This one comes from a prompt from Princess Rainbow Puke that she stole, er, borrowed from Californication. Set in S7: What if a prostitute showed up at PPTH claiming to be pregnant with House's baby? The medicine in this first section is so bogus they're going to accept me into the American Medical Association, just so they can kick me out. Decided to split this into two chapters, because I'm a drama queen like that.
House cleared his throat.
Cuddy lifted her eyes from the file she was reading.
"Hey you," she said, with a happy grin.
"You busy?" he asked, tentatively.
"Not too busy for you. What's up?"
House hesitated.
"I'll come back later," he said. "You look like you're in the middle of something."
She closed the file, giving him her full attention. She noticed that he had a tiny line of sweat over his upper lip.
"I just said I'm not that busy. What's going on House? You're making me nervous."
He sat down, folded his arms, then unfolded them.
"Things are going well between us, right?"
"Okay, now you're really making me nervous."
"I just mean, we've been together for, what, five months? And it's going great."
"Yes, House it's going great. Why do I think it's about to be going less great?"
"Umm," he scratched his head. "Remember when I asked you if I could treat my patient with prednisone and you said no?"
"You were going off a hunch. You hadn't made a compelling case for autoimmune," she said. "I was afraid the steroids would trash his immune system."
"Right…well . . .I did it anyway."
She sat up straight in her chair.
"You treated him with prednisone?"
"Yes."
"You told me he tested positive for Hep C and you treated with interferon!"
"I lied. I treated with steroids right away. My hunch was right."
"So you went behind my back and lied—again?"
He gulped.
"Yes."
Her neck turned red. For a moment, she was overcome with a kind of formless, diffuse anger.
Then something occurred to her.
"That patient went home last week. I had no reason to poke around his case file. So why are you telling me this now?"
"Cause I felt like crap about it," House admitted. "I promised I'd never lie to you and I did. This is my confession." He held out his wrists, as though for handcuffs. "Have mercy on me, judge."
"I'm putting you on probation," Cuddy said, quickly and firmly.
He did a doubletake.
"What?"
"Formal probation for six months. One more incident in that time and I'll be forced to terminate you."
"Cuddy…be reasonable. . .This is me."
Her eyes flashed.
"And I signed a love contract stating that I'd show you no favoritism. This is a fireable offense and we both know it."
"But I came clean! When I didn't have to!"
"That's why you're on probation and not fired. Now get out of my office, House. I really do have work to do."
He gave her a pathetic look, then sighed, got up huffily and limped out.
####
That night, House stood outside Cuddy's door for a long time before opening it a crack with the key she had only recently given him. He thrust a bouquet of flowers through the narrow opening.
"Is it safe?" he asked.
"Of course," she said.
"Whew!"
He stepped in. Handed her the flowers.
"Those flowers are pretty!" said Rachel, who was on the floor, putting the finishing touches on one of her crayon, glue, and glitter masterpieces.
"I got you one, too," he said, pulling another, tinier bouquet out of his jacket.
"Wow. He does feel guilty," Cuddy said, under her breath.
"I gotted flowers! I gotted flowers!" Rachel said, jumping up and down. "They smell so pretty!"
Cuddy sniffed her own bouquet.
"Yeah, they do," she said. "Let's put them in water, shall we?"
"Yes!" Rachel said, proudly marching into the kitchen and holding her flowers in front of her like they were the Olympic torch.
They put the flowers in water.
"I hope they know how to swim," Rachel giggled. It was the sort of adorable, "kids say the darnedest things" type line that House never found amusing.
In this case, he laughed. "That's a good one," he said, with false cheer. "I hope they know how to swim! Where do kids come up with this stuff?"
Cuddy rolled her eyes at him.
Then she turned to Rachel.
"What do you say we brush your teeth, put on your jammies and get you ready for bed?"
"I can do it," House volunteered, quickly.
"Stand down, House," Cuddy said, with a chuckle. "Heat up the leftover chicken. I'll be out in 20 minutes."
House did as he was told, made a plate of chicken and heated it up in the microwave. Then he found an open bottle of red wine and poured himself a glass. He was just starting to eat when Cuddy emerged from Rachel's room and sat down across from him.
He poured her a glass of wine.
"On a scale from 1 to Sleeping on the Couch, how pissed are you at me?" he asking, wincing in anticipation of her reply.
"I'm not pissed," she said.
"Wha—?"
"Okay, that's a lie. I'm pissed. But I'm also…proud of you for telling me the truth. You didn't have to."
