Cuddy was half Jewish, the half that counted, but her family had always celebrated Christmakah. Her father had died when she was 23 and had been raised a lapsed Lutheran. House's family was, she believed, Methodist, so when Cuddy's brother asked about Christmakah, she invited everyone over to her home and stood over House until he'd invited his parents as well.
"I want my sperm back," he said, tossing the phone away where it landed with a silent thud on the couch.
"I have a confession. I haven't told my family about the babies." She bit her lip.
"Neither have I," he said, but that wasn't all that surprising. Cuddy laughed nervously. "I understand my reluctance – you've met my parents, but you seem… you're the prodigal daughter who does no wrong. Why the radio silence?"
"Does no wrong? I'm unmarried – that's enough to offend both of my religions," she said.
"We'll be fine," he said, looking down into his lap, fiddling with his cane.
"They're just going to arrive and I'll be…" She touched her stomach.
"At work, probably," he said. She had to agree with that. "I always work on Christmas," House reminded her. "I like my time and a half."
"Too bad," she said. "We're in this together."
"Can't we just invite the families to the fifth birthday party or something?" he whined.
"No," she said. "Jewish Christmas."
"Yuck," he said.
"All right, I'm taking a bath and going to bed. You staying?"
"Fine," he said, easily. Every once in a while, it hit her how strange and attractive this new House was. She didn't want to lose him and this too was a strange sensation.
She ran the bath and she could hear the television in the other room. He'd been complaining about her lack of DVR and she hadn't told him but she'd called the cable company and it was coming this weekend.
She was rinsing conditioner our of her hair when he knocked loudly enough on the door for her to hear it under the water. She sat up so quickly that water sloshed over the edge and soaked the bathmat.
"Yes?" she called uncertainly.
"Do you need anything? You've been in there a while," he said through the door. He was probably just bored.
"I'm okay," she said. It was then she felt it. The first flutter of movement – the first tangible sign of life deep within herself. "Oh!" she cried. "House!"
The bathroom door flew open and House came in.
"What's wrong?" he asked, his eyes a little wild and searching.
"I felt… I felt the babies move," she said, crossing her arms self-consciously. Weeks of him spending the night and this was the first time he'd seen her naked. She thought they'd shown considerable self-restraint actually.
"Oh," he said, looking at the ceiling. "Good."
"I was excited," she said. "I…" She drew her knees. "I'm okay now." He nodded, stealing one last glance before limping out. She pulled the plug and sat while the water drained around her. The mat squished uncomfortably under her feet but she ignored it and stepped out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. House sat at the foot of the bed and she couldn't hear the television in the other room.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"Let's just go to bed," he said.
"It was, you know, you're here all the time. You sleep in my bed, you eat my food, I bought you cable! So you saw me naked. Big deal." She sat next to him, the edge of the towel riding high on her thigh. "Most couples who are pregnant have done much more."
"Much more," he murmured.
"House."
"My leg hurts. Can we sleep?" he asked, fishing his Vicodin out of his pocket and popping one into his mouth.
"Yeah," she said. He shrugged off his coat and she put on her boxers and tank top in the bathroom. When she came out, he was already in bed, his back to her. She climbed into bed, turned off the lights, and closed her eyes. Three minutes passed, maybe, before House rolled over to face her. She turned her head to look at him.
"What?" she asked.
"You bought me cable?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said. He leaned in and kissed her. Cuddy was surprised but relieved. She kissed him back. He put his arms around her and they kissed until her lips were swollen and her skin grew tender from his stubble. They slept pressed together the whole night through.
oooo
In the morning, when her alarm went off at 5:30, House's bad leg was a heavy weight over her hips. She groaned, and slapped at the snooze button.
"House," she said and elbowed his side.
"Ugh," he said.
"House, move," she said. Any other person, she'd shove the limb off her but she didn't want to hurt him – at least not before he'd had painkillers to take off the edge.
"My name is Greg," he said, using a hand to lift his leg off of her.
"The surname thing is yours," she said, getting out of the bed.
"For the women that… for you, it's Greg," he said.
