Some people have been requesting updates of the House variety. This has been sitting on my hard drive for…well, since about the time I finished the last story.
As I've said before, I've kind of gone off House , for various reasons, but I AM buying season five (at a bloody bargain of a price, it might be added) and I've just bought a laptop which means I can write when at the man shape's house too.
Translation: hopefully many more updates on the way.
Enjoy.
Chapter 1 - Want
Doctor Gregory House was decidedly not bored.
In fact, if the last week had taught him anything, he was never going to be bored again.
He felt tired, hot, itchy, harangued, harassed, confused, alarmed, discombobulated and generally so far out of his league that he was playing an entirely different sport.
"I think I know what the problem is." A voice issued from the hallway.
"You've narrowed it down to just one?" House spoke over his shoulder and used the crook of his cane to sweep a baby rattle out from under the bed. He had never realised how much work baby proofing was. He had spent most of the morning trying to look at the world from the viewpoint of a being without the cognitive capacity to be frightened. Katy trusted him instinctively to keep her safe from all harm, it was kind of cute…and completely terrifying.
House had never been responsible for anything before. Not anything of great import anyway. Steve was fairly self sufficient and only really craved his food pellets and a cleaned cage once every few days. Oh, what about the rat? He was a sewer rat, no vaccinations, Katy had been all over the place. She'd put everything in her mouth. What if she'd picked up salmonella? E-coli? Lymes Disease…
"Breathe." A sharp finger jabbed him in the stomach and House sucked in a surprised breath and looked down at Angelina St Croix.
"Yeah, you need more space."
"So I've been told." House muttered and laboured to his feet. He turned in time to see Katy crawling into the room as fast as her arms and legs could carry her. They both watched Katy cross the room and then sit back onto the hardwood flooring with a nappy cushioned thump before thrusting her hands out and wordlessly demanding the rattle that House held.
House wisely handed it over. He had fast learned that his life was a lot easier and a lot quieter if he just acquiesced to whatever demands Katy made of him.
House fished under the bed for more abandoned toys.
He had also learned pretty quickly that he had to constantly tidy up after the sprog if he didn't want to kill himself by tripping over something in the middle of the night while he limped to the bathroom. Fool him once…
"There's plenty of space." House told his social worker/parent guide and hauled himself to his feet once more.
"Yeah, sure, for a confirmed bachelor but not for baby and daddy."
"I'm not her dad." House denied it without much conviction and the arched brow Angelina was sending his way knew it.
"Uh-huh, you just turned your life upside down for something barely over a foot long for kicks." She smirked wryly at him. She scanned the bedroom, now complete with crib and scattered with play-mat and 'educational' toys. "You've done a good job in here but you're going to have to watch this." Angelina stepped over Katy and picked up a small orange bottle with a rattle.
House's hand went to his jeans pocket and he swore softly.
"And that." Angelina smiled at him again. "It'll get easier." She tossed the bottle to him and House caught his vicodin one handed and jammed it into his pocket without allowing himself to take one.
"You got a time frame on that?" He scrubbed a hand over his face and snagged Katy and hauling her out from under the exploration of the bed. He remembered his antique medical chest and retrieved it to stuff it high in his closet.
"The getting easier part? Sure, it happens after she leaves for college…but then you start worrying about who she's dating, if some idiot's gonna give her a mickey at a party…you know. Dad stuff."
House glared at her and she grinned back, unrepentant.
"You are going to have to get a bigger place though. Casa Del House is getting a tad cramped as is. She is going to eventually need her own room as well." Angelina missed the bombshell of what he had really gone and done hitting House. He had really done it. Signed up for the whole parenting gig. Something he had told himself he would never do. He felt his skin crawl with panic, his breathing shallow out and a cold sweat pop out on his brow, he was this close to just blowing his stack and throwing himself into all out hysteria.
