A/N: Sorry for the delay in updating guys. School has been kicking my butt. Now that things are starting to lighten up, hopefully the next chapter will come a little faster! In the meantime, thanks SO MUCH for taking the time to read and review. You guys are the best!
House
Dear God. Gaping at the mountains of pink lace thrown across his living room in disbelief, House decided he must have died. Clearly, this was what Hell looked like.
"Greg!" His mom beamed up at him over the top of the frilly pink dress she held in her hands. "I thought you weren't coming home tonight."
"Yeah, well, if I'd known what I was coming home to I'd have slept in my office," he grumbled, poking his way across the living room and using his cane to spear a pile of shopping bags off his chair. "What the hell happened here?"
"Your mom took me shopping." Cameron grinned cheerfully, holding up a pair of stuffed pink bunnies. "I figured we could put this one on your bed. That way you and the baby could each have a lovey."
House glowered at her, but couldn't help the quick quirk of his mouth when she waggled the rabbit at him. They shared a look that said as clear as day that his mom had gone overboard, and they both knew it. The difference was, while he was more than happy to say something about it (and return half this crap so it'd stop clogging up his living room) she was clearly thrilled.
He suddenly realized he had no idea how her parents had reacted when she'd told them about the baby. He'd have to ask her about it later. For now though, it was nice to sit there and share the moment with her, like they were any other couple smiling at an over-indulgent grandmother.
Almost as nice as it had been to kiss her earlier. Unconsciously reaching up to rub his fingers across his lips, he watched her eyes darken before she looked away and knew both of them were remembering what had happened.
He wondered if they'd talk about it this time, or if it would just be one more moment between him and Cameron he'd have to pretend to forget.
He wasn't sure what had possessed him to do what he did. Not being able to keep his hands off Cameron had been what got them into this mess in the first place. It would just make a hash out of what was already a difficult situation. That didn't stop the dark corners of his mind from rapidly flipping through and discarding a thousand scenarios in which he got rid of his mom so he could do it again.
Watching her there on his couch, one leg tucked underneath her while she laughed with his mother, he felt strangely…content. With a jolt, he realized he liked seeing her here, in his house, talking and laughing with his mother like she belonged. He, who made a point of not sharing his living space with anyone, ever, was trying to figure out how he could keep her under his roof a little longer. Normally, that kind of thinking would have him breaking out in a cold sweat and showing her the door. The fact that he didn't want to was…concerning.
His thoughts were interrupted by a sharp clap of thunder from outside, followed almost immediately by the sound of rain beating against the side of the house. A few seconds later, the lights went out.
"Shit," he grumbled, fumbling around for his cane so he could get the flashlights from the kitchen. Cameron beat him to it, ducking around the room with an ease born of familiarity to open the drawer and pull three of them out. Flicking one on, she pointed it at him and grinned.
"Get your hands above your head," she said in her best old school cop voice, making his mom laugh with delight.
"Oh goodness, you sound just like Dirty Harry."
"I love that movie." Cameron winked at her, passing her a flashlight before ducking around the couch to offer one to House. "My brother and I used to watch it constantly."
"Funny, I pictured you as more of the Disney princess type. What?" House asked innocently when Cameron turned and glared at him. "All I'm saying is, I could totally see you all spinning and sparkley. Admit it," he added when he saw the gleam in her eye. "You dressed up as Cinderella at least once, didn't you?"
"Oh, maybe. Once or twice. Then I found out it was more fun being Wonder Woman." Cameron smiled, then stretched with a yawn. "And on that note, I should get going." She looked out the window and sighed. "If I wait too much longer, the roads are going to be flooded and I'll never get back to Wilson's."
"They're flooded now," he said gruffly, immediately rejecting the idea of her driving home before his mother had a chance to. "You're not driving in this. Text Wilson, tell him you're staying here."
Her forehead wrinkled up the way it did when she was trying to think of a reason to argue with him. House knew she wouldn't find one. The roads would be clear and beautiful in the morning, but in the meantime driving in these flash rains was a one way ticket to the emergency room. Which Cameron had worked there long enough to know.
