HI EVERYONE!

THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR WONDERFUL POSTS!! I RESPONDED TO ALL OF THEM.

HERE'S THE NEXT CHAPTER. IT'S LONG, BUT IT'S GOING TO GET US TO WHERE WE NEED TO BE.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS AND ENJOY!! :D

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!


CHAPTER 4: Please read and comment.

That Saturday evening, Wilson was standing in front of his full- length mirror in his bedroom, fumbling with his tie for the fifth time when he heard Sophie flush the toilet from down the hallway.

"Nauseous?" he asked her once she entered his bedroom.

She shook her head. Wilson could see that he looked tired and her complexion was decidedly pale.

"I had to pee," she told him wearily.

"Again?!" he asked, his eyebrows raised.

"I'm pregnant. Sue me," she muttered as she crawled onto his bed and lay down on her side, draping her arm over her eyes.

"That's like the tenth time in the last two hours," he pointed out.

She lifted her arm off her face to look at her brother.

"You're counting how many times I pee?" she asked, arching her eyebrow in suspicion.

"Are you drinking enough water?" he asked her, neatly sidestepping her question.

"Yes. Lose the tie," she replied.

Wilson looked back at his reflection. He was wearing a pair of black slacks, a powder blue dress shirt, and a two- tone diagonal light and dark striped blue tie.

"You sure?" he asked.

Sophie dragged herself out of Wilson's bed and crossed the room to him, ignoring the dull ache in her back.

"You're going on a date. Not to a board meeting," she told him as she loosened the tie and took it off him, chucking it onto the dresser.

"I don't even know why I'm doing this," he muttered as she opened up the top button on his shirt.

"Because she's hot and you like her," she said, unbuttoning the tiny buttons his collar and smoothing it out.

"We're going to a Brazilian restaurant downtown. I won't even know what to order," he pointed out.

"So she'll help you," she said with a weak lopsided grin.

She then reached up to the top of his head and mussed up his hair, knowing that he hated when she did that.

"Real mature," he teased.

She giggled slightly as he turned back to the mirror to smooth down his hair. He chuckled, realizing that he did look a lot less stuffy without the tie and with his top shirt button undone.

"Why are you so nervous?" she asked him.

"Because she's absolutely beautiful and she's way out of my league," he said, unbuttoning his shirt cuffs and rolling up his sleeves a bit.

"Apparently not, because she accepted a date with you," she pointed out.

Wilson turned to respond to Sophie's comment.

But as he did, he noticed that her eyes looked a little sunken in.

"Are you sure you're gonna be ok?" he asked worriedly, gently pulling down her lower eyelid to examine her eyes.

"I'll be fine," she told him in a dismissive tone.

"Maybe I shouldn't go—"

"You're GOING," she stated flatly.

Wilson hesitated, still scrutinizing her pallid appearance. He knew that he wasn't going to win this argument with her.

And the truth was that he really didn't want to cancel on Ingrid. He had been looking forward to their first date all week.

"I have my cell. If you don't feel good, call me," he instructed her.

"I'm not calling you while you're out on your first date with her," she said.

"What if you get dizzy again?"

"I have orange juice, and Chase isn't here for me to yell at him. I'll be fine. Now go have fun."

He gave her a half smile and kissed her on the cheek. She mussed up his hair once more for good measure and crawled back into his bed, reaching for the TV remote.

He laughed on his way out of the bedroom and raked his hand through the front of his hair a few times as he made his way to the front door.


At around the same time, House and Cuddy were playing Trivial Pursuit in their bedroom.

Cuddy was lying on her left side and House was lying on his right, facing her on the bed. The game board was situated on the bed in between them.

Wearing his reading glasses, House smirked when he skimmed the question from the Entertainment category that Cuddy was required to answer.

"What actress debuted in the 1930 film 'Intermezzo?'" House asked, knowing that she would have absolutely no idea what the answer is.

Cuddy shot him an incredulous look, lifting her hand and dropping it on the bed in exasperation.

"Who the hell would know that?!" she demanded.

House's smirk remained, waiting for her to take a guess.

"…Bette Davis?" she asked, rolling her eyes.

"Nope. It was Ingrid Bergman," he said without looking at the back of the card for the answer.

"You're making that up," she accused.

He placed the card on the bed face up, still not turning it over and slid it across the blanket to her.

She lifted the card, turned it over and saw the name "INGRID BERGMAN," printed on the other side.

