Cuddy sighed and focused her attention on the road. House's head lolled back into the seat and with in minutes his breathing evened out and Cuddy could tell that he had fallen asleep again. Thank God for that. She thought to herself. However the short period of silence was soon interrupted by another voice.

"Momma?" a small voice permeated the silence.

House's eyes shot open and darted his head quickly to the back seat. The sudden movement caused blood to rush to the front of his head and a short spout of dizziness accompanied it, as he squeezed his eyes shut. Apparently the drugs hadn't fully worn off yet.

"Mommy's here, baby" Cuddy soothed, reaching into the back of the car with her free arm and stroking the child's foot.

Casting a glance to House she took in the mixed look that was etched on his face, it was somewhere between surprised and disgust. "What? You didn't expect me to leave her on her own, did you?" Cuddy said. House turned once again to look into the back seat, taking in the image of the cute brunette infant that was squished into a far too expensively fancy pink child seat. She looked adorable. It was disgusting.

"Of course not. It's not like she's ever been away from momma bear for more than a minute, right? Oh wait…" House stated sarcastically, drawing his face into a thinking pose. Rachel spent almost 75% of her time with her nanny, whilst Cuddy looked after her other baby - the hospital. Why on earth did she have to drag Rachel with them now? It was bad enough he was being dragged to this funeral, to have spend it with Rachel dribbling everywhere was going to make things 1000x worse.

Cuddy's patience was starting to wear thin, the man had only been awake for just over 10 minutes and he was already criticizing her parenting techniques.

She rolled her eyes in frustration "House, be a good boy and shut up." He pulled a face in response to her remark, although she wasn't aware of it herself she heard Rachel's giggling. Cuddy suddenly moved to the right, keeping one hand steadily on the steering wheel and leaned down, her right shoulder hovering above House's crotch, as she reached into his footwell.

"Woah there partypants! As much as I would love for you to stay down there, aren't you supposed to be able to, I don't know, see while you're driving?"

Cuddy grinned and sat up, pulling out a her bag from under House's feet. She placed it on his lap, deliberately angling it so I landed on his left side.

"There's some juice bottles and rusks in there. Give 'em to Rach please" she said as she pulled into the fast lane.

House opened the bag, intrigued about the mention of food, though his interest was suddenly halted with a groan as he noticed all the baby crap that it was filled with. Rummaging through the bag for a second he pulled out the snack and gave it to Rachel, making eye contact for the first time.

"Tah" Rachel whispered.

"No, Rachel" Cuddy intervened. "We say thank you, not 'tah'. Say thank you, sweetie"

Rachel looked up into Houses' cold eyes. The man was scary and had a scratchy voice, as well as a big wooden stick that he pulled around with him.

"Fank ew" she whispered, not entirely trusting the man, as she quickly grabbed the snack from him.

House also popped a rusk into his mouth and leaned back into his seat.

"This is stupid Cuddy, turn around" he said in a mumble, his voice low.

"House we've been over this, your mother needs you right now… no matter what you may have been through he was still your father. You need to pay your respects"

House laughed, a full bellied laugh that was loud and short. Rachel flinched in the back as she heard the sound erupt in front of her.

"Cuddy there are two main things wrong with that sentence. The first, he was actually my father. The second thing wrong is that word you used….re…re….respect?.." he chuckled, shaking his head and looking out of the window, he didn't want to let her see the amount of hate burning in his eyes. "I will never respect that man."

Cuddy was stunned in to silence. She knew from Wilson's gossip that House and his father had a strained relationship, but to be this apathetic so close to his death?

"He's your father" she emphasised the word.

"No he's not." House mumbled, his voice muffled by his hand.

"What?"

House shook his head. "Nothing. I just want to go back."

"Well tough. I promised Wilson who promised your mother that you will be there." Cuddy said forcefully, not taking her eyes off the road. "Look, House" her voice softened. "I know you don't want to be here, I know this has got to be hard, and I know that somehow, you are grieving. Just please stick this through, for your mom if no one else."

House tapped the cane between his legs on the floor and looked at Rachel in the back seat through the rear view mirror; she had fallen asleep.

"My dad.. he was all about control. He liked things the way he liked them. He believed in discipline."

Cuddy turned to face him, surprised at the small omission. House continued to stare out the window, fixating his vision on the passing trees.

"He was right, I suppose. I hardly ever screwed up when he was around. Too scared of... being forced to sleep in the yard or take a bath in ice"

Inhaling sharply, Cuddy forced herself to keep her composure. House actually admitting stuff was a rare occurrence, and she really didn't want to screw this up.

"House.." she said softly, her hand reaching over to his left thigh and giving it a slight squeeze.

"It doesn't matter" he said quickly. Slipping back into his shell. "I didn't like the man. He certainly did not like me. I'll do this for my mom, but that's it. One hour."

"One hour?" Cuddy questioned

"I'll stay at the funeral for one hour tops. Then I'm leaving"

"Okay" she said simply. Happy with the fact that he'd agreed to actually go to the damn thing.

They both fell into a comfortable silence, House leaned his head against the window and tried to catch some more sleep. He was still slightly fuzzy from the sedative and that combined with his little admission was giving him a headache.

Thirty minutes later Cuddy yawned and looked at her two passengers, both were sleeping soundly. Why was she doing this? She'd never met House's mother, so why was she so adamant that she'd make sure that his mom's only son attended his father's funeral. Cuddy really couldn't think of a rational answer. She was his boss, strictly professional. This was personal. Sure, she'd known him for 20 years, and been there through some of the toughest periods of his life. But to uproot herself and her daughter from work and their home.. well there really was no rational explanation as to why she'd do that for House.. for his mom. It was just the right thing to do, and Lisa Cuddy had always done the right thing, right?

Running her hand through the mess of curls on her head she exhaled deeply, the over-thinking and long drive was starting to catch up with her. Checking the sat nav for an estimated time of arrival she debated pulling over into a rest stop.

'ETA – 42 MINUTES' flashed up on the screen and she gave a small sigh of relief. Not long left. There was no time to waste, if she really stepped on it she could make it to Lexington before the two passengers woke up and started fussing. Pulling one of Rachel's travel blankets out of the baby bag, she draped it across House's legs and pushed down on the accelerator.

They had a funeral to get to.


Hope you enjoyed it!

~ Stephanie & Hollie

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