Alice J. Foster
Fandom: House M.D.
Summary: Sometimes, things just don't go the way they're supposed to.
Rating: PG-13 for language and typical House.
Pairing: House/Cameron
Started: 2/16/2007
Finished: 2/17/2007
A/N: This is set in the same universe as If Only I'd Known, but if you haven't read that, you should still be able to understand this. This is set directly after about 3 weeks after that and it's a drabble that was requested by a meeaz on an LJ meme where I asked: Give me one of my own stories, and a time stamp sometime in the future after the end of the story, or sometime in the past before the story started, and I'll write you at least a hundred words of what happened then, whether it's five minutes before the story started or ten years in the future. Her request was for the birth of their third child, with a frantic House.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
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The baby didn't come on New Year's Eve… or New Year's Day for that matter. The stubborn fool instead decided he was very comfortable where he was – not that I can blame him, I'd spend all my time in there if I could as well, though I tend to favor the area a few inches south of where he currently is.
So four days after her due date, after I gave her multiple internal shots of prostaglandins (hey, I was just trying to help), we decided to schedule an induction for the following Monday at Mt. Sinai, and if that didn't work, Cameron was volunteering to perform a C-section herself – which was the main reason why she was not allowed anywhere near scalpels after the 38th week.
Maybe it was the fact that Cameron's parents had volunteered to watch the kids over the weekend at the hotel they were staying at, or the repeated attempts to induce labor at home, but we kept the TV off, which was how we possibly missed the fact that NYC was getting the worst snowstorm in over 20 years, and it was virtually inaccessible.
Of course, we didn't find out about the storm until Sunday afternoon, when Cameron's water broke - all over our quite expensive couch, by the way… and I get yelled at if even one small drop is not properly aimed inside the porcelain bowl.
While I definitely considered driving into Philadelphia for a well-equipped hospital with a Level 4 NICU and an ECMO device, the contractions were suddenly into overdrive and there was no way I'd be able to drive them to Philly in time – not unless I broke into my secret stash of morphine for her.
Instead I found myself driving them to PPTH. It's not that I didn't trust the OB-GYN staff at PPTH, it's that I don't trust them. Not at all. Not even a little bit. The pediatrics staff was slightly more trustworthy, but there weren't many men or women at their hofspital whom I could trust with my wife's reproductive system.
I wasn't surprised when Cuddy met us at the entrance to the ER; I was however surprised by the fact that Chase was there too. I vaguely remembered leaving the foreigner on-call this weekend, but that still didn't explain why he was here or why he looked excited. I helped my wife into one of the wheelchairs and "accidentally" hit Chase on the leg with my cane as we hurried Cameron to admission.
"Who's on call for Obstetrics?" I demanded to know, and Cuddy frowned. This was not a good sign.
"Richards," she said slowly and quietly.
"You have got to be kidding me! That guy can't tell a vagina apart from an anus!" I shouted, making some heads turn.
Cuddy downed her exasperated expression and begged me to keep my voice down. "It's Richards and he's already been paged."
"Well, unpage him. I'd rather see this baby delivered by you rather than Richards," I spit out.
Unfortunately Cuddy knew me too well to feel offended by my comment. "Someone's going to have to deliver your baby, and I can't do it; Wilson's out-of-town and Foreman won't get here in time. And no, you cannot assign yourself to this case, no way, don't even think about it."
I stared at a wall for a second until my wife's painful shriek brought me back to reality. "Fine, we'll take Chase." Three surprised heads turned towards me and I shrugged, "You have experience with newborns and delivery, and you've seen my wife's vagina. Plus you're the only one left, and I'll be in the room with you. Cuddy won't let me deliver this one myself, and no one else is available, so don't flatter yourself."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Chase scoffed but followed us nonetheless into one of the rooms of the maternity ward. The one good thing about having this baby at PPTH is that no one has attempted to make us fill out even one form.
I'm not sure if it's because it was her third baby, or if it was because she was uncomfortable with the fact that Chase was her doctor, but this was Cameron's fastest birth– just under half an hour after we arrived at PPTH, the world made way for Alexander House.