Chapter 67 — Blood and Water

A/N: Happy late Easter, everyone! Or late 4/20. Whichever holiday you find more personally relevant. Thank you to OldSFfan, Akira D. Ryusuke, Heather SS1, AJKitKat, Robin, JacklovesHilson, BrySt1, Meme, SoleFaith, Aly, and all the guests for their reviews on the last chapter!

The next day I had my afternoon classes, with a double period of Anatomy taking me until 5 o'clock. We were studying the structure of a skull, with each of us having been given a scale model at our desks to work with, complete with removable jaw. We followed along with the Powerpoint at the front of the lecture hall, with the supplement of Professor Betts droning here and there. I essentially ignored him, already having learned this and basically any other material the class had to offer over the past year. I'd ripped through most of House's medical books and had gotten through a solid chunk of my pre-med curriculum before my med school dreams were dashed.

Studying hard to be a doctor and then taking nursing classes instead...not exactly a challenge. The hardest part of being a nurse wasn't in what you learned getting your degree, it was what you faced in clinicals. And it wasn't too much longer before I would face that. Having to care for another human being on that level, so much more personal than a doctor would ever be with a patient...it was intimidating to even think about. It intimidated me more than the idea of eight years of med school did.

The door opened, and I ignored it, thinking it was just another nursing student coming back from the bathroom, but Professor Betts stopped mid-sentence. "Can I help you, sir?"

"Need my kid."

I whirled around in my chair. House stood by the door, leaning heavily on his cane.

"And your...kid...is?"

"Midget with the auburn hair in the second row," House provided.

"Is everything alright?" I asked, half-rising from my chair.

"Depends on the definition." House redirected his attention to Professor Betts. "This is an LPN Anatomy class. She already knows everything you're teaching. I don't think leaving a half-hour early will derail her education."

"House," I said his name as a warning, and a ripple of whispers went through the classroom: Did she say House? Like THE House?

Betts seemed to catch on quickly as to who he was talking to. "Dr. House, in the future, I would appreciate it if you would call to the administration desk if you need Ms. Carhart to be let out of class early."

"Yeah yeah yeah," House said impatiently, beckoning me to him with his hand. "Can we go now?"

I grabbed up all my books and papers and shoved them into my bag. I abandoned my skull model and scurried over to House. We left post-haste.

"What could be so important that you had to pull me out of class?" I asked, trying to keep in step with him.

"We've got dinner reservations for six. You need time to shower and get ready."

I gaped at House. "Are we actually going to dinner with your parents?"

"I'm hoping if I can suffer through it tonight, Dad'll die before the next time they have a layover in Newark again," House told me in a monotone.

"Jesus, that's dark!" And accurate, but I wasn't going to tell him that. "Who all is coming?"

"The Cameron cat needs to stay in the bag, so it's just you, me, Wilson, and her," House said, and I could tell there was absolutely nothing but dread inside him at the moment.

"So...we're really doing this?" I asked, eyeing him quizzically. "This doesn't seem like you at all, and when you get out-of-character, I get nervous."

"I just want to get it over with," he said absently. "Now come on."

So there we sat, several hours later: three of the most uncomfortable people in the world, and then Wilson. Wilson, who was low-key gleaming with pride that House had made an adult decision without a great deal of browbeating from an outside force. Now all that was left was watching the spectacle of House introducing Cameron and I to his parents.

"Is there anything I should know ahead of time...?" Cameron broached in a tentative tone. She was radiant tonight, clad in a dark purple dress that hugged her shape perfectly and a pair of three inch heels. She'd even curled her hair. I could tell she'd gone out of her way to look particularly jaw-dropping. Hopefully House's mood would lighten enough over the course of the evening that he would be able to appreciate it.

"Like what?" House asked, looking like he wanted nothing more than to sink through the floor of the Dynasty and vanish entirely. He seemed a sheepish child, a boy dreading his parents' return from a parent-teacher conference. His blue button-down had been ironed for the first time in probably years, and some vague effort had been made (mostly by Cameron) to tame his hair. This House was antithetical to everything I saw from him on a daily basis; lacking in confidence and unusually quiet, twitchy and unsure.

Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea, after all.

I couldn't imagine having so little desire to see one's own family. Sure, in the wake Patrick's death, my relationship with my parents, particularly my father, had become strained—but I still missed them terribly. A night with Mom and Dad would be a dream come true. I had to remind myself that House and I had very, very different childhoods. He was well within his rights to feel the way that he did, even if I didn't know the intimate details of everything he'd been through.

"House, you look like you want to die. Clearly I'm missing something here," Cameron sighed, exasperated.