"Moving on!" Angelina seemed to sense his mood and moved to distract him. She slung her massive bag, that she seemed to tote everywhere with her, around her body and rummaged inside for a moment. With a muffled 'ah-hah' she yanked out several print-outs and a small ring binder. "Got in contact with that realtor friend of mine." Angelina apparently had friends everywhere. "He picked out a whole bunch of properties for you two, there's bound to be something suited to y'all."
"What's that?" House took the print outs from her and jerked his chin at the binder in her hand.
"This is 'Parenting 101'." She held up the binder and that was indeed the title scrawled in permanent marker over the top of the folder. It looked more like a photo album now that he studied it properly. One of those ones with the frame on the front where you could stick the first photo. It had been left empty, presumably so he could put a photograph in there himself.
"Anyways, inside is basically everything you need to know that you won't find in the regular books. I've amassed this over years of baby wrangling and there are some people that would give their eye teeth for the secrets I have locked in here." She poked him with the corner of the book to illustrate her point. "This is your bible. Learn it, live it, love it. It goes everywhere with you. We clear?"
"Sure." House nodded enthusiastically. Instruction manuals were good. He could use all the help he could get. He flipped through it and saw that the book was made up of scraps of other parenting books with some of the paragraphs and words scored out and supplanted with red ink annotations, Polaroid photographs of some of the more complex hints and tips recommended and spaces left for adding his own knowledge if he ever managed to get the hang of this whole parenting malarky.
He saw a movement out the corner of his eye and flipped his cane end over end so he could use the hook of it to snag the back of Katy's dungarees and scoot her back out from under the bed again. She slid across the hardwood floor easily enough and he stooped to pick her up and turn her a one eighty, arms and legs still churning under her, to send her speeding in the opposite direction.
"Nicely done, I'll need to add a section about the handy use of canes."
"So long as I get a patent on it." House muttered and scrutinised some of the pages in his new book carefully. This thing was a gold mine.
"Uh-huh, read that later." Angelina flipped the book shut on his fingers and then waved the print outs at him. "We need to discuss these and then I gotta make tracks."
"What about them?" House realised he couldn't see Katy any more and hurried out of the room to find her. He had spent the last few days baby-proofing his apartment under the fierce instruction of Angelina, but the ever present paranoia of something happening to the little tyke didn't seem to be abating. There were times when he convinced himself that it was entirely possible that she might just spontaneously combust on him…and then the nagging thought that he might actually be upset if she were to do so.
House still didn't really know why had had decided to start the adoption proceedings and he convinced himself on a daily basis that there was still time and he could change his mind right up until the last minute…he'd yet to ask Angelina how to revoke his decision though and he had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't about to do any such thing.
"You need to at least look at them." Angelina followed him into the living room where House was snagging Katy up as she tried to climb onto the coffee table. She watched as he deposited Katy into the playpen in the corner of the room and then swooped down and picked her up again when she looked like she was about to start fussing. He settled Katy in the crook of his arm, unearthed the favoured bear from under a baby blanket and an oversized tennis ball and offered it to her before turning his attention back to Angelina. Katy contented to suck on her bear's ear.
"What?"
"Yeah, y'all need to take a gander at these." Angelina crossed to him and held the papers out to him. She even took Katy when he couldn't shuffle through them one handed. Angelina bounced Katy on her hip like the pro she was and watched House while he flipped through the papers. He discarded several of them off hand and stilled when he reached the last one.
He frowned fiercely at the paper. Studying the specs of the house on offer, didn't glance at the price, she noted, and then stared at the GoogleMap printed on the last sheet. He seemed to do some rapid calculations and then a quite Machiavellian grin spread over his lips. He thrust the papers out to her and pointed at the house he'd picked.
"When can I see this one?"
"Uh, well, I don't know." They swapped papers for baby again and Angelina looked over the house. "It says it's empty so…I suppose whenever."
"As soon as possible." House grinned at the room in general. A distinct glint of mayhem in his eye as he bounced Katy. "Please." He added as an after thought.
