You didn’t expect him to come. No one really did.

The intern party was chaotic—someone's music speaker dying mid-song, cheap wine on every surface, and laughter echoing from the kitchen to the backyard. It was meant to blow off steam after a brutal run of shifts, but you weren’t in the mood to get wasted or shout over the noise.

You were perched on the kitchen counter, nursing something that vaguely tasted like rosé, when he walked in—cane, grimace, and all.

Gregory House didn’t belong at parties like this.

And yet here he was, clearly dragged in by Wilson, who already disappeared into a conversation about cholesterol or dogs or some other safe topic.

House’s eyes skimmed the room once. Then again. They landed on you.

“You look… like you lost a bet,” he said, approaching with a familiar crooked smirk. His eyes flicked to your drink, then back to your legs swinging gently from the counter. “Or won one. Hard to tell.”

You smiled lazily, tipping the glass toward him. “You’re the last person I thought I’d see here.”

“Trust me,” he said, leaning his cane against the counter and settling beside you, “if I had a soul, I sold it to Wilson at the door.”

There was a beat of silence—comfortable. Rare.

He started talking then, voice low, half-lost in the clatter and laughter from the other room. Not about patients or puzzles. Just things. A terrible movie he half-watched, a song that reminded him of medical school, the fact that most of these interns would burn out in five years.

He was here for you.