A/N: Thanks for your reviews! And here's a present in return...take a deep breath!

--

Chloe had slept for a few hours in House's office again while he was in recovery. Wilson came to get her around six am, when House was back in ICU. He'd stayed with House through the early hours of the morning while Chloe slept and Cuddy went home. Once Chloe was there, Wilson left, assuring her he'd just catch a few hours of sleep and be back before lunch. Cuddy had also promised to return in the early morning, so Wilson felt better about leaving Chloe, knowing Cuddy wouldn't be far away.

Chloe felt bleary, not quite awake, and certainly not ready to deal with seeing House lying in bed surrounded by more medical equipment than she thought possible. The respirator helping him breathe while he was comatose sounded loud and raspy in the otherwise quiet room.

Once Wilson left she could feel herself trembling, her reaction almost like going into shock. With his eyes closed, the respirator equipment obscuring the lower half of his face, and his body sagging lifelessly in the bed, Chloe couldn't even be sure it was House. Her Greg.

She looked at his hands to reassure herself, knowing them almost as well as she knew her own. She pulled the chair right up to the bed and grasped one of his hands in both of hers. She leaned her forearms on the bed, resting her head on top. She could feel his fingertips tangled with her own against her cheek. She had no idea how long she stayed that way, not even moving when Cuddy arrived.

--

Around midday Wilson returned, bringing lunch for himself and both women. In the cafeteria, he'd had to fight through the usual crowd of Saturday visitors and the effort had made him grumpy and aware of his sleep deprivation. When he walked into House's room he made an effort to suppress his irritation, knowing that they all shared a lack of sleep.

Chloe had brought House's iPod from his office and Wilson couldn't help smiling at the incongruous sight of the white ear buds in his friend's ears.

"What's he listening to?" Wilson asked as he handed around sandwiches and coffee.

"I don't know," Chloe answered,. "I just put it on 'recently played' because I figured that was the safest bet."

She picked up the player and took a look at the screen.

"Mozart's Piano Concerto No 21 in C," she read with a little start of surprise, not expecting to find classical music.

Wilson nodded. "Nice choice."

They ate in silence for a while, Chloe surprising herself by managing to eat almost a whole sandwich.

After a while Cuddy rose.

"I'm going to take a break if that's okay," she asked Chloe, serious in asking for permission to leave. "I'll still be in the hospital – I'm just going to go to my office to catch up on a few things. I'll come back."

Chloe nodded and smiled weakly. She wished for a moment she could escape too. She wanted more than anything for this to never have happened. For it to be like any other Saturday. Wilson and House would be sitting on the sofa at home, yelling at some game on the television while Chloe tried to concentrate on work. She'd be annoyed by their interruptions to her concentration, as she usually was. But eventually the sound of their fun would drag her away from work and she'd join them for a beer. Oh, if only that could be today…

After Cuddy left, Wilson tried to talk to Chloe about the baby again. It had been on his mind all morning, and he was sure that if his body hadn't been so exhausted the thoughts would have kept him from sleeping.

"What did the doctor tell you about the pregnancy?" he asked. He felt like this was a conversation Chloe would be having with House if the situation were different. He'd meant his promise to House to look after her and believed that meant now as well as in the future if things went wrong. Surely she needed to talk to someone about what was going on?

Chloe bristled. She'd banished the whole thing from her mind for almost the whole morning and didn't need it back in her head now. Her focus had to be on Greg, not on anything else.

"Wilson, I don't really want to talk about it," she admitted.

"Why not?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Because it's not…" she sighed, wondering how to express herself. "It might not be a factor."

"What do you mean?" Wilson frowned.

"I mean that there are more important things to think about."

Wilson looked at her, astonished. Could she really be saying what he thought she was saying?

"You mean you're not going to…" he trailed off.

"I told you, I don't want to talk about it."

Chloe realised that Wilson had misunderstood her, but she didn't have the energy to correct him – in fact she didn't think she even had the words to explain herself. She just knew she couldn't allow herself to talk about it. Talking about it would make it real and would cause her to start becoming even more attached to the whole thing than she already was. There was still such a high probability she wouldn't keep the pregnancy. And even if she did, there was still the possibility that, assuming he was okay after all this, House would not want a child in their lives. On another day, in another world where he wasn't lying in ICU his life hanging by a thread, Chloe would have been angry and resentful about being forced to choose between him and a baby. But that was academic. This was the real world.

The close camaraderie that she and Wilson had shared to that point seemed to chill as Wilson turned away from her.

He was gob-smacked by her cold words and the unbelievable decision she had made. He knew it wasn't his place to argue with her, but he was honestly shattered by what she intended. Of course he knew his own personal feelings were influencing his thoughts, but he couldn't help thinking that it wouldn't be what House would want. They knew he'd accessed her medical records so they could be reasonably sure he hadn't just been delirious when he'd asked Wilson to look after "both of them".

"House asked for Stacy before he had the seizure," Wilson said suddenly. He was filled with a need to make Chloe feel bad, to injure her in some way for her decision. How could she throw away a chance to be connected to House forever? Wilson knew from hard experience that marriage vows meant little. But a child forced you to stay together, you couldn't leave once that happened. The thought gave Wilson a shock, and he suddenly questioned his real motivations for wanting a child.

Chloe's lips narrowed into a thin line.

"What?" she asked, hearing the sharp tone in her own voice.

Wilson already regretted saying it; he knew it had been unnecessarily cruel. He also knew it was not the way to get Chloe to reconsider her choice.

"He was delirious," he back-pedalled. "He probably didn't know what he was saying."

