It was a normal day at the hospital. It was 22nd December, it was freezing cold outside and the heaters all around the hospital were cranked up to help defend the icy cold weather.
At 9am in the morning house limped into his office, he was surprisingly early for once in the year. He came in the office to find Chase reading the newspaper and Cameron making a pot of coffee.
"you're early!" Cameron pointed out.
"Good morning to you too! I am terribly sorry, I could leave if you wanted" he replied sarcastically, Cameron just rolled her eyes.
"Any new cases?" House asked.
"Not yet, we are waiting for Foreman to bring us one" Chase said.
He received his coffee from Cameron and sat down to listen to his i-pod.
Five minutes later Foreman walked in.
"Hey guys listen, Cuddy wants us to go to a speech in Philadelphia tomorrow." Foreman started.
"Oh, I get it so if Cuddy wanted you to go and jump off a bridge, you'd do that too" House said.
Foreman ignored his boss' comment and went to the coffee machine.
Seconds after House made the remark Cuddy walked into his office. "Stop sulking House, you don't have a choice, you're going!" she said in a firm voice.
"mom! Why do I have to go cant the other three just go and do my dirty work for me?" House whined.
"No you're going that's it! Come on I'll give you two hours off clinic duty."
"four!"
"TWO!"
"three?"
"TWO, don't push it!" she yelled.
"fine" House sulked as he put his headphones back in his ears to help block out her screeching voice.
Cuddy stared at him for a second, she was used to hid rudeness after all these years so she turned to the others and carried on the conversation.
" The speech is at one tomorrow, so meet at the hospital in the morning, and drive there together, that way, House wont be able to get out of it." She carried on.
"no problem" the other three replied.
Cuddy turned around and walked out.
As soon as she was down the hall, House turned his i-pod off and started to yell at his little ducklings.
" I ask you children, where is your loyalty to me? I am your boss! I could fire you! " he started.
"well, she's your boss, House, and she could fire us just as easily. Plus, she is way nicer than you are!" Foreman cut in.
The other two just remained silent, as they tried to avoid the conflict, but House knew that is what they were thinking too.
"fine!" House gave in.
"but you guys better bring some awesome CD's for the ride, coz if you don't I can assure it will be the worst car ride of your life" House threatened.
Cameron, Chase and Foreman laughed and sat back down.
"you don't think he is serious do you?" Cameron enquired.
"I dunno, but I know I am sitting as far away from him as I can in the car!" Chase replied.
The doctor's continued with their work and House played in his DS.
At the end of the day they all went home.
House got up and walked to his bike then drove home.
The next morning House came into his office and Cameron immediately started yelling at him.
"HOUSE! Where the hell where you!"
"Steve McQueen needed girl advice, it was an emergency!"
"Well I'm sure, you know it's your fault if we are late" She said
"Oh excuse me little miss punctual 2006"he replied.
"Guys, just go to my car" Chase yelled.
"I call shotgun" Foreman shouted.
"Nice Foreman, real mature!" Cameron laughed.
The car started and they set off for Philadelphia.
When they got there, they had to wait for a few hours so they got lunch.
It was snowing so it was hard to get places by foot so they had to get pizza from a little shop nearby
The doctors went in to listen to the speech, after five minutes, Chase, Foreman and Cameron were glaring at House because of the sounds coming from hid DS.
"Turn it off!" Foreman muttered to him.
House ignored his comment. When the speech was over, they headed home. In a few minutes, the wind had picked up a lot causing it to be very hard to drive.
All of a sudden Chase saw smoke coming from the bonnet. He stopped the car and sighed.
"Foreman. You were a car thief right? You must have some knowledge of mechanics." House piped up.
Foreman got out of the car and lifted up the hood.
" I think it's the engine, we need to call a mechanic" Foreman said.
Chase followed orders, Foreman got back in the car and waited. They were listening to the radio when they heard an announcement 'people hoping to get into New Jersey from Philadelphia are out of luck today. There has been a snow fall and workers have been forced to close the roads until boxing day.'
"Crap, where are we gonna go now then!" Foreman yelled.
"Relax Foreman! We can go somewhere not far from here" Cameron replied.
Cameron got out her phone. The men were puzzled at what she was doing, but they remained quiet.
"Hi mom! It's Allie" She talked into the phone.
When the call was finished. They got out of the car and Cameron gave them the directions.
"So we're staying with your parents?" Chase asked.
"No we're staying with Mickey Mouse! Yes of course we are. Don't worry, there will be enough room, it's a big house" She answered.
"I don't know Cameron. So you're taking me home to meet the parents already? It's a bit soon in the relationship don't you think?" House said.
Cameron rolled her eyes at his comment.
"Be nice, House! I'm very serious!" She said firmly.
"I Don't doubt your seriousness, and I'll try" He replied.
"Good to hear" she said.
