Chapter 25

Cuddy handed Rachel to House and turned her body to block the child from view as she confronted the teen who looked just as shocked as she felt.

"What are you doing here? She asked trying to not sound accusing.

"Look Dr. Cuddy, I was just visiting a friend. I wasn't trying to run in to you or see her... his voice went into a croak like boys who are having a voice change, even though he was well past that age. Even though he was denying wanting to see her his eyes were glued to the space behind Cuddy and she realized that he could still see the child.

"I would really appreciate you giving this hospital a wide berth. You have relinquished rights and your being here is not good for you nor her. "

"I'm sure it's not affecting her at all. She doesn't know me from Adam and I guess she never will". He spun on his heel and ran from the lobby. Cuddy turned to face House visibly upset.

"Your office." he said following her still holding Rachel.

Cuddy took Rachel and held her tight as she went to sit behind her desk. She picked up the phone and dialed an extension. The security desk.

"Cuddy, he looked at her in amazement then heard her words. She was asking who the boy had visited.

He had to sign in and get a badge and tell who he was visiting. Then she told security to alert her if he visited the building again.

"Alana Hoffman." Cuddy gasped putting the phone down in amazement.

"Really," House said. "Well she's due to be released in a couple days so you shouldn't have to worry.

"I wonder if Hoffman knows what kind of friends his daughter has?" Cuddy wondered aloud.

"Not your business, Cuddy. Leave the kid alone, and he'll leave you alone. Start messing in his life and you'll create a problem where there is none. You don't know they are friends, she's just as likely to be ..."

"His client. That's worse. She's gotta be pretty important to him, when Rachel's birth mother was here he could barely bring himself to visit and she was his client and his secret girlfriend."

"Stay out of it Cuddy. The Hoffman's seem a lot more involved as parents than that girl's parents were."

"I'm not sure I can just stand by and say nothing, House. I can put myself in his shoes and I'd want someone to tell me if they knew Rachel was hanging out with a kid who had demonstrated problems. Who was a drug dealer for God's sake."

"Why is it that talking to you is like talking to a brick wall. If this gets traced back to you it may cause problems for you with Rachel."

"I'll sleep on it," she said going over to put the sleepy Rachel in her carriage. Even though there was a flash of fear in her eyes there was also determination. I've already filed the paper work for the adoption. The first court date is a month from now. I wanted to get it done before Rachel's first birthday, but I had no idea it would be a waiting period after filing."

Suddenly Cuddy's phone rang. And House noticed she looked stunned.

"It's Hoffman." She whispered as she picked up the phone.

"Hello Alan," she answered her phone in less than her usual confident tones. "Yes, I know him. He's my child's biological father. Yes, more than a bit of trouble. I'm glad you saw us, because once I found out he was visiting your daughter, I was concerned. So you know about the drug dealing. He's trying to clean up his act? Really? Your partner is his mentor? Well it's always good if someone can turn their life around. You are right having him visit the hospital and run into us like that was definitely uncomfortable. I only wish the best for him of course. It was a bad situation all around, when a young girl looses her life and very nearly her baby's because of low self-esteem and secrets. Okay, I'll see you at the next board meeting." Cuddy hung up the phone looking pale and shell shocked.

"What's wrong?" he asked even though he had read a lot from the conversation.

"Don't get me wrong, if this boy is turning his life around, I can't be anything but happy about it, but I have to wonder why. He has not only stopped the drug dealing but has attained a mentor, who is one of the most powerful lawyers in the tri-state area."

"You know his family is not without influence he wasn't dealing for the money. So of course the mess that happened had to even wake them up enough not to let their son continue on his path down the drain. Don't borrow trouble and automatically think it's about Rachel, or some threat to you. This kid's just trying to save his own miserable life."

"You almost sound as if you empathize with him." Cuddy countered looking at him narrowly.

"Maybe I do." House shrugged. Not seeming to want to take that further.

"In what way?" Cuddy probed." Not the teenage father left in the dark?" she insisted even though it was painful she would forge on, as if driven to probe the pain as one would tongue an aching tooth.

