Sessions II: Nine Months

Chapter 21: Storm Clouds Brewing

House leaned his elbows against the chilly cement of his balcony wall and stared out through the dim gray haze to the sidewalk below. The sky had that thick solid quality to it right before a snowstorm and there was a deafening silence that blanketed the air around him. A Nor-Easter of biblical proportions was coming within the hour, so his leg had been screaming at him all day. Dampness and cold were the two worst culprits in his incessant battle with his pain. For the first time in over two months he had taken three Vicodin pills at once. The nagging voice at the back of his conscience, which sounded suspiciously like Wilson's right now, told him it had everything to do with the fact that he had thoroughly pissed off his wife and nothing to do with the fact that the barometer had fallen to the depths of freezing. A cold front had most certainly moved in, except he knew it had nothing to do with the impending storm. He was on her shit list, and in the proverbial dog house.

Wilson pulled open his door and clapped his hands together and rubbed them vigorously at the shock of cold air slicing through his thin dress shirt to his skin. "What are you doing out here? It's twenty-five degrees outside." Wilson's nose turned an immediate shade of red and his breath billowed out from his nose as he tucked his hands under his armpits. "Aren't you freezing?"

"I've had three Vicodin. I can't feel anything," House muttered.

"Uh oh. What happened?"

House narrowed his eyes at him. "What do you think happened?"

"I don't know. Why don't you tell me?" He looked honestly concerned as he danced from foot to foot in a futile attempt to keep warm.

House sighed heavily and continued to look out at nothing in particular. "I turned back into me."

"Huh? What do you… Oh…" he said with the gravity of realization. His face scrunched up into a wince. "Bad?"

"Yeah. You could say that."

"What did you do?" he questioned carefully and then held his hand up changing his mind. "Wait. Can we go inside? I'm freezing my balls off."

House rolled his eyes and turned to go back into his office. Fine, if he just had to be a wuss about it… Wilson hopped over the wall a second later and followed him in, shivering and rubbing his hands together to bring the circulation back into his fingers as if he'd been the one standing out there for the last twenty minutes.

House folded himself into his desk chair and placed his elbow on the armrest, rubbing his tired eyes with his hand. Wilson took the chair in front of his desk and continued to blow warm air onto his hands. "So, out with it. What'd you do?"

House blew out a pent up breath and looked at Wilson for a beat. "I technically didn't do anything other than give a shit about her health."

Wilson narrowed his eyes in confusion. "I'm not following."

"She was supposed to talk to Cuddy about cutting back her hours," he began running his thumbnail along the rough stubble at the edge of his mouth becoming mesmerized by the sharp edges of his beard dragging against the thin ridge of his nail.

"Yeah, I remember," Wilson prompted bringing him back to the conversation as he began to defrost and take a more relaxed pose in his chair.

"Well, she didn't go to Cuddy, and was working in the ER," he said.

"Ok, still not following,"

House grunted irrtitatedly and dropped his hand to his lap. "What do you want? A trail of crackers? This really isn't that hard to follow."

Wilson rolled his eyes at him. "What did you say to piss her off? Because if I know you, you weren't Mr. Patience about this."

"She accused me of ordering her to quit her job."

"Did you?"

"No. I didn't." he shouted indignantly. Wilson raised a disbelieving eyebrow. House rolled his eyes at him. Of course he assumed that was exactly what he'd done. "I didn't," he repeated forcefully.

"Ok, so other than maybe being a little stubborn about …"

House cut him off with his hand. "I told her she was making the wrong choice."

"Well that would do it," he surmised, nodding his head. "Women are never wrong."

"Yeah, they are," he disagreed. "They're wrong a lot."

"Of course they're wrong," Wilson said. "They're just never wrong in an argument."

House rolled his eyes. "Yeah well… that's ridiculous."

"Have you ever had an argument with you? You're the same way," Wilson grumbled. "Women just look prettier when they're doing it. And the make-up sex is better."

House grunted at him. "Yeah, well if you weren't such a righteous nag, I'd put out more."

Wilson ignored him and shrugged. "So this doesn't sound like a really big deal, tell her you're sorry and move on."

"I'm not going to tell her I'm sorry, she really does need to cut back. I'm not the one who's wrong here."

"Maybe, but you can't force her if she's not ready," Wilson advised.

"You want to know the worst part?"

"What?"

"I sent her flowers."

"After the fight? That's perfect." Wilson looked like a proud papa on his son's graduation day.