"You put me on probation!"
"That was a boss thing. This is girlfriend thing. I wish like hell you hadn't lied to me. But if you had to lie, at least you knew it was wrong, felt guilty about it, and came clean. That's progress in my book. Just don't do it again!"
"I won't," he said, with a tiny smile. "I really am sorry, Cuddy."
"I know you are," she said, smiling back.
"Does this mean I have a shot of getting laid tonight?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Not a chance."
######
But they did have sex that night—Cuddy had crawled on top of him, whispering, "Ugh, why are you so annoyingly irresistible to me?"—and things completely went back to normal.
That is, until a few weeks later, when a very pregnant woman appeared in House's office. She was dark-haired and pretty, in a hard sort of way, and wearing inappropriately high heels and an inappropriately low-cut skirt.
House looked at her, vaguely.
"Obstetrics is on the third floor," he said.
"I'm Lexie," she said, smiling knowingly. "You don't remember me, do you?
"Let me guess," House cracked, pointing to her swollen belly. "You're about to tell me that's mine."
"Actually," Lexie said. "Yes."
House stared at her.
"I've never seen you before in my life," he said.
"Men don't always look closely at our faces," she said.
His eyes narrowed.
"You're a hooker," he said.
"Yes, I'm a professional escort," she replied.
"I haven't used the services of a professional escort in years," he said.
"You sure about that?" she said.
Suddenly, House's mind flashed to eight months ago. He had seen Lucas pick Cuddy up from work—nothing special, just a boyfriend doing what boyfriends did—and it was, perhaps, the ordinariness of it all that got to him. Cuddy had waved to Lucas in a cheerful, "I'm happy to see you" way and kissed him, on the mouth, then immediately launched into some animated discussion of her day as they drove off, and House, watching the whole scene from the lobby, had felt this gnawing hole form in his gut that he needed to immediately fill.
"You can't be the one they sent over," House countered. "I specifically said, 'no brunettes.'"
"Honey, we have wigs. I'm blonde, I'm red-headed, I can dress like a Vulcan, if that's what you want me to be."
He looked at her again. She was right. He hadn't exactly been looking into her eyes that night. He wasn't looking for connection, just distraction. But come to think of it, she did look familiar.
"You're a prostitute," he said, disdainfully. "You have two jobs. Get men off and don't get pregnant."
"The condom broke, remember?" she said, raising her eyebrows.
House scratched his head.
"How many men do you sleep with a month. 60? 70? You know there's no shot I'm even going to entertain the idea that kid's mine before I see a DNA test."
"It's yours," she said. "Only one condom broke that month. And eight months later, here we are."
"So if the little bastard is mine—big IF—what do you want from me?"
"I want you to marry me and for us to move to a Westchester split-level with a picket fence." Then, upon seeing his dumbstruck face, she laughed. "What do you think I want? Child support! And money for my medical bills. And additional compensation for lost wages—pregnant escorts aren't exactly in high demand, except for a few super kinky types and I don't do that shit."
"And how terribly fucking convenient that a well-to-do doctor impregnated you," House said. "What good luck you have!"
"Hey, we're not a cheap service. All my clients are well off. But not all are quite so…well-endowed." She giggled.
House put his head in his hands.
"You know I'm not giving you a dime until I see that DNA test," he said.
"I need money now. To pay doctor's bills."
"Yeah. Good luck with that."
"I have a lawyer, you know."
"All hookers do."
"This lawyer says you need to pay me. Now."
"Have him or her issue me a subpoena. Until then, have a nice day."
She smiled, again.
"You can kick me out of your office, you can close your eyes and hope it all goes away, but you can't make this baby disappear. I'm having him. And he's yours. So you have a nice day, Dr. House."
House watched her teeter away, then groaned.
"Fuck," he said.
######
"Don't jump!" Wilson said to House, who was standing on the hospital roof, looking out over the ledge.
House turned and scowled.
"What do you want, Wilson?"
"You missed our lunch date," Wilson said defensively. "I got worried."
"It wasn't a lunch 'date'. We're not dating. I said we'd have lunch together. Then something came up."
"Brooding on the roof?"
House ignored him.
"Okay, what's wrong?" Wilson probed.
"Nothing. It so happens I do all my best thinking on the roof."
"No, you do all your best thinking in my office after I've inadvertently triggered something. You do all your best moping on the roof."
Finally House sighed and looked at him.
"Have you ever had to tell somebody something, but you know that once you tell them, they're basically going to be through with you?"
