Chapter 18

A/N: Finally, after the summer hiatus, Introduction is back in action! Two changes with the story: one, after this chapter is up and people get the update notification, I'll be changing the name to "Intervention". Instead of an eight part series, I'm just going to keep it in one big, long fic. Secondly, I'm changing the pace of the story to a much faster one. There's no need for Anya to go through every moment of every episode, so I kind of left the end of Occam's Razor hanging. If you're wondering, everything turned out exactly the same as it did in the show. Anywho, on with the fic!

Disclaimer: I don't own House MD, just Anya.

I would say that the next month passed by without much event, but then again, I've always been told that lying is a sin. The next few weeks with my hero/roommate taught me a lot of things, and to my surprise, a somewhat regular routine was formed.

As I started my senior year and joined the work force, I discovered that being an adult wasn't nearly as crappy as I thought it would be. The coffee shop was a great place to work; my boss was a frumpy looking mother-hen type who always called me 'honey' and asked about how I was doing. Really sweet. House would've hated her guts. It smelled good, the work wasn't too strenuous, and I made a decent salary.

Two weeks after I started, when I received my first paycheck, I promptly shoved it into House's hand as soon as I got back to the apartment. I didn't say a word, and neither did he, to my surprise. I guess House just understood that it was something I needed to do to relieve my own guilt at freeloading, and it wasn't something that he even really had the option to refuse.

My school load wasn't anything major. I'd evidently done double English and social studies classes my junior year (untrue, but House had added it to my transcripts for some reason or another) so I only had four classes to work my way through, and they were practically child's play.

When I wasn't working or at school, I'd balance my time between cleaning up House's apartment, knocking around at the hospital, and my usual hobbies. House generally allowed me to play his guitar or piano if he was in the proper mood, and he'd never complained about me working my way through the crap load of medical texts he had on hand. House and I also continued our nightly ritual of 'loser-makes-dinner' whenever I was home, and I was ecstatic when I beat him at Street Fighter for the first time. Just to spite me, House made ravioli, which he'd found out that I hated. I called him a sore loser and ordered pizza.

I'd learned a lot about House in the past month, the kind of things that a forty-three-and-a-half minute TV show can't teach you. I got to know House as a man, as a person, instead of a character. House had always felt like a real person to me, watching the show, but I accredited that to the excellent acting of Hugh Laurie. However, the character I'd watched on the show was just a basic outline of the doctor that I lived with.

I'd especially picked up on the many, many moods and shades of Gregory House. House, as was his trademark, was generally fairly grumpy, but not in a way that he was unpleasant to be around. He wasn't easily amused, he wasn't easily impressed, hell, nothing about House was easy. Thankfully, House wasn't the kind to take things seriously, and many of things that he said weren't meant to be taken as such, at least I don't think so.

At first, the petty insults annoyed me, but eventually, I realized that I'd watched House do this to every person around him for eight years, and getting butt hurt about it was idiotic. So, I just responded with as much sarcastic confidence as I could muster. I was a midget, he was a cripple, I was an orphan and he was an ass.

That wasn't to say that House didn't have his bad days, though: the days where his leg was hurting worse than usual, when the weather was bad, in particular. Rain didn't do well on his destroyed thigh muscle. The weeks between cases, interesting ones anyway, they wore on him as well. They left him bored, and when he didn't have a distraction, he was miserable.

On days like that, well, House basically had a 'stay out' sign stapled on his forehead. I heeded the warning. I could tell when my hero needed to be alone, and I left him to his own devices. Sometimes, if I could see him sliding into one of those moods, I would try to offer up a distraction. When I was lucky, it worked, and I managed to keep him from letting his pain rule his demeanor. I was proud of myself in those cases.

When he was upset, I always wanted to ask him about it, try to get him to talk, to give him a hug and make him feel better, because that's what worked on my friends back home. Teenagers were a hell of a lot simpler than adults, I was realizing. You couldn't just hug an adult and say it would be okay, and expect them to believe. They didn't always want to talk about things. It was hard to understand.

I'd never been close to a person House's age. I mean, there were my parents, of course, but that was a completely different relationship, and they were a few years younger than House was. House had lived a long life, and most of it had really, really sucked. I knew that better than anyone (literally - since House had yet to impart most of his life story on anyone, including Wilson) and I tried to understand him, but he was complicated. I thought after all the years of watching House, reading fanfiction, basically immersing myself in that world, I thought I knew him. I knew his ins and outs. This was certainly a rude awakening.

House had his good moods, too, though. Generally when he was high. Not high on vicodin, mind you. It was after he solved a case. After he'd solved Brandon's case, the patient from Occam's Razor, he'd practically been a joy to be around, which was kind of weird after almost adjusting to House being a grouch. It was the same way after Maternity, which occurred about two weeks after Occam's Razor finished out. I was surprised there was so much time between cases.

Giving him the episode names, that was the only way I'd managed to appease House on the whole future knowledge debate that we had incessantly. House basically wanted a detailed timeline of everything that would happen in the next eight years, and quite obviously, I wasn't going to give him one. I knew better than that. Who knew what kind of things would get screwed up if I told House everything?