"No..." House muttered and ran his thumb over his eyebrow. "I sent her flowers for Valentine's Day."

"That's great." Wilson smiled at him, feeling finally vindicated that all of his hard work was coming to fruition.

House lowered his eyes to start at the stray paper clip lying on his desk blotter. "Yeah, she loved them. Cameron loved them." His finger pushed the twisted metal around in a circle.

"But?"

"I smashed the flowers."

"What?"

"Pushed them right off the counter…"

"What? House! You idiot!"

"I was pissed off."

"In front of her?" His voice was escalating to that hysterical quality that made House want to scratch his eyes out.

"Nope. After she walked away from me. Again." Damn, that still chapped his ass. He couldn't fucking stand that. "She didn't see me do it."

Wilson started to laugh.

"What are you laughing about? I totally fucked myself."

"Why the hell would you do that?" Wilson's tone was somewhere between incredulous and amused.

"I'm so happy to amuse you," House muttered rolling his eyes. "They were fucking annoying. So perky and happy. They pissed me off."

"You are an idiot. You smashed the flowers that you gave our wife for Valentine's Day, because she was mad at you. Because they were happy." He burst out into a peel of laughter. "You symbolically destroyed happiness."

House screwed his face into a twisted mask of confusion. "What? That's horse shi…"

Wilson reached out a finger, cutting him off in a demonstrative circle ending in a sharp point at him. "You are an idiot. By taking your anger out on her flowers, you were symbolically sabotaging yourself and your, admittedly surprising, run of happiness."

House scoffed at him and looked away to his empty light box on the wall. "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. You sound like Cate with all of that bullshit psychobabble crap."

"It's not crap," Wilson argued. "I bet she'd say the same thing, if you know, she could see past the blinding rage when she finds out you killed her flowers."

"It is crap," House persisted, leveling his eyes at him to drive his point home. "You are so far off base."

"Am I?" Wilson raised an eyebrow at him. "Am I really?"

It was a lie. He knew it. But he was never going to admit that there might have been an iota of truth to what Wilson was saying. At least not to him. However, maybe he was right. Maybe he had had a string of happiness that lasted too long. Happiness in general was suspect to him. Happiness of any kind of duration was virtually unheard of, so this whole 'admittedly surprising run of happiness' was clearly a fluke. It was bound to end sometime; and it was most certainly bound to be his fault.

"So what do I do?"

"Apologize."

"I'm not fucking apologizing," he grumbled.

"If you want to smooth things over with your wife, you have to apologize," Wilson concluded and stood up. "Even if you don't mean it."

House grunted. "This coming from the guy who's been divorced three times."

Wilson shrugged. "Fine, don't take my advice. Ask your guru. He'll tell you the same thing."

House watched his friend saunter out of his office back in the direction of his own. It pissed him off to no end when he got that righteous, swagger as he walked away, like he knew it was only a matter of time before his prophecy came to light. Like somehow he knew the answers to the test and everyone else should cheat off him. Yeah well, fuck that guy… he was hardly ever right.

"Hi, Dr. House."

House looked up from his hands that were still absently spinning the paper clip around on the surface of the desk. Yeasty Cheerleader Number One was reporting for duty. Looking briefly at his watch, he had no idea it was that late already. Had he known he was missing General Hospital, he wouldn't have endured that pointless conversation with Wilson.

Coming fully into the office, she took off her marshmallow stuffed ski coat and shoved her hat and gloves into her pockets before she came over to his desk excitedly bouncing like a three year old. "Look," she thrust a paper in his face.

Slowly, he brought his eyes to the torn edge of an envelope two inches from his face. "What's this?"

Kara rolled her eyes and placed her hand on her hip with a disgruntled huff. "Just read it."

With a distinct lack of enthusiasm, he took the envelope from her hand and read the outside. Printed in orange and black in the return address spot was the Princeton University logo. Quietly, he raised his eyebrows and pulled out the correspondence inside.

"Dear Kara Chen, It is our great pleasure to inform you of your acceptance into the Pre-Med Program at Princeton University…" House looked at her and leaned back in his chair leaving her letter on the desk. "Congratulations."

Kara narrowed her eyes at him and picked up her letter, fingering the black and orange letterhead with joyous reverence. "That's all you're going to say?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. That's generally what you say when people apply and are accepted."

"Aren't you proud of me?" she asked him with big eyes.

"Are you proud of you?"

"Yeah, but… I thought you'd be proud that I got in?"