"All right," she said.
"5:30am is insanity," he said.
"Every time you say that it sinks in a little further," she said, dryly. "My beauty takes time." He looked at her sleepily from the bed – she'd gone to bed with her hair wet and now it was curly and wild. She had no make-up on and rumpled clothes. Her round belly peeked out from above her shorts and she stood looking out the window with one hand on her hip, trying to gauge how the day might be even though the sun had barely risen.
"You're ridiculously beautiful," he said. "So beautiful that ugly people must loathe you with every fiber of their being for taking up more than your fair share of the world's beauty." Cuddy turned to look at him with an expression of disbelief etched across her features.
"House!" she said. "That was –"
"Fuck, woman, my name is Gregory!"
"That was almost a moment we had there," she sighed.
"What can I say, I just gotta be me," he said. She rolled her eyes.
oooo
House's parents came first. He sent Chase to pick them up at the airport while he brooded in his office. Cuddy tried not to think about the onslaught of family arriving in the next two days – the parents and the nieces and the siblings. Cuddy had hired a maid service to clean every crevice of her house and though House's parents were staying at his apartment she had her mother and her brother, sister-in-law, and two nieces staying at her house. She gave her mother the guest room, and her brother and his wife the fold out and she still wasn't sure where she was going to put the girls.
She didn't know what any of them would say when they saw her. She was pregnant and that could not be denied. Her skirts were no longer tailored perfectly to her narrow form. She wore elastic waists and shirts with 'room to expand' and flat shoes because high heels made her ankles swell. She pulled her hair up off her neck and she wore a size up in lab coat. She had two babies swimming around in her uterus and she was going to have to tell.
Mr. and Mrs. House arrived around 4:00 with Chase looking haggard and underpaid. Chase couldn't find House (hiding in some janitorial closet somewhere, no doubt) and so he brought them to her office, with a smirk.
'Asshole,' she thought. He was her least favorite lackey of the day.
"Hello," she said. "It's nice to see you again."
"Hello, Dr. Cuddy," Mr. House said, trying not to openly notice her condition.
"I've paged your son, he should be here any moment," she promised.
"We'll have a seat," Mrs. House said knowingly. Cuddy nodded and motioned to her sofa where they sat primly.
"I hope your flight was all right." she said, sitting in the chair across from them.
"It was fine," Mr. House said.
"Would you like some coffee or tea?" she asked. "Let me get you some. I'll be right back." She stepped out of her office and sent her assistant to the cafeteria to get coffee. She used his phone to call House's cell phone.
"House."
"I know you got my page," she hissed.
"Perhaps," he said.
"Please, Greg, please don't strand me in my office with your parents," she said in a soft voice. There was a pause.
"Fine," he said and the line went dead. House appeared before the coffee and she smiled, careful not to touch him.
"Hi," he said coming in. "Dr. Cuddy graciously gave me the rest of the day off so I can take you home now." Cuddy knew better than to argue.
"Sure," she said. "But before you go. Don't you think…?" She turned to House.
"Now?" he asked.
"When?" she retorted. "Quick, like a band-aid." He shrugged.
"See that?" He pointed to her belly with the foot of his cane. "Mine. Let's go."
Cuddy and House's parents all wore the same shocked expression – though Cuddy's bordered on horrified.
"Is this true?" Mrs. House asked.
"Yes, Ma'am," Cuddy said, reverting back to her sixteen-year-old self, blushing like the time she and her first boyfriend got caught necking by his mother.
"Was it… a surprise?" asked Mr. House.
"No, sir," Cuddy said. "It was quite on purpose."
"Are you happy?" Mrs. House inquired. Cuddy turned to House who was looking extremely uncomfortable.
"Of course," he said. "Can we go now boss?"
"Yeah," she said. Her brother and his family were coming in that night anyway. "I'll see you in the morning." She shook their hands and Mrs. House squeezed Cuddy's hand tightly. Her ears burned for the rest of the night.
oooo
Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital was about twenty-five miles from the airport and she wasn't sure all the luggage would fit in her Mercedes but Wilson lent his SUV gladly. He'd been relieved she'd invited him for Christmas dinner as he'd had nowhere to go.
