Chapter 5

Day 43

Sometimes being the Dean of a hospital really worked out in ones favor; even if you'd been placed on voluntary leave of absence 43 days ago and haven't been reinstated since. In actuality, being the former boss of the interim Dean, was really where Cuddy lucked out. Foreman had at first been reluctant to leave his job at Princeton Mass General, but when he'd found out all the details of his former colleagues absence, he'd packed his office and was ready for work the next day.

Despite being discharged, along with her other three conscious family members, Cuddy had refused to leave the hospital. In fact, she was now refusing to leave Allie's room. Late the night before her core temperature had risen to the target 35 degrees, so she was deemed stable enough to be wheeled into surgery. In the three hours that proceeded, Cuddy and her two younger kids went about setting up a makeshift bed in a cleared corner of their sisters hospital room.

House had insisted on being in the operating room when they worked on the girls hands; and so was thrilled to report that the surgeons were able to spare the index finger on the girls left hand completely, and only had to remove the middle finger up to the second knuckle. She was equally as lucky on her right, as her index finger was once again spared from the second knuckle down.

When the significantly pinker girl was wheeled back into her room, the doctors at first had to protest to the unconventional changes to her environment. A few words from Foreman and the family of five were finally left alone. Wilson stopped by every once in a while to bring food and storybooks from Pedes. By now, the two youngest children had grown used to the oncologist and had begun calling him 'Uncle'. Well, Robbie called him Uncle; all Remy could manage was "Unka".

It was currently nearing midnight, which meant the majority of hospital staff were already on their way home. Thankfully the night staff were much more obliging to the former doctors unique needs. Currently two nurses were helping Robbie drag in another stolen stretcher mattress, setting it next to the other two they had collected the night before. They'd already gathered enough pillows and Wilson had graciously brought them some proper blankets; not the thin, pathetic hospital ones.

Once the mattress was situated, Remy insisted she be the first to test it out and immediately leapt onto it, bouncing slightly, then rolled onto her side, giggling. Robbie was next to join the girl and soon they were tangled in the sheets and blankets, playfully wrestling for the honor of being the one to sleep on this new mattress. Cuddy kept an an eye on them as she sat by her older daughters bedside. She'd insisted that the doctors remove her chest tubes, noting that there was more of a probability of her catching pneumonia from the cold air, than her still having water in her lungs that needed to be drained.

The surgeons had removed the stitches from the girls side, and replaced them with slightly neater and blatantly more sterile ones. Judging from the incision, all they could offer was that it was either a piece of glass or broken porcelain. They would all have to wait for the girl to wake up to inform them of what had really happened to cause the injury.

"Greg, when do you think we can switch her to general anesthesia?" Cuddy asked, looking over across the room to where her lover was staring intently at a chess board. "Greg?" This snapped the man out of his thoughts and he scrunched his eyes as if reciting all the information he had stored on situations like this.

"I think it's best we wait until she's off the cardiopulmonary bypass." He answered, nodding towards the large machine which was drawing out the woman's still chilled blood, warming it, and then infusing it back into the girls circulatory system. "Honestly, they should have removed it during surgery, I don't know why I didn't force the issue." He sighed and sat back in his chair, pinching his nose in frustration.

Cuddy sighed and stared at the machine which was artificially circulating her daughters blood, with disdain. "Who's on in the morning? Think we can get them to do it then?" She asked, stroking the girls nearly warmed hand. "There's no reason to keep her under this long." She felt the tears, like always, beginning to form in her eyes.

"No reason?" House was out of his seat now, limping towards the other side of the girls stretcher. "Lisa, think about it. She's coming out of a very painful state. We've been able to minimize any extra damage to her skin, joints and muscles with the paralytics, but keeping her under is what's keeping her from experiencing the pain of re-warming." He shook his head when it was apparent Cuddy still wasn't convinced.

"Robbie, come here." House motioned the boy over to him, who immediately untangled himself from some sheets and tottered over to his parents. "Yes Daddy?" He looked between Cuddy and House, specifically keeping his eyes off his 'sick' sister.

House placed a hand on the boys shoulder, rubbing the back of his neck and stringing his fingers up into the boys hair. "Robbie, tell Mummy here what it felt like when you were let out of the ice baths." Cuddy immediately shot House a death look, incensed that he'd use their son as ammunition against her.

