House
Cuddy's eyes are open, boring into mine just a finger's length apart.
"What?" She asks sharply. We're both slightly breathless from sex.
"Are you pregnant?" I ask again.
Cuddy rolls her eyes and gently pushes on my shoulders to indicate that she wants to get off of her. I roll off to the side but turn my body and face so that I'm facing her. She doesn't say anything and just brings her left arm up cover her eyes with her left hand.
"Well?" I ask. I've wanted to ask her for a week now, but I wasn't sure until today. She has all the symptoms. She's eating more now, but I notice that she chooses foods that taste sweeter than the sawdust-flavored foods she used to eat with relish, and she wants sex now more than ever. At first I just thought it was because she stopped worrying so much about me, but the swell of her breasts feel different, and we haven't stopped having sex for over a month now. Daily. She never told me that she had her period and wanted to wait until it was over. It's been…five or six weeks since her last period, from what I can tell.
I reach out to touch her arm. "Cuddy," I start.
"Shut up. I'm thinking." She says, her face still covered by her hand. I wait.
Two minutes later, she brings her hand down and shifts so that she's facing me, leveling her head on the pillow so that our faces are directly in line with each other.
"Maybe," she whispers. I can't breathe. I knew this was a possible answer. I asked her the damn question, but the word sounds different coming out of her mouth. I can't think of anything to say, and I feel myself swallow thickly. I feel myself looking away.
Cuddy bring her hand up to my face, cupping my cheek, forcing me to look at her again.
"I've been irregular for such a long time now that I don't really keep track of my cycle. But…I do keep track of when I take my birth control pills, and there was a day a while ago when I forgot to take one, so I took two the next day."
"Since when do you forget to take birth control pills?" I blurt out.
Cuddy looks hurt for a moment, but she wipes the looks away from her eyes and says with a smirk, "Well, we just came back from dinner and then got….preoccupied when we got home, so I missed taking it on time that night before we went to sleep. We were both so exhausted that we just fell asleep. I took two the next day, like I said, but, well, 'imperfect' doses are only 91 percent effective. You know that."
I feel a little numb, but I feel my brain follow the inevitable path of logic.
"So, you are pregnant?" I state rather than ask.
"Like I said, House, maybe. I told you, I've been irregular for a while now, I may just be really late," she says, her voice softer than usual.
I don't know what I'm feeling, but I do know that I have to know. Right now. I sit up and start rummaging around for my clothes.
"What are you doing?" she asks, her voice to my back.
"I'm going to get a pregnancy test from the drugstore." I say, pulling on my boxers. I put on my shirt.
I feel her hand on my back. "House?" she says, and I hear her voice waver. I stop my movements and look down into my lap. I don't know what to say to her. I don't know how to feel right now, but I'll be damned if I'll be that miserable son of a bitch I used to be with her. I can't afford that. Not now. I take a breath and turn so that I'm facing her. I reach out and cup her face in my hands, and I see her eyes sparkling with tears she's holding back. I see her swallow thickly.
"Hey," I say, caressing her cheeks with my thumbs. "I love you," I tell her, something I haven't uttered out loud in months now.
I see a tear escape and I lean in to kiss it away. The salty taste in my mouth is jarring. "Whatever this is, we have to know, right?" I say. She nods silently. I pull her into my chest and kiss the top of her head. "I'll be right back, okay? Stay here." I feel her nod into my chest.