"It doesn't matter whether I'm proud as long as you are."

She considered him for a moment and for a second he thought she was going to start to cry. Great. Now he was two for two. Maybe he should go down to the clinic, shout at a couple of nurses and insult some ridiculously moronic mother about bringing her kid in for a runny nose and he would have hit for the cycle today. Narrowing her eyes at him, she screwed her face up into a pissy frown. "What's up your ass today?"

House blinked at her. "Nothing. What are you on your period or something? You just pulled a hormonal 180 on me there."

She flashed him attitude and shoved him out of the way to grab the pile of folders on the corner of his desk by his computer. "Don't deflect this onto me. I'm totally stoked because I've got a full ride to Princeton, which you would have known if you bothered to read the rest of the letter. You're the one who's got a problem."

"Just because you got a full ride doesn't mean you're smart. It means you're Asian," he snapped back at her.

She dropped her mouth open and gasped, pulling up all of her 4'11" frame at him. "I got a full ride to Princeton because I'm Asian and smart which also means I'm smart enough to know that you're being a douche bag because you're in a bad mood. What did you do?"

"Why does everyone automatically assume that I did something wrong?" he groused offended that she pegged him right off the bat.

She chuckled at him and took her seat across from him reaching for a pen from the cup holder on his desk. "Umm because… you're a douche bag?"

"Yeah, you said that already. Does your mother know your talk like that to your elders?" he eyed her over his steepled fingers.

"Only when they deserve it," she stated pointedly, opening a file to forge his signature.

He narrowed his eyes at her and held back a little chuckle. Her feistiness amused him. She was one of the few people who could actually give it back to him almost sharper than he could dole it out. Her sass reminded him of Cate only less mature and more laced with 90210. Shaking his head, he looked at the picture frame on his desk. She had conspired with Cate to display his family like a 'normal human being' or so she had explained when he questioned her after the photo had just appeared one day. He had sat down with his coffee and was about to check his email and there it was staring back at him. Two others had appeared, not long after, along with the three ultrasound pictures. All of them in little brushed silver frames to match the decor. But this one was his favorite. It was one of the pictures taken right after their wedding in Jamaica. He was holding Cate from behind and growling into her ear as her head tilted away from him in a full out laugh that made her glow with a radiance that warmed his heart no matter how many times he looked at it. She was pure happiness.

Kara slid her eyes from him to the picture frame and a slow smile stole across her face into an impish little grin. "Ah. You should apologize, but you don't want to apologize, but you know you have to and that just gets under your skin like a little bug that keeps twitching and twitching until you want to claw it out. I get it."

He took a deep breath and frowned at her. He had to stop surrounding himself with these highly perceptive people. It was thoroughly annoying to be read like a first grade reading book.

"I totally get it," she empathized. "But, too bad. Get over it." She signed another chart and placed it on the pile. "And if you can't actually verbalize those three nasty little words, get her jewelry."

He laughed out loud then. "Get her jewelry."

"Yeah, something platinum. Something simple, yet tasteful and elegant."

He shook his head. "I don't know." His leg throbbed at him again and he rubbed at it to quell the persistent ache that had only been dulled to merely intolerable with his Vicodin. Swiveling around in his chair, he looked out to the balcony to see that the snow flakes had indeed started to fall. "Did you drive here?"

"Amanda dropped me off," she replied looking up from the charts.

"Come on, it's starting to snow. I'll take you home. We're done here today," he announced rising uncomfortably out of his seat. His leg buckled a little under him from the change in position and he had to flatten his palm against his desk to balance.

Kara closed the files and placed them in his out box rising to retrieve her coat without question. Biting down on a wince, he grabbed his cane limped heavily over to put on his pea coat. He wound the cashmere scarf he had stolen from Cate a while ago around his neck and closed his eyes. It smelled like her perfume and he secretly sniffed at it sometimes when he was driving just to get the scent of her. Resisting the urge to do so again, he swung his knapsack over his shoulder instead and held open the glass door ushering Kara out before him. They walked slowly to the elevator and she effortlessly adjusted her usually rapid staccato pace to his much slower one today. Pulling her long, thick black hair out from the strap of her messenger bag, she waited patiently in silence for the elevator to come. He appreciated her uncanny knack for ignoring his disability and all the joyous perks that came with it.

"Congratulations on your scholarship. That is pretty amazing," he said quietly as he stared at the red lights escalating… 1,2,3,4.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her smile. "Thanks."

