Disclaimer: House is not mine. If it was, it would have been called Chase. Or Chameron.

Author's note: This little ficcie was written when I got bored during a lecture. It's also written before the "Joy" episode (in fact, it was written before season five started!), so please excuse the loopholes! ^_^ Anyway, enjoy!

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"House! Are you high?" Cuddy exclaimed. She was on her way to a board meeting when she caught a particularly unusual scene through the glass doors of the pathology lab. House was heating a strange-looking liquid. If that wasn't weird enough, what about the fact that he had two kids with him? "You can't let children play in the lab!"

"Auntie Liiisssssaaaa…." House whined. "We're having fun!"

"This lab is full of child hazards!" Cuddy marched toward them. The kids, however, were still looking quite… blissful. Didn't House plus young children equal tears and tantrums? "Do Cameron and Chase know about this?"

A blond boy, about four or five years old, looked up at her with shining green eyes. "We're having fun, Aunt Lisa! Uncle Greg always is!"

"Want to join us?" his twin, doll-like with strawberry-blond curls, asked innocently. "Look what I did, Auntie!"

House shrugged, deliberately ignoring Cuddy's question. "You see, Cuddles, kids should learn not to be afraid of hospitals."

"Anya, did Uncle Greg teach you that?" Cuddy asked the girl, trying hard to conceal her irritation at the quirky diagnostician.

"Yes he did, Auntie!" Anya held up her artwork: a sparkling gem etched onto golden-yellow agar. There were more Petri dishes spread out in front of her, each with a different-colored medium and a different picture carved in the center with a wire loop. "Aren't they pretty? Uncle Greggy says we'll look at them later. Under a my… mike... micro..."

Cuddy gave House a look of death.

"Her mom's good at it!"

"Mine's better, Aunt Lisa!" Rowan – his dad's second shot at a good relationship with a "Rowan" – jumped off the high lab stool to show off his own creation: a pyramidal box made of stacked stirring rods. It was almost a foot-and-a-half high. "D'you like my tower?"

"House…"

"His dad has precise fingers!" House reasoned.

"Rowan, Anya... run along and wash your hands, sweethearts. Uncle Greg's lab is germy."

She's getting better at sweet-talking kids, House thought.

"Okay!" the twins raced toward the washroom, screaming.

"Walk, kids!" Cuddy shouted.

"You said run, Auntie Lisa!" they yelled back.

Or maybe not. House grinned inwardly.

The kids out of earshot, Cuddy trained her guns on House. "This room is filled with glass-"she motioned toward the rods and dishes. "-sharps, microbes, and who knows what. You seriously think it's safe in here?"

"Cuddykins…" House put on his "duh" voice. "It's just agar. It's sterile."

"And Rowan's glass rods?"

"The worst that can happen is he'll break them and cut himself."

"And that's good?!"

"Oh, come on. Boys get cut all the time! And.. he's in the safest place on earth to get cut: a hospital."

"House, you're endangering employees' kids, wasting supplies, hogging the laboratory-"

"You have 4 other labs! You can hold another fundraiser. Besides, the kids were having fun!"

"Because they don't know any better!"

"They snuck out of the hospital day care to play here. Doesn't that say something?"

"Again, because they don't know what's good for them! Where are their parents, anyway?"

"Cameron's too afraid they'll get trampled in her ER. Chase is having a conference with his foolish interns who think he's smart because of the accent. And…" before Cuddy could retort, "Foreman and Thirteen are at a Huntington's seminar, Taub and Wilson are probably hitting on some cardio nurse, and Kutner… would you trust Kutner with children?"

"Not any more than I'd trust you with them, House! Take them back to the day care. Now."

"They're smart kids. It's the genes, obviously – but have you ever seen a 5-year-old explain digestion, albeit simply? Have you heard one tell me that something in my leg is missing?"

"Those two will be a pair of crazy smartasses by the time you're through with them!"

"The point, evil stepmother: they're precocious. They're a little bit too advanced for finger paints and Popsicle sticks."

"Oh yes, and agar and glass rods are so much more "advanced"." Cuddy's voice dripped sarcasm.

"They'll be fine." House said exasperatedly.

"With you?" Cuddy raised an eyebrow.

"With me," House confirmed. He met her eyes for a moment and glanced away.

"I thought you didn't like kids," Cuddy said softly.

"I don't like all the little buggers…" he paused. "I'd like yours, too, though, if you had any."

Startled, Cuddy looked up. "I gave up on that. Five years ago."

House was silent for a while. "You shouldn't have." He tucked a lock of stray hair behind her ear and leaned in closer…

"Aunt Lisa?" an innocent voice asked. House and Cuddy practically jumped away from each other. "We're done washing up."

The twins were standing in front of them, oblivious to the fact that they had interrupted something their parents wouldn't have wanted them to see. Cuddy suppressed her laughter at the sight of them; both had their hands raised in front of them, careful not to let their hands touch their clothing.

"That's great! You're all clean, now, aren't you?" Cuddy arranged Anya's rumpled curls. "You can stay here, okay? But only if Uncle Greg's with you and you're careful."

"Yaaayy!" Anya cheered, flashing the two adults a pretty, dimpled smile. "Thank you, Aunt Lisa, Uncle Greg. We love it here."

"Lisa… Cu... Cuddy?" Rowan's face scrunched up, resembling his father's own puzzled look – the one Robert Chase often wore when he was under House's wing in the Diagnostics Department. He was reading the ID hanging from her lab coat pocket. "Lisa Cuddy? Cuddy?" He glanced at his sister.

Anya shrugged, now resembling Allison Cameron's nonchalance when she herself had been a duckling. "Maybe it's written wrong, Ro."

"What's wrong, kiddies?" House reverted to his usual jerky self. "Auntie Lisa's top not low enough?" Cuddy merely smirked.

"Because…" Rowan looked up at them. "Isn't she supposed to be Lisa House?"

"Yeah!" Anya piped up. "'Cause you're Uncle Greg's wife, right?"

Cuddy turned red. "No, I'm not…"

"But you act like Mommy and Daddy…" Rowan argued. "You know, when it seems like they're fighting, but they say they're just playing and they really love each other…"

"Yeah, Daddy calls it "teasing"." His twin added. "And if you're Aunt and Uncle and you act like that…"

"You must be married," was the conclusion.

"Told you they're smart," House muttered. "Hey, you're making Auntie Lisa all red and blotchy!" he chided teasingly.

"I'm late for my meeting!" her face positively burning, Cuddy hurried out the door. Are kids that age supposed to be logical?

"Well, princess," House lifted Anya and set her on the stool by the microscope. She was Chase's princess, and automatically the hospital's princess as well. "Let's look at your pictures, alright?"

"Uncle Greggy?"

"What?"

"You're all red, too, you know."

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~End~