"They'll love you purely on the basis that you're a woman who spends time with him that isn't paid by the hour. You have nothing to worry about," Wilson reassured her.

"They'll be too focused on my illegitimate child to think twice about you," House said. "Maybe so much that I won't even get a lecture about your age."

"You're not that much older than me—"

"I'm almost an entire her older than you," House interrupted, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder in my direction.

"No use talking about it now...we're here," I pointed out as House pulled into the parking lot of Fenêtre, the upscale French restaurant Wilson had recommended for the evening.

House parked, forgoing the offered valet. He groaned, throwing open his door and slowly rising from the driver's seat. I joined him at his side a moment later. "Why did you have to cure my patient?" he muttered to me.

"I didn't. You did."

"You could've let the lie keep going," House accused, limping for the restaurant's main entrance. Cameron took up his other side, with Wilson trailing just behind us.

"House, I love you, but not enough to let a guy die because you want to avoid your family," I said under my breath.

"What did you just say?" Cameron asked, leaning past House to look at me, brow furrowed.

"Nothing," House and I chorused.

The four of us filtered into Fenêtre. The restaurant was almost entirely comprised of wall length single-pane glass windows, with soft lighting provided by candles scattered on the tables. Everything was in shades of gray and burgundy. I felt a surge of relief that House's parents were paying for the meal; I wagered that a glass of wine here cost more than I made in an entire week at Ryan's.

"Reservation for six, under Wilson," Wilson told the maître d'. He had made the reservations personally, not trusting House to do it—which, all things considered, was probably a wise decision. We were promptly escorted to a large booth caddy-corner to the bar. Our drink orders were put in, and the maître d' was off, promising that a waiter would be with us momentarily.

The waiter was prompt, Wilson was served his martini, House his scotch on the rocks, and Cameron her glass of Pinot Noir. Meanwhile, I got a Sprite, feeling like a child sitting at the big kids' table...which, in reality, was a pretty decent way to sum up my life.

"I'm surprised your parents didn't beat us here," I commented, picking at the melted wax on the side of one of the candles on our table. "Your dad's pretty gung-ho about being on time."

"Traffic's hell over by the airport," Wilson said, totally unconcerned, which was unlike him.

House noticeably didn't say anything. I peered at him suspiciously. "House?"

"What?"

"You wouldn't happen to know why they're late, would you?"

Cameron looked at him sharply. "Please tell me you didn't."

House avoided eye contact with all of us, pretending to be very interested in the shelves of liquor behind the bar. "What's Fenêtre French for again? Window? I might've gotten confused...told them to go to Porte instead."

"Jesus Christ." I put my head in my hands.

"If you didn't want to go, why are we here?" Cameron demanded. "Why go through all of this just to tell them the wrong restaurant?"

Wilson broke in before House could offer up a response, "Don't worry, House. I know how you tend to get confused. I double-checked with your parents to make sure everyone was on the same page." Wilson lifted a hand, looking past Cameron and I towards the door. "Over here!"

House's horrified expression meant that his parents had arrived. I craned my head, feeling the familiar surreal thrill in my stomach; seeing characters brought to life in front of me. That feeling was directed far more towards Blythe than John. I could sense a slow anger creeping in as they made their way to our table, all smiles. I shouldn't have been approaching this on the defensive, but that's how I felt, even before anyone had said a word.

Everybody stood up to do the obligatory meet-and-greet.

"Greg," Blythe practically cooed, gathering up House in a warm hug.

House hugged her back tightly, cane held aloft to the side. Voice pitched much softer than usual, he said, "Hi Mom." When House pulled back, he kept his eyes trained to the ground as he shook hands with his father and quietly acknowledged, "Dad."

"Well, aren't you gonna introduce us?" John asked cheerfully, glancing between Cameron and I.

Cameron stepped forward, offering her hand, which John accepted readily. "I'm Allison, it's a pleasure to meet you. I work for your son, and..."

"And they're together," Wilson put in while he pulled away from a brief hug with Blythe. Smart of him to do so, as I wouldn't have been surprised if House had just said nothing on the subject of Cameron at all to his mom and dad.

John blinked in surprise, then grinned. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I didn't realize Greg had a girlfriend."

Blythe embraced Cameron warmly. "But we're very happy to hear that he does."

I noted Cameron's nervous smile and reddened cheeks. She was anxious, a little uncomfortable with all the focus on her, but things weren't going poorly so far. But, it had only been about ninety seconds. She grabbed House's hand, giving it a squeeze. House squeezed it back, seeming to relax incrementally. We all took our seats again, and my stomach dropped when John's attention turned to me.