She walked to the front door and walked in. Before House entered he popped two vicodin.
"We're here!" Cameron yelled as she walked in the front door, the men were following a few steps behind her.
Within five seconds Cameron was tackled to the floor by three children no younger than six who were showering her in hugs and kisses, Chase, Foreman and House backed away to give her space to fall.
"Auntie Allie, Auntie Allie!" the children yelled.
" Katie, Amy, Adam, how are you!" she yelled excitedly.
"we're good! Did you bring us presents?" they asked.
"they're here already! Go find. Don't open them!" she said.
The children ran off and came in a massive chocolate Labrador.
"Sam! Good boy! Sit, sit! Good boy!" she said to the dog.
Chase,House and Foreman stood there in amazement as they watched Cameron's family reunion.
"Allie!" they heard, they all of a sudden came in five adults. They all took it in turns to hug her. Then their attention turned to the three men Cameron came in with.
"Oh, I'm sorry I forgot to introduce these guys" Cameron said.
She pointed to each one.
"this is Chase, my boss House and you know Eric" she said to her family.
"Guys this is my mom, Jill, my dad David, my sister Laura, my sister- in-law Claire and my brother Jamie" she announced.
They all smiled and shook hands but Jill hugged Foreman.
"the three children re- entered the room and a little girl tugged on House's jacket.
" What's wrong with your leg?" the girl asked.
"it got hurt in the war" he replied almost sarcastically.
"Cool!" the little boy said.
House laughed, as did the others.
They moved into the living room and sat down.
They came in to see the house brightly decorated with gorgeous decorations, thousands of twinkling lights and nativity scenes and angels decorations placed everywhere, it looked like a page from a catalogue.
The adults talked for a while then the girls went into the kitchen to serve up dinner.
The men were talking the when out of the corner of House's eye her saw a piano. He was looking at it and David noticed.
"You play, House?" David asked.
"Huh, excuse me?" House said.
"You play, do you play the piano?" he asked again.
"Oh yeah I do" House replied.
"I really don't know why we kept the thing, we got it so Laura could practice when she was 10 but she decided she didn't like it, I guess we just haven't got around to selling it yet. Maybe you could play us something after?" David said.
"Yeah sure" House replied.
"Come on guys, dinners ready" a voice yelled from the kitchen.
House wasn't sure who it was, the Cameron women sounded very alike.
The all had a nice conversation during dinner, even House liked it, but he would never admit it to Cameron.
After dinner they all talked some more, and Jill and Cameron showed everyone to their rooms.
As Cameron showed House his room, he saw a door with "Allison" on the front of it, he took a quick look inside. The room looked like a 13 year olds room it had pink flowery wall paper, pink bed sheets and soft toys everywhere which decorated the room. House laughed at the sight, even though he thought it was very cute.
Cameron noticed where he was and followed him.
"Very nice, Cameron, although I always thought your colour was blue." He smirked.
"Do not blame me, picked this scheme out when I was nine, ok!" she laughed.
"sure ok, you know you won't live this down right?" he said.
Cameron rolled her eyes and dragged him to his room.
At 9pm everyone except for Cameron was downstairs in pj's, although Foreman, Chase and House had to borrow some.
Cameron came down the stairs yelling.
"MOM! Is this a joke! I thought I had more pajamas than this, where are they?" she asked.
"I'm sorry Allie hun, I must have threw them out when I cleaned out the house." Jill replied.
" oh so you couldn't have thrown out the pj's I had since I was FIFTEEN!" she said.
"I'm sorry hunny it doesn't really matter does it" she said.
Cameron rolled her eyes.
No one could see what pj's she had on, House was quite curious.
She walked down the stairs more and then everyone saw what she had on, they all cracked up laughing, including Foreman, Chase and House.
"SHUT UP!" she yelled at everyone, even though a smile was on her face too.
She had a blue shirt that barely came down to her belly button that said 'I'm too sexy for my shirt' she also had on pink short shorts.
She looked very funny and everyone thought so, Cameron was giving everyone death stares.
She came and sat down and everyone continued talking.
After a few hours everyone went to bed.
As House went to bed he was looking around the hallway and noticed thousands of pictures of Cameron and her brother and sister. He found pictures of Cameron when she was born, on her 10th birthday, her soccer final, learning to ride a bike, high school graduation, he also found one of her on her wedding day with her late husband, then he noticed one of her sitting down holding a huge belly.
He went to bed after that, but he couldn't get to sleep, all night he was thinking about the last picture he saw. He kept thinking about her and the baby and what happened. He finally got to sleep.
In the morning he woke up and went downstairs.
Everyone had had breakfast already and they getting the kids in their coats and scarves.
"Hey House" Cameron said as she handed him a cup of coffee.
"we are going out with my nieces and nephew to get a Christmas tree, are you coming?" She asked.
"Sure" He replied.
