Notes: Yes, this is a "long-lost daughter" fic, but don't click X. She's not a med school graduate at the age of thirteen, she's not going to omg get along with House immediately, and she's not going to make him love life and start being nice to people. Also, some of you might remember my HP fic but . . . I don't think I'll ever finish it.

I don't own House.

This Side of Paternal

I'm nervous.

I hate the fact that I am, but I am.

I'm sure, in this situation, you would have been nervous too. I mean, it's not like I really want to be here or anything, but . . . Well, sometimes, things don't go the way we plan. Life sucks, and then you die. There's not much else you can do about it--not really. You just learn to live with the hand you're dealt, but you can't fold your cards if you don't like how the game is being played. Life is just a never ending poker game you're forced to play, no matter the cards.

I should probably tell you what's going on.

My mother recently died--and when I say recently, I mean like two weeks ago. It wasn't anything interesting, or epic, or out of the ordinary--it was a car wreck. She's a--well, I mean, she was a waitress. We never really had a lot of money, and my mom always tries--well, tried . . . her hardest to be a good mom; make ends meet and such.

That being said, I was raised in a single parent family. We never had a lot of money and my mother tried hard to meet a guy who could be a good father. She was even married for awhile to a guy named Tom, but that didn't work out. She married him when I was two--I was at their wedding, but I don't remember it--but they divorced when I was six. He didn't beat her up, or do drugs. No, my life really never was all that interesting. He cheated on her and we came home early from visiting my grandma in the hospital, and . . . Well, there isn't much else to say. He was having sex with my mom's former best friend. Other than that, all other men she saw were only brief flings. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

It's just that, for most of my life, it was just me and her--nobody else. Her parents were older when they had her. Her father died of liver failure (he was an alcoholic) and her mother died of a heart attack a few years later. She was an only child. No uncles or aunts; no grandparents.

Which is why I'm standing in my living room with some suitcases and boxes waiting for a man I've never met. My biological father.

When we got in the car wreck, I honestly thought I was going to die, too. The roads were slick; my mother was tired and angry with me. I've flunked out of college so no scholarships will have me, and since I was on financial aid the program I was using won't give me money until I pay off a semester all by myself. Which, coming from a girl who has no job (nobody would hire me; they were either not hiring or needed someone with more experience) and whose mother is a waitress, you can see how that would cause problems.

We'd been arguing during the wreck.

"Damn it, Jaid! All you needed to do was get a C or above! And now you just expect me to pay off your fucking fines! I did not work my ass off my whole life just for you to throw every opportunity down the toilet!"

"I'm sorry I'm such a disappointment!"

I clench my jaw at the memory. I'm not saying my mother and I didn't get along; we got along as much as any other child with her parent, I guess. It just so happened we were fighting at the time. She said thing she probably didn't mean and I said some things I shouldn't have, too. In fact, I have a problem with keeping my mouth closed.

I can be a flat-out bitch.

"It's not my fault you used to spread your legs for anything with a pulse! Maybe if I'm such a goddamn burden you should have aborted!"

I swallow the lump in my throat. You see, my mother was one of those girls that had the world at her feet when she was younger, I hear about it all the time; about how differently her life could've been, had she never gotten pregnant with me. She was in college and she said she had top grades; her teachers loved her, her parents were proud, and all that sort of stuff. She was Christian and raised in a Christian family (she raised me the same way, too) and so she was just generally a great person. Everything her parents wanted and life was going perfect.

Then she went out celebrating her twenty-first birthday. Although she said she knew getting drunk was against her family's beliefs and wishes (it being a sin and all) she decided to try it out with a group of her friends. She was on vacation (it was spring break) and I guess she got a little too drunk. Started flirting with some guy about ten years older than her.

When it comes to my father, my mom never says--said--much. It's not like they actually really knew each other. He was just some memory during an amazing week during Spring Break. A man she spent drinking and partying with because her friends thought he was cool. Alcohol turned into weed and some coke; the next thing my mom knew she was having sex with him. That whole week was a blur of sex and drugs and partying; they exchanged numbers and talked about maybe doing this again sometime.

Mom said she never had any intention of calling him. That after the week was over she felt such an intense amount of guilt for falling down such a rocky, dark path (drugs and sex and all) that she never wanted to see him again and remind herself of what she'd done.

Then she missed her period.

She tried to tell herself it was due to stress.

She was sick at random times during the day; she had odd cravings. She was moody with her friends, exhausted when she should have been alert, and gaining weight--but she just attributed that to eating more. She told me that she knew what was going on, but she thought she could ignore it. That maybe it wouldn't be true.

She missed her second period, and went to the doctor, and . . . well, duh.

She called up my father and told him the news. He told her to abort, and she said that she was planning on it and just wanted to make sure he was okay with her decision. That he had a right to be a part of this decision too.

She never did tell me why she changed her mind.

She told him she had the baby, but that she thought it was best that they never got together. They didn't know or love each other; she had no idea what he did with his life. She said that it was probably best she never seek a relationship with him because he was an obvious partier who did drugs and drank all the time. That he'd mentioned he was an Atheist, and she wanted to raise me a Christian. She just had one week of screwing around; he obviously did it for a lifetime. He wasn't the type of man she wanted to be my father, and so she told him that it was probably best he never show up and confuse me.