"And who's this young lady?" John asked.

"I'm Anya," I said, trying to still my shaking hands in my lap. "I, uh..." I looked at House beseechingly. Come on. Don't make me tell them. House stared resolutely at his scotch, pretending not to notice my wordless pleading. Fine. Looks like I got the joy of ripping the band-aid off. Couldn't we all go back to fawning over Cameron? "I'm House's d—"

"She's Allison's little sister," House cut me off abruptly, finally raising his head and chancing brief eye contact with his father. "She's going to nursing school here, so she's staying with us while she gets her LPN certification."

Wilson, Cameron and I all stared at House with open mouths. What had been the point of this all, if not to get the big reveal about me out of the way? Had he been planning to lie the entire time, or had his courage fled him at the last moment? It was anybody's guess.

"House—" Wilson began, but I kicked him in the shin under the table, and he nearly doubled over. If House wasn't ready to tell them, Wilson sure as hell didn't need to point out his lie at the dinner table.

"Are you still in that dive apartment over on Baker?" John asked, narrowing his eyes. "Must be awfully cramped with the three of you."

"We make do," House said, pointedly looking at his father rather than his mother. He could lie to his father's face all day, but not Blythe's.

"You should think about getting something bigger, sweetheart," Blythe said kindly, smiling at her son. "How long have you been living together?" he asked, directing the question at both House and Cameron.

Cameron had sank back into her seat, and I could tell that she was upset, but doing her best to hide it.

"A few months," House lied. "We'll keep an eye out. I just need something without stairs that I can get my piano into."

Conversation devolved into the usual courteous small talk. Appetizer orders were taken, waters were refilled, a bread basket was dropped off. Blythe asked a few gently curious questions about my studies, and I chatted with her, trying to keep my mind off of the explosion that was going to happen when we left the restaurant. Wilson and Cameron would both be at his throat. As for me, I didn't even know if I was mad or not—maybe a part of me was even relieved that I didn't have to try to perpetuate the lie about House being my dad, didn't have to face the reactions of his parents.

Maybe I was a coward, too.

"Have you always been interested in medicine?" Blythe asked. "It was from a very young age with Greg, practically junior high. That was all he wanted to be. He wouldn't consider anything else. His father wanted him to go into the reserves and consider something like engineering, but he wouldn't hear it. It was medical school or bust," she told me, a fond expression on her face.

"I've always wanted to be a doctor," I admitted. "But I ran into...obstacles. So I decided nursing school was the next best thing. As long as I get to work in a medical setting and with patients, I'll be happy."

"And what makes you want to do it?"

I was surprised by the frankness of her question.

"Forgive me, I just wonder how Greg and James handle it—it must be very taxing, emotionally, to be in medicine. You have to be a special kind of person to do it," Blythe elaborated.

"I...that's why I want to do it," I said slowly. "I want to do it because it's not easy. Because not everybody can do it, but it has to be done. Every day will be different and every patient will have different needs that have to be met. I want to be the person that can do that."

Blythe nodded, seeming satisfied with my answer. "I think you'll do great, Anya."

I warmed at Blythe's praise, and was once again astounded by how someone so sweet and genuine could have possibly produced someone like House.

I kept watch of House out of the corner of my eye, and the comparison to a small child occurred to me again. He spoke in short, to the point sentences, never raised his voice above a murmur, barely looked at anyone. Occasionally he would force a false smile. I hated seeing him like this. I just wanted him to be himself again.

"So, if you don't mind me asking, Allison—how much younger than our son are you?" John broached once our appetizers had been served.

"Oh John, leave her be," Blythe piped up.

"I'm twenty-nine," Cameron provided politely. "So, there's definitely an age gap, but I hardly notice it."

Cameron might've not noticed it, but I was almost positive House did, and frequently—not that he'd said anything of that effect to her, at least not yet.

"And you work under Greg? The hospital allows that?" John pressed.

"The hospital doesn't know, but there's no policy against it," Cameron replied. "We just thought it would be better to keep it between the two of us for now."

"Wouldn't want the rest of his underlings to get jealous," I said between sips of Sprite.

John seemed to accept that answer, but I worried he would say something to House about it in private. I'd been waiting for John to be a dick about something, but so far he'd been nothing but pleasant. I guess what Foreman said was right; when adult children talk to their parents, nothing gets talked about.

