II. SIX MINUTES

Two weeks later

The phone rang. And House turned around in his sheets, put the pillow over his head and let it ring. Until he noticed the urge it was ringing with. So he picked up.

"They're eight minutes apart."

House froze. A mixture of insane calmness and panic rose inside him.

"House?" Her voice sounded annoyed and concerned at the same time when there was no answer coming from him.

"Where are you?" He suddenly was wide awake.

"I'm on my way to the hospital."

"What, you're driving yourself?" He instantly realized how stupid that question was.

"Right. I'm driving. While trying to live through the worst pain in my life. And while talking on the phone. - I've made it this far, I sure don't wanna kill that kid now that we've reached the finals. Though the pain it's been giving me would account for a motive."

House smirked. She sure was in pain, and she was raging.

Then the nervousness kicked in again.

"House, I need you to be there", she suddenly stated in a tone that made it clear that she wouldn't accept any excuses.

"Are you nuts? I am not going to watch this baby boeing crashland into your island of lust. It'll be a total mess", he whined fakingly, hoping the humor would serve as an inappropriate masquerade for his nervousness.

"Be. There." She hung up.

And he knew she meant it.

Ever since that moment two weeks ago she had left him alone. No questions asked, she had just accepted that he needed his space. Maybe because she had needed it, too. After they had spent six months in this relationship with a lot of fights, lots and lots of make-up sex and quite a few hysterical visits to the OB/Gyn in the middle of the night they had thought that they had made it, that they had finally managed to stay in this relationship, that was even somewhat healthy and mature.
But there had been too much harmony. And House blamed her for it. Because she had lost interest in fights with him. She had been preoccupied with baby showers, decorating the room, finding good preschools and all the other things that had nothing to do with him but way too much to do with this child. He should have known that this kid was going to consume his life, it had already caused a great deal of trouble when it had just been a lump of cells.

So in a way he had been okay with this break from her. For a while he could pretend that all this was not concerning him at all, that this wasn't his child, not his life and not the love of his life either.

But somehow it then had turned into a distant silence between them and they had lost their connection. Up to a point when he doubted that they had ever been able to connect at all. When he had realized, that after all, they were two kamikaze pilots steering their planes into the shabby constructions they called a life. They were not meant to share these lives, neither were they meant to have a child, or to be happy.
Nevertheless, she was having his child now. And she seemed revoltingly happy.
Without him.
Because she didn't need him. She had not even wanted him to be part of all this to begin with.

But she had called him now.

He jumped out of his bed and got ready to head for the hospital.

* * *

Hours later

The door flew open and he stood in its frame with a glint in his eye that somehow made him look intimidating.
Cuddy lay in her bed, holding the baby in her arms, looking exhausted, her curls sticking to her wet skin, her eyes red, her face pale. The doctor was still stitching and cleaning up the mess between her legs and House raised a hand not to see what that baby had done to his favorite place. It would keep him from loving that child forever. That child that was now resting in its mother's arms.
His eyes kept flicking back and forth between all the blood on the sheets and Cuddy holding his daughter in her arms.

It looked as contradicting and confusing as he felt about all this.
And only slowly did it reach his mind that he had come too late.

On his way to the hospital he had seen that there was really nothing he could have done to help her go through the birth of their child, that this was simply not what they were. So he had spent hours driving around, hanging out at some shabby diner by the road, drinking too much and finally getting her some flowers that he then dumped at the hospital entrance.
Flowers? Seriously? Who was he trying to fool about what they were? But what were they?

Cuddy's face lit up when she saw him.

"You're six minutes late", she whispered sweetly.

And his heart stopped when the picture reached his mind along with the softness in her voice.

A feeling he had been having for the past two weeks finally consolidated at the sight of the happy glow on her face. She was filled with so much joy that her feelings towards him had changed. Instead of constantly fighting him – the best foreplay in his opinion - there was so much acceptance now. She was pushing him out of this. Subconsciously, of course. But he was no longer playing a role in her life. Now that she had what she wanted, he and his misery were part of her past. And every smile in his direction translated into indifference towards him, towards all he was.

"Come here", she softly whispered through the empty room and he obeyed.

As he passed the doctor he bent down to him.
"You better fix that down there or my baseball bat will episiotomize your brand new BMW."
The doctor chuckled and left them alone to fetch more suture material and to give them some privacy.

When House came to a halt in front of her bed he looked down at the wrinkled little creature in her arms, that was just as exhausted as her mother. It was impossible that his was his daughter.
He sat down on a chair next to the bed.

"She looks exactly like you", Cuddy whispered with a love-filled voice that made it even harder to understand that a part of this love was meant for him, since he was a part of this child.

"No she doesn't", House abruptly replied and Cuddy looked up, picking up on the painful resistance he heard in his voice.

Their eyes met and it felt like they were universes apart. He was drifting away into a cloud of darkness, looking at her glowing joy while she didn't understand what was happening to them.

Never before in her life had she felt so much intensity and love, and never before had she wanted him more to be part of this. And that he had come showed that somehow he wanted to be part of this, as well. No matter how distant he had seemed throughout the past weeks, no matter he hadn't made it earlier – she hadn't expected him to be there anyway - all that counted now, was that he was there. Why was it then that it felt like he wasn't there at all?

"What's her name?" he interrupted her pondering.

"Haven't made up my mind yet", she replied, glad that he had stopped her dangerous thought process.

Hesitatingly, she looked up at him. "I thought that you should name her."

It was an invitation. An invitation as intimate and personal as possible.

House looked down, overwhelmed and incapable to understand his feelings.

"No", he answered, not ready to see the disappointment in her eyes.

She panted silently and swallowed hard, looking down at her baby in ignorance of the pain he wasn't even afraid of causing in a moment like this.

He bit his tongue and hated himself for being who he was.
He knew he had to go and stood up.

"Congratulations", he mumbled and turned away to leave the room.

"Same to you", she replied, making sure her words would sting as much as his had.

It made him stop for a moment, but he didn't turn around and left instead.

Her eyes followed him thoughtfully as the doctor returned to finish his job and she was surprised that there were no tears filling her eyes, no rage firing up inside her.
Her own acceptance surprised her. She felt so calm. Maybe she was just exhausted. Maybe she was tired of fighting with him. Or maybe she had just finally accepted that this was what they were. This dysfunctional union of two destructive personalities that just didn't trust the concept of happiness in their lives. But she was happy now. And she was tired of fighting that, too.

A chortle drew her attention back to the newborn and she gently brushed the baby's cheek with her finger.

And then all of a sudden the reason for her calmness reached her.
She was in panic.
Which is why she had let him go. She knew how he was feeling deep inside, only he could run from this whereas she couldn't.
This child would be with her forever.
And so would he. She was holding him in her arms right now even though he was not there.

She leaned back and closed her eyes, feeling one little tear streaming down her face as the doctor finished his last stitch on the episiotomy.

They had all the time in the world to figure this out.

Especially this child with no name.