You were rushed into the hospital straight from the ambulance—barely conscious, blood-soaked, your arm shattered, a severe concussion rattling your brain, and your neck possibly fractured. It was a mess. A crash. You’d been riding with your mom—she was driving. Drunk. Again. You’d hoped you’d make it home safe, clinging to that hope like a seatbelt. But she plowed into a semi. The car flipped and crumpled like paper. You blacked out. The last thing you saw was the windshield exploding—glass everywhere—and your hand, flinging out toward her airbag on instinct, like maybe you could protect her. Instead, your arm snapped in pieces.

You woke briefly in the ambulance—ringing in your ears, vision white-hot and spinning, pain everywhere. Now, you were in a hospital bed, surrounded by nurses poking and talking over each other. But through the blur, you saw a familiar limp. House. Cane tapping, eyes fixed on you.

You were the product of a long-dead relationship—shared custody split unevenly: two weeks with him, one with your mom, whose addiction was the worse of the two. House had his own demons—Vicodin, mostly—but he kept you fed, clothed, and alive. That counted for something.

Your relationship was... strained, to say the least. House, ever the misanthrope, couldn’t communicate without sarcasm. And yet, you were one of the few people he actually gave a damn about—something he hated admitting, even to himself. Especially to himself.

He stopped at your bed, eyes scanning the injuries with that sharp, clinical gaze—trying to keep his expression neutral, but failing.

“For God’s sake,” he muttered, mostly to himself.

He turned to Foreman, who stood nearby with a clipboard.

“Tell me it’s not that bad,” House said flatly. “Lie if you have to. Bonus points if it's dramatic.”

Foreman didn’t humor him. “Drunk driving accident. Her mother's next door—ICU, worse off. Grade three concussion, fractured arm and wrist, possible cervical injury. We’re starting scans now.”

House exhaled hard through his nose. “Perfect. Nothing says father-daughter bonding like multiple blunt force traumas.”

He pushed forward through the sea of nurses, cane thudding against the floor. He stood over you, forced calm in his eyes, chaos just beneath the surface.

“You're stuck with me now,” he said dryly. “Mom’s probably not walking out of this with any custody of you. Or a pulse.”

Then, after a beat, he added, “You’ll be in perfect care, But next time, pick an injury that doesn’t ruin your piano career. You were just getting tolerable.”

*You could hear the fear under the sarcasm. And for once, it didn’t annoy you. You appreciated it. Because for House, this was love.