"Fuck," she muttered.

"You know the rule. If the player asking the question knows the answer without looking—" House began.

"The other player has to lose an article of clothing," Cuddy mumbled.

House's smirk broadened, a devastatingly sexy look on his handsome features.

"Give it up," he told her.

Cuddy exhaled deeply, sat up slightly and peeled her t- shirt over her head and tossed it at his face, which House quickly threw on the floor to get a good look at her.

"Ohhhhhhh," he groaned at the sight of her.

Her voluptuous breasts were practically pouring over her full coverage red bra. Almost at twelve weeks in her pregnancy, Cuddy could no longer fit into her lacy bras and had splurged online on some more comfortable and less sexy ones.

But based on the way House was ogling her at the moment, she was happy with her purchase.

His eyes traced down her torso to her slightly swollen belly. Impulsively, he leaned across the game board to her and placed two delicate kisses on each breast and one on her abdomen.

Their eyes met in a rare intimate moment between them. As usual, she was completely caught off guard when his romantic side made an appearance, her breath catching in her throat.

"…If I didn't know any better, I'd think you looked through all the cards before we played the game," she said in a throaty alto.

House popped his eyebrows. "How do you know I didn't?"

Just then, House's cell phone rang on the night- stand. He grunted in disgust and reached over to grab it.

Cuddy was already thinking how to scheme House out of his pants as House's expression grew even more annoyed as he quickly flipped open his phone.

"Why are you calling me?" he practically barked.

"I'm on my way to pick up Ingrid," Wilson told him on the other end.

"You were supposed to turn your phone off when you left the apartment," House reminded him.

"… Sophie doesn't look so good," Wilson told him after a pause.

"Duh. That's the POINT," House shot back.

"She's urinated ten times in the last two hours and the nausea usually starts pretty soon. What if she dehydrates and she's by herself?" Wilson asked him worriedly.

"Chase'll know what to do," House assured him.

"And what if she doesn't call him?!" Wilson demanded.

"She will," House replied confidently.

"You made her work extra hours in the Clinic all week and she had Grand Rounds! Her BP's been very low—" Wilson argued.

"Which is why this is going to work," House stated.

Wilson pressed his lips together hard, feeling like he made a deal with the devil, as he usually did whenever he went along with any of House's ideas.

"…You'd better be right, House," Wilson finally said.

"I usually am," he reminded him.

"USUALLY," Wilson repeated with an edge to his voice.

"Relax. Go have fun on your date and try to get a massage WITH a happy ending this time," House told him, hanging up the phone before Wilson could get a word in edgewise.

"What did he say?" Cuddy asked.

"He asked me how to say 'I love your perfectly sculpted bountiful breasts' in Portuguese," House lied, picking up the dice to take his turn.

"He's worried about Sophie, isn't he?" Cuddy pressed.

"There's nothing to worry about," House said as he rolled the dice.

Cuddy kept a piercing stare on him, waiting for him to tell her the truth. House glanced up at her for a brief second before moving his game piece to the appropriate space on the board.

"…He said she's peeing a lot and that doesn't look so good," House mumbled.

"She can dehydrate if the vomiting is bad," Cuddy told him, her own worry growing at the thought.

"She's not stupid. She knows that she has to drink—" House began.

"She won't be ABLE to drink if she's nauseous! And if she tries to call Wilson and she can't reach him—" Cuddy interrupted.

"She'll call Chase and he'll come to her rescue," House explained simply.

"She's too STUBBORN to call Chase!!" Cuddy exclaimed.

Landing on a pink "Entertainment" space, House jutted his chin at her.

"Are you gonna ask me a question or what?" he asked.

"If she calls here, I'm sending an ambulance to Wilson's place," Cuddy declared, refusing to take the next trivia card out of the box.

"No you WON'T," House stated firmly, locking eyes with her.

She inhaled deeply through her nose, the all- too familiar feeling of dread coursing through her when she knew she had to go along with one of House's plans.

"You'd better be right," she told him gravely.

"I think bed rest is turning you into Wilson," he told her.

"I've got better cleavage than him," she quipped.

"Damn right," he told her.

At this, Cuddy laughed a bit and took out the next card, trying to convince herself that either Sophie would be completely fine while Wilson was gone or that Sophie would do exactly as House predicted she would.

Upon seeing the question on the card in front of her, she grinned broadly.

"'Who was The Girl With the Curl?'" Cuddy asked.