"Yes, that's part of it and perhaps being in situations where people look for the worst in you."

"Do you feel I look for the worst in you? " Cuddy asked trying to push back her defensiveness, because she wanted to hear him out. He so rarely volunteered any information about his feelings she had to literally bite her tongue not to become even more defensive than she was.

"Sure sometimes. I don't blame you. With my track record it's natural I guess even when we were back in school, the situations were not so very different. Rachel's mother didn't tell the boy she was pregnant because she was in denial and she probably thought he was just using her which he probably was, but... that but is important Cuddy, because I think he cared about her or he never would have showed up at the hospital at all. The same way, you didn't tell me because you didn't think I would care."

"That wasn't the reason, I just felt like a fool. Like it was my fault. I knew you were gifted, way beyond the norm. How could I put a drag, like a child on you and limit you. It was bad enough if I had to abandon my career without impacting yours so early on."

"Do you remember me asking you why you cared so much about Rachel's mother? You empathized with her even before you found out she had been pregnant. I remember speculating why? I think you felt like a misfit at school too. You were young even for a freshman and that affected your sense of equilibrium in our relationship, so we were doomed even before we started."

"So it's my fault that you went home and didn't try to stay in contact, just like it was Rachel's mother's fault that the boy hid her in the closet because she didn't match what his friends thought was cute."

"You were not the only one that had a crazy relative working on you he bit out."

"What?" Cuddy asked what do you mean?"

"My father found your picture. It was your high school graduation picture."

"How did you get it?" She asked in shock.

"I found a strip of proofs in the corner of your desk." he explained and then went to his wallet and easily went behind several cards and pulled out worn photo of her at 16. The photo had been taken at the beginning of her senior year in High School.

She was very moved that he had kept the photo all these years and her eyes flashed this to him without a need for words. "So what did your father say? " she asked, her trembling hand holding her mouth, expecting nothing good.

"He all but accused me of being a pedophile, and that was the nicest thing he said."

"And that kept you from calling?" She asked breathlessly. And at that point his beeper went off. That was all it took. House gave her a look of apology but left with an undisguised look of relief.

Cuddy tried to lift herself from her pensive mood. She looked down at the sleeping Rachel. She had one hand tucked under her tousled head and rosy color seemed painted on cheeks and the perfect "O" of her cherub lips. She was so beautiful, she looked like the children in illustrated nursery rhymes. Cuddy didn't want to think in the negative but she found herself thinking of the time before she came. She had been a workaholic trying to fill her life with the hospital, but really inside so bereft and lonely. Even with her family there was always this distance that was hard to cross and when she did it felt like a double edged sword of reward and regret. There would always be a blood letting involved in close contact with her family especially her perfectionist mother and sister. She looked at it as a sort of mixed pleasure and pain and often felt it was better to remain a little outside, a little numb and distant.

So often felt she had had no one no one but a cantankerous doctor just as lonely as she, who she worked with every day. Strangely enough or perhaps not, her relation with him was from a distance the same way she loved her family and her contact with him the same double edged sword. His only personal contact was making rude, suggestive remarks which she found equally appalling and flattering depending on the day and then their were their battles that lit her cold existence with an intense emotion as fierce and fiery as passion without skin or sin. Though it was vented in a negative way, he was so engaging and it, this thing that was always there between them was the only thing that let her know she still had warm blood running through her veins. She had grown used to this frigid emotional existence, she had managed with it even while her heart cried out for more than fights of passion.

