Title: Telling the Kids

1. Series Title: The Inner Child 2

Author: Goddessof7s

Summary: A tow headed boy wanders into the Clinic and the team has its most interesting case yet.

Rating: PG

Notes: Now I would like to warn all of you fans who like plausible stories, with no fiction except characters. This is not the story for you! This will require heavy suspension of dis-belief, YOU ARE WARNED! Flames regarding scientific accuracy will be printed to be scoffed and mocked in front of all my friends!

Archive: www.angelfire.com/weird2/butterflywings and anywhere else just let me know so I may go and admire them.

Warnings: There is no slash in this story. It is more of a character study. Major characters are Chase and House with bit roles from everyone else.

“Okay people, 26 year old male, sudden reduction in stature and maturity, making him act and appear 12 years old.”

Foreman stared at House, slacked jawed, he was so shocked that he was about to start checking to see if he’d accidentally fallen asleep on some labs or something. Cameron started to fret that House had dropped LSD again. Foreman was the first to recover his voice, that is after pinching himself, “You’re not serious are you? You have a 12 year-old that claims to be 26? And you believe him?”

“No.” House says rather impatiently, “I have a 12 year old boy who claims to be 12 years old.” Foreman rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to speak, but House cut him off. “But he also thinks that the year is 1993.”

Something occurred to Cameron and she didn’t think, just blurted it out, “shouldn’t Chase be a part of this?”

House shot her a scathing look, “he is a part of this, just not this part.” Really the two of them had no idea.

Foreman turned to Wilson who had so far stood silently in the corner sipping coffee, “aren’t you going to say something to stop this madness?”

Wilson just shrugged and said, “I’ve often found it better to play along with House’s little eccentricities.”

Foreman snorted at this and House looked vindicated, “See? Now people differential diagnosis?”

“What?” Asked Cameron.

House looked at her as if she was a small child and spoke really slowly and condescendingly, “What could turn a 26 year old man into a 12 year old child?”

Foreman tired of the charade piped up, “They’re not the same person.”

House took what he could get, and wrote on the board ‘different people’, “okay not very creative but bonus points for actually saying something productive, even though it’s not true, Cuddy is running a DNA contrast just to be sure.”

Foreman blinked in shock, “Cuddy is in on this?” That seemed incredibly unlikely to him. Perhaps it was April fools in June or something of that nature.

“I told you that we have a patient did you really think that Cuddy would let me get away with something like this? Focus people!”

Cameron never one to not try and prove herself, “Time travel?”

House cocked his head at her, “Is that a question or a diagnosis?” But he wrote it up on the board anyway.

Foreman sighed but he had to admit that if he just got into the spirit of things it probably wouldn’t be so bad, but they really should be working on real patients, House was fixated so he might as well go along until he could get off it. “Cloning?”

“Cloning, yes good.”

“The fountain of youth.” Cameron piped up.

“Fountain of youth.” House repeated as he wrote it up on the board with a flourish. “Okay so Cuddy is working on proving or disproving Foreman’s first suggestion. That might help with the cloning, there was a small .01 percent genetic change in the cloned sheep done. The other problem with the cloning, is the memories thing, why would he remember the past? Well if it is cloning then they transferred memories somehow. Now time travel that shows really possibilities.” House thoughtfully tapped the marker against his mouth “As a child his parents were heavy smokers, but later as an adult he never smoked or was around people smoking all that much so, Cameron get a sample of hair and run a chemical analysis on it. If the kid really is from the past then he’s been around a chain smoker in the last 24 hours and it’d show up in his hair.” Cameron felt a little superior that her suggestions had more merit, but they were the least scientific so it was curious too.

“Now the fountain of youth. That is the most interesting, but I’m not sure how to test for that one. Foreman I want you to run a tox screen. The works, if there’s anything foreign in this kid’s blood I wanna know about it. Except Demerol, I gave that to him.”

“You drugged a kid?”

“Well I gave him drugs, but those were for the broken collarbone. I don’t think his broken collar bone is the reason why he lost fourteen years of his life.” Cuddy strode into the room, hair flying every which way, with an _expression on her face that Foreman had never seen before. It was some hybrid breed of shock, disbelief, exasperation. House often caused these emotions in a person, just not usually all at once.

