Chapter 22

A/N: Insert apology for ridiculously long wait and possible low quality of chapter. Insert undying gratitude for follows, favorites, and reviews. Insert self-hatred for not being able to write faster/better.

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"Is Wilson banging one of his nurses?"

I looked up from House's work computer, narrowing my eyes at him. I didn't have work today, and I didn't feel like being pent up in the apartment while House was at work, so I asked House if I could tag along with him to the hospital and just do my school work there. After annoying him for a few minutes, he agreed, albeit reluctantly.

Plus, Fidelity started today, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't looking for a front row seat.

"Why do you ask?" I asked slowly, trying to remember when exactly Wilson started cheating on Julie, and who he cheated on her with. I remembered vaguely something about a dying chick, but that was about it. I was pretty sure he never got up to anything with his subordinates.

"Because I think he's banging one of them, obviously, and I want confirmation," House said, rolling his eyes. "And since you're the only I know who has future knowledge, I'm asking you."

"Uh-huh. Well, I'm not going to give you an answer," I informed him, eyes drifting back to my advanced biology assignment. "So, unless you can tell me the order of stages for mitosis in plant cells, then be gone."

"You're using my computer, you know."

"Fair point. You can kick me off, if you really want to," I reasoned. "But Wilson also has a computer. Isn't that convenient?"

House gave me an appraising look. "I'm starting to rub off on you, aren't I?"

"Coming from you, I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult," I said distractedly.

Yeah, I was being a bit of an ass today, but I could admit to being in a bad mood. My usual peppiness was severely hampered, because today was my mother's birthday. My thoughts were fixed on her, and the homesickness that I'd managed to reduce to a dull, uncomfortable feeling in the back of my mind over the past few months was out in full force at the moment.

House sat on the edge of his desk, twirling his cane as he watched me. "What's your problem?" he asked, curious. I'm usually an even-tempered person and I've always found that I'm fairly decent at not letting my emotions get the best of me, so House was most likely intrigued by the fact that I was actually allowing something get to me.

I really didn't feel like explaining myself, though. Not to House, who was anything but a sympathetic ear.

"Nothing," I replied tersely. "I'm at school." House and I both knew that response wasn't going to fly, I don't know why I even bothered to try.

"You like school."

"Not true. I enjoy the challenge it presents. There's a difference," I argued, quickly losing my patience. "Don't you have that dying woman to deal with? The one who won't stop sleeping?"

"Well, if you tell me what's wrong with her, then I'll have all kinds of time to continue sitting here and pissing you off." House's head was tilted, and he looked almost... amused. His lips were twitching up in an almost-smirk. At the moment, I kind of wanted to punch it off of his face.

"No," I responded in a monotone, trying to calm my rising anger. "Go do your job, House. I don't even remember anything about this case."

"Lie," House said immediately.

I grinded my teeth together. I didn't know what my tell was, but House obviously did. I did recall a bit about Fidelity, actually. I knew that the wife was cheating on her husband with his jogging partner, and that she had African trypanosomiasis. I also knew that House would figure out the diagnosis before it was too late, so there was no point in me telling him.

I rose from House's office chair, turned my back on the diagnostician, and slid open the glass door that led to the balcony. I stepped out into the bracing winter wind jacketless, striding up to the barrier and leaning on it. I needed fresh air. I needed away from House. Don't get me wrong, living in House's universe, living with House - I was still amazed by it all. It was still awesome. But sometimes...

Sometimes I really missed home.

And sometimes I realized why House had a tendency to piss people off so much on the show.

Unsurprisingly, I heard the balcony door slide open behind me, then the sound of cane on concrete. I sighed. "Go back to work, House, there's no puzzle to solve here. I'm just in a mood."

"You're never just in a mood," House said. "It's one of the most annoying things about you. You're always happy. Or at least always not unhappy."

"That's a double negative."

"Shut up." House leaned on the balcony next to me.

"You find my misery interesting, do you know how fucked up that is?" I asked, shivering against the wind.

"You're acting like you're surprised that I find it interesting, which we both know you aren't," he countered, watching as snow fell lazily onto the expansive grounds of PPTH. "You're feeling homesick, aren't you?"

I shook my head. Of course House would figure it out, just like that. "Yeah," I said at length.

"Hmm," was the only response I received.

"Less interesting now?" I asked.