The last thing he did before leaving the hospital was text Cate.

::It's snowing. Be careful on the way home::

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Cate opened the door to the apartment that night with her one hand, her purse falling down off her shoulder into the crook of her elbow while she juggled the plastic water jug full of the remains of her Valentine's Day gift with her other. After she had returned to the ER from her self-indulgent crying jag following her tiff with House, a nurse had handed her the ugly pink hospital water container full of her bedraggled, damaged flowers with a sheepish frown. The nurse told her that they had been knocked off the counter in the midst of an incoming trauma, but Cate knew it was a cleverly orchestrated lie. She appreciated the effort however; it was sweet of the woman to try to protect her from what her irate husband had done. She had cried again, sad and hurt that he had taken out his anger at her on her beautiful flowers. She was furious with him for a couple of hours but her temper had cooled to a tepid nagging and she was finally able to accept that he had acted out of frustration and anger. He had done something nice for her, he wanted to protect her and their baby and she gave him shit about it. They were fighting. It was no excuse to lash out like he did but, she didn't really blame him. She was being a stubborn bitch and she had pushed his buttons.

Entering the living room, she saw that the TV was on and a fire burned in the fireplace. She was thankful that he had lit a fire because the snow was starting to fall heavily outside and she was chilled to the bone. A delicious smell came in to permeate the air from whatever he was cooking in the kitchen. Her heart squeezed with guilt about their quarrel; she felt terrible. On a positive note, however, he was home, cooking dinner and not avoiding her.

Carefully, she placed the makeshift vase down on the coffee table and took off her coat. Tossing it to the back of the couch along with her purse, she warmed her hands by the fire as Steve Levy from Sportscenter droned on in the background. Closing her eyes to the warmth, she let the fire calm her frayed nerves.

House came to the threshold of the doorway between the kitchen and living room. Cate bit her lip and looked at him with trepidation because she didn't want to fight anymore; she was tired and it had been a long day. His eyes held hers for a moment and then slid to the coffee table. He ran his hand over the back of his head shamefully as he eyed the flowers erratically sticking out every which way from the water container. His eyes clouded over in embarrassment and guilt as he brought them back to look at her. His anger deflated and he was left vulnerable, wondering if she could forgive him. Without a word, she went over to him and stepped into his embrace. Breathing a sigh of relief, he held her tightly to him and laid his cheek against her head as he breathed in the scent of her hair. Resting her forehead against his chest, she listened to the sad, steady beat of his heart as his breath hitched in his throat.

"I'm so sorry," she apologized.

He tipped her chin up so he could look in her eyes. A rueful smile tipped at the corners of his mouth. "I'm sorry about the flowers."

"Me too," she voiced sadly with a look in their direction. It really was shame, because they were so beautiful.

His face grew serious. "I'm not sorry about anything else."

Cate sighed and placed her hand against his heart. He brought his hand up to clasp her fingers holding them there against the softness of his t-shirt. "I know. We need to talk."

"Yes." He nodded and brushed her hair back off of her shoulder. He bent to kiss her forehead, "After dinner."

"You cooked," she stated.

"There you go again with the obvious," he muttered, his eyes downcast. He was joking but it was only with a quarter of the effort he usually put forth. "I figured I was due since I was an asshole about the flowers. Yeasty Cheerleader said I should have gotten you jewelry."

Taking pity on him, she chuckled slightly and tipped her face up to place a light kiss on his lips. It was her way of telling him he was let off the hook. "Food is the way to my forgiveness. What'd you make? It smells incredible and I'm starving."

"Steak with sautéed mushroom and onions, mashed potatoes and salad," he enumerated nondescriptly like he was listing symptoms.

"Salad? Seriously?" She eyed him speculatively. Salad was not his usual fare; it was more of a begrudging obstacle to get to the real food.

He shrugged. "Yeah, it's really more for you than for me. But I can sacrifice…" He ran his hands down her arms in a loving caress. "Why don't you go change? Dinner will be ready in a couple of minutes."

"Okay," she agreed taking his suggestion. She kissed him one more time and let him hug her tightly again before she traipsed to the bedroom to change out of her scrubs and into her pajamas. She went into the bathroom to wash the smell of the hospital off of her face before returning to the comfort of the couch.

