Chapter 50 – The High Road

I woke to a knock on the door. It took me a few minutes to pull myself out of sleep and disperse the grogginess from my head enough to register that no, it wasn't Julie knocking on my door, letting me know that breakfast was ready. I opened my eyes, and House's apartment greeted me. I was curled up on the couch under my comforter.

I sat up, and my back ached. I hadn't exactly missed sleeping on the sofa, but I couldn't pretend it didn't put me at ease to be back home.

Home. I guess I could call it that, now.

"Anya? Are you in there?"

Shit. It was Wilson. I should've left him a note or something last night, or at least shot him a text to let him know that I'd gone to House's. Granted, Julie had probably told him I'd run off with House, but disappearing in the middle of the night like I had was still kind of a dick move.

I forced myself to my feet and stumbled to the door. I glanced at the clock; half-past eight. Otherwise known as too damn early. I opened the door for Wilson. He stood in the hallway, mouth pursed into that line of worry I'd become oh so familiar with of late. And as I had a habit of doing, I felt my face shift into a mirror of that concerned, lipless frown.

"I hate to be a mother hen, but next time you vanish in the middle of the night, maybe leave me a note?"

"I'm sorry," I apologized immediately. "I thought Julie would tell you that I left with House."

"Julie was gone before I even woke up this morning. She's got finals to grade," Wilson told me. "I came here on a hunch. A hopeful hunch. If you hadn't been here, I would've called the police. Which given recent events, I think it would've been a pretty reasonable course of action."

I lifted up my hands. "You're right. No arguments. I'm sorry," I repeated. "It won't happen again."

Wilson sighed, rubbing his forehead. I could tell he wasn't mad at me; my disappearance had just stressed the poor bastard out. "How did you even end up here? And what's with the Corvette out front?"

"House showed up in the middle of the night with it. You slept through the commotion."

"So, you're back? I should bring your stuff over?" Wilson asked tiredly.

After a brief pause, I nodded. "Yeah. I, um. Felt like it was time to go back."

Wilson snorted, a hint of a smirk fighting at the militantly neurotic line of his mouth. "You missed him, didn't you?"

"I would never sacrifice my stoic facade by admitting such a thing."

That got a laugh out of him, and the tension eased. "That still doesn't explain the Corvette, though."

"Well, um..." I ran a hand through my hair. This was going to be a long conversation, and I really didn't want to have it first thing in the morning. "How about you come over tonight and House and I can give you the full rundown on everything. And if you felt like bringing pizza, that would be cool, too."

"God, you are turning into him," Wilson shook his head. "Alright. But House has a new patient, so chances are you might be telling me on your own."

I straightened up at that. "A new patient?"

"I'm surprised you didn't know. Shouldn't we be getting a season finale somewhere in the near future?"

"We've still got seven episodes left of season one," I informed him promptly, dimly proud of myself that I could still keep most of the episode names and numbers straight in my head. "Is the patient a ten year old girl?"

Wilson nodded.

"Cool. We just started Heavy, then."

"Wow. What a creative episode name."

I wanted nothing more than to go back to bed, exhausted as I was, but if a new episode had started, and House and I were officially done fighting...for now...that meant I should probably get to the hospital. Chase had played much more of an important role in Heavy, with his intense fat kid hate, and someone had to make up for his absence. Not to mention, every free moment of mine that I could spare needed to be devoted to Vogler patrol. As in, making sure House didn't piss him off and ruin both of our lives.

"Uh oh. I know that look. Do you need a ride to the hospital?"

I grinned at Wilson. "I certainly do not."

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

I roared down the street, Corvette pushed up to sixty, engine purring along like a newborn kitten, glimmering ruby-red in the bright spring sunlight. It was warm out, low seventies, and the wind whipping through my hair made me feel like the most beautiful badass in the world.

I laughed to myself, giddy, and cranked up the radio, shouting along with Iggy Pop's "Search and Destroy."

As far as white flags went, this was basically the biggest one House could've waved. Apparently I was easily bought, because even though I rationally should've been furious with him, I couldn't muster up much anger. Not to mention...being mad at House was exhausting. He was the person I was closest to in this universe, my roommate, and the main player in most of my thoughts. Life was easier when House and I were getting along.