House's eyes widened, realizing he had no idea what the answer was.

Cuddy bit her lip, triumphant that she had House exactly where she wanted him.

"You know the answer, don't you," he stated.

"Mary Pickford," she said smugly, sliding the card over to him without turning it over.

House grabbed the card and flipped it over to see the answer.

"Crap," he stated.

"Your pants, Dr. House," Cuddy said, the smile never leaving her face.


A while later, Wilson and Ingrid were sitting across from each other at an intimate table at Beco, a Brazilian restaurant with a warm and comfortable atmosphere in downtown Princeton.

Ingrid had explained to him all of the choices on the menu and highly recommended the Feijoada, a savory black bean stew served buffet style. She had then guided him down the buffet line, instructing him to add rice and pork, along with sweet potatoes and a half of a peeled orange as side dishes.

Wilson had taken a few bites of his dinner and had found everything to be delicious.

But he was so worried about Sophie, that he had barely eaten much after that. He kept glancing at his cell phone, which was turned off.

"Is something wrong?" Ingrid asked him, after a particular lengthy silence between them at the table.

"…What?" Wilson asked, snapping out of his thoughts.

"Do you not like your Feijoada?" she asked.

Wilson smiled at her apologetically. She looked lovely in a cream colored sleeveless form fitting shift dress with a low scoop neck, thin straps and matching pumps. Her hair was elegantly pulled away from her face and vintage delicate earrings dangled from her ear lobes.

"No, it's great," he told her sincerely. "I'm just worried about my sister. She's pregnant, she just broke up with her fiancée and she's home by herself…" he began, trailing off.

Ingrid nodded her head, waiting for him to continue his thought.

"I'm sorry. It's a long story that I'm sure you don't want to hear," he said with slight embarrassment.

"I would not mind if you told me," she told him sincerely.

"…Can I ask you something?" he asked.

She nodded, a sweet smile on her face.

"You're an incredibly beautiful woman," he told her.

Her smile widened. "Thank you, but that is not a question," she pointed out.

"What I mean is… you're an incredibly beautiful woman… and I'm sure that men are constantly tripping over themselves to get close to you," he continued.

Ingrid could feel herself blush at his compliment.

"Why would you want to possibly want to go out with me?" he asked her plainly.

At this, she reached across the table for his hand, curling her fingers around his and rubbing the top of his hand with her thumb.

"Because you are sweet… and kind…" she said, taking a pause to meet his eyes with hers.

"And you have a boyish quality that I find very sexy," she added, her dark eyes glimmering.

Wilson's eyes widened tremendously at her candor, swallowing the lump that suddenly formed in his throat.

"I would like to get to know you better," she told him in a sexy tone.

"… I… would like that, too," he stammered.

As Ingrid continued to stroke his hand, he momentarily forgot about Sophie as he felt Ingrid's bare toes scoot up the hem of his slacks and tickle his leg underneath the table.


While Ingrid was making her move on Wilson, Sophie was hunched over the toilet, violently throwing up.

She had been in that position for almost an hour.

She leaned back heavily against the wall to catch her breath in large gasps, wiping her mouth with a nearby wet washcloth. Both her back and her stomach were hurting her tremendously, but she dismissed it as a combination of the position she had been in over the last hour and the nausea.

But when she managed to get to her feet and looked in the mirror, she realized nervously that she was wrong.

Her complexion was grey and her eyes were definitely sunken in.

She immediately pinched the skin on her forearm to see if it bounced back.

It didn't.

"…Oh shit," she whispered.

She shakily turned on the sink faucet, cupped her hands under the running water and brought it to her mouth, swallowing it.

Two seconds later, she gagged and vomited again, dropping back down to her knees.

As goosebumps formed all over her skin, she clumsily reached for her cell phone on the floor next to her and managed to press the speed dial for Wilson's number.

His phone went right to voicemail.

Realizing she had no other choice, she scrolled down her contacts to the one number that she swore to herself that she would never call.


A few moments later, Chase put down his Xbox console to answer his cell phone, which was resting next to him on the couch.

"This is Chase," he said into the phone, not bothering to look at the Caller ID.

"… Robbie…"

Chase froze at the weak and raspy familiar voice on the other end.

"… Sophie?!" he asked anxiously.

There was no answer.

"Sophie, what's wrong?!" he demanded, standing up from the couch, a sharp pain shooting through his ankle.

