I can't remember how much I wanted to be a doctor. A lot, I think. I watched all the medical soaps on television and got hooked. Back then, I saw having children as an inconvenience, something that would tie me down, drag me behind me like a lead weight.
I hated my little cousins with a passion. Christmas was the worst. My mother would go all soft over them and wouldn't raise her voice at the precious little cherubs, even when they managed to block the toilet and flood the hall with water and God knew what else. I took one look at the situation and ran to my room, locked the door and sprayed air-freshener around before the smell could permeate into my haven.
That was me – always one step ahead.
I'd planned out my life at fifteen. I'd go to John Hopkins, get an M.D, get to the top of my career and then fall in love with a brutally handsome man with to-die-for eyes and have two kids.
It didn't work out that way.
I'm thirty-seven years old, and only the first half of that list has been completed. Well, not quite. I didn't go to Hopkins, but I got into Michigan. Could've been worse, I reasoned, and entered campus, set to kick ass. Coming out seven years later second best in the class wasn't what I'd been hoping for, I admit. Still, the person who'd beaten me married two years later and settled down for a home life with her husband: a waste, I told myself at the time.
I see Caroline now and wonder which of us got it better off. She's been a GP on and off, a brilliant one, I might add. I know she could go further if she wanted to. I actually asked her about that a couple of years ago, when I saw her for the first time in years at Baltimore Airport. She had four kids trailing behind her, the eldest, ten, I think, the youngest about four. Her husband was pushing a trolley laden with luggage. Caroline spotted me at first and gave me a hug I hadn't been expecting. We weren't exactly close in med school.
"Lisa! How've you been?" She asked, breaking away. Her kids lined up behind her, the youngest hiding behind her skirt. "Kids, come say hello."
The eldest smiled and shook my hand, but the others ran back to their dad and started whining for McDonalds before I could say anything else. Caroline rolled her eyes. "Children. God, that junk's all they'll eat. You got any of your own?"
"No, not yet." I replied, my eyes fixed on the youngest. He had clambered onto the luggage trolley and was demanding to be pushed around. "How've you been?"
"I asked first," Caroline said, grinning. I looked at her. She hadn't changed much, I noted enviously. She still had the blonde bob and thin-rimmed glasses, a crow's foot branching from the corners of both eyes, but her bubbly countenance I remembered.
I can't remember why we weren't close, actually. I would have liked her as a friend.
She was expecting an answer. I smiled, "Well, I'm Dean of Medicine at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in Jersey. More administrating than medicine, but you know how it goes."
Caroline laughed, "Not quite, no. I'm afraid I've quit medicine for the time being."
"What? Why?"
"The kids and that. I can't find the time for them and the job, so one had to go." She half-smiled, watching the eldest push the youngest along on the trolley, his arms and legs flailing. "I don't miss it, though."
"Really?"
"I thought I would, at first. But then Ari, that's the eldest, came along, and – well, I had a few GP jobs in between the kids, but I've quit for the time being. Maybe I'll take it up again, once they're older."
"Mm." I answered shortly, feeling a bit miffed. She was the only one good enough to beat me, and here she was, spending her effort on children. Now I remember why she and I weren't close in college: she was always better than me. All that resentment seemed wasted now, now that she'd become a housewife. "Don't you wish you could go further? Advance your career?"
"Not particularly. Me 'n' Jim are happy, that's what matters most at the moment." Caroline's voice drifted off. I think I had to mentally stop myself from gagging. "Listen Lisa, you send me an email when you start having kids. I'm sure you would've changed your mind about the career."
"It's not on my to-do list at the moment," I answered stiffly. Caroline nodded, but wrote out her email address on a slip of paper. She handed it to me, and gave me another, brief, hug.
"Well, just send one to say hi." Our goodbye was halted by a crash from behind us – Ari had managed to drive the trolley and her brother into a stack of travel pamphlets. "Oh, got to go. I'll see you around, Lisa."
"See you." I murmured as she rushed off.