After taking the long way to the hospital, I skidded into the parking garage, paid the attendant, and parked in one of the guest spots. I'd had my own car for less than twelve hours, and I was already on cloud nine. This is so awesome.

After hopping out of the Corvette (I needed to name it, but I hadn't decided on what, yet) I made the familiar journey up to diagnostics. I hadn't been to see the team since the start of Mob Rules, and I found myself missing Foreman and Cameron. And, naturally, the dull ache of Chase's absence was still there, but it would be another two weeks before I would see Chase again.

There was no sign of House when I arrived in the differential room, but Foreman and Cameron sat at the table, pouring over what was presumably Jessica's case file. I walked in mid-conversation.

"–should've seen me when I was her age. I was about her size. And kids are jerks." Foreman shrugged one shoulder. "If the obesity is an underlying symptom, and we fix this, it'll change her whole life."

"It's crap that society tells us we have to be thin to be pretty. If someone's healthy, the rest shouldn't matter," Cameron said, adjusting her glasses. They both glanced up when I sat down at the table with them. Cameron smiled warmly at me. "We wondered when we'd see you again. How are you feeling?"

Foreman and I made brief eye contact; unbeknownst to Cameron, we had already seen each other the day before, and I imagined he had an inkling of what I was feeling. I felt closer to Foreman now; like the true nature of Joey's "death" had bonded us together. A secret shared between mutually culpable parties.

"I'm fine," I said pleasantly. "Concussion's fading, head feels okay. The stitches come out in three weeks."

Cameron stole a furtive glance over her shoulder, then leaned forward. "House wouldn't really go in-depth on what happened...Anya, did the mob...?"

"I'd really rather not talk about it," I told her honestly. I wanted to put my encounter with the mafia behind me, forever. Coping skill number one: complete avoidance.

Cameron nodded. "Sorry. I understand."

"It's okay." I cleared my throat, not wanting things to get awkward. "Um...what are you guys up to?"

"Patient's being prepped for a hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp," Foreman answered.

"Say that three times fast. Who's the patient?" Foreman and Cameron exchanged a look. "Oh, come on, like House isn't just going to tell me, anyway. We're past worrying about doctor-patient confidentiality, aren't we?"

"With Vogler breathing down our necks, it might be time to start worrying again," Cameron said. "He's been watching us like a hawk since the mob case."

Uh oh. "Oh yeah?" I tried not to seem as panicked as I felt, and I saw the same thing reflected in Foreman's eyes.

"He keeps chatting up the two of us. I think he's trying to get ears and eyes on the inside," Foreman remarked, tapping the end of his pen on Jessica's file, the closest thing to a nervous gesture I'd ever seen from the usually calm neurologist.

"He wants to know what House is up to," I surmised. "Um...this is probably a stupid question, since I'm House's kid and you wouldn't tell me even if you were, but neither of you are going to become Vogler's rat, right?"

"You should know the two of us well enough by now to know we're not going to turn traitor on House," Cameron said. "Foreman likes his job too much and I–"

"–like House too much," Foreman finished for her.

Cameron looked incensed. "Seriously?"

Foreman shook his head. "She's not blind," he scoffed.

"Yeah, I'm not even touching that one. Do you guys know where House is?"

"No idea," Foreman said. "You guys all made up, then?"

"You were fighting?" Cameron asked, brow furrowed.

"Why do you think she hasn't been around?"

Cameron seemed concerned. "Is everything okay...?"

"Peachy." I rose from the table. "I'll go track him down." I headed for the door, then stopped short. "Hey, Cameron, are you still crashing with us for a few days when your house gets fumigated?"

Cameron's forehead wrinkled. "It's already done and over with. I stayed this week, while you were at Wilson's. Didn't he tell you?"

I stared blankly at her. "Um. No. But we haven't had that much chance to talk, so." Cameron had been there while I was gone? It was strange to imagine her and House just living together for what, four, five days?

Come to think of it, my couch had smelled less of man musk and more like girl...

I filed away the information for later. I would grill House for details on Cameron's stay with him at some point. For now, I needed to focus on making sure that this episode went off as it did in canon.

