A/N - Thanks for reading guys! Since this one's completely finished, I'll be posting it very quickly!

This is a collaboration, written by myself (i'mnotcrazy82), Muna16, and Haddicted.

Neither of us own House, though we all wish we did!

Chapter 2 - (Written by Muna16)

By the time Cuddy made it out of Rachel's room, with her daughter properly bathed and read to and tucked in, another hour and change had passed. As she closed the door softly, and headed out into the hall, she wondered if House had waited for her or if he had run away like a coward.

This had been the third time she had asked House to watch Rachel for her. She had asked him once at the hospital, the day she had to bring her in because was suffering from a nasty bout of the stomach flu. She remembered walking into her office after her budget meeting and finding Rachel screaming at the top of her lungs, uncapped marker in hand, yelling "gimme, gimme" to House, who was preventing her from reaching the Gameboy he was playing with. Her office, of course, had looked as if a tornado had spun through it.

A couple of weeks ago she had to work late to prepare for a Board meeting and she had asked him as she had tonight, to relieve Marina and stay with Rachel until she got home. She opened the door that night to find House asleep on her couch, looking completely beaten down, and to hear the muffled wails of her daughter, emanating from the playpen in the other end of the house, behind two closed doors. He had done the best he could, he assured her, but she wouldn't stop crying, and he had really needed a break.

And here it was - his third time at bat. A third strike.

She walked down the hall, still in her work clothes, though she had lost her shoes and jacket along the way, and made it to her room. She found the bed made and no sign of House. The bathroom light was off, she noted, so he wasn't soaking in her tub. She headed back out towards the living room, and found him, predictably disheveled, half lying on her couch, with his left leg stretched out on the sofa and the right leg bent over with his foot firmly planted on the floor. His hand was resting on his right thigh. She could tell by his position and by the grimace on his butchered, sleeping face that he was in real pain.

She took a deep breath and peeked past the dining room and to the kitchen. The bstard hadn't cleaned any of the mess up. She looked back at House and cursed herself for believing he could have handled Rachel for her tonight. She picked up his left leg gently, and threw herself down on the couch under it, startling him out of his makeshift slumber.

"Hey," he complained, mumbling, opening one eye slightly, just enough to judge how mad she really was. She slipped his left shoe off, trying to think how many times in the past month she had asked him to keep his shoes off of her furniture. House leaned up a bit, realizing by the way that she tossed his shoe to the floor that he had messed up yet again.

"Truce?" he asked, sitting up on the couch and leaning towards the end table behind him to grab the bottle of red wine he had waiting for her.

Cuddy smiled faintly at the gesture. At least he thought of the wine, she pondered, even if she would trade all of the wine in the world if he would just make an effort to get along with Rachel.

"Truce," she responded as she started to rub his left foot softly while he uncorked the bottle and served each of them a glass.

"To us," he toasted, leaning in for a kiss.

Cuddy gave him a quick kiss and proceeded to drink the wine. "The thing is, House," she began, leaning back into the soft couch, "that us is three of us."

"I know," he grumbled, "I have the spaghetti sauce burns on my face to prove it."

"How's your leg?" she asked, still rubbing his left foot with her left hand, sipping the Merlot with her right, with her eyes planted on the spot behind his jeans that harbored the scar and missing leg muscle.

"Hurts," he said, remembering to try his best to be honest, even if he didn't want the attention or the pity. "But I'll live."

Cuddy turned her eyes towards him. She was literally exhausted, physically on the verge of collapse, and emotionally on the verge of a breakdown. She had spent so much time in this month they had been together trying to calm his fears, attempting to eliminate his worry, hoping to prevent him from relying his usual self-destruction when things are going well for him, that she had done little to take care of herself. And she was paying for it.

"I'll go draw you a hot bath," she said, putting her glass down and bringing House's left leg to the floor.

"No," he said, understanding her exhaustion and above all her disappointment. Before she could get up he had reversed positions with her as he brought her bare feet up to his lap and started to rub them. She looked at him gratefully and picked up her glass again. She was just starting to relax when House said simply, "She hates me."

"She doesn't hate you, House," Cuddy chuckled. "She's 23 months old. She doesn't hate anything except broccoli."

He continued to work on her feet. "I want this to work, I keep hoping this time it will be different with the kid, but it always ends the same - she's screaming, my head is pounding, and you come in with that sad look of disillusion," he said matter-of-factly.

"I'm not disillusioned," Cuddy protested. "You are confusing pissed off with disillusion again."

House sighed. "It wasn't that long ago you are all about 'we're uncommon' and 'I've never been happier' and even then I knew it was a matter of time before the other shoe fell. I just didn't realize it would be toddler-sized."

Cuddy pulled her feet off of him and wrapped them under her legs, sitting even more comfortably on the couch. She picked up House's nearly untouched glass of wine and handed it to him. "So that's it? You are going to let a little girl destroy what has taken us over 20 years to begin to build?"

"She probably took to Lucas right away," he pouted.

"You are right, she did," Cuddy challenged. "But she was younger, not even one yet, and he wanted to get along with her."

"I want to get along with her."

"You may want to, but you don't expect to," Cuddy clarified. "And while you don't expect to, she won't allow it. You have to want this House," Cuddy insisted softly, touching his face, outlining his wrinkles with her fingers. "She needs to feel that you want this, that she is not just a nuisance to you, even if she is."

House brought his hand to hers and held it, their fingers lacing together perfectly. They sat there in silence, digesting the evening, both of them trying to figure out where to go from here. Yes, the kid was a nuisance. That is exactly what she was. But her mother adored her, and he adored her mother, so, he was going to have to find some way to like the kid, and even harder, for the kid to like him.

"It's only been a month, House," she said softly. "We are starting to figure out how to work together at the hospital. We can figure this out too."

She leaned into his face and kissed him softly, parting his lips with her tongue, letting him know she was not anywhere near giving up on him. As he started to return the kiss and forget about the throbbing pain in his leg which had now been replaced with a pleasing kind of throbbing in his lap, she pulled back.

"First, you are helping me with the kitchen," she said with confidence.

House rolled his eyes and silently cursed the kid for making such a mess and getting in the way of Little Greg's plans.