Sure enough, she nodded. "You're right. Thanks." Looking around the living room, her face lit up with a grin. "It's been years since I crashed on your couch. Hope it's still as comfy as I remember."
House stared at her blankly, trying to figure out what the hell she was talking about, then barked out a short laugh. Right. The night he'd been withdrawing, and he'd called his whole team over to his house to work on their diagnosis because he couldn't get out of the bathroom. Chase and Foreman had gone back to the hospital to be with their patient. He'd forgotten Cameron had stayed-supposedly because she was too tired to drive back, but he knew she'd done it so she could be there in case he needed someone.
She'd been gone when he'd dragged himself out of bed the next morning. At the time, he'd thought it was pathetic. Sweet, but pathetic. Looking back, he realized he really should have thanked her for that.
Looking at the couch, House weighed his options. He tried to remember that he didn't have a chivalrous bone in his body. He tried to remember that his leg was going to ache like a bastard if he slept out here, and that Cameron had always managed to sleep anywhere. It didn't work.
"You're not sleeping out here. With that stomach, gravity would pull you overboard, and you'd spend the whole night stuck on the floor like a turtle. Take the bed." He nodded back toward his bedroom. "Mom did my laundry this morning, so you've actually got clean sheets. I'll sleep out here."
"I can't take your bed," she said with a laugh and a roll of her eyes. "You'd never be able to get up tomorrow."
"Well, then you can drag me out the door," he said dryly. "Although we're not working tomorrow, which means if you wake me up I'll have to assume you're propositioning me for sex."
He remembered two seconds too late that his mother was sitting there right next to him. He reminded himself she'd certainly heard him say worse, but that didn't stop a hot blush from creeping up the back of his neck when she arched her eyebrows and said, "Now that you two have that worked out, I'm headed to bed."
Tucking the dress in her hands back into a bag by Cameron's feet, she bent down and gave Cameron a hug. "Thank you for a lovely evening, my dear. I'll see you in the morning." Turning around, she kissed him on the cheek. "Goodnight Greg."
When she was gone, he and Cameron stood staring awkwardly at each other.
"I can…"
"We should…"
They both paused, then laughed. Cameron waved her hand. "You first."
"I was going to say, we should probably call it a night. I need my beauty sleep, and mom gets up early." House rolled his eyes. "Like, really early. Disgustingly early."
"Considering you think anything before ten is disgustingly early, I'm not worried." Cameron grinned, reaching down to pack the rest of the loose items in the bags by her feet. "And yes, I'll make sure these are out of the way so you don't fall on your face in the middle of the night."
He grunted, pushing to his feet and hobbling to his bedroom for his pajama pants and the spare blanket he always kept stuffed in a corner. Unsurprisingly, it was clean, folded and neatly lying on the foot of his bed. Scooping it up, he paused and stared at his bed, picturing Cameron tucked up in it. Before he could talk himself out of it, he pulled down the covers and gave the pillows a quick fluff. Just to make sure they weren't getting flat, he assured himself. Not because he was concerned about Cameron being comfortable.
"There's an extra toothbrush in the medicine cabinet," he grumbled when he came back out to the living room, tossing his pills on the coffee table and the blanket on the couch. "I tossed a t-shirt on the bed if you want it. Sleep naked if you don't, doesn't matter to me. Need anything else, find it yourself. I seem to remember you were pretty good at snooping around."
"Just like you taught me," she shot back. Both of them knew it wasn't an insult. "Anyway, good night."
"Night." He slouched down on the couch, pulling the blanket over his head when she flicked off the light.
Four hours later, he was still tossing and turning, and had just about reached the point of giving up on going to sleep when soft footsteps padded down his hall. He froze, ears straining in the darkness to pick up the unfamiliar sound. A minute later the fridge opened, then closed. He heard the sound of someone pouring a drink, then the fridge opened and closed again.
A few seconds later, he felt a light shove on his shoulder.
"I know you're not sleeping, so don't even try to fake it." Hands pulled the blanket off of his head, and the sight in front of him left him feeling like he'd been kicked in the stomach. Cameron had taken him up on his offer of a t-shirt, stretched snugly over her pregnant stomach and riding high on legs that were obviously bare underneath. Her blonde hair hung loose and curly over her shoulders. She looked like she'd just rolled out of bed.
