Sessions II – Nine Months
Chapter 44: Grown Up
Hours later, House traipsed upstairs to see if Cate wanted any cold pizza after having locked up for the night. The movers had left by late afternoon, all of the furniture was settled, boxes put in the respective rooms. Thirteen and Cameron had sat on the kitchen floor and unpacked box after box of dishes for his mother and Taub's wife to wash and put away while he and the guys set up the man cave. They had claimed there was a lot to do in there when they really played pool for about an hour and a half before ordering pizza and beer. All the while, Cate and Cuddy had camped out in the bedroom unpacking their boxes of clothes and linens. Everyone had since left and the house was quiet, nearly settled and fit for living, but really, really quiet. That was going to take some getting used to.
He carried a paper plate with the pizza on it into their bedroom. The light was on, casting a soft glow over the cream colored carpet. His feet were bare and he kind of liked the feeling of the wall-to-wall carpet on his toes. It would sure beat the hell out of getting up in the winter onto a cold bare wood floor. When he didn't see her on their bed, he dipped his head into the bathroom. "Cate? I have a slice of pizza."
She wasn't in there either. Where the hell could she have gone? The place was big, that was for sure, but he didn't think he could seriously lose his wife in their own house.
"I'm in here," came her small voice. It cracked on a sob and he poked his head into the walk in closet to find her sitting miserably on the floor in the midst of their hanging clothes.
"What's wrong?" he asked kneeling down in front of her, placing the plate onto the floor beside him. Her lip protruded out and fresh tears rolled down her face. "Why are you sitting in the closet crying?"
"I… don't…. know," she sobbed, taking a heaving breath between her words. With her eyes and face, red and stained with tears, she looked like a toddler who had just lost her favorite doll.
He had to purse his lips together to keep from laughing insensitively at her. She looked so adorably depressed and was obviously distressed but, for the life of him, he couldn't figure out why. "Are you ok?"
"N-n-no," she replied in a small sad voice.
"Is the baby ok?" He was beginning to get worried.
"Y-yes, it's not that," she murmured rolling her eyes impatiently at him.
"Well, I'm not a mind reader," he complained. "You're going to have to give me a clue."
She looked around the closet and wiped at her nose with her fingers. "All the clothes fit with extra room," she cried again pointing to the empty space on the bars on either side of her.
House looked at the clothing and then back at her. "Yeah? So? That's like every woman's dream, right?"
"You have your side and I have my side," she stated like that was key to everything, tears running anew from her eyes.
He still wasn't getting it. "And you're afraid our clothes will live a solitary existence? Far away from each other, never to mingle again?"
"Don't you get it?" she huffed at him throwing her hands into her lap in frustration.
"Frankly, no, I have no idea what you're talking about."
"This place it too big!" she exclaimed. "Its so much bigger than the apartment. It's not cozy. It doesn't feel like a home."
He placed his hand on her foot and sighed. "It will, in time." Nothing ever felt like home when you first got there. That usually came later when you weren't really prepared to leave it. He knew from experience. More than he ever cared to.
"Greg, I feel like we made a huge mistake," she pouted her beautiful lips at him.
"We didn't make a mistake," he told her inching closer to her. "It's just new, different. You'll get used to it."
"I don't want to have to 'get used to it'," she complained. "I didn't want to leave the apartment. I only moved here because you wanted to!"
Whoa… what the hell was this all about? Where was this coming from? He thought they were together on this and that they were on the same page. What the hell had changed?
"Now you tell me this?" he questioned, floored by what she was saying to him. "After everything is done? That you never wanted to move?" He couldn't believe she was having second thoughts about this. He stared at her in shock. She shrugged at him and picked at the carpet beneath her crossed legs, not meeting his eyes. House closed his eyes and took in a breath. This was not at all the reaction he expected from her. "Cate, you can't just change your mind now. It's done. We're here. There's no going back."
"I know," she said tears coming again. Her hand came up to cover her mouth as she cried harder. "I just wish we could go back to the way it was."
"Well, we can't," he stated, maybe a bit too harshly. She looked at him imploringly, like she needed him to be the rock, the one to make it all ok. How did this happen? He was the childish adolescent who needed to be reassured, who needed two hours alone with his piano in an empty apartment to regroup and reconcile his past. She was the calm one; she was the one who was ok with change. When did their roles reverse? When did he become the one to be secure in moving forward toward a new future? How come he had to be the grown up?
"I know we can't," she said sharply.
At a loss, he threw his hand up in the air. "What do you expect me to do?" he asked her feeling like the plushly carpeted floor was falling out from under him. "Because I can't fix this."
"Nothing." She shook her head and sighed a shuddering breath. "I don't want you to do anything."
"I don't understand." He was confused and he felt so helpless. He didn't know what to say or what to do. If she didn't want him to do anything then why was she sitting here crying about it?
"I just need you to hold me," she pleaded. "Hold me and tell me that you aren't going to run away and leave me standing here alone with a new house and a new baby and nowhere left to turn."