Our main courses rolled in, and everyone busied themselves eating for the most part. Blythe chatted with Wilson about Julie, asking how she was, Wilson lied through his teeth, as everyone expected. I had a feeling Blythe saw through it, but unlike her son, she wasn't inclined to point out that fact. Shortly after I finished my unpronounceable French dish (I'd just ordered whatever House got and hoped for the best) I begged off to the bathroom to take a breather.

The night wasn't going nearly as badly as it could have, minus House refusing to tell his parents about me...which was probably why dinner hadn't turned into a disaster. Was this how it was going to be? House would never tell them, John would die, then maybe he would tell his mom. Hell, maybe by that point he'd just tell his mom the actual truth, rather than the father-daughter cover story. If anyone was going to believe House when it came to something so far-fetched, it would be his own mother.

I splashed some water on my face. Just had to make it through dessert and goodbyes, and then we wouldn't be seeing House's parents again until John's funeral. A dark thought, but a relief all the same. I just wanted Daddy's Boy to be over.

"Anya?" I jumped a little when Blythe entered the bathroom and called my name.

I turned to her. "Fancy meeting you here," I joked with a tight smile.

"I was wondering if we could talk for a second, if that's alright."

My heart picked up a little bit. What could she possibly have to talk to me about? As far as she knew, I was just Cameron's sister. "Uh, sure."

She approached me, a small frown twisting her mouth. "You're not Allison's sister, are you?"

Damn. Human lie detector indeed. I swallowed nervously. "I...how could you tell?"

"I know my son. He's never been very good at lying to me. Usually he doesn't even try. Which means that whatever he isn't telling me is something he thinks we're not going to take well," she guessed, and she was certainly dead on the money. I wondered idly if House's perceptiveness hadn't just sprouted from the ether, but was rather inherited from his mother. "I hate to put you on the spot like this, Anya—"

"Yes, I'm his daughter." There. The deed was done. House would kill me, probably, but his mom had already figured things out for herself. Our reaction at the dinner table had probably been enough to give it away, anyhow. "I'm sorry he didn't tell you. It's pretty new to him...I think he's scared."

"How long?" Blythe asked, and I could see that she'd already thought this far and processed the idea of House having a child before she'd stepped into the bathroom, as little to no shock seemed to cross her face.

"About a year now."

"Neither of you knew?"

"No."

Blythe nodded. "Well," she chuckled, though it was a bit strained, "I'd always hoped and hoped he would have children someday. This isn't exactly what I'd envisioned, but we're happy to have you." Blythe put a hand on my bicep and smiled. "I think he is, too. He seems happier now than I've seen him in a long time."

I hadn't picked that up by any stretch of the imagination, but I inclined my head in agreement anyway. "Thank you, Mrs. House."

"Oh dear, you can call me Blythe. Please no formalities. We're family."

Jesus, now I suddenly understood perfectly why House hadn't wanted to tell her: I felt like a complete asshole lying to this woman, but at this point in the timeline, telling her the truth just wasn't feasible. "I appreciate that. But I have to ask..."

"No, I won't tell John. Greg will tell him when he's ready. If he ever is," she sighed. "I just wish we had known sooner. How old are you? We've missed so much."

"I just turned nineteen."

Blythe folded her hands together. "It's better late than never. Greg isn't great at keeping in contact, and it's rare that we see each other—but, well, I have a grandchild now, and I'd like to get to know her." She beamed at me. "I just recently learned how to use email—it's so convenient! And no more paying for stamps. I'm going to write it down for you, and if you'd like, we could send email letters back and forth. I can at least tell you embarrassing stories about Greg, since he'd never let me get away with it in person."

I tried to play off my shock at the offer (and my amusement at "email letters"). Blythe reached into her purse, pulled out a sticky note, and jotted down her email address. She passed it off to me. "Anytime you need to get a hold of me. And of course Greg has my number."

"Thank you so much, Blythe. I..." I'd never had grandparents, not really. My dad's parents were rich, WASPy, and wanted nothing to do with my mother, who came from two dirt poor Irish immigrants. My mom's dad died when I was two, her mother passed when I was eight, and my memories of her faded more and more as I got older.

It's not like I had anyone else here. The more family the merrier. "I'll email you. I want to get to know you, too."

Blythe seemed pleased, and she pulled me into a brief hug. Another stark contrast to House; Blythe was clearly affectionate, meanwhile House had managed to go eight seasons without hugging his own best friend.

"We'll just keep it between us for now. Hopefully Greg will come around," Blythe said, pulling away. "Now let's get back to the dinner table before people start to wonder if we've fallen in!" She grabbed her purse and hurried out of the bathroom, and I stared after her in dim amazement. I tucked her email address into my clutch and followed after her, praying that Blythe wouldn't see through this lie, too.