"… help me…" she whispered.

His heart racing, Chase dashed out of his apartment as quickly as he could, grabbing his keys from the coffee table near the front door forgetting his cane as he blocked out the persistent throbbing in his ankle.


A little over twenty minutes later, Chase and Sophie were in the Princeton Plainsboro ER.

Sophie was sitting up halfway on a hospital bed, an IV hooked up to her arm, while Dr. Jill Tarney, the OB/Gyn on call, had listened to the baby's heartbeat with a fetal Doppler and given her an ultrasound on Chase's orders.

"Everything's fine," Dr. Tarney assured them with a confident smile.

Chase breathed an audible sigh of relief. "Thank you," he told the doctor.

She printed out a copy of the ultrasound image for both of them, handing it to Chase.

"We're going to keep you here for a few hours. You should be ok to go home after that, but you need to increase your fluid intake and I'm scheduling you a checkup with Dr. Sobol for Monday," Tarney told her.

Sophie nodded in reply, still feeling a little weak, despite the fact that the color had returned to her face.

Chase thanked Dr. Tarney once more before she left them alone.

He gazed at Sophie contemplatively as he raised the orange juice box back up to her lips that the ER nurse had given to him when they had arrived.

"You're gonna have to start drinking a lot more. I can't follow you around the hospital with a juice box all day," he told her.

She took another sip from the straw and swallowed.

"How'd you get in to the apartment?" she asked him in a raspy voice.

Chase smiled with embarrassment.

"…Wilson gave me the key yesterday," he admitted.

"Of course he did," she mumbled.

"You're LUCKY he did," he scolded her, his eyes boring into her.

Sophie lowered her eyes away from him in embarrassment, her pride refusing to admit that Chase was right.

"Once they discharge you, we're going back to Wilson's place, we're getting some of your stuff and you're moving back into the condo with me," he told her in a soft, yet authoritative tone.

Upon hearing this, she looked at him in complete disbelief and weakly laughed in his face.

"That's funny," she said as sarcastically as she could.

"I found you unconscious on the bathroom floor, dehydrated. Wilson works late every night—" Chase said, refusing to back down.

"I can take care of myself," she interrupted.

"Apparently you can't," he said.

"I had to work longer than usual this week and I'm just having a rough first trimester. I'll be fine in a few weeks," she argued.

"What if you're not?" he demanded.

Sophie could tell by the serious expression on his face that he wasn't going to relent.

"The baby was ok this time. What about next time?" he added.

At that moment, she realized in total humiliation that she hadn't even thought about the baby inside her.

All she could think about was herself and that she had been too headstrong and stupid to ask Chase for help.

Knowing that she was completely ashamed of herself and that she was in no position to refuse him, Chase reached across the hospital bed for her hand.

"Stop being so stubborn and let me take care of you," he insisted.

Her mouth turned down, she stared at his hand on top of hers.

"…I'll make you a deal," she began softly.

"I'll move back in with you… if you stop taking the Ultram and go back to Dr. Eng for the LLLT treatments," she offered, finally meeting his eyes.

Chase only paused for a second before digging his cell phone out of his pocket, and scrolling through his contacts for Dr. Eng's cell number while Sophie watched his every move.

"… Yes, Dr. Eng? It's Dr. Chase," he said.

"…I know. I'm sorry to call you this late on your private number… but I'd like to rejoin the NYU LLLT Clinical trial…" Chase continued.

"…Thank you, and again I'm sorry to bother you," he repeated before hanging up and turning back to Sophie.

"Happy?" he asked her with a twisted smile.

"Yes," she told him, her lips turning up at the corners.

"Now gimme your phone," she added.

Chase furrowed his brow, bewildered, handing over his cell phone to her. She scrolled through his contacts until she found the one she wanted.


"So did it work?" House asked into his cell phone a few moments later, expecting to hear Chase's voice on the other end.

"Yeah, it did," Sophie replied.

House raised his eyebrows ever so slightly.

"Chase, whatever happened to your annoying British accent??" House asked in a mockingly innocent tone.

"He's Australian," Sophie corrected him, shooting Chase a sly, yet weak smile before she closed the phone.

Chase grinned back, rubbing her knee affectionately as he took his phone back from her with the other hand, impressed but not surprised that she had figured out that he, House and Wilson had all been plotting against her the entire time.

"We're not getting back together," she declared.

"I know," he said lightly, his eyes sparkling.

TBC…