she got into bed would be much more annoying. She was disappointed to see the light under the bedroom door as she approached.

When she opened it her eyes took a moment to adjust. House lay with the cream colored sheet up to his waist reading a medical journal. He was definitely naked. She stood in the doorway wanting to leap upon him and go back to the couch at the same time. After a while House looked over the pages at her with his brows raised in questioned.

"Take your pants off and stay a while." House suggested.

Chris narrowed her eyes at him but took his suggestion. She left her jeans and bra in a neat pile, but kept her shirt and underpants. "How much longer will you be up?" She asked as she lay down and pulled her pillow between them. This meant she was forced to face him if she wanted to put her head on the pillow.

"Well if I think about baseball…"

"How long will you be reading?"

He dog-eared the article and set it aside. Instead of turning off the lamp he turned to her. "Are you withholding sex because I didn't lie to you or because you missed a pill?"

"Doesn't really matter does it?"

"They're both stupid reasons, but the pill doesn't rule out blow jobs."

"Then it must be more than that."

House just nodded and rolled away. He pulled the string and the room was dark except for a few beams of moonlight that snuck in through the cracks in the blinds. They lay in silence. Her heart and mind raced. She wanted to reach for him. She thought that maybe, if she could keep his mouth busy and didn't have to listen to his smug comments, rough angry sex might be just what she needed.

"Aaarrrgggghhhh!" She growled in the dark. "You are driving me crazy!"

"What the hell did I do now?" He rolled over to face her.

"Nothing, it's just… you make me so…"

"Hot, horny, wet?"

"No." She rolled her eyes even thought he couldn't see her. "It's like when I was a kid."

"So it is daddy issues."

"Shut up and let me talk. When I was a kid my mom worked really early. She would wake me up before she left so I could take a shower and stuff before Sarah got up."

"I thought your sister was the good one."

"She was."

"Then why were you taking care of her and not the other way around?"

"She was like eight. She didn't like to feel like she was alone in the house."

"You were only eleven."

"First off, stop trying to psycho analyze me. Second, that's not the point. When my mom left I would always go to the window and wave to her and she would wave back before she got in the car. It was just a thing we did, a moment we had every morning, not really a big deal but kind of a big deal when you're eleven." She paused wondering if any of this was coming out right.

"Ok." House felt the need to insert some sort of acknowledgment lest he be accused of not listening.

"Some mornings I was just lazy and I didn't want to get up yet. I would pretend I was still asleep after she woke me up. She'd go ahead and leave because my alarm was set and I didn't really have to be up so early. After she left I was torn. If I got up and went to the window I was admitting that I had been awake the whole time. If I didn't I missed that moment.

I always got up and went to the window, every single time, but sometimes I laid there being stubborn long enough that she was already in the car or gone. I would be so mad at myself. I would even cry. That doesn't sound like much, but there was a time, before I met you and all, when I didn't cry every other day.

That's what dating you is like. I can't win. Half of me wants to hit you in the face and half of me wants to jump your bones. Whatever I do half of me wants to throw a temper tantrum like four year old that didn't get a toy in their happy meal."

"You want me to put a toy in your happy meal?" House asked.

"I want you to just be an asshole. Don't be sweet and funny and an asshole. Just be an ass."

"Be an asshole? Wouldn't it be easier if I were just sweet and funny?"

"You could never maintain that."

"So if I let you hit me in the face can I get that blow job?"

"If you would just keep your damn mouth shut, you might get more."

He leaned across the pillow and kissed her. She pulled the pillow out of the way and pulled him down on top of her. He kissed her chin, her throat, her ear gently. When his lips found hers again she pressed an aggressive tongue to his lips, but he didn't part them. She tried again before pulling back just a little and flicking him in the back of the head.

"You can open your mouth. Just don't speak unless you're telling me how beautiful and smart I am."

She laughed but his mouth was already on hers muffling the sound, and neither of them spoke much more that night.