So everyone set off and they went to find a Christmas tree.
House was the one to find the perfect one, it was white from the snow, but it was tall and looked beautiful.
They took the tree home and started to decorate it.
By the time it was finished it looked beautiful. It reminded him of someone.
After they decorated the tree it was dinner time.
" Chase, House, Foreman, come on I'm taking you guys out for dinner" Cameron yelled from the kitchen. They grabbed their coats and headed out.
"so why are we going out Cameron?" Chase asked.
"are you kidding? Look I love my family, but even I need I break from that much cheeriness!" Cameron replied.
"oh my goodness what have they done with her, it looks like Cameron, sounds like Cameron, I can't believe it! She's actually human!" House said sarcastically.
Cameron laughed and rolled her eyes.
Chase, Foreman, House and Cameron at dinner together and they surprisingly had a good time. House kept his sarcastic comments to a minimum as he observed Cameron and her behaviour. He noticed that around her family she was so lively and happy, but at work she was very shy. He wished that she would act the same way at work as she did at home.
When they had finished dinner they went home. As soon as House got in the front door the three little kids came up to him and begged him to play them Christmas carols on the piano, they kept hugging him and begging him until he caved in. Cameron laughed at him and they all gathered around the piano.
Hours later everyone had gone to bed. House saw a figure on a swing outside the window he immediately recognized it as Cameron and went outside.
When he got closer he realized she was crying, he put his hand on her shoulder.
"What's up?" He asked.
" the sky, sometimes I hear it's blue." She replied in a croaky voice.
" ha. Why are you crying?" He asked softly.
She didn't reply.
" you know, for an atheist, your pretty big on Christmas" he carried on.
"it's really one of the only things that give me hope now." Cameron said trying to fight back tears.
"why?" he asked.
"When I married my husband In college, I found out I was pregnant, I was five months along but my husband was getting sicker, I spent everyday at the hospital and at five and a half months I miscarried, on Christmas eve" she answered.
"I'm sorry" he said.
"It was a boy you know. We were going to name him Jake but we never got that far" she started crying.
House came around the swing to face her and lifted her head up so he could look into her eyes.
"You know it's not your fault he died, there was just too much stress on him, you could have never done anything to stop it" House said trying to reassure her.
She tried to smile at him but she was crying too much. He sat down on the swing next to her, he leaned over and kissed her. He pulled away after a few seconds as he felt something drop on his head. They both looked to see that it was snowing.
"Merry Christmas Cameron" he said.
She smiled at him then kissed him again. The stood up and moved very carefully up to her bedroom.
In the morning everyone was up because the kids woke up at a ridiculous hour. Everyone noticed Allison wasn't up so her parents decided to do a trick on her. They grabbed the video camera and everyone in the house including Foreman and Chase crowded outside her bedroom. Once David had set up the camera he counted to three then everyone burst into her room and yelled " MERRY CHRISTMAS ALLIE! only to find a little surprise.
They found Allison and House naked in bed together, they were fast asleep and the only thing covering them was a thin bed sheet. They woke up horrified and screamed as they were trying to find the other sheets and clothes to cover themselves up.
All of the adults mouths dropped in shock. The adults desperately ran over to the kids to cover their eyes and Jill yelled
"David, turn off the camera, turn off the camera!"
"thanks everyone" Cameron said, at this point her face was the color of a beetroot from the embarrassment.
Everyone left the room, Foreman was the last to go out, before he left he turned around and laughed at them.
"Finally!" Foreman laughed as he left the room.
When everyone had left the room House and Cameron cracked up laughing.
They kissed each other then got up to get dressed.
"you know, I should have known my dad would do that to me" Cameron said as she was desperately trying not to laugh.
"You couldn't have warned me?" he said.
"oh well I think they were more embarrassed than us!" She laughed.
" Really, coz as I recall, it wasn't your mum's face that turned redder than a stop sign!" he smiled.
" Merry Christmas House" she said.
"Merry Christmas Cameron" he replied.
They went downstairs and hugged everyone and wished them a merry Christmas. In the space of about 20 minutes everyone had stopped talking about the surprise they found earlier in the day and the rest of the day was spent opening presents and eating dinner and lunch. Even Foreman, Chase and House had presents under the tree. They thought it was one of the best Christmases they had ever had.
House and Cameron knew that for each other, it was definitely the best!
1 year later
"We're here!" Allison yelled as she walked through the front door. House followed behind her, this time it was a little different.
In one hand Allison had her keys and in the other hand she carried a travel seat which held an 11week old baby girl called Olivia House, and House as well as his cane carried another travel seat with another 11week old baby girl named Samantha House.
The foursome were greeted by all their family and even Foreman and Chase were there.
Everyone had a great Christmas, even better than the last one as they had two new beautiful baby girls as an addition to the family and House finally felt like he belonged to a family.