Chapter 45 – Here Endeth the Lesson

A/N: Wanted to take a second and thank all of you for the continued love, support, and feedback. You make my little fanfiction world go 'round. :) I'm nervous about how this chapter turned out. It's been through a few rewrites, and I hope that in the end it's up to par!

I couldn't claim to be the most quick-thinking person in the world. I work better when I have time to sit and consider all of my options, time to reason out the best course of action.

I realized I had maybe one second to think really damn fast, or I would never be thinking anything again.

Unfortunately, that realization took up that one second, and Calafiore's finger twitched–

No! I'm not done yet–!

There was a blur of movement beneath me–

The gunshot rang out, loud and piercing. But, I wasn't dead, strangely enough. It took me a moment to notice that Calafiore was on the ground, and that movement had been Zach kicking out his legs, which caused the mob boss to miss me.

Zach immediately had every gun in the room trained on him.

"Kill them!" Calafiore ordered, fumbling for the dropped gun. Zach flailed, kicking him hard in the jaw and sending him sprawling.

"Zach, don't!" I yelled. They were just going to kill him. If they focused on getting me out of the way, maybe they wouldn't have time to get to him before the cops arrived.

BOOM.

My hearing went out, then my vision, then everything else. It all faded to white, and I was drifting. Time stilled, and I was gone.

The shriek of an ambulance siren was the sound I awoke to; not the most comforting thing in the world. I'd been strapped down to a gurney, I could feel it... there was light, bright light, flickering in and out of my field of vision.

"Pupils aren't equal... definitely a concussion..." I heard a voice say.

"Of course I have a concussion, you moron," I muttered, my brain pounding in a timpani beat. I shied away from the light and pinched my eyes shut tight.

"She's awake," another voice brilliantly observed, a faintly familiar one that tickled the edge of my conscience. "It's Anya, right? Anya Carhart? Look, I'm sorry about the flash grenade. Those things aren't easy on the noggin, even if you don't got a concussion."

I cracked open my left eye reluctantly, directing it to the location of the voice. A man, definitely a cop, by the looks of it, sat on the bench against the wall, watching me intently. Brown hair, brown eyes, thick New York-ish accent.

"You're that detective from Braveheart," I said. "C-Compson..."

"Braveheart?" Donny Compson lifted an eyebrow at me. "Come again?"

The part of my mind that was still somewhat functioning screamed at me for my slip.

"I... m'tired..." I murmured, turning my head away and closing my eyes once more.

The paramedic put a hand on my shoulder, and I felt a slight push in my wrist... was I on an IV? I couldn't bring myself to care.

"W-wait... what about Zach?" I managed, even as whatever sedative the EMT had given me started to pull me under.

I didn't know if I ever got a response, because the next thing I knew, I was out.

The coffin is carried by six people, and I recognize them all. Chase. Foreman. Wilson. Cameron. Cuddy... and me. I'm seeing myself from the outside, watching myself perform the solemn duty of a pallbearer, and I have no idea who is inside the coffin.

But at the same time, somewhere deep... I do.

The coffin is put in the ground, and the world turns to a blur of activity and words. Wilson delivers a eulogy, so does Cuddy. I remain silent in the crowd, and on some level I register the tears streaming down my face. I'm vacuous inside; a black hole that screams two words inside the empty space between my ears and in my chest:

"YOU FAILED."

The people disperse, but I stay still, not moving an inch, just staring as dirt and earth is heaped over the box in the ground.

It starts to rain.

I'm standing there alone over the fresh grave, my only company the single marble gravestone in front of me, staring me in the face with all the accusation an inanimate object can muster.

GREGORY HOUSE. 1959 – 2005.

A hand settles on my shoulder, a familiar hand. I look up, and my brother's standing there. I can't see his eyes past his fogged over glasses; he sighs, gripping my shoulder tight, a little too tight.

"You can't save 'em all, kid."

I woke up screaming.

It was too much of a sudden assault on my senses; far too much input all at once, taxing my jostled brain to the point of intense pain. Light, sound, and sensation all slammed into me like a freight train, and all I could do was swiftly cover my eyes and duck my head down, trying to shield myself from as much of the world as possible.

"Anya?" A hand landed on my shoulder, and I jerked away from the touch on instinct. "It's okay, you're okay, you're safe," the voice soothed.

The voice. The voice was Wilson's. With that knowledge in hand, I began to calm down ever-so-slightly.