"Right," Chloe said, uncertainly. Why had Wilson told her that? And why had House asked for Stacy? She knew that he'd never quite resolved his feelings towards the other woman. He'd told Chloe that he loved her, and she believed him. But Chloe knew Stacy had been the love of his life. Was it Stacy that he wanted by his side through this? Chloe had a hard time reconciling that with what House had told her about Stacy's medical decisions for him last time. She didn't know what to think.

Chloe wondered – should she call Stacy and let her know what had happened? But she and House had no contact at all for a long time now, to Chloe's knowledge. But that thought made her start questioning herself – maybe he still was in touch with her? Maybe he needed her?

"Did Greg and Stacy keep in contact?" she asked Wilson hesitantly.

"I don't think so." Wilson searched desperately for something to change the subject. "Do you want to call his parents?" he asked.

Chloe thought about it. She knew House wasn't close with his parents, although they'd never really discussed it. She'd spoken to his mother on the phone a couple of times, but they'd never met; he hadn't met her parents either. Both of them were happy to live in their own little world where the disappointments of their respective families didn't intrude. This was different, though.

"I guess I should," Chloe said reluctantly.

"Or I can do it if you'd prefer," Wilson offered as an olive branch. He knew House had ensured that Chloe and his parents were kept as separate as possible.

Chloe nodded, still not meeting Wilson's eyes.

"Thanks, that would be good."

--

Wilson went to his office to make the call. House's mother was concerned and upset, but she'd confessed she'd recently had a fall and would find it hard to travel up to Princeton. His father could come, but he really needed to be there to take care of her. Wilson had reassured them that he would keep them up to date with regular calls.

He returned to House's room and updated Chloe.

Chloe took in the information without looking away from House. She had been staring at him, wondering how well she really knew him. What was going on in his brain right now? Was he thinking about Stacy? Was he thinking about her and their baby? If he knew about the pregnancy, why hadn't he said anything to her that morning?

Chloe had to admit she was glad she wouldn't be dealing with meeting House's parents for the first time on top of everything else.

Chloe and Wilson spent most of the rest of the afternoon in silence, not meeting each others eyes, the distance between them seeming unsurmountable. Chloe was tempted to try to explain herself, but she was determined that she didn't need his permission or forgiveness for anything. The only other person who really counted in this equation was House and he was unable to comment. And maybe he didn't even want her.

At that thought the shrill tone of her mobile emerged from her purse. She knew she shouldn't have it on, but when she saw the caller ID said it was her boss, calling her on a Saturday, she decided to take the call. She moved away from the bed, over to the door, as if that would mitigate any potential problems.

Wilson watched as she took a deep breath and answered, greeting her boss calmly and giving a thirty-second update on House's condition.

"That's okay, what do you need?" Chloe asked, obviously in response to a "sorry to bother you" type comment. Wilson could see her shoulders rise with tension.

She listened for a while, a frown crossing her face.

"The report is saved in the G drive. I finished updating it the other day. They should be able to proceed with the talks with that version. And then…"

He saw her grimace as the other person interrupted her.

She sighed.

"Right. Well they just need to tell Colin that he has to go through due process with that."

The other person talked at length and Chloe's posture became more and more defensive as she listened.

"What are they, idiots?" she asked, angrily. "Tell them to calm down. Tell them it won't be long. I'll be back in a few days. The world's not going to end."

Chloe finished the conversation abruptly, flipping her phone closed and almost throwing it back into her purse. She paced over to the window.

"Things not going so well at work?" Wilson asked cautiously.

"You could say that," Chloe muttered. In fact things were going extraordinarily badly. It wasn't necessarily that she was irreplaceable, but she'd been the main person involved in the negotiations right from the start. She had the background knowledge, the history and the best understanding of the personalities involved. Her absence was causing big problems for her office.

Chloe stared out the window for a while, jealous of the people down in the car park who seemed to just be going about their usual daily business. She'd told her boss that the world wasn't going to come to an end. But maybe hers was.

She looked back at House lying so inhumanly still. Normally when he slept there were still signs of that irrepressible mental energy – an eyebrow twitch, his lips moving with unspoken words. This body lying in the bed showed no signs of the soul that usually inhabited it. No matter what he felt about her, the baby, Stacy, all of it – Chloe loved him desperately and watching him lie there was torturous.

Chloe had a stressful job. And, even when things were good, her life with House could sometimes be a strain – if not because of House's words and actions, then because of his erratic schedule and the phone calls that came at any time of the day or night. She was used to living life at a level of stress that other people might not enjoy. But the call from work seemed to be the metaphorical straw on her back.

Suddenly, like a ghost from her past, she felt the stabbing pain in her abdomen. And then the walls of the room felt as if they were closing in. She'd known it was coming, had tried to prepare for it, but nothing from her previous experience could help her with it this time. The first time she hadn't known what was wrong. This time she knew what she was losing.

Wrapping her arms around her belly she bent over double and threw up on the floor.

"What is it?" Wilson asked, jumping up to help her.

Chloe struggled for breath, could feel herself growing sweaty with effort. The pain was eclipsed by her panic, she felt the most intense sense of dread, wondering if the dying baby was going to take her with it.

There was a lot of activity going on around her, but Chloe was oblivious, caught up in her struggle to breathe, the pain in her belly, the fear that clenched her entire body.

She felt herself being laid on the floor by a gentle pair of hands, wondering absently why she hadn't fainted yet. But then she felt it coming, the darkness encroaching.

I'm sorry, baby, she thought as she blacked out.