A/N: Soo, here's the second part. I hope this one's as good as the last. Thanks for all the reviews! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I still don't own House, MD, or Hugh Laurie…but I'm working on it ;)
Lisa Cuddy ran. She ran every morning, every day, rain or shine. Most of the time, she ran in a carefully planned route around her neighbor hood, a calculated five miles. But sometimes, when she was feeling blue, or angry, she'd run to a small park that was just about five miles away from her house. She'd sit there for a while, watching families and kids running around, contemplating life.
On one particularly sunny Saturday morning in June, she woke up in a horrible mood. She had a quick cup of tea before leaving for her run, and for some reason, her feet lead her to the park. By this time, despite the fact that it was nine in the morning, plenty of families had made their way to the playground. Blankets with picnic baskets littered the ground.
Lisa sat at her usual bench and observed the children on the playground. Although they were all separate, they seemed to move together. Boys ran around, teasing the girls who stuck their tongues out. It seemed to be a preview of the flirting that would happen for these children in ten years or so.
She smiled sadly and thought of her own attempts to have a child. Thus far she had no success, and was on the verge of quitting, but for some reason, her mind told her to keep at it. She was about to stand and run home when she saw an all too familiar face sitting on a blanket.
Gregory House, the sarcastic, know-it-all doctor who was a great pain in the ass at PPTH, was sitting next to his wife, Allison Cameron-House. She was smiling and holding the small, chubby hands of their one-year-old daughter, Isobel.
Lisa found herself watching the family intensely. She watched as Isobel, who was called Bellie by family friends, took a few steps and fell backwards onto her bottom. Cameron laughed, and set her back up to try again. House smiled.
Lisa was Bellie's godmother. She had been so shocked when House and Cameron had asked her that she had almost said no by mistake. She baby-sat for Bellie occasionally, as did James Wilson, her godfather.
She smiled to herself as she watched Bellie walk on unsteady legs to her father, who plucked her up and kissed her chubby cheeks, causing both Bellie and Cameron to laugh. House smiled again, and Lisa almost felt uncomfortable watching him, like she was watching something very private.
She kept watching them, watching Cameron pull a few toys out of a diaper bag and set them down for Bellie to play with, while she lay back with House. They reclined together, Cameron's head pillowed on his chest while he had an arm around her, fiddling absentmindedly with her long hair. Cameron kept a watchful eye on Bellie while conversing with her husband.
By now, Lisa was starting to feel really inappropriate, so she stood to leave. She shook her limbs, stretched quickly, and after glancing once more at House, Cameron and Bellie, she took off running home. For some reason, she felt really hopeful for the rest of the day.
---At the park---
"Watch out, Bellie!" Cameron called to her daughter, who was crawling towards a squirrel. The squirrel hoped away, and Bellie cried after it, but soon lost interest and returned to her toys.
"Isobel, come here." House called to his daughter, who looked at him in interest for a moment, before returning to her toy. "Isobel. Come here." He repeated, and this time she crawled over to him.
House sat up, as did Cameron, who started picking up the toys while House held his daughter up at arms length. Very gently, he threw her up, catching her after just a moment. She laughed and Cameron frowned.
"You know I hate it when you do that." She stated. Bellie laughed again as House threw her and caught her.
"Yes, well, Isobel seems to like it. I won't drop her, Mom, I promise." He finished, a bit of annoyance creeping into his voice. Cameron sighed in defeat. She returned to packing up Isobel's toys.
"We should probably go, if we want to run home and change before lunch." Cameron said. House set Isobel down and hopped up gently, cautious of his bad leg, before bending down and swinging Isobel to his hip.
"We don't really have to go, do we?" House whined as they walked (well, limped, in his case) back to the car. Cameron took Bellie and hooked her carefully into her car seat.
"Yes, we really do have to go. Your parents are only here for a few hours, and they haven't seen Bellie since April. They really do go on a lot of trips, don't they?" she added. House grimaced.
"Yeah, well, Dad's set away a lot of money, so why not waste it on pointless vacations."
"Oh, dear, but sometimes it's nice to go on vacations. Isn't it nice how they can go away for a while." She emphasized her point. House looked over at her.
"Dear, sweet Allison, you wouldn't be insinuating that you want a vacation, would you?" he questioned dryly. She laughed.
"I can't imagine where you would get that idea." She said lightly, and House smiled. "It would be nice, though." She added, watching as her husband rolled his eyes.
---Two days later---
Lisa Cuddy smiled as she looked down at the pregnancy test. It was positive.
Allison Cameron-House smiled at her husband, who limped into the kitchen and set an envelope on the counter in front of her. Curiously, she opened it, and shrieked with joy when she found three tickets to Paris inside. She hugged her husband enthusiastically, and whispered words of thanks into his ear. He smiled to himself as he held her, and from her high-chair, Isobel Jennifer House giggled at her parents.