The boy frowned and finally looked down at Allie. "She was in the ice much longer than us, Daddy." He said, placing a hand on the girls arm, before looking up at his mother. "I think she's going to cry a lot. I.. I cried all the time at the burning." He shuddered involuntarily and looked up at his father as if he'd done good. House gave the boy a sympathetic smile and swatted him on the back, sending him back to his baby sister.

"See, Lisa? You don't understand how painful it is to bring your temperature back to normal. I mean, the machines are doing an amazing job on her internal system.. But nothings going to help ebb the pain she'll feel from her skin when she's woken." He shot a sad look at his son, who was messing with his chess game. "Trust me lisa, it's like your skin is on fire."

Cuddy hadn't really questioned House, not rationally, on his medical opinion. She just wasn't ready to spend yet another night without all three of her children in bed with her. It had never happened before, having all three with them, and the fact they were all in the same room, just made it worse. "Greg, I know. I'm sorry."

He nodded, reaching across the gurney to grip Cuddy's shoulder in support. "Hey, listen. I think Rems there has been waiting for you to read to her." He again shot a look over his shoulder. "Aint that right baby?" The girl giggled and held up a stack of a half dozen books, the weight of them causing a few to slip through her fingers and land in her lap. The two couldn't help but laugh, breaking the tension that had formed over Allie's hospital bed.

"You're right, Greg. We'll just have to wait." She gave her lover a deep hug as she walked by him which he returned and raised with a kiss. Grinning, it took a lot of willpower for the dark haired woman to pull herself away and take up position on the bed. Instantly both kids were leant against her, ready to hear their bedtime story.

*****

Day 44

Cuddy awoke the next morning feeling much more refreshed than she'd had since their rescue. "Mm." She groaned, rolling to her right to lazily snuggle against her baby, only she felt nothing but air. That oh too familiar sense of dread had her awake in moments, and in tears a few moments later. "GREG!!"

House wasn't usually an easy riser, but the terror in his lovers voice had him up and alert at a records pace. He didn't even have to ask what was wrong, for it was evident immediately. Remy and Robbie were gone. "Oh fuck." The two adults did their best to quickly pull themselves out from the tangle of covers and up onto their feet. "Lisa, I'm sure their fine. They probably just went exploring." He quickly reassured the frantic woman. He tried not to admit to himself that he was just as scared. The last time they had woken up two bodies short... No, he wasn't going to think along those lines. Robbie wouldn't do that to Remy.

Wrapping a robe around her shoulders and slipping into a pair of hospital socks, Cuddy was first towards the hospital door. House was right behind, only to nearly slam into her back as she hesitated in opening the door. He arched his neck around her to see why she'd stopped and that's when he saw the note taped to the door.

"Don't freak out. You're kids are with me. They couldn't sleep and I found them wandering the halls sometime around 5 am. You can come pick them up in my office, I'll be here all night and all morning. - Wilson"

The tension fled the two adults almost immediately. "God, House.. I thought... I thought.." Cuddy turned around and clung to her lover, burying her face into his chest, trying desperately not to cry. He hugged her back, having felt the same thing, but deciding it best to keep that to himself right now. If Cuddy thought she couldn't depend on him as her rock, her strong anchor.. Well, he didn't want to think about it. Right now he wanted to see his kids.

Shooting a glance back at their eldest, who's monitors were beeping normally and steadily, he sighed and opened up the glass door to the hallway. As they started towards the elevators he spotted a familiar nurse who agreed to go sit with Allie while they took a walk. "I'm sure he's bored them senseless and they're sleeping on his couch." he tried to joke, but it fell flat. This wasn't a joking matter.

The ride in the elevator seemed excruciatingly long and when the doors finally opened, one would never have known that Dr. Gregory House was a cripple. In a flash they were down the hallway of Diagnostics towards his best friends office. Only, before they reached it, something caught both their eyes and stopped them in their tracks. Since arriving at the hospital, House had refused to visit his old office or conference room. He'd already met two of the new diagnostics team: Kutner and Amber, but that still didn't give them any right to be interacting with his children.

In what felt so painfully familiar, he swung the glass door open and stepped into his work space; his glass table and white board still positioned according to his fear of change, but the room still seemed different. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he shoved it to the back of his mind as two figures ran at him, nearly knocking him off balance.