Finally she had gotten this screaming, wriggling wrinkled red lump of humanity whose mouth was so big and screams were so loud, indecipherable and unending. Who needed so much and who could not be ignored or frozen out, who could be engaging if only she could find the key. Be careful what you wish for. The connection was hard to forge, perhaps because she had lived in isolated coldness for so long she had forgotten how raw and unpredictable the deep end of human emotion could be. But finally she had opened the door and had been swallowed whole. She had been caught up in Rachel's, silky soft skin and her baby smells, good and bad. She had been caught up in drool wet hands, soiled diapers, lopsided smiles and eyes that lit up when Mommy came home. She had been enchanted by tiny fists that held tight to her fingers, and later grabbed at her hair and jewelry, but made their impression in her heart. She was caught by hair, while not curly like hers, it kept the coils created by warm fingers. Then there were the chunky white teeth that were shown in mischievous delight at adult reaction from the occasional sneaky nip. She was enchanted by the nuzzling, she gave and received and how responsive her daughter was to her every mood and every gesture and how when she looked into her limpid blue eyes she demanded nothing less than her very soul. She was so in love, the little songs and chants Rachel whispered to herself sounded like memories of angel song and riddled her with the possibilities of understanding. Her daughter's progress day by day brought increasing growth and awareness. The way she was actually proud of herself when she accomplished a new task or skill, these parts of herself was Cuddy reflected in her little girl's personality along with some things that were all her own. There was no way she would be robbed of seeing her progress even more of it. She wanted to teach her to ride a bike and see her off on her first day of kindergarten, Rachel was hers, and the only thing missing was DNA. She had shared her body with her daughter and had still not properly weaned her, she was as bad as her sister, but his was a very important part of her bond with Rachel all the more so because they were missing the blood tie. She was loath to give it up completely. She knew she and her daughter had now bonded skin to skin and they could each be blindfolded and find each other through smell alone. There was no way she could give this up, no way, God could not be that cruel to her or to Rachel.

She was still in this reflective tender frame of mind when House came back. Their earlier conversation had receded in her mind and now she was not as rabid at chasing down his every thought like Alice chasing a rabbit down the hole, instead she tried to make herself patient enough to let things come up naturally, even if they weren't resolved or followed to the end of a thought. They never would be anyway. It was ongoing just like them.

Her mood suddenly changed as she tilted her head to look at him." Did you really mean what you said to the Braeden woman?"

"What?" House said stretching his eyes in a moment of deflection pretending not to remember.."No, I was just lying to give her a clean exit."

"You, lying to spare someone's feelings? Cuddy pointed at him with animated face and eyes. "I know the end of the world was predicted for 2012, but perhaps the Mayan calendar was off, because this has got to be an omen."

"Please don't be Wilson, I don't want to sleep with him." he retorted spearing her quip.

He watched as she walked over to him slowly with Rachel cooing in delight with having both of her favorite people together and seeming playing some strange but familiar game. The hilarious thing was that it was definitely a sexy prowl and she was about the only one he knew who could pull it off with a kid on one hip.

"If you are getting me confused with Wilson, I think we have more than one problem." she retorted lifting her chin in challenge, even as the corners of her mouth crimped with the effort to suppress her laughter.

She did not need him to confirm it, she knew he cared about Rachel, really cared, and that was more than enough for her, more than she had ever expected. It felt like comfort to have someone who cared about Rachel too. With two of them pulling for the little girl it felt just right. She suddenly smiled at him her hand going out to his face, it had been so sweet the way he had handled the Braeden woman. House had learned a lot in the last three months and she had a feeling a more socially skilled House, a kinder, gentler House was a very dangerous man indeed. He so knew what to do. He had made her heart melt like butter.

"Honestly, I would lie, beg, borrow, cheat and steal to get back to your bed," he said huskily almost as if reading her mind. Getting close to her on the opposite side of where she had Rachel on her hip. " Though I know, It may get me there but it won't keep me there."

"Genius" she retorted. "If your E.Q. ever catches up to your I.Q., I might as well fly the white flag."

House gave her a fake puzzled look. "I thought you already had. No, perhaps that was a white thong. Same thing." He shrugged.

"I don't have a white thong." she retorted.

"Silver then, I passed the memory test. So does that mean I can come home tonight?" he asked, softly turning his face to give her palm a wet kiss, the wetness instantly echoed in her nether regions.

"You better come home tonight." she said silkily.

"You betta" echoed Rachel in the one of the mini-me imitations she had started doing of Cuddy.

All three were suddenly laughing and briefly all the shadows were pushed back to the edge of the room in a moment of pure joy.