My skull felt like it was caught in a vice, and it made it difficult for me to form the solid line of thinking I needed at the moment. I peeked through the gaps of my fingers, reluctant to expose myself to the overhead fluorescent lights, but desperately wanting to make sense of my situation.

I was in the hospital. Specifically, the second floor ICU at PPTH. A heart monitor beeped alongside me rapidly, stating my disturbed emotional state loud and clear. It was night, everything outside was pitch black. The lights out in the hallway were dimmed, and the blinds on my interior windows were partially drawn.

Memories flew back together, connecting the dots for me.

The car crash. Me and Zach's subsequent kidnapping. Calafiore, his call to House, and the gun aimed at my head...

But I wasn't dead. The cops had showed up in time.

And now I was here.

Okay. Priority number one: "Where's Zach?" I rasped to Wilson, damning the tremble in my words.

"If you're talking about the guy they brought you in with, he's recovering a few doors down. He's got a broken nose and a severe concussion, but the CT doesn't show any brain damage. He should wake up in a few hours."

I sank back down against my pillows, relief flooding through me. "Thank God. He's my friend. It's my fault he got mixed up in this."

"A friend?" Wilson questioned. I could hear what he really meant: you have friends outside of House and I?

"We work together," I elaborated. "He was driving me home when Calafiore's henchmonkeys found us."

Wilson leaned back in the chair at my bedside, sighing deeply. "Anya... I'm so sorry for this. I should've been there. I should've driven you home."

"Shut up," I said sharply, finally lifting my head so I could glare at him fully. "The only difference that would've made is that you would be the one in the hospital bed right now instead of Zach, and... and I would never forgive myself if you got hurt, okay? So shut up."

Wilson pursed his lips. "Can I ask you something, then?"

I nodded, pinching the bridge of my nose and wondering if it would be out of place to ask for a boost of whatever pain medication they were giving me. "Yeah?"

"Did this happen in the show?"

I shook my head. "Oh, no. One, we're only on episode fifteen... this is like, mid-season finale level drama at bare minimum. Two, if I'd known this was coming, I would've found a way to avoid it."

I carded a hand through the tangled mess my hair had become, wincing when my fingers brushed the injured part of my scalp, near my hairline. One by one, I found the stitches with the pads of my fingers. I winced again. I hadn't had to get stitches since I was a kid, the time I fell off of my best friend's roof.

I was just glad I'd been asleep for the stitches. I would've been freaking out, otherwise.

Passionate future doctor I might have been, but no one likes having to go to the hospital and have people in white coats stab you with sharp things.

"So everything went off without a hitch in the show? This is just, what, a freak divergence?" Wilson pressed.

"I think I butterfly-effected things somehow," I admitted, not even sure if that was a word. "I just don't know what I did yet. To be fair, thinking is... not as easy as usual, right now."

"Do you think you're feeling well enough to talk to the cops?" Wilson asked. He jerked his head towards the door. "One of the PPD detectives has been waiting outside to question you about what happened."

I grimaced. "Um, you might not like to hear this... but there's no way I'm talking to the police."

"What do you mean? Anya, you were kidnapped."

"By the mob!" I exclaimed. "Wilson, jeez, haven't you ever watched any mob movie ever? Snitches get stitches!" I pointed to my forehead. "And I really don't want anymore of these!"

"You can't just not talk to the police!"

"Nothing I say will make any difference. If what House says is true, half the cops in this part of the state are crooked and under Calafiore's thumb. Even if the detective who got me out of there isn't, then there's gonna be a hundred DAs and other cops between here and a trial that'll get him and his men off."

Hoo, okay, that was too many words at once. I couldn't help it, though. I was panicking at the thought of having to talk to the police. I put a hand to my head and pinched my eyes shut.

I just wanted to see Zach, and then see House. I didn't want to deal with the police now, or ever. Not when I knew damn well it wouldn't do any good, and would just get more people hurt.

Wilson set his hand on my shoulder carefully, as if expecting me to flinch away again. "Look, maybe you should get some more rest. We can talk about this in the morning."

I didn't think I would actually be able to get back to sleep, but I nodded anyway. If it would make Detective Compson go away for the time being, then fine.

"Okay," I said quietly, feeling exhausted and beat to hell and just wanting everything to stop for a couple hours, just so I could get my bearings back.

Wilson nodded, moving to leave. However, I grabbed his wrist before he could get too far away. "Hey."

He looked back at me, eyebrow raised.