That was my epiphany, I think. I saw Caroline go off and attend to her kids, rub the little boy's knees and kiss him on the forehead. And… something… sort of clicked in my head. I wanted that. I wanted someone small to look after, to tuck in a night and tell that it was alright. I wanted someone to protect. And I wanted to watch that someone grow and learn about the world and always have me to come to, whether they'd just scraped their elbows or crashed my car into a brick wall. I wanted to be needed by someone who truly couldn't look after themselves.
For two years I've been trying to get pregnant. At first I tried it the conventional way: meeting men, talking, establishing a relationship. But something was always wrong with them: they were workaholics, they were slobs, or they were simply not right to be the father of my child. God, I was so picky. When one man finally caught onto what I was doing and accused me of using him as a sperm donor, I relented and started looking at different options. Fertility meds. In Vitro treatment. And yes, I did use a sperm donor. Nothing, not for one and a half years.
Until now.
I waited, sitting on the floor, my head against the bathroom wall. Please. Please.
The pregnancy test lay next to me. Funny how something so small could alter one's life forever. Then, I suppose it's the small things that really make a difference in our lives. Walking into a coffee shop to meet your future husband hunting for change in his pocket. Choosing to give a dollar to a homeless man on the street so he can eat and survive tonight's cold.
And this little test, something that has ruined lives before, could give me all that I wanted in the world.
I opened my eyes.
I looked down.
Two lines.
Something sighed in my stomach, and I laced my hands over the feeling that threatened to bubble up and consume me whole.
Hello, baby.
Three months previously
It was ten o'clock at night, and the sperm bank was shut for the night. He crossed the road and knocked on the door, where a sour-looking nurse was typing frantically at her computer. She raised her head and shook it. He knocked again. She sighed, came over and opened the door.
"Sir, we're closed for the night."
"I'm really, really sorry, Nurse… Jenny," he looked at her nametag, "but I left my cane in one of the private rooms earlier."
"Doesn't seem like something you'd forget," Nurse Jenny replied, eyes narrowing.
"I know, but I had to go to an appointment and I've only just started using it."
"Right."
"May I?" He raised his eyebrows in a typical 'wuv me' way.
She looked him up and down. "Fine. I'd get it myself, but I'm in the middle of some… work, right now. No funny business, you understand?"
"No funny business." He echoed, limping in. With each step brought more pain, but he had to keep going. "Sorry, this may take a while."
"Uh-huh." She returned to her desk and stared at the computer screen, then started typing again.
He slowly made his way down the dark corridor, faster now that he was out of her sight. To his left were a row of rooms used for the sperm-to-cup transferal, and up ahead was a door with a passcode lock on it. He looked cautiously back down the corridor and entered the code.
The door opened with a hard push. Hacking will get you anywhere, he thought, grinning. He limped into the sperm-storage room, lined with freezers, and deposited three containers from his coat pocket in one of them, each labeled with: #10042. He hurried back to the corridor, shut the door, and retrieved his cane.
A sigh escaped him: his muscles were tensed with adrenalin. He limped his way out to the nurses' desk and smiled at her, "Thanks so much."
"No problem," she replied without looking up.
"Oops." A stack of filed, piled haphazardly on the desk, fell to the floor in front of him. "My cane slipped."
The nurse sighed with frustration. "Just leave them, will you? I'm breaking the rules, letting you in here anyway."
He'd bent down already, slipped a file labeled: #10042 Argus Cottage, into the pile, and got up again. "Sorry, sorry."
House slowly moved towards the door, feeling as if he was limping on air.
Stage One, sorted.
There were a pile of files awaiting review on his desk for him a few days later. He smirked. So he had been right.
The next day an email labeled, 'Top Secret' entered her mailbox, from a certain Gregory House. She opened it cautiously, wary since the last incident had been a virus which sent a mass spam-message to all her contacts with the words: I WAS ONCE A MAN written across it in hot pink letters.
No virus. Just a number.
#10042.
Disclaimer: House, MD is not mine
A/N: Yes, I'm back. I'm re-writing this story, once titled, 'Perfect Match,' and now, 'Hello, Baby." I'm sorry this chapter was so long: I've recently been introduced to the intricate process of donating sperm and I realized it's much more complicated than I made out in my first story. Just Google it if you want the details, and you'll discover why House resorted to trickery to get what he wanted.
Thanks very much for reading. If you're so inclined, please leave a review.