She pulled away from his lips, surprised. She stepped away from him and began to dry her eyes. "Do you kiss all your patients?" Her tone was questioning, serious. She wanted him to tell her that she was special, more than a charity case or clinical obsession.
"Only the hot hospital administrators." He waggled his eyebrows. She rolled her eyes. Lisa knew that she shouldn't expect the validation she so wanted from him. He sat back down on her couch and took out a prescription pad. "I'm going to write you a prescription for vitamins. Because at your age—well, you know the risks. I scheduled a room for you for an ultrasound on Friday, 6:00pm., before you leave. I will oversee your prenatal care through the first trimester, and then you need to get an OBGYN. If you're going to stay at Princeton, I think you should go with Kohl."
He handed her the prescription for the prenatal vitamins. She sat on the couch next to him. "You made an appointment?" Her voice in space, not directed at him.
"I knew you were pregnant." He said, his voice was airy, a whisper, "I felt it."
He took out a pocket notepad. "Parent history" He said.
"Let's see…mother, Lisa Cuddy." He wrote as he talked aloud. "Father…the Holy Spirit." He looked at her, no response. He waved his hand in her face, "Cuddles?"
"Huh?" She asked, confused. Her hand went to her stomach. A smile appeared on her countenance for the first time. "We did it."
"Yes." He said, staring at her with concern. "History. Cuddy?"
"Oh."
"Any history of miscarriage, pre-term labor, preeclampsia, diabetes, anemia, heart condition, bacterial infections? Parents still alive? I need to know everything."
"My parents are living." She said, "My father has hypertension and high cholesterol. My mother has osteoporosis and arthritis. But, there are basically healthy. Your parents?"
"My mother had breast cancer in her forties, but she survived. My father is unfortunately going to outlive me."
She smiled. "Are..." she started. "Are you going to tell your parents that the baby…"
"No." He shook his head. "We tell everyone it's a sperm donor. Wilson will figure out that it's mine. But nobody else knows." She fell back into the couch, slouching. She looked disappointed. "We both have reputations to protect. If the board found out…" He continued.
"I understand," she answered.
He continued to write down their history. "I have a history of infarction. You have a giant ass chromosome. Do you have anything else?"
"Corrective lenses?" She offered. She was 100 percent healthy, except for her reproductive system.
"And, on to the hard pregnancy history questions… is this pregnancy your first?"
"No."
"Dr. Cuddy, you minx. Was it a college affair?" He winked at her. She remained silent. He put his hand on her knee. "Oh, god. It wasn't mine, was it?"
"No."
"Did you carry to term?"
"No. Miscarriage." Her voice was soft.
"How old were you when you miscarried?"
"Forty" she answered.
He looked up from his pad. "Last year? During the IVF. You didn't say anything." His face was sad, accusatory. He wished she had confided in him.
"How was I supposed to tell you, House? Remember Tritter, you pretending to detox. It was a little hard. And, you were so… unapproachable." His face reddened. He remembered his words about calling her an awful mother. That must have been sometime after her miscarriage. He shifted his body on the couch.
"You kept saying you weren't pregnant." He put his hand on her shoulder.
"I was." She said. Lisa shrugged his hand off her. "I carried almost to the third month."
"Where did you lose the baby?"
"At home. Here." She pointed to the couch. The memories of herself spread out, her uterus contracting in pain. Screaming alone. Holding the arm of the chair for support. Red blood clotting against a white towel, the fetus was the size of her thumb.
"Cuddy." He rubbed his knuckles on her check.
"Stop." She said.
"You should have called me." He said, "I could have…"
"You couldn't do anything." She stood then, walking toward the kitchen.
She heard him talking loudly from the other room, "Did you call an OBGYN? Did you find out the reason?
"No."
'What did you do, Cuddy?" He was screaming now.
"I stayed home!" She yelled back. "I'm a doctor. I knew what was happening. I started spotting at work, and I left early… and…"
"You should have stayed at the hospital." He voice was hard, biting.
"House!" She stamped her foot out of frustration.
His eyes were intense. Focused on her. He sat in her kitchen chair. "They could have made you…comfortable."
"Sometimes people want to be in pain." She said.
"No. They don't."
"I killed that baby!"
"What?" He looked at her in disbelief. He grabbed her hand, and pulled her beside him. "I'm pretty sure you did not cause a miscarriage, Cuddy. That far into a pregnancy." His eyes lit up then. His mind fired off possibilities. "It may have been cervical incompetence? Could have
been early preeclampsia? We can treat those things medically. Maybe you will need a cerclage? IV sodium bicarbonate? You won't miscarry," he said. He voice was confident, exact.
She stood above him and wrapped her arms around his head pulling him into her abdomen. He resisted her hug and continued to prescribe. "You'll need bed rest. Low levels of stress, definitely. You'll have to leave work at five months, at least. We can hire you a stay at home aide."
"I'm not leaving work." She said, letting go of his head.
"You trust me?" He said. "You told Emma Sloan that if you could pick anyone that you trusted to save your baby it would be me."
"How…how did you remember that?"
"What I say goes." His voice sounded final. He stood and limped to her kitchen door. He went to leave, but said, "You're not losing this baby." He closed the door behind him and Cuddy was left alone in her kitchen to think about House's unpredictable role in her pregnancy.