"Daddy!!" Robbie's grip was much tighter than Remy's, and his voice much louder; though he could still make out the softer 'Adby!" from his youngest. Instantly his arms were around his babies, hugging them tight, his heart rate finally descending now that he knew they were safe. Or as safe as they could be with a group of strangers parading around in his office.

Within moments both kids were wrapped up in Cuddy's arms, who was making no effort at keeping from releasing her emotions down her cheeks. "Babies." She whimpered, kissing each child at least half a dozen times, until Robbie pulled away embarrassed. Laughing, Cuddy let the boy head back to his father. Remy on the other hand couldn't get enough attention from her mother and the moment Robbie was gone had immediately gone into 'grabby grabby' hands. "I don't know sweety if Momma's back is up for it but we can try. The woman stood up and reached under the girls armpits, and with a bit of a leap, the girl was in her arms, legs wrapped around her hips and head on her shoulder.

House was staring around at the new team, assessing each individual with a serious eye. He recognized the woman, Amber, from a previous job interview. She'd had all the right stuff, except the attitude. He'd passed her over and hired Dr. Hadley instead. Now it seemed Amber had taken over his job, and her teamed consisted of three pathetic looking doctors. "Taub, Kutner and Cole."

"So uh, want to explain to me why you felt it necessary to babysit my kids?" House asked, rounding on them menacingly, taking up his old position by the white board. As he spoke, he looked at the symptoms, written in girly lettering and rolled his eyes as if in pain. "And who the hell came up with AMD?" He looked around the table and saw the brown skinned Kutner slump in his chair a little.

House grabbed the patients file from Amber and quickly scanned through it. "You're patient is 22, male, and African American. You're an idiot." He tossed the file on the glass table and erased the diagnosis from the white board. "Macular Degeneration... That's something Chase would have come up with-" He paused as the sentence left his lips and he turned towards his son, who was swiveling in one of the leather chairs, oblivious to the criticism that had just been landed him.

"Um, actually.." The older fellow.. Taub.. Interrupted. "Doctor Chase, erm, Robbie, said that it was a stupid diagnosis too, when he'd first been dropped off in here. He seemed rather insistent, but well, considering his current .. uh." The doctor shut his mouth when he realized the former Diagnostician was no longer listening to him. Instead the man was stopping his son from spinning and taking him by his shoulders. "Robbie, why did you say AMD was not the right diagnosis?"

The boy bit his lip and leant his head back, thinking for a moment. Then suddenly the words came spewing from his mouth, "There's only a 2% chance of AMD affecting an individual under 60, let alone a young adult. His race and gender also indicate an even lesser probability of having this particular disease." He paused and looked back at the board. "And who would make a diagnosis of AMD after only an Amsler grid test?" He tried to swivel but his father kept his chair stationary. "Dad.." He lifted his head up and whispered in his fathers ear. "Are you sure they're doctors?"

House couldn't hold back his laughter as he pulled the boy into his arms, squeezing him tight. "That's my boy. Telling it like it is and taking names." He turned to the new team, "You're all idiots." He smirked and looked back at the white board. "Didn't any of you notice in his chart that he wears glasses?" As the three at the table shifted uncomfortably, House shook his head again. "He's 22, probably has no insurance. He probably woke up one day, found out he couldn't read his philosophy textbook anymore, went into the nearest drug store and purchased one of those cheap sets of OTC eyeglasses." He could see the conclusion dawning on the doctor known as Cole, but the other two still remained oblivious. Rolling his eyes, House continued. "Go have his vision checked and give the kid a proper pair of reading glasses. His blurred vision, headaches and whatever symptoms he's given you are not AMD. Besides, there's two types you idiots. The amsler grid tests is for only the wet type, which doesn't first present with blurred vision."

At the end of his ass kicking, he pulled his son from the chair and brought him over to Cuddy and Remy, who was nodding off in the woman's arms. "How soon can I get back to work? These rejects are going to end up killing people." Cuddy rolled her eyes and gave him a stern look.

"Oh, like you've never made a stupid diagnosis and nearly killed a patient." She was leading the men towards the door to the hallway, allowing Robbie to push it open for her. "Why thank you Robbie." The boy smiled up at his mum and continued to walk ahead of them towards the elevators.

House looked a little insulted by this. "Nearly killed is the same as mostly saved." He shot his lover a cheeky grin as the four stepped into the elevator and made their way back down to recovery to see how their eldest was doing.