House was curious about most of the aspects of the show, and some of his questions, thankfully, I could answer. As long as they involved the actors or production and not the show itself.

"Where was it shot?"

"LA."

"Who played me?"

"James Hugh Calum Laurie, he went by Hugh."

"Never heard of him. Sounds British."

"He was. And obviously you've never heard of him. He doesn't exist in this universe."

"Was he good looking? Wait, no, I already know the answer to that. What other stuff was he in?"

"Uh... he had a sketch comedy show called A Bit of Fry and Laurie when he was younger... he was in an episode of Friends...Maybe Baby...Street Kings...Black Adder..."

"He was in Black Adder? Who did he play?"

"George."

"At least he was in something decent. Friends? Seriously?"

Anything that kept House from pressing me for information on his future, I was happy to provide, even if sometimes his questions seemed endless. That was another thing I'd noticed about House, his almost childlike curiosity. The oddest things could get his interest piqued, and he'd pursue them with a single-minded nature. I was afraid if he focused enough on wheedling info out of me, I'd cave. After all, the past month hadn't changed the fact that House still kind of scared me.

Okay, scared wasn't really the right word. Or maybe it was, I don't know. I cared about what House thought, and the idea of doing something to hurt him or make him angry... I didn't want to even think about that. Above all, the idea of failing at my little crusade to make his life less shitty, of failing him and the rest of the team, it made me sick.

Those thoughts started to come to me more and more the longer I lived with House in his world. What if I just screwed the pooch, and everything ended up the same? Or worse, even? What if Amber died anyway? What if Kutner still killed himself? And that was just the icing on the crap cake, there was so much that could go wrong. What if my presence just threw everything off?

I tried to keep calm as much as I could, in spite of the weight on my shoulders. I was convinced that God had sent me here because I'd be able to fix things, not because I'd just make them worse. I had to believe that, or I was likely to go insane. I had to press on and keep my head on straight. No ifs, ands, or buts.

I made my first real change in the middle of Maternity. House had been lost on how to treat the ailing infants, and I'd been trying to think of a way to help him. It was after Cuddy had basically surrendered all control of the case to him.

"'Do what you think is best...'" House trailed off, throwing his feet up on his desk. "She never lets me do what I think is best. If she let me do what I think is best-"

"The entire hospital would've burned down years ago, hundreds of patients would be dead, you'd be swimming in a sea of malpractice lawsuits, and there would be centerfolds pinned up in all of the exam rooms," I provided casually, turning the page of the newest medical text I'd picked out to read, Virulence and Treatment.

"My drug-addled judgment is still better than any other doctor's in this hospital," House argued, giving the quarter on his desk an experimental spin.

"Your instincts, yeah. Your judgment? Not so much," I replied. "Cuddy's your check and balance. The fact that she's leaving this up to you is a pretty bad sign," I said. House glared at me as the quarter continued spinning.

"So, you don't remember anything about this episode? Maternity, right?"

I remained silent, trying to formulate an answer to the question as my eyes scanned over the letters of the page. I was completely kicking myself in the ass for not remembering more about Maternity. Of course, leave it to me to only remember the talk between House and Cameron at the end of the episode, and the fact that a baby died. I couldn't even remember if it was one baby or two. Because of my shoddy season one knowledge, these kids were going to die. Damn it.

It wouldn't help to tell House that the babies were going to die, because then he would change his actions and more of the babies would probably perish. Quite simply, I was fucked. "You are ever so helpful," House piped up, and I sighed.

"I'm sorry, House, I'm hating myself for not being able to help right now..." I trailed off, my eyes sticking on a sentence. "...a proper anti-viral for Echo virus 11 has not yet been found..."

"You that absorbed in a two decade old medical textbook? I used that thing as a doorstop for half of med school," House said, jerking me out of my thoughts. Echo virus. Why did that sound so familiar?

A whiteboard flashed into my mind, a column scribbled on it. One half read 'yes', the other half read 'no'. Echo virus 11 was on the 'yes' side.

"I know what they have!" I burst out, jumping up from House's Eames chair. "I remember!"

"You know, I kind of have the trademark on sudden diagnostic epiphanies. Get in line," House commented, raising an eyebrow at me. I rushed forward, shoving the textbook at him, which he quickly took from me. The entire chapter was on retroviruses, which included Echo virus 11.

"Echo virus..." House trailed off. He looked up at me. "You said that you weren't going to tell me anything about the future. Several hundred times, actually."

"House, if you do what you're planning to do, babies will die," I said. "None of the antibiotics work, because it's not a bacterial infection. It's a virus."

"One problem," House muttered, halting the quarter with his thumb and forefinger. "There is no treatment for Echo virus 11."

"Au contraire," I said, quickly making my way to his computer. I kneeled down in front of it, quickly opening the internet browser. I searched 'recent breakthroughs in retroviruses'. A pharmaceutical company in Pennsylvania was my first result. After a few clicks, I found myself reading through a case study, with House reading over my shoulder, that was run using a newly developed anti-viral that was apparently very effective against certain strains of retroviruses... including Echo virus 11. "If we can get our hands on this, we might be able to save those babies. All of them," I said, looking back at the diagnostician.

