Just Drive

'Just drive,' she said desperately, need in her eyes. 'Okay,' he whispered, taking her hand and squeezing it gently.

Lisa Cuddy sat in her office, absent mindedly gently stroking her stomach and admiring her minuscule bump.

It was barely noticeable, but it would be soon, and then everyone would know. She couldn't wait for the moment she could happily prance around, very obviously pregnant and to hell with what the world thought.

To hell with her parents, who expected her to be married to a nice Jewish man with 50 odd kids by now.

To hell with the sceptics who didn't think she'd make it.

To hell with the people who were dooming her to fail.

To hell with all of them!

She couldn't wait to give birth, to hold her little boy or girl in her arms, and never love anyone as much as that tiny person she helped to create. With the help of a nice sperm donor and a test tube.

And all that would happen in 6 odd months, around Christmas time.

What a Christmas present that would be for her.

All she ever wanted was a baby, to complete her life, and now he or she was arriving near Christmas. It was the icing on her very moorish cake.

12 whole weeks! Her body had managed to contain a life for 12 solid weeks! It was the furthest she'd ever got before, all of that emotional pain, that rollercoaster of unsureity.

Her hormones had flown around everywhere as she waited for her IVF results, just sitting there waiting for the best or worse to happen.

And now, the best was coming!

She could barely contain her excitement at the prospect of being a Mom.

Watching soccer games, waving them off at their first day of school, their first smile, their first heartbreak, all of it.

And then that sinking feeling.

The feeling of doubt, the fear of failure.

Would what thwarted her in the past get at her again?

Her first miscarriage happened at 4 weeks, she didn't even know she was pregnant then. Her doctor assured her that now she was officially in her 2nd trimester, things happening like that would be highly unlikely.

And she breathed a heavy sigh of relief at that.

She wanted everything about her pregnancy to be perfect.

Perfect weight, perfect size, perfect health, perfect birth, perfect everything, she noted to herself while reading her birth plan she had drawn up when she had heard of her first pregnancy. Everything to be natural, and perfect.

Because perfect was the only thing that would do for her little bundle of joy, whose arrival would be long overdue.

She knew that it was unlikely, because she was an older Mom, but the fantasy still existed in her mind.

She had also discovered that, strangely, her pregnancy symptoms seemed to have vanished over the past day or two. She no longer felt tired, her nausea and vomiting had stopped, and her breasts had stopped hurting. Another thing she was relieved about was that she no longer needed to pee as much. It had been driving her insane these past few weeks, and created more suspicion about her situation than the constant vomiting and no caffeine.

Smiling brightly at the fact that her life was beginning to get ever so much better, she made her way to the door. She was going to go and visit House to thank him for what he did for her over the past few weeks.

Naturally, he had noticed her pregnancy straight away, but had not breathed a word to a soul.

She quietly knocked on the door, interrupting him playing with his balls.

Hmm, she pondered, what a thought.

It was indeed the oversized tennis balls that he liked to throw against the wall.

'Hi,' he said, standing up quickly.

'Hi,' she replies back, feeling the tension in the air.

'Come on then, pregnant lady,' he said. 'Come and sit down.'

'Thanks,' she says, taking the seat on the other side of House's desk. 'I just wanna say House, that I'm really grateful for you not saying anything to anyone about my umm, situation.'

'It's ok,' he answers. 'It's your business, and besides, it's not my fault that people are idiots and cannot notice the bare obviousness of it all.'

She giggles slightly, she loves his humour, even though sometimes it can turn to insults. Her giggles turn to silence, a tense silence between them that went on for what seemed like hours.

'I'm gonna go, have to stop at the store,' she mutters

'Craving?' he replies suggestively.

'Yeah, Ben & Jerry's with a little pickle and mustard,' she says, licking her lips in anticipation.

'Ewwwwwwwww,' he squeals like a little girl.

'You don't have to eat it,' she says as she's leaving.

But then something stops her.

A shooting pain that spread to all over.

It was so powerful that it brought her to her knees, crying out for the pain to stop.

House was on his feet immediately, and by her side.

Even in his worried state, he still saw the blood start to permeate Cuddy's neat grey linen trousers.

As a doctor, he knew straight away what was happening, and so did she.

He helped her to her feet as she wailed in sadness at the loss.

'It was the closest I ever got before,' she whispers faintly. 'And now I screwed it up again.'

'Hey,' he replies, lifting her head to face him. 'Don't talk like that. This was not you, it was nature.'

'Like some things are just not meant to be,' she muttered.

'Don't talk like that Lisa, please,' he begged. 'I'm taking you home.'

She tried to protest, but he wasn't having none of it.