"Sort of. You've been gone for almost four months. Why the sudden onset, is what I'm wondering."

I ran a hand through my hair, avoiding House's eyes. I resigned myself to having to talk to the diagnostician. I knew that he wasn't going to just give up and go away. That wasn't in House's nature. "It's my mother's birthday, today," I began. "She always hated them, actually. Her least favorite day of the year... once she turned thirty-nine, we started calling her birthday her anniversary instead." I smiled faintly. "Today would've been the twelfth anniversary of her thirty-ninth birthday, in my own time."

House was silent for a few moments "This is the part where Wilson would say that it's not your fault," he eventually said. "Not being there. You didn't choose to get your ass tossed eight years back in time."

I cocked my head, surprised by House's words. "Am I tripping here, or are you actually trying to comfort me?"

"I'm not. I'm pointing out a fact."

"You're pointing out a fact in a Wilson-ish way. Which means comforting."

"If Wilson's so damn comforting, why don't you go cry to him about this? You'll get a free therapy session. He might even give you a lollipop when you're done," House grouched. I smirked. It never failed to amuse me how defensive House got if you suggested that he wasn't as shitty a human being as he pretended to be.

"Look, it doesn't matter. There's nothing I can do to get back. I just wish there was some way to talk to them, assuming time's passing the same way there that it is here. Let them know I'm alright, that I didn't get kidnapped or run away or something... but this, whatever this is, just doesn't work like that. I'm stuck here. Probably forever."

House nodded. "Probably," he said. He paused, tonguing the inside of his cheek. "You know what might cheer you up?" he asked.

"Copious amounts of alcohol?" I asked dryly.

House grinned - actually fucking grinned, which I almost never saw him do - and said, "You haven't really used that future knowledge to its full potential yet, kid."

"What are you getting at?" I asked, not liking where this was going.

"Super Bowl's tomorrow," he ventured. "I would never suggest such a reprehensible practice as gambling for one so young, but unlike you, I'm old and morally bankrupt. So, how about you tell me who's going to win, and I put a couple thousand down - we split the earnings."

I groaned and put my head in my hands. "'Oh, Anya, you're having a bad day? Here, let me try to manipulate your knowledge of the future to line my own pockets!'"

"Our pockets," House corrected. "And you can't tell me you didn't expect that."

No, I certainly couldn't. I sighed, and honestly, I just didn't care enough today to make the case against using my knowledge of what was to come for monetary gain. Actually, the idea of being able to earn House some money so I could stop feeling guilty over all the money he'd spent keeping me clothed and fed sounded pretty good. I made a pittance at the coffee shop, so a little extra salary wouldn't do anyone any harm, right?

"I'm a terrible person," I said. "New England destroys Philly. The Eagles lost all hope by half-time, Brady was the second-coming."

"I knew you were a closeted football fan."

"I wasn't. My brother, on the other hand, had a hard-on for it. Forced me to watch the Super Bowl with him every year," I told him with a hint of melancholy. "Go make your bets. And don't empty out your bank account, okay? Just because it happened like that in my time doesn't mean it's gonna happen like that in this one. There's no guarantee."

"It's more of a guarantee than anyone else has," House said. "Once we're rolling in it, you'll cheer up. Nothing's more uplifting than cheating your way into money. Trust me."

"I'll take your word for it," I mumbled as House departed for his office, leaving me alone on the balcony.

I looked out at the frozen grounds and managed to find a little bit of peace. Princeton wasn't home, really... but it was close. It had been a second home in my mind for most of my life, and now it was the closest thing I had to one. There were worse places I could be. And House was right - it wasn't my fault. One doesn't typically expect portals to other dimensions to open in their swimming pools.

I pushed away from the wall of the balcony, taking in a deep breath of crisp winter air. It chilled my lungs and brought me back into the moment. I needed to suck it the hell up, or I was just going to make myself miserable. More miserable, rather. So, in true House fashion, I crammed my emotions down, buried them under cement, and then proceeded to act like I didn't have them at all.

The following day, I found myself thinking that I really needed to learn the art of self-restraint.

But, I couldn't. Because if there was one thing in this world that I liked more than anything - minus the whole 'living with the object of my near-decade long mindless hero worship' thing - it was sitting in on House's differentials. My problem was, I couldn't keep my mouth shut during them.

