Just One Yesterday

'No, Jena... Yes, I'm fine, honestly... Of course I'm eating, why wouldn't I be...?'

House frowned slightly, his eyes still closed half an hour after waking up. He'd been listening to the phone call for the past ten minutes, though he couldn't glean any information from it because it was so utterly one-sided.

'No, I haven't...' Jess paused, sighing. 'No, don't come... You what? Ugh. Why'd you tell them that?'

The pause this time was long, as the Jena character worked her way through the list of reasons why she'd 'done that'. House opened one eye slightly, peering down at his daughter. Her lanky frame leaned against the door jamb, disturbing the closed blinds and allowing a silent film of the outside chaos to stream in through the tiny gap. Her hair had been pulled into a rough bun at the back of her head, strands poking out at all directions – House knew she'd undone and redone it many times from boredom and anxiety.

Her clothes were ruffled and her eyes were puffy, surrounded by bruise-like purple rings that appeared even more severe against her milk-white skin. She hadn't slept – this annoyed him. He wasn't much to worry about, he did radical things all the time. Even Wilson and Cuddy kept their worrying to bare-faced lies, witty retorts and thinly veiled criticism. They never lost sleep – at least not visibly.

'Right,' Jess said finally, pushing herself from the jamb with her shoulder and uncrossing her ankles. She folded her free arm across her chest, tucking the fingers into the crook of the elbow of the arm holding her phone to her ear, and adopted a look of anguish. 'Well, thanks, Jay. I do appreciate it. I'll, uh, let you know where I'm staying... Yeah... I love you too. Yeah, I will. Night, Jay.'

As her hand fell from her ear and her eyes dropped to the small screen, House closed his narrow eye to avoid detection. There was silence, except for Jess' shallow breathing and a slight shuffle of her feet as she shifted. Then she spoke, apparently to thin air.

'Don't play dumb, House.' It was the first time since she'd met him that she'd referred to him by something other than dad. He couldn't decide how it made him feel – then again, emotions weren't really his strong point.. Slowly he opened his eyes, affixing her with a stare that held no emotion. 'I know you heard all of that.'

'It was interesting,' House replied simply, sitting up a little and suppressing the groan that was onset by a stabbing pain in his chest.

Jess dropped her head and clutched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes and blowing a deep breath from her nostrils. 'My friends have decided... to join me. They're on their way from Baltimore now.'

House said nothing, merely keeping his gaze on her. He was trying to read her, trying to figure out how she really felt about the unannounced visit. She gave him nothing, and he was surprised to find that it didn't annoy him. What did annoy him was that he was quickly learning that she was more like him than he originally thought – and that also terrified him.

*

When House next awoke, three figures came into a slow focus at the foot of his bed. Groaning internally, House rolled his eyes and tentatively raised himself up on his pillows. His chest was feeling better, slightly – he hoped he was going to be allowed to move soon without being barked at by irritable nurses.

'He's not responding to broad spectrum antibiotics, so it's not an infection,' Foreman began, no empathy etched into his dark features.

'We also tested his hair, blood and urine for drugs and alcohol, but he was negative for anything that would likely show up in a tox screen,' Chase added, looking briefly at the file in his hand before closing it and folding his wrists.

House nodded slightly, already bored by this differential. When silence fell and no more ideas were offered, he looked up at the two indifferent male faces and the female face that was trying too hard to look like she didn't care.

'And?' he asked, fixing them with a stare that told each of them they were idiots. 'You've told me what it's not. The next step is telling me what it could be.'

Chase and Foreman exchanged glances, while Cameron gripped the rail of the bed and rocked slightly on the balls of her tiny feet.

'Well,' Chase began when no one else would speak, and then cleared his throat. 'It could be an aortic abdominal aneurysm.'

Foreman shook his head. 'Would have shown up on the MRI.'

'Acute pancreatitis?' Cameron asked quietly, finally averting her eyes from House.

'Blood pressure's too low, and there's no indigestion.'

House's eyes flicked between each of his Fellows as they spoke, letting them shoot each other down rather than doing it all himself. When the ideas stopped flowing, House rolled his eyes once more and leaned forward. His eyes bore into Cameron's, and he ignored what he saw deep inside them.