House heart melted and it all become crystal clear to him at that very moment. He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly to his chest kissing her hair as she cried into him. That was the truth of it. She was scared, terrified that he was going to leave. She feared that he would do exactly what he had always done in the past, run away from his problems, avoid confrontation, and skip out on his responsibilities. "I'm not going to leave you. I'm not going to leave the baby. I promise." He kissed her hair again and squeezed her tighter to him. "Cate, I love you and I can't live without you. I'm not going anywhere." He ran his hand over her hair and down her back soothingly rubbing her with reassuring circles until her cries subsided to quiet whimpers. "And bedsides, I really like this house. It has a man cave."
She laughed into his chest but it came out like a little sob. Sniffing, she looked up at him and he took her face in his hands. "Do you really think that I would leave all this?" he questioned, looking around. "I finally get a closet that can hold all of my sneakers and your shoes with room for more! What's not to love?"
She laughed again and sniffled. "There's a linen closet in our bathroom and two sinks. I'm not going to know what to do with myself."
"I could use both and crowd you out if you need me to make it feel like old times," he offered.
She smiled and ran her hands over his arms as he still held her face. Touching his lips to hers, he kissed her gently hoping to send all of his love and need for her through his touch. He really hated to see her cry. It broke his heart when she was upset because he really didn't know what to do for her. He was so incapable of handling a crying woman. It just wasn't in his nature.
Pulling back, she took a restorative breath and swiped at her eyes with her fingers. She was done crying, that was her cue. "I guess I'm just tired."
"Yeah," he agreed scratching at the back of his head with a sigh of relief that this little mental break down was over. He looked at her belly protruding over her lap like a beach ball. Stress and pregnancy hormones were a bitch. "And hugely pregnant," he added.
She gave him a disgruntled glance from the side of her eyes. "Yes. Thanks for stating the obvious. Now get up Gimpy and help me off the floor."
"Oh, when you put it that way," he griped sarcastically, kneeling before he could stand.
She floundered around the floor of the closet like a turtle on its back as she stubbornly tried to get up without his help. He stood and enjoyed the show for a moment to get her back for her name-calling but then took pity on her and stretched out his hand. Pulling her to standing, he wrapped his arms around her caressing the sides of her belly, their baby in between them, as his hands came around to her back. "You know, you can't scare me like that."
"Like what?"
"You're supposed to be the emotionally stable one," he told her. "When I'm the one that has to be, you know we're in real trouble."
"I think you did pretty good," she applauded him. "You didn't really freak out. That says something."
"It was really more because you completely caught me off guard," he told her. "I was kind of stunned." He leaned his forehead against hers. "Do you really not want to live here?"
Sighing, she touched her hand to the back of his head and kissed him with her swollen lips. "I liked the apartment. All of my first memories with you are there. It's where we made our baby. I'm going to miss that."
His breath hitched in his chest and he blinked back a sting that suddenly came to his eyes. "Yeah, I know." He brushed her hair back over her shoulder and looked into her eyes. "We can practice a whole lot of baby making here, though."
She smiled at him. "If I wasn't the size of a whale, I'd say let's christen our new bedroom."
He grinned, contemplating her disclaimer. He knew she was feeling terribly uncomfortable but he thought she was sexy no matter what shape she was. "Sheldon said we could still do it for another four weeks."
Her lips quirked into a shy smile as his hands roamed down her back to cup her ass. "You're your are right."
"I'm always right."
"Saddle or doggie?" she proposed.
"Ooo you filthy woman, you," he growled, nipping at her neck. "I love it when you talk dirty."
She squealed in delight and dragged him into large room. "I'm thinking doggie with the assistance of lots of pillows," she chose excitedly.
"Aww, yes!" House pumped his fist in excitement and hurriedly followed to meet her by the side of the bed. "I'm so loving pregnancy!"
"We better get as much of this as we can in," she said beginning to take off her clothes, striping naked in front of him like she was going to the gym and not about to have sex in their new bedroom. "We're not going to want to touch each other for quite some time after the baby is born."
Whipping his shirt off, he kicked off his sneakers and began to unbutton his jeans. "Speak for yourself. I could be up for forty eight hours straight, have a screaming toddler in my ear for half of that time and have spent the rest of it in clinic duty and I'd still want to touch you in all your naughty places."
She giggled as she knelt on the mattress and grabbed pillows from the top to place under her belly and hips. "Well, I guess we better accept the fact that we might just wind up with Irish twins then."
Arching an eyebrow at her, he paused at the edge of the bed. "Irish twins?"
She giggled at him and came over to run her hands up his bare chest. "Irish twins are two babies born with a 12 month period of each other, Doctor."
"Ah yes, good old Catholic values at work," he quipped, trailing his fingers down her naked back. "When the 'poke and hope', doesn't quite work out the way you wanted."
She dipped her tongue in to kiss him before pulling back and looking him in the eye. "There's always the 'pull and pray'."
He kissed her deeply brushing his fingertips over her breasts. "Right now, I'm only interested in you ass up and me inside of you for the whole ride."
Her lips curled into a purr and she gasped a little, her eyes going dark with desire. "I love it when you get in touch with your inner caveman."
"I can be your caveman whenever you want," he told her before running his tongue along the delicate curve of her shoulder. "Now bend over woman and let's christen this house!"