They ate on the sofa while they watched the rest of Sportscenter. Things were quiet in the sports world. Cate couldn't really muster any enthusiasm anyway since it wasn't baseball season for real. Pitchers and catchers had reported to Spring Training but there wasn't much chatter about the Phillies, so she didn't really care. The analysts had talked about some prospects for the upcoming season, but that was still almost two months away. And right now, she was busy measuring the passage of time in weeks. She was fourteen weeks and counting, based on her latest sonogram today at her re-check with Sheldon because of the dehydration fiasco. He had said everything looked back to normal and she was pleased, not to mention extremely relieved.

After they cleaned up the dishes, Cate poured herself a glass of milk and returned to the couch. She settled in to her spot on the sofa under her blanket and waited for him to come back from changing into his jammie pants and his hooded Hopkins sweatshirt. His limp was heavily pronounced as he hobbled into the room and slumped into his spot opposite her on the sofa. He immediately took her foot into his lap as he cycled through the channels with the remote to find something interesting to watch. She wondered briefly if they were going to play the 'let's talk later silence game' but that fear was put to rest when he asked, "You saw Sheldon today I take it?"

"Yeah. He said everything looked great. Fluid was back to normal, baby's heart beat is strong, it's about four inches long now," she relayed unaware that her fingers had strayed to cover her belly over the blanket. "He printed two pictures again. I could actually see little fingers this time." She watched him from her position against the pillows. He was listening, intently, quietly. His eyebrows had furrowed together creating two deep crevasses in the middle.

"You went without me." It was a statement. Not a question. And that meant she had to choose her next words very carefully.

"They called to change the appointment," she began. "He had an emergency cesarean."

"You could have told me." Another statement. Not angry. Not accusatory.

Coming to a seated position, Cate sighed. He was being benign, but she knew it bothered him. Risking another flare up, she had to be honest. "I went alone because I just needed to hear him tell me everything was alright without you two getting into a pissing match especially after what happened between us this morning."

His jaw was set firmly and sliced his eyes from the TV to strike her with their chilly glare. "So you decided to punish me by depriving me of a sonogram?"

Cate winced. That hurt. She knew how much he loved to see the baby. "No. I… " she stammered. She knew how it was going to hurt him to not be there but she had done it anyway. "I don't know. Maybe."

"This is my kid too." He gave her a look that told her how much she had hurt him by excluding him, no matter what had transpired between them. Her heart cleaved in two and a fresh wave of tears prickled at her eyes.

"Greg. I'm so sorry."

The phone rang shrilly from its cradle on the end table by his shoulder effectively cutting off their conversation. With an aggravated sigh, he flicked his eyes to read the caller ID. "It's the hospital." Now even more aggravated, he picked up the receiver after the next ring and clicked the button. "What?"

Cate watched as his face turned from annoyance to concern in a nanosecond. She swallowed nervously straining to hear the voice on the other end.

"I'll be there as soon as I can." He clicked the phone off and tossed it onto the coffee table pushing himself off of the sofa biting back an agonizing grunt.

"What's wrong? What did they want?"

"My mother's been in a car accident," he told her as he went to retrieve his jeans and sneakers from their room.

Hurriedly, Cate hoped off the sofa trailing after him. "Oh my God, is she ok?"

As she came into the room, he was stepping into his jeans with his butt leaning against the edge of the mattress for balance. He was in a lot of pain. She could see it in the tightness of the lines around his eyes and the set of his jaw. Her heart ached for him. Moving to the night stand, she grabbed the amber pill bottle and took out two, holding them out to him. He closed his eyes and shook his head declining. "I just took two a half an hour ago."

"You need them," she insisted putting the pills in his hand. "I'll drive."

"No." He placed the pills on the surface and pushed himself off the bed. "It's a blizzard out there, which is why my mother had the accident in the first place. It's too dangerous. Why the hell she was out driving in this, I don't fucking know…" he bit back another frustrated groan and jammed his feet into his sneakers.

"Greg. The weather is making your leg unbearable. You need Vicodin and you're stressed. Let me drive you." He shook his head to protest but clamped his teeth down on another surge of pain. "We have four-wheel drive. You think Big Don would let me drive a car without teaching me how to drive in the snow? I lived in the South Pole for ten months. I drove a tractor with really big tires in a white out, doesn't that count?"

Throwing his head back and muttering an oath to the ceiling, he gave in. "God, just put your fucking jeans on and whatever else you need to be warm." He picked up the two pills and dry swallowed them while she hurried to get dressed. As she pulled her sweater over her head, she heard him mutter, "The freaking women in my life are going to be the death of me…"