"That was a very specific hypothetical."
House shrugged sadly.
Wilson squinted at him.
"What did you do that's going to piss off Cuddy?" he said, knowingly.
"Pissing her off would be welcome. This is going to be more like: Blind rage, followed by remembering why dating me was the worst idea of her life, followed by very quickly kicking me to the curb."
"You didn't. . ." Wilson got a horrified look on his face.
"Cheat on her? Fuck you," House said. He looked down. "Nothing like that. Well, actually something like that. But not what you think. I was visited by a former. . .um…employee of mine."
"Cameron?"
"Not Cameron. A hooker. She's knocked up and she claims it's mine."
"Oh no."
"Yeah. . .it was one night's indiscretion, eight months ago—that's three months BEFORE I started seeing Cuddy, for the record."
"But how can she be pregnant? Don't professionals use. . .protection?"
"The condom broke."
"Of course it did."
"I'm not bragging here. This is bad. I told her I'm not paying a dime until she confirms it's my kid. But the question now is. . ."
"Should you tell Cuddy."
"Not should. How. I promised her I wouldn't lie to her. She was very specific about that."
"She'll understand. It's before you were dating. It's not like she and Lucas were celibate."
"That's a little different, don't you think?"
"Cuddy knows you've used hookers before. There was that whole brush up with the massage therapist a few months ago."
"There's a big difference between knowing I've slept with hookers and having it thrust in her face in the form of the extremely pregnant Lexie."
"Agreed. But I think Cuddy will see this for it is: Something that happened before you were dating that has nothing to do with your relationship."
"Or it'll remind her that I'm a degenerate loser who has no business being around her kid."
Wilson put his hand on House's shoulder.
"She doesn't see you that way," he said.
"Yet," House said.
########
That night, House lay in bed, his head propped against the pillow, watching Cuddy get undressed.
He had a medical journal on his lap that he was technically supposed to be reading, but he couldn't focus on anything at the moment.
Even the sight of Cuddy kicking off her heels, unfurling her pantyhose, and slipping into her nightie—usually it's own form of foreplay for him—wasn't having its usual effect.
His mind was racing. He kept thinking that he was about to ruin his life—voluntarily. But he also knew that he had no choice but to tell her. He made a promise.
"We have to talk," he said, when she climbed into bed.
She side-eyed him.
"Uh oh. Why am I experiencing déjà vu?"
"There's something I need to tell you. You're not going to like it. But I have to tell you anyway," he said.
"Don't," she said, holding her hand up to stop him.
"Don't?"
"Look, I don't know what you did: Lobotomized someone, exploded their heart, set fire to their pancreas. And I don't want to know. You're only one month into your six month probation and I don't want to have to fire you. So just this once, don't tell me what you did. And don't ever do it again!"
He was about to protest that what he wanted to tell her had nothing to do with work and then he realized that she was giving him a reprieve—a veritable stay of execution. It was like a sign from God, if he believed in such things.
She was basically telling him that sometimes—on some very rare, very specific occasions—it was okay to lie to her. Or at least withhold the truth. He couldn't imagine a better time than right now.
He felt some of the tension drain from his shoulders.
"Okay," he said. "I won't tell you."
"Good."
"But it's not what you think it is. . ."
"House. Zip it. I'm going to pretend we never had this conversation."
And she turned off the light.
######
House got a letter from Lexie's lawyer, which he threw out. He also ignored four phone calls from her. His plan was to avoid her until the little diaper rash was born and then hope against hope it wasn't his.
And then one night Cuddy was home alone (House was working late) and there was a knock at the door.
She opened it to find an extremely pregnant woman standing on her steps, her arms folded angrily.
"Is Greg here?" the woman said, peering inside. She was noisily chewing gum.
"No. . ." Cuddy said, flabbergasted. "I'm his girlfriend, Lisa. Can I help you with something?"
Lexie looked Cuddy up and down. "Of course you're the girlfriend," she said with a snicker. "Do me a favor, will you?"
Cuddy didn't reply, just stared at this unexpected apparition, dumbfounded.
"Tell him Lexie was here and said it's time he owned up to his responsibilities and acted like a grown man, okay?"
When Cuddy didn't reply, Lexie said: "Hello? Are you listening?"
Cuddy shook herself from her daze.
"Yes," she said softly.
"And will you tell him that for me?"
"Uh…okay," Cuddy said. "I will."
"Have a nice night," Lexie said and waddled back down the path as Cuddy stared at her, in shock.
######