"Okay, I'll call my guy." Angelina set a reminder on her Blackberry and then dropped it back into her bag, stuffed in there with the papers. "I'd better be going. You get that kiddy fed." She pointed at Katy and then reached over to ruffle her blonde curls. House limped her to the door. She drew her coat over her shoulders and House swung the door open only to blink in surprise when he was nearly rapped sharply on the nose by Cuddy's fist. She caught herself at the last moment and everybody rocked back in surprise at her arrival.
Angelina was the first to move or say anything.
"Wow, hi there!" She stuck her hand out and Cuddy shuffled the grocery bag she was toting and took it to shake numbly. "I'm Angelina, Greg didn't tell me that he'd been hiding away another woman in his life." She grinned brightly and House hid a wince admirably. It was plain to him that Cuddy was getting the very much wrong idea. He knew that Angelina was referring to Katy and not herself…he doubted that Cuddy would see it that way though. Angelina, being the sensitive woman that she was, picked up on the soup thick tension simmering between the two doctors. "I'll be going then…as soon as I find my keys…" She patted down her pockets. "Oh, they're in the bedroom, be right back." She whirled on her heel and clattered down the hallway.
Silence reigned in her absence. Neither of them had moved by the time Angelina clopped her way back through into the doorway and stopped snapping her fingers and rummaging for a pen in her pockets before bending to lean on the hallway table, scribbling on a business card.
"This is the Maison number on there and my work number. You've already got my cell. You need anything, just give me a call. Now buh-bye, cutie and behave for Daddy Nouveau." Angelina straightened and stuffed the business card into House's nearest pocket, a move that had Cuddy's eyes sharpening to flint. He glowered back. He had done nothing to encourage this, Angelina just didn't have any personal space. At all.
"Bye then, 'scuze me." Angelina sidled past Cuddy, grinning at the other woman's icy expression a trifle nervously and then made a dash for her car.
Silence swallowed up the room again and was only finally broken when Katy leant forward towards Cuddy, reaching for her.
"You gonna come in?" House was tired of holding the door open.
"Yes." Cuddy blurted, stepping inside. "I brought lunch. Like you asked." There was a slight note of censure in her tone and House resisted the urge to glare.
"Angelina was just…"
"Not my business." Cuddy clacked through to the kitchen and set the groceries on the table with a thump.
"Helping me baby-proof." He finished doggedly. This was turning into a big ol' step in the wrong direction and he wasn't going to tolerate that. The last couple of days he had managed to monopolise Cuddy's attention. Their relationship had changed. He wasn't quite sure how yet, that simmer of lust between them had definitely been put onto full burn, though he had chosen not to act on it. Letting her twist in the wind over it for a while. He wanted her to come to him. He could be patient. It was just a matter of time, this could prolong that time though.
"In the bedroom?" The question was stridently out of Cuddy's mouth before she could stop it.
"It's her job. She's anal about me not killing anyone. Wonder who that reminds me of." House snarked and then changed tack when he saw her spine stiffen. He defended himself, wondering why he was bothering. "I don't know what to do, Angelina does, she was available and you weren't."
"House, it's none of my business." Cuddy was viciously emptying the grocery bag onto the table. Soup and sandwiches for lunch apparently.
"Then why are you angry?"
"I DON'T KNOW!"
Katy jumped at the sudden harsh words and whimpered in surprise. She didn't like shouting, especially from Cuddy.
"Oh, honey." Cuddy was immediately contrite. She crossed the room and cupped Katy's face in her hands. "Don't cry, baby." Katy reached for her and House let Cuddy take her from him. His broad hand rubbed over the baby's back and Katy quieted almost immediately. He noticed that she was only truly settled when both of them were near her. Cuddy and House together soothed the kid.
Warped.
House turned his attention to what Cuddy was wearing. It was a Saturday, which meant smart casual for her half day at the hospital. Which had actually been a half day because he had wheedled lunch from her. She wore a white skirt with red strawberries flowering over it in a swirling pattern, cream V-neck sweater that clung soft everywhere and her pearls at her throat. The red stilettos went without saying really.