'As an allergyologist, you probably should have said... allergic reaction.' House hid his smirk as Cameron faltered in what little resolve she had. Dropping the stare-off, House eyed his other two employees. 'Chase, you perform a scratch test. You two -' he pointed at Foreman and Cameron – 'check the apartment.'

To emphasise the finality of his orders, House slid down the bed so he was flat on the mattress, putting his eyes to the ceiling. Nobody argued, but nobody moved. He looked back down at them, raising his eyebrows. All three got the hint to go, turning in tandem towards the door. Chase got there first, politely holding open the door for Cameron who was behind him.

After Cameron and Foreman had exited the room, House staring after them inquisitively, Chase made to move through as well. His path, however, was blocked by the rapid approach of an earphone clad, eyes-to-the-floor Jess with a coffee in her hand.

The impending collision was prevented by her observation of his shoes, stopping her short. She wiped away the faint spots of splashed coffee from her Stones shirt, and removed one earphone as she paused whatever song she was engrossed in before looking up. House narrowed his eyes as she blinked twice, her mouth opening and closing idiotically. To his mild annoyance, Chase shot her a winning smile as he apologised – he walked off, looking back at her once.

Jess' eyes followed him all the way up the hall until the point he disappeared from her line of vision. Her head turned vaguely back to House's direction – all the while, he watched her with simultaneous curiosity and irritation – but she stared at the floor, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

Eventually, she collected whatever thoughts were in her head and turned her attention, finally, to her father. Seeing him staring at her caught her off guard, making her jump so fiercely that her grip on the coffee loosened, sending it carooming to the floor. Jess' eyes closed in collection as the coffee cup hit the floor, and she folded her arms.

'Dad...'

'Sorry,' House said insincerely, removing all emotion from his face except amusement. Jess pulled a face at him and he smirked in return, averting his eyes once more.

'So, these Fellows...' Jess started, shrugging off the comment and the accident. 'Is it just them and James you screw around, or is it everyone you meet?'

She walked to the bed as she spoke, perching gently on the edge with her arms still folded as she hit him square in the memory with those unforgettable eyes.

House just shrugged. 'Pretty much everyone,' he replied, matter-of-factly.

Jess looked at the carpeted floor briefly, before meeting his gaze again. 'I thought it was just me who did it.' She shifted slightly, rolling her shoulders as she squared up to speak again. 'Only, there's a difference between what I do and what you do.'

'And what's that?'

'I'm not as cruel. And I feel sorry for it,' she finished, shrugging just the way he always did.

House snorted. 'And that's why you're an idiot.'

Jess raised an eyebrow, obviously offended but her curiosity getting the best of her. House smirked wider, sitting up slowly in his bed so he could lay his rationale on her with a clear view of the action.

'Screwing with people encourages truth, inspires them to be better. My Fellows work better under pressure, when there's conflict and competition. Wilson's just fun to mess with, and he has fun reacting. You feel guilty for seeking the truth and for getting people to live up to their nature. You observe the world like I do.' He paused, the gravity of his own words hitting him as hard as they hit her. 'But you see some black and white.'

'The world isn't just shades of grey,' Jess argued.

'And that's why you're an idiot. Everybody lies – that's why there's no black and white.'

Jess smiled small. 'How do I know you're not lying to me, now?'

House rolled his eyes, but smiled all the same. 'Everybody lies but me.'

'Liar.'

He could only smirk. So this was bonding, he thought to himself. It was going well; they were getting on like they had known each other for years, and he was surprised to find that it felt good. He'd never had the inclination to have children, mostly because he didn't like them. In fact, he didn't like people in general – that was a well established fact.

However, he knew it would all go wrong. He was hard-wired to ruin everything – he always had. He sabotaged relationships, subconsciously finding ways to destroy them from the inside out. He was almost surprised that Wilson still kept him around.

House didn't want to destroy this relationship – but he knew he would, eventually.

*

After one more day, House was finally allowed to wander around the hospital – albeit, it was in a wheelchair. When he wheeled himself into the conference room, everyone eyed him in exactly the same way they always had, like he was the evil genius and they were his lab rats.