Out of his bed.
"This is ridiculous," she told him. "Neither one of us is getting any sleep with you tossing and turning out here." She hesitated, then said, "Since you're obviously stuck on being a gentleman for god knows what reason, that bed is plenty big enough for the two of us. You stay on your side, I'll stay on mine, and maybe both of us will manage to get some sleep tonight."
He wanted to argue with her, but he was exhausted, and the idea of getting to stretch out in his own bed was too tempting to resist. They were both tired, it's not like anything was going to happen, right? Mutely, he followed her down the hall, flopping on the bed and smiling when she fussed with the pillows and blankets before settling in. It felt…astonishingly normal, even nice, to share a bed with someone. He hadn't slept with someone, just slept, since Stacy, and it didn't take long for the soft puffs of her breathing to lull him into a comfortable sleep.
When he woke up again a few hours later to find her spooned up against him, his shirt riding high and his hand resting against the warm expanse of her pregnant stomach, he wasn't surprised. He'd always known Cameron was a born snuggler. She was just squishy that way.
What did surprise him was how much he wanted to have her there, to press his lips against the warm curve of her neck and pull up his shirt and remember everything he'd forgotten about the night that led them both here. It would have been a bad idea-she was going to freak out enough if she woke up like that, after all her talk about each of them staying on their own side of the bed.
He started to slide his arm back, intending to roll over and go start some coffee before she woke up. Then he felt a soft bump against his palm. Intrigued, he slipped his hand a few inches to the left, pushing gently against her stomach and grinning when he felt the baby move, kicking back against his palm. Curious, he moved his hand around her stomach to see if he could get the baby to follow him.
"Pretty sure that's not a bouncy toy," grumbled Cameron without moving. "She does plenty of kicking without you encouraging her." But she didn't push his hand away from where it rested on what he was pretty sure, after a little bit of probing, was actually the baby's head. He felt her sigh, and was surprised when her next words were, "I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?"
"For everything. I screwed up with you," she said softly, shifting slightly so she could snuggle against him. "You were right, that night in the restaurant, when you said I was trying to get you to be someone you weren't. I was young, and I had all these romantic dreams. I wanted you to be this romantic guy underneath, so I could justify to everyone else why I was so hung up on you. But the truth is, that wasn't the guy I fell for at all." She laughed softly, reaching down and wrapping her fingers around his so they were joined overtop of the baby they'd made. "I had a great time, that night we went to see Gravedigger," she admitted. "I should have said yes to paintball. Then maybe…"
Her voice trailed off, but he heard what she didn't say. Then maybe they wouldn't be here, now. Maybe they would have gone out again. Maybe she wouldn't have married Chase. Maybe things wouldn't be all screwed up.
"It wouldn't have mattered." Somehow, here in the dim light of morning, the confession came easily to him when he would have struggled any other time. "You were right when you said I was too screwed up to love anybody. I was never going to be that guy. Sooner or later, you would have walked anyway."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah," he said softly, bending his head down so he could press his lips into her hair while he felt the truth of his next words right down to his bones. "I do."
She rolled over onto her back, tipping her head to the side so she could see his face without letting go of his hand. "House…" She paused, and he figured for sure she was going to push him away. He wanted her to. Needed her to, because right now, with her wrapped in his arms and their daughter kicking merrily under his hand, he wasn't sure he could do it. And he needed to do it.
Then Cameron reached up and ran her hand along the side of his cheek, pulling him closer, and he gave up thinking about what he should do. He wanted to kiss Cameron, had wanted to do it since the first time she sat in his office all those years ago. Wanting to kiss her had been an ache in his gut since the day she'd pulled him in when she thought he was dying, and it had only gotten worse since that night in the snow. So when her eyes floated closed and she tipped her chin up, he didn't think about anything other than how nice it was to feel her lips under his.
She was the one who broke the kiss, her hand still pressed against his skin, and the smile on her face was dreamy when she opened her eyes and blinked up at him.
"So," she said lightly, "now that I'm up, you got any coffee?"