“Damn it House, how is it that you are always RIGHT! Even with something as ridiculous as this!” Cuddy slammed the test results down on the table. “100 percent match.” Cuddy dropped into a seat at the table, “it’s Chase. God I need a drink.”

“WHAT?!”

“CHASE!?” Foreman and Cameron’s voices overlapped

House sighed, “Oh did I forget to mention that the kid’s name is Robert Chase?”

“Yeah,” Foreman bit out, “you did.”

“Oh, well it must have slipped my mind.”

“Has he been admitted?”

House looked taken aback, “god no! We don’t want a paper trail. Who ever did this might find him.”

Cuddy looked up at that, “Who ever did this?”

“Oops?” House didn’t even bother to pretend to be contrite, not that he ever did. “We might have gone to Chase’s apartment.”

Cuddy swung her stare over to Wilson who seemed very interested in his coffee cup, “You went with him?”

When it became clear that divining the future from the left over coffee grounds wasn’t going to work he glanced at House long enough to glare before mumbling, “We thought that Robbie was Chase’s son and were taking him over there.”

“Besides, then we found the place ransacked, where ever Chase went he didn’t go easy.”

Cuddy dropped he head onto the table with a thunk, “If we tell anyone about this they’ll think we’re nuts. We’ve got to figure out what’s going on before telling anyone anything.”

“Well we’ve all got out tasks then let’s get at.”

“Umm House what exactly will you be doing?”

House sniffed disdainfully, “You people are always trying to get me to visit with patients, I wish that you would make up your minds!” He sighed exasperated and started to head toward his office. Pausing in the doorway he turned, annoyed, “Well aren’t you coming? How else will you get the hair and blood samples?” Cameron scrabbled up to follow while Foreman took a more sedate pace.

Both blinked in shock as House gently sat down beside a small lump curled up on his couch. Some of the shock value of it wore off when he poked the lump sharply, “Wake up!” The lump jerked and a tow headed boy appeared out from under the blanket.

“Yes?” Robbie glanced around at the new people hovering over him and back to House.

“We need samples for some testing.” Blinking owlishly at House Robbie nodded his ascent as he yawned and stretched one arm. House eyed him critically, “painkillers wear off?”

Robbie shrugged with one shoulder, “I’m okay.”

Judging by the pinched look to the boy’s face he was in more pain than he was saying. House decided to slip some to Robbie the first chance he got. Cameron and Foreman didn’t speak as they took the samples, they probably didn’t know what to say. Robbie himself didn’t talk either, or wince as the needle slid into his skin.

As Foreman and Cameron were leaving they heard House ask, “So Robbie, you hungry? Did you get any breakfast?” and Robbie’s response, “Nah, mate just a dingo’s breakfast¹.”

Foreman shook he head as he was leaving wondering when exactly the Twilight Zone stopped being a TV show and started being their life.

*******************

House had let Robbie pick out what ever he wanted to eat, so he couldn’t believe it when the kid picked out salad and some baked fish. House knew that Chase was kinda compulsive about his diet, but he didn’t know that it stemmed all the way from child hood. Robbie even had the gumption to glare at House’s steak and mashed potatoes. House didn’t know what he was upset about, he even paid for the steak!

House waited until Robbie had really started to make inroads on his food before speaking, “We need to talk about what’s going on.”

Robbie looked up from his plate, at this point he was mostly just pushing the last few leaves of lettuce around. “I think I figured out some of it.” House raised an eyebrow at this wondering just how much the kid figured out, “at the apartment, there was mail on the floor, I saw my name on, the newspaper was dated, I know that I’m suppose to be older, I just don’t know how it happened. Or what will happen. I mean my parents didn’t really want to raise me the first time let alone again.” Robbie looked away, tears pooling in his eyes, he scrubbed at his face angrily.

Dammit! It was those damn eyes! “Look I made a promise and I’m not going to renege on it.” House could practically hear Wilson standing over his shoulder whispering “And the Grinch’s heart grew by 3 sizes.” Oh wait that was Wilson.

“What are you doing here?” House turned around to stare at Wilson.

“What I can’t eat lunch?” House sighed in exasperation but slide his lunch tray over anyway. Wilson sensing how hard this all was for Robbie to face at once, filled up the space with some of his best patient stories involving a old woman named Mrs. Nezzbit.

Aussie Slang

1. a yawn, a leak and a good look round (i.e. no breakfast)