Title: Second Chances

Rating: PG-13 for language and mature themes

Genre: Drama/Angst

Summary: House and the Ducklings receive a new case that affects them in ways they never imagined possible. Please R&R.

Disclaimer: I don’t own House (damn!) or anything involving the show. If I did, I’d magically be twenty years older and Stacy would be dead.

A/N: Ok, I just want to make it clear now that I know absolutely nothing about medicine, so all the medical conversations are going to be as short as I can possibly make them, and I might be making up the symptoms for this medical condition. But I think I have it right. If anyone reading this knows something about medicine and wants to help me out a bit, I’m open to any suggestions. And, yes, this is a “House-has-a-daughter-he-didn’t-know-about-fic”, but it’s different from a lot of the ones I’ve seen around where the girl is poor or emo or something along those lines. I urge you to read and review!

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“To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.” –Bertrand Russell

Chapter 1

House limped as fast as he could from the clinic. However, he could not hobble faster than Cuddy could walk. She appeared in front of him a mere eleven seconds after he had dropped off a file with the front desk.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked, crossing her arms and glaring at him.

“I have a patient,” House lied.

“No, you don’t.”

“Cameron just paged me.”

“I was just talking to her when I saw you leaving.”

“Did I say Cameron? I meant Foreman.”

“House.”

“Cuddy.”

“You still have an hour of clinic duty left,” said Cuddy angrily. “Finish it.”

“But—“

“Now.”

“You take all the fun out of life.” House turned away from Cuddy and limped back to the front desk. “Give me a file, any file.”

The nurse simply glared at House and held out a file to him.

“I see someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

The nurse continued to glare at House. House chose to take the file and go bother whoever his patient was instead.

The file revealed that the patient had severe coughing and fatigue and weight loss, fever, difficulty breathing and swallowing, and migraines. Immediately several diagnoses came to House’s mind. He opened the door to the exam room, not bothering to look up from the file as he looked at the patient’s family history.

“I’m Dr. House, I’ll be treating you today.”

“Hello, Greg.”

House looked up from his chart and almost dropped his cane.

Sitting on the exam table was a woman about the same age as him with dark brown hair streaked with bits of gray near her temples. She had chocolate brown eyes and was obviously Hispanic.

“Long time, no see,” she said, with a slight Puerto Rican accent.

“Hi,” said House slowly. He didn’t know what to think. An old girlfriend of his from when he was in medical school had suddenly appeared in his examination room and with a possibly fatal illness.

“When I came here, I didn’t know that you would be my doctor,” she said. She seemed almost nervous. “It was the closest hospital to my office, so…” She paused again and looked at him.

House wasn’t saying anything. He stared at her, trying to comprehend what was happening to him. She was obviously incredibly ill. There were dark shadows beneath her eyes, and she looked pale and sickly. Suddenly, he felt butterflies began to flit around his stomach.

“I’m not feeling too good,” she said slowly, “as you can see from my file.”

“Yeah.” House swallowed hard and looked down at the chart. “You’ve got a lot of stuff on here.”

When he looked back up at her, Rosario had begun seizing. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her whole body began to shake. House opened the door and shouted into the hall, “I NEED A NURSE!”

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A/N: That was just a short crappy intro. Please read and review! ;)

(Completed December 28, 2005.)