The team, House, and Wilson had just filed into the differential room, looking perplexed. I was sitting at the table already, my feet resting on the glass, Brunswick on Neurology held in my hands. "How's Elise?" I inquired, not lifting my eyes from the text as the team seated themselves around the table. Wilson hovered nearby, his arms crossed. It had been assumed fairly quick after her admittance that Elise had some variety of cancer, so Wilson had been brought in as a consult.

"Who's Elise?" House asked, heading to the white board.

"Your patient," I told him mildly.

"Oh. Her. She's hallucinating creepy-crawlies," he said as he wrote out hallucinations on the white board in red marker.

"Hallucinations like that are consistent with paraneoplastic syndrome, aren't they?" I ventured.

Cue typical confused look from the ducklings at my medical knowledge. I'd tried to stay mostly out of the differentials so far, but I'd still weighed in a few times, and House's team still wasn't used to my informed opinions. It probably would've been wiser for me to keep my mouth shut, but hey, this was Grade-A entertainment. Like an interactive episode.

"Yes, but onset immediately after IVIG isn't," Cameron pointed out.

"Maybe it's Occam's Razor, then," I said, knowing only House would get the joke. "Maybe she really does have bugs under her skin." Okay, so maybe I knew a little more about this episode than I let on. I may have remembered a few quotes.

"You think it's an infection?" Chase proposed.

"That's what the worsening of symptoms after immunotherapy would suggest," House said.

"But blood cultures and the timeline rule out most bacteria," Foreman argued.

"If a patient throws up on your shoes do you clean up most of it?" House countered.

Foreman scowled. "The symptoms rule out the rest. Serology rules out viruses, CSS smears rule out parasites-"

House cut across him. "In the final stage of African Trypanosomiasis, almost all the parasites are inside the brain. It's possible they wouldn't even show on smears."

"Mmm. But therein lies the problem... it's not possible for a patient who's never been to Africa to have African Sleeping Sickness," I pointed out, even though I knew that House was right. He still had to figure out why she had African Sleeping Sickness. A normal doctor would've been content with just knowing what she had, but House wouldn't rest until he knew how she got it.

"I'm just saying it fits the symptoms," he replied, seeming somewhat frustrated.

"She could've gotten it through a transfusion," Wilson suggested.

"Or I'm just saying she could've gotten it through a transfusion," House amended.

"She's never had a transfusion," I stated. Another look from the ducklings.

"House, you've gotta stop letting Anya look at the patient history. It's completely unethical, violates doctor/patient confidentiality-" Foreman began, but Anya interrupted him before House could.

"He didn't let me see the patient history. Her file was on his desk and I read it while he wasn't around," I said, covering for House. Although I hoped to stop the Vogler arc coming up, just in case I failed, I didn't want the bastard to be able to find anything else to use against House - such as him letting his 'daughter' look at classified patient files.

"What she said," House tacked on. "If it's not ASS, what is it?"

"What about toxins?" Wilson proposed.

"No, the kitchen she works in is cleaner than some hospitals. But they do serve rabbit... Rabbit Fever fits her symptoms," Foreman said.

"Tularemia initially presents with a rash or ulcer near the infection site," Chase reminded him.

"Not if she inhaled it. Chopping the meat with a cleaver could easily aerosolize the bacteria," House said.

"Except she doesn't have respiratory symptoms," Cameron said.

"Maybe she ignored it, figured she had a cold." Foreman was grasping at straws.

"We rejected Lyme Disease because the couple would have noticed a rash, but a wet hacking cough is just going to slip right by?" House twirled his cane in his hand, staring off into the distance.

Foreman let out an aggravated sigh. "Hey, it's either that or she missed her exit on the turnpike and wound up in Africa."

"Two improbable ideas," I said. "What do you think, House?"

"I think they're two lousy ideas," he said. "Unfortunately, they're better than all the other ideas. Tularemia. Bizarre. Very nice." He pointed at Foreman. "That's why I ride you."

House promptly exited the room and went into his office. I heard the TV snap on. House would be wanting to keep up with the Super Bowl tonight, I was sure. In a few hours, he was either going to be a very rich man or a very poor one. And I knew exactly who he was going to blame if the latter happened.

Cameron's brow furrowed. "Did he just turn on the TV?"

"He needs to think," Wilson and I chorused.