Joey may have survived Mob Rules, but even his fake death had taught me that I had no choice but to be very directly hands-on with each episode. I had already done too much damage to the original timeline to let go of the wheel, now. Especially with Vogler having primo blackmail, life-ruining material on his hands. Given the fact that he was breathing down the necks of the entire diagnostics department, I needed to be more watchful now than ever.

Sad as it was, this was almost comforting. Getting back into the routine of riding along with the episodes and making sure everything went off as intended. Hopefully this time around I wouldn't end up dangling from a meat hook in a slaughter house with a gun pointed at my head.

Yeah. It could only get better from here.

After wandering around the hospital for several hours, at first in search of House, later to just keep active and clear my head, I stumbled onto House and Wilson purely by accident when I headed to the cafeteria for lunch. After picking up a ham sandwich and apple juice, I slid in next to Wilson in the two doctors' usual booth at the far end of the cafeteria.

"Hey," I greeted.

House mumbled something through his sandwich, and Wilson lifted a hand in greeting.

When House finished his bite, he leaned forward, examining me shrewdly. "And she's back. I'd thought after everything that went down, you'd want to stay hands off," House said.

"That's not really an option anymore, is it? Especially given how the potential for all of us to get royally screwed is now significantly higher?"

"What exactly do you plan to do about that?" House asked.

I laughed. Scratched the back of my neck. Looked off to the side and swallowed with difficulty. "Um. Well. I...have no idea."

I really didn't. The train had derailed itself off the tracks and I had no clue where it was headed. All I could do was be here at the hospital as much as possible and try to steer things back to something that better resembled the canon I knew. My future knowledge was useless if I invalidated all of it in season one.

Buses still crash. Cancer still forms. Bullets still get fired. There's certain things that probably aren't going to change.

But if all of these little altered details piled up, they could change the big things, couldn't they? People could still end up dead. Hell, a week ago, Zach and I almost ended up that way. I had to be more careful.

The best I can do is try to line things up so they're pretty much back to normal for season two.

But what did that mean? Did that mean I had to make sure that without a doubt, Vogler was out of the picture by then? Sacrifice his hundred million dollars just so things would more closely resemble the future I was used to?

What other option do I have?

"This might not exactly cheer you up, but Vogler came poking around earlier, asking me about House's staff. And according to Cuddy, he's been nose-deep in the finance reports for diagnostics over the past two days," Wilson told me.

I was relieved that Cameron and I had put together the proper paperwork a few weeks prior so House wouldn't get nailed for not having any budget reports to speak of, but even so, Cameron and I hadn't been able to hide the simple fact that House's department was a huge deficit, and always would be. With a ludicrous amount of expensive tests and often experimental procedures, along with the fact that House took on one, two patients a week at absolute max? There just wasn't any money being made, even with the generous donations diagnostics often received.

"He was asking about Chase, wasn't he?"

Wilson nodded. "What I knew about him, if he was coming back. I told him the truth, I didn't know what else to do. I dropped his father's name, hoped it might make him less likely to fire Chase as soon as he gets back."

"Cutting one of my team isn't going to help the department be less of a colossal financial abyss. If he gets rid of any of them, it's going to be purely to piss me off. Spite me out of my job. He knows he doesn't have a chance of getting me removed with Wilson and Cuddy on the board."

"Unless he removes Wilson," I pointed out.

"He would still have Cuddy," Wilson said.

"Or would you? If it comes down to the good of the hospital or you, which do you think she's going to choose?" I leveled a serious look at House. "Have you tried talking to him? Maybe getting him to hate you a little less?"

"I'm sorry, have you met me?"

I sighed, picking at my food. "There has to be something we can do to get him off your ass. Some way for the department to start making more money." I lifted my head a tad, an idea striking me. "House...what if you got a grant? I'm talking something huge. Millions."

"He'd still hate me, but he couldn't tell me I was a waste of money, at least," he reasoned. "But you're never going to find a benevolent millionaire who's just going to shove money down our throats."

He was probably right, but it was an idea I filed away nonetheless. "We'll figure out something."

"Don't be so neurotic. At the end of the day, this is a battle of wills." House smirked. "Who do you think's going to win that?"

A/N: Guys...important question...what should Anya name the Corvette? Drop me ideas in the reviews!