Strawberries and cream, now there was some nourishment that House could fantasise over.
"I'm confused."
House dragged his eyes back up Cuddy's body, taking his time, but meeting her gaze head on over Katy's curls. He frowned slightly.
"Hmm?"
"You're not acting like…you. It's throwing me off."
"You think I'm going to get bored. Give up on her. Give her away." The reasoning behind Cuddy's logic was perfectly sound. House did not do the kind and caring thing. He could barely stand to be civil to his best friend, never mind an innocent child but…the thought of anyone trying to take her away from him now was…abhorrent to him. His lips twisted in a wry smirk and he glanced out the kitchen window, hooking his cane over one of the kitchen chairs, he tipped forward until he caught himself on the counters, his face inches from Cuddy's now. "Not happening." There was a cool finality to his voice.
"Everybody lies." She repeated his mantra to him softly but the words stung despite his resolve against them.
He shook his head. He was messed up, more than usual that was. He had urges along paternal railings that he'd never even thought about before, never mind felt. He was swinging between some kind of hysterical bubble of excitement frothing in his chest to heart clamping terror of the magnitude of what he was taking on to cool calm resolve of one thing and one thing only. He knew what was his.
Katy was now his, by extension of obligation and then by choice.
Cuddy was going to be his.
House was not a gambler. He was a calculator of odds, a caller of bluffs and a risk taker when it suited him. The phrase 'the House always wins' had new meaning when put in context with a certain diagnostician.
"They do." He rumbled at her, leaning a little closer, watching her squirm a little. This was what he did. Baited, teased, tortured until he got what he wanted. "What are you worried about, Cuddy? I've always been unpredictable. Now I'm just being unpredictable in new ways."
"I can't…manage you this way." She swallowed hard and finally found her voice.
"So, thaaaat's it." He shifted his weight, looming closer. He was a big guy, looming was his thing when he wanted it to be. "This is about whether or not I'm a greater flight risk. Now, would that be in the hospital…or just to you personally?"
Cuddy shifted Katy on her hip and visibly gathered herself.
"My interest in your risks, flight or otherwise, have always been in regards to our professional relationship."
"You admit we have a relationship?" He arched a brow at her and her temper flared in her eyes. She was even prettier like this. Easy to see why he L-worded her. he still refused to say it, even to himself in the sanctity of his own head. It had recently become a lot more of a battleground between his angels and his devils in there and he didn't see the point in adding more fuel to the fire.
"Well," he took an insane pleasure in watching her flounder. "I've known you a long time, it's kind of a default thing."
"Hmm." He was wrapping one of her curls around his finger and, pinned between him, baby and counter as she was, there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. He watched a flush begin to creep up her throat and his mouth hooked into a bit more of a grin at the action. "Tell me, what's your default position on years of unresolved sexual tension?" He lowered himself onto one elbow on the counter and crowded her even more, the only thing separating them now was Katy.
"Sexual tension?" She practically squeaked. "Between who?"
This time his grin was wolfish.
"Don't act dim, Milfette. Contrary to popular belief, I don't like dumb bimbos."
"Milf…?" Cuddy trailed off in outrage and opened her mouth to tear a strip out of him. He stopped her incredibly effectively by leaning very close to her (yes, closer still) so close his mouth brushed hers when he spoke.
"I'm hungry." He growled at her.
Her head tilted back, her eyes grew heavy. "Hungry for what?" There was a throaty quality to her voice that just tickled him all kinds of good.
"Lunch, of course." He straightened away from her, rocked back and snagged his cane up off of the chair back. He grinned at her brightly, not above enjoying her forlorn and faintly embarrassed expression at being left in the lurch, and started emptying soup cartons from the grocery bags. "You want to sort something for the sprog?"
"Sure." She croaked. She was now a rather charming shade of pink and he hid a smile while retrieving a saucepan for the soup.
Oh yeah, she totally wanted him.