Only this time, things were different. In a chair in the corner sat Jess, sipping a coffee and listening to her music through a single earphone. Or at least, that's what she wanted everyone to believe – House knew she was more interested in their differential than anything her iPod could play to her.

With the blinds closed, House disobeyed the hospital rule and stood at the head of the table, cane in hand.

'Minions,' he grinned, looking at them with a dark grin. He was keeping one eye on Chase at all times – the childish 'mine' attitude was kicking in, and he didn't want to share his daughter with anyone.

Foreman knotted his fingers and leaned back in his chair, fixing House with a stare. 'The scratch test didn't turn up any results, though we did find mould under the sink in his apartment. We ran tests on it but, no cigar.'

'Hmm,' House mused, twirling his cane in his fingers. He began to pace slowly, staring at the whiteboard where all of the patient's symptoms were scribbled in Cameron's painfully neat hand. 'Vomiting and nausea, tachycardia, and elevated blood pressure.'

Silence. The sound usually made him happy, but there was a patient's life on the line and, more importantly, there was a puzzle left unsolved.

'Think!' he yelled, slamming his cane on the table just hard enough to make a noise, but not so hard as to break the glass. Every member of his team jumped – Jess mildly twitched.

Nobody spoke until a tiny voice came from the corner. 'What about pheochromocytoma?'

House added it up in his head, scouring every inch of the theory until he felt entirely satisfied with the diagnosis. He pointed his cane square in Chase's face, a few millimetres from poking him on the nose. 'You,' he said bluntly. 'Run a 24-hour urinary catacholamines and metanephrines test. Cameron, Foreman...' He looked up at the ceiling like he was thinking. 'Take the night off.'

As the black Fellow and the female Fellow closed their files and made to leave the room, Chase stared at House aghast.

'Why?'

House tapped his chin with his fingers, mockingly pretending to come up with a reason. Then, he gave Chase a hard stare and leaned into his face as he answered, almost menacingly. 'Because I'm your boss and I said so.'

With a look of thinly veiled hatred, Chase grabbed his copy of the case-file roughly and stood up, squaring his shoulders as he tried to match House in height. The gap proved too much, and the Aussie skulked off out of the office – House noticed the quick glance the doctor shot at the staring Jess.

After a few moments of silence and House feeling proud of himself, Jess finally spoke up. 'What did you do that for?'

House grinned and narrowed his eyes, twirling his cane between his fingers again. 'He needed to learn his place again. He's been getting a little... too big for his boots.'

Jess folded her arms, frowning. 'I think it was a little harsh.'

'You would. You've only seen his good side.' House stopped the cane inches from his own face. 'And by that, I mean his ass.'

A mild blush swept across her cheeks, before she managed to swallow it down. She shifted slightly in her seat and then quickly stood, frowning deeper now. Without a word, she pushed past him and out of the conference room.

House was left alone, his feeling of pride deflated and replaced by disappointment.

*

'I bonded with my daughter.'

House saw in his peripheral Wilson's reaction. His best friend stopped filling in the patient file mid-sentence, the right hand in his hair falling slowly to the desk in front of him and the left hand on the pen loosening its grip. The awe was unmistakable on his face, but House kept twirling his cane above his head, still laying on the coach in Wilson's office with his ankles crossed.

'You're telling me,' Wilson struggled, attempting to merge the concepts of House and bonding together. 'You made a connection with another human being... that wasn't based on games, manipulation and threats?'

House ignored the insult. 'Yup.'

Wilson looked away, the awe on his face now mingling with bemusement.

'But it won't last.'

The new reaction was similar to the first reaction, only with more confusion. 'Why?'

House shrugged, trying to keep his voice even as he spoke his rationalisation. 'Because I ruin everything.' Wilson shrugged, conceding the fact; House shot him a look of disdain, before continuing. 'I don't wanna ruin it, but you know me... She'll do something and I'll say something, push it too far. It's a well established pattern.'

'Yes,' Wilson granted. 'But this is different. You have a chance to break the pattern. She's not just a random patient or stranger in the street – this is your daughter, House. You can make this work.'

House shook his head. 'No. I can't.'

Suddenly, he rose from the couch, putting his full weight on the cane in his hand as he limped painfully to the wheelchair. Before Wilson could speak any further, House had wheeled himself from the office and closed the door behind him.