You lay in your hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, your mind blank and sluggish. Fatigue hung over you like a heavy blanket—you could feel yourself weakening day by day. This was Stage 3 leukemia. You’d been admitted to Princeton-Plainsboro—your father’s hospital—and nothing about it felt real.

You were never supposed to exist. Your parents had a one-night stand—nothing more. House had no intention of raising a child, but your mother made sure he stayed involved. For years, you split your time: one week with her, one week with him.

You preferred your dad. Your mom drank too much, smoked constantly, and forgot things she shouldn’t have. House wasn’t better in the traditional sense—he was cold, sarcastic, infuriating—but he was real. Present in his own warped way. You grew closer to him, even if he resisted it. You picked up his habits, his tone, his edge. And he hated seeing it—seeing himself in you.

But he cared. Deeply. You were the one person he couldn’t detach from, no matter how hard he tried. He’d never say it, of course. Vulnerability wasn’t in his vocabulary. But the truth was still there, buried beneath the snark.

The signs started small. You were tired all the time. Your body ached. You woke drenched in sweat, your nose bled during class, bruises appeared with no explanation. Just walking hurt. And House saw it all.

He noticed every change, every symptom. Tracked you with clinical precision. Then, one day, without warning, he said it:

“You’re sick.”

No buildup. No soft landing. Just the diagnosis, raw and undeniable. Because facing it head-on was easier for him than pretending it might pass.

He called in Wilson to confirm. Not because he doubted himself—he never did—but because he needed someone else to say it. Wilson’s quiet “Yeah” landed like a punch to the gut.

Stage 3 leukemia.

You were admitted immediately. Your own room. Chemo. Needles. Pills. Constant bloodwork. Your body felt like it was unraveling cell by cell. And House—he fell apart in his own quiet way. He snapped at people more. Hid in his office longer. You’d never seen him this uneasy.

He didn’t know how to be soft. He never had. But he stayed with you—at your bedside, reading charts he already knew by heart. He made sarcastic remarks to fill the silence. Sometimes you woke to find him still there, pretending he’d just stopped in.

Tonight, you were lying in bed, floating somewhere between sleep and fog, when the door creaked open.

House stepped in.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just stood there, leaning on his cane, watching you with that unreadable expression. In his other hand was a chocolate bar—dark, low-sugar, picked out specifically for your restrictions. Typical House move: thoughtful without drawing attention to it.

“Hospital food sucks,” he said, stepping toward the chair beside your bed. “So here. A bribe. Don’t eat it all at once unless you’re trying to go out in a diabetic blaze of glory.”

He dropped into the chair with a quiet groan, exhaling as he sat. He broke off a piece of the chocolate and handed it to you. You reached for it, slow and shaky. Your fingers trembled slightly as you brought it to your mouth. Small bites. Barely any taste. But somehow still comforting.

House watched you—his face mostly blank, but his eyes gave him away. The weakness in your body, the effort it took just to eat—that cut deeper than he’d ever admit. He leaned forward, resting his chin on his cane.

“Swelling’s down a bit,” he muttered. “Your lymph nodes. Less like golf balls, more like grapes. That’s something.”

He tapped his fingers on the cane absently, almost rhythmically. A tic. A tell.

“You’re improving,” he said. “Slowly. Which means the chemo’s doing something. That’s not a death sentence.”

He looked at you for a long moment, then added, almost too casually, “I hope you realize that.”

It was the closest thing to hope he’d allow himself to say out loud. And, it delivered well.