He didn't seem to mind.

Every year I'd get an unsigned birthday card. Something stupid and random--like he just plucked it off of a shelf. It was never on my birthday, just in the same week as it, and I never got any presents, but I knew it was from him--my elusive, nameless father.

Well, raising a kid after her family disowned her for having a bastard child (it's okay--they eventually forgave her) basically ruined her life. She always told me that she didn't' regret it, but sometimes I wonder--she had everything going for her, and it was my birth that made it so she dropped out and got a crappy job and had a rocky relationship with her parents.

I kick absently at a box with my books in it. It barely scruffs the floor.

I didn't die in the car wreck, obviously. My mother before the paramedics got there. She was surrounded by glass and blood-covered asphalt, and I crawled over to her. I managed to get away with some bruises and a sprained ankle, but the car had hit her side. She'd been covered in blood. I remember thinking I was going to die, because it doesn't make sense I would get away almost unscathed, and she . . .

I sigh. Will readings and burials and funerals filled the last two weeks, and now I'm off to live with my dad. Somehow the hospital informed him--I guess my mother must've put him down as the emergency contact after her parents died.

It's nice of him to take me in, I guess. I have nowhere else to go, but I'm an adult now so it's not like he's obligated.

There are a few harsh knocks on my door and I suck in a breath. My heart stops beating for a second and my stomach plummets. It's like I'm going to throw up, but I don't.

This is stupid, but I glance at myself in the mirror by the door as I walk to it to make sure I look presentable. I'm tall for a girl (about five foot seven) and thin. I have blond hair that's cut to my jaw line (it's straight) my eyes are vivid blue. I guess they used to be blue-green when I was first born, but when I grew up they changed to a very electric blue. I look very much like my mom--I have her thin, upturned nose and full lips and round face, but she had green eyes and was very curvy. I'm thin and don't have much curves to speak of. I'm like a B cup.

I open the door and . . . Well. He's not what I expected. I'm not sure what I expected, but . . . I don't know. It's almost like a let-down, or maybe not. Maybe it's just the reality of the situation is hitting me. The man on my trailer porch is my real father, and my mother is dead, and now . . . Now I'm going to live with him.

He's tall--above six foot. He's thin, and he looks like he's shaved his head recently, and he looks . . . old. Well, I knew he must be about fifty since he was around ten years older than my mom, but . . . I don't know. It just strikes me suddenly, how old he is, and that he must think I'm old too because he doesn't know me and yet I'm his daughter, and the first time he sees me I'm an eighteen year old that flunked out of college living in a piece of shit trailer.

I know nothing about him; hell, the fact he has a cane comes as a shock to me. It's obvious that I got my thin and tall genes from him, as well as my blue eyes.

"Are you Jaid?" he asks, looking me over. His face is a mask.

"Yeah."

He nods once. "Well, come on. Pack up your stuff. I'm not your chauffeur." With that, he pushes off my porch and starts heading down the walkway towards his car.

"Rude," I whisper so he doesn't hear, and then I go back into the house.

-----

He doesn't even help me pack. He stays in his car (a Volvo) and closes his eyes, leans his seat back, and blares some Queen. I like Queen, but it's annoying that he doesn't help.

I put the boxes in the trunk (moving aside the space blanket, the tire iron and first aid kit, and other stuff he has in the trunk) and fit what I can in there. I put the rest of the boxes in the backseat, and then I buckle up in the front passenger seat. I have large purse with a white Playboy bunny on the side in my lap, and I swallow.

Everything I didn't pack I sold in a yard sale a few days ago, and donated to some second-hand stores and gave away to some charities. I just packed the essentials--clothes, books, my laptop, DVDs and CDs and my iPod. I never really realized how many clothes I had until I was moving.

"You ready to go?" he says, and he pulls the seat up in normal position.

I shrug. "I guess."

"You sound so very enthused," he mutters, then starts up the engine.

"Yes, Jaid, I'm so damn enthused to have you spending the rest of your life working fast food! I've lived that life and I don't want you to live it, too! You're a smart girl; why can't you just put forth some fucking effort?"

I close my eyes. "No, it's just--yeah. Thanks. Thanks for taking me in and all that."

"We're not gonna have a weepy moment are we? Because I don't do that." He's driving away from the curb now; we're going about ten miles an hour.

I swallow the ball in my throat, and I'm not sure if I'm grateful he's not going to drag my sob story out, or offended he would treat my obvious pain like it's nothing. I just don't know what my life has become or what it will be; I don't know the man beside me.

"No. We're not. I just wanted to say thanks . . . Dad," I say, tacking on the title because that's what he is, right?

The car stops so suddenly I choke on the tightening of the seat belt as my body flings forward. It's a good thing we're still in the streets of the trailer park because there isn't other traffic. "Don't you ever call me that," he spits, and I look at him.

His eyes are intense and his face is tight with some sort of expression I can't place. It's scary. I nod. "Right. O-of course. Wh-what should I call you, then?"

He looks at me, then turns to face the windshield. "House."

My first thought is Well, that's a strange name. House? which is quickly followed by Well, at least I don't have to call some stranger 'Dad.'

After that, silence.