"Don't blame yourself," I told him softly. "It's not your fault. And... and thank you for being here because I... I wouldn't want to wake up without anyone there, and um..." I really needed to get better with the whole emotional expression thing. "Just... you're gonna be a really good dad one day, you know that?"

Wilson seemed simultaneously saddened and touched by the comment. He set his other hand over mine, and gave me a somber little smile. "I'll be back in the morning. Get some rest."

And with that, he was gone.

I waited approximately ten minutes before I clambered out of bed. I grabbed my IV stand and strode determinedly out of my hospital room.

Zach was fine... or as fine as anyone could be, after getting into a car crash and then being kidnapped by the mob. There were thick bandages around his head and his nose. I was overcome by a mixture of emotions; relief, of course, that he hadn't suffered worse damage, that he was still alive... and a deep, bleeding guilt that I had been the one to get him into trouble in the first place.

I was convinced that I'd been sent here to save lives, not end them. But Zach and I both came so close to what could've been our deaths...

Was this the consequence of playing God?

I didn't linger long in Zach's room. I couldn't talk to him yet, and it was just too much for me to sit there in the silence and the dimmed lights, listening to the beep of his heart monitor and feeling like an asshole.

So that brought me to here. Here being outside the door of House's office at 4am.

I had a lot of questions for him. I wanted to know how Joey was. I wanted to know why he'd hung up on Calafiore. I wanted to know why he hadn't come to my hospital room, because I was positive Wilson must've let him know the second I was up. I wanted to know a lot of things.

I hadn't seen or spoken to House in pushing a week. Our longest separation since I stepped out of the university fountain seven months ago. And I missed him... but his actions indicated that he hadn't missed me.

His actions, debatably, indicated that House didn't much care if I lived or died.

He was standing with his back to me, looking out the window at the hospital grounds. Cane in one hand, oversized tennis ball in the other. He tossed it up and down, the rest of his body still other than that simple motion.

He was thinking. About what, was my question.

I pushed into his office, any chance of being quiet out the window when my IV pole clanged against the glass door. House didn't seem to notice. He didn't even turn.

"Hey," I greeted lamely, exhausted from having walked my ass up to the fourth floor. My energy levels were rock bottom at the moment. Whether that was the remnants of the sedative I'd been given earlier, the pain meds, the concussion, or just the day I had, well, I didn't really know or care to know.

House didn't respond.

"Look, I know I'm not actually your daughter, but everyone else thinks I am, so maybe just for appearance's sake, popping in to visit your freshly kidnapped, concussed offspring might be a good idea."

House turned ever so slightly, eyes meeting mine.

"Why'd you hang up, House?" I asked. "It's been bugging me since earlier. I mean, you had some genius plan, right?" I gave him a tight, scared smile. "You... you did care on some level that some mobster had a gun pointed at my head... right?"

In my entire time in the House MD 'verse, I'd tried hard to keep in mind who House was, who I was, and not to expect anything ridiculous out of him. House had, in his own way, showed infrequently that he might possibly, maybe give a damn about me. But I tried never to accept that as a guarantee. I'd tried to remind myself that it took House a long time to care about anyone.

I think the whole time I'd been trying to prepare myself for the inevitable realization that House might be more or less indifferent to me, or just dislike me entirely.

And the fear, of course, was always there... the fear that someday House would look at me and decide that I wasn't really helping matters much, that I wasn't interesting anymore, and then boot my sorry ass out the door.

Well, I was staying with Wilson and Julie... so maybe he'd already done that.

"Calafiore showed up here earlier, tried to cut a deal with me. I told Wilson, Wilson tattled to the cops. They've been hanging out around here all day, put a wire tap on the phone. I hung up as soon as they got the trace," House informed me, and I couldn't read his tone.

Alright, so he hadn't just hung up out of apathy. That was comforting, in its own way.

I shrugged one shoulder. "Good to know. I'm okay, by the way. Thanks for asking. I mean, I don't remember most of fifth grade, now... but whatever."

I didn't know what I was expecting, and maybe I wasn't being fair to House, but... I wanted something from him. Any kind of emotional engagement whatsoever, or even just a verbal browbeating! Anything other than this weird silence that had crept up between us. I didn't understand it, and I didn't like it.

When House offered nothing in response, I sighed heavily. "Well. How's Joey?"

House turned, met my eyes. And there was something there... something bad. Even with most of my thought processes going about forty miles slower than usual, I could pick up on that.

House made his way towards me. He walked right past me, grabbed his bag from where it rested on his Eames chair, and then made for the door.

"House–"

"My patient is dead."

He brushed past me without another word.