"Get me their number."

Every single baby had survived the Echo virus breakout, and I'd finally done something good. I'd saved lives, and it was the most brilliant feeling. It was the final thing I needed to know that I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to do something worthwhile, something meaningful. I'd helped House save lives that would have been lost otherwise.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

So, yeah. My first month with House was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. And, of course, although I'd so far smothered my fangirl self with a pillow, hacked her to bits with a machete, shot her at point blank range, then salted and burned her corpse, she still popped up from time to time. Especially when House played the piano for the first time. One night, I'd been distracted from Nephrology for Beginners by a soft, tinkling melody from the other end of the room. I had actually squealed, but thankfully House had been drunk enough that he just found it amusing instead of irritating.

House certainly did drink a lot, though it didn't surprise me. I knew that bourbon was his favorite sleep aid. He always kept at least one bottle of scotch and one bottle of bourbon in the house at all times, much to my displeasure. I did most of the shopping now, and I'd put my foot down and said if he really wanted alcohol that badly, he could get it himself. It was one of the only times I'd really stood up to House.

The pills, yeah, I could let that slide... for now, anyway. As long as he kept it under control. Like it or not, the pills made it so House could function, and at the point he was at in his life, he legitimately needed them. They didn't impair his judgment and they let him do his job, so I let him be. The alcohol, on the other hand, was something I was not okay with. I'd dealt with alcoholics in my life before, some far too close to home, and I didn't want a repeat. If I could interfere now and water down House's drinking habit, all the better. Not to mention the fact that I was worried about the cocktail of pills and booze. He'd never had anything too disastrous happen in canon regarding his mixture of addictions in the earlier seasons, but I still didn't want to run the risk.

That was probably the strangest thing about all of it. The fact that I was sharing an apartment with someone who, technically, I'd known for just a little over a month, and who had a solid twenty-seven years on me, someone who I cared for deeply, having been looking over his shoulder for eight seasons. Currently, my main concern in life was pretty much House's wellbeing. However, House probably probably didn't feel much of anything towards me, since he still didn't know me terribly well. It took a hell of a lot to get House to like or care about anyone. It was just... the whole situation, even after I had time to digest it, was still completely fucking insane.

The homesickness, after a few weeks, had lessened slightly. Still, there were moments where I had to slip away from wherever I was and just let myself cry for a couple of minutes, let the cracks spread out a little more. Because although I was living a fangirl's dream, there was a pit deep in my stomach that just kind of sucked the life out of me some days. I missed my family. I missed my friends. I missed simple.

But there was no use crying over spilled cross-dimensional portals. I was where I was. I had to make the best of it. As I started developing my relationships in House's world, the pain lessened slightly. Obviously, I spent most of time with House and Wilson. Wilson and I were quickly becoming fast friends - the guy was great to be around. The show didn't give him enough credit. It seemed that a spotlight had been shown on Wilson's worst moments. In real life, he was funny and personable. He was at the apartment four out of seven nights a week, minimum, so it was a good thing that I liked the oncologist. I was also appreciating my front row seats to House and Wilson's bromance.

When I was at the hospital, I'd often sit in on House's differentials and offer what help I could. Since many of the cases had were ones not chronicled in the show, I could help without spilling what had happened in an episode. Foreman treated me mostly with indifference, which I was fine with. Cameron and I had actually begun to strike up an almost friendship. She wasn't nearly as annoying in person as I thought she would be. We got along stunningly well, and I'd put legitimate thought into hanging out with Cameron outside of the hospital at some point. Chase was nice enough to me, but my childhood crush that was still ingrained in my brain generally caused me to be rendered dumbly silent when he tried to talk to me, so that was something I was going to need to work on.

As for Cuddy and I, well, verdict was still out. Wounds heal slow, and I was still pissed about Bombshells. I had this inexplicable rage every time I saw her that made me want to go cry or punch a wall, or... I don't know, read angsty fanfiction. I wanted to do something, and having to wait years before I'd be able to interfere in Huddy land was killing me slowly.

She treated me well enough, and I was polite to her. I kept trying to like her more, I'd totally loved her character in the first four seasons, so I was still puzzled on why I couldn't just give up my grudge against her for something she hadn't even done yet. I supposed that the longer I was in the House universe, the more my leanings and biases as a fan would disappear. Maybe I just needed time.

I was slowly but surely integrating myself into the world. For a lazy eighteen year old who'd never worked a day in her life, I thought I was doing an okay job. There would be bigger challenges to come, but for now, things were normal, or at least as normal as they could be. Nothing big was going to be happening until the Vogler arc started, so I still had a good amount of time to adjust.

When the time came to interfere, I had to be ready. Of that, I was sure.

A/N: Before anyone asks, Black Adder does exist in the House universe. In one episode, Black Adder can be seen on House's list of Tivo'd shows.