She made the drive silently. She wasn't sure what she was going to say. She felt that she should be mad at House for outing her to his parents that way but she was almost used to him now. Still, she wanted to be more delicate with her family. She parked the car and went to wait in the baggage claim. Soon she saw her brother, Thomas, appear at the top of the escalator followed by his wife Ellie and the girls, Natalie and Olive. Her brother smiled widely upon spotting her but by the time he reached the bottom of the escalator, his mouth was hanging open.
"Good Lord," he said.
"Don't tell mom," she said, panicking.
"Are you really?" He looked her up and down but she shrugged and crouched to hug her nieces. Natalie was 11 and took in the situation knowingly. Olive, who was eight, giggled.
"Hey Lisa," Ellie said, breaking the awkward silence.
"Hi," she said, standing up. "How are you girls?"
"Good," Olive said. "You look like Mrs. Smithers."
"Do I? Who is that?" asked Cuddy.
"My teacher!" Olive said..
"Is she going to have a baby?"
"Yeah," Olive said.
"Well, I'm going to have two!" Cuddy whispered.
"Hold on," Thomas said.
"Go get your bags, I'll tell you everything," she said, waving him to the line of black suitcases on parade.
"Your mother is going to figure this out, you know," Ellie said, grabbing Olive's collar so she didn't scamper off. Natalie stood nearby, stoic.
"I know, but I don't want to do it over the phone," she said.
"Twins?" Ellie asked. "I mean whose are they? How far along are you? They don't have phones in that fancy hospital of yours?" Cuddy gave her a sideways glare. She didn't feel like repeating herself again in the car so she turned to Natalie.
"How's school?" she asked. Natalie looked at her and said nothing.
"She hasn't said a word in two months," Ellie confided. "We have no idea why."
Thomas struggled over with the luggage and Olive tripped over her untied shoelace and began to cry. Cuddy knew it would be a long week.
oooo
By the time House appeared at her window, everyone had finally gone to bed. The girls were on the hide-a-bed in the living room and her brother and Ellie were in the guest room – she could hear Thomas snoring down the hall.
"Hey good lookin'," he said, leaning against the windowsill.
"How'd you break free?" she asked.
"I paged myself," he said. She smiled and leaned down to kiss his cheek.
"I left the back door unlocked but don't wake the girls, for the love of God, don't." He waved her away and she closed the window against the freezing air. He came in and they promptly got into bed where it was warm. Once snuggled in, she promptly lifted her shirt to show him her belly.
"It's itchy," she whined.
"Yes," he said. "You're outgrowing your elasticity."
"Fix it," she said.
"You have a medical degree as well, you know." But he dug around under the sink in the bathroom until he found what he'd placed there weeks ago in anticipation of this very moment. A bottle of vitamin E pills. She lay back on the bed and he perforated the capsules and rubbed the gel into her irritated skin. "It will help the stretch marks too," he assured her. "How is your kin folk?" He adopted a redneck accent.
"My brother looks like I kicked him, my sister-in-law is pissed I didn't tell her five and a half months ago and my oldest niece, Natalie, hasn't talked in two months. The youngest is cute as a button, though," she sad.
"Wow," he said. "I wouldn't have asked." She would have smacked him, but her stomach did feel better.
"What about your parents?" she asked.
"They are thrilled beyond belief, actually. They can't wait to meet you and be your bestest new friends."
"That's kind of nice, actually," she said, relieved. Mrs. House had probably given up on the idea of grandchildren.
"For you," he said, petulantly. She felt little sympathy for him and they soon killed the lights, laying quietly, talking in whispers and falling easily to sleep when the heat came on and made the room drowsy and warm. In the morning, at her early alarm, House got up and dressed without vocal complaint so he could sneak out before anyone woke. She wasn't ashamed but he deserved a formal introduction. She could get ready in half the time when he wasn't constantly vying for her attention and so she went in early with the hopes of leaving early. She left a note in the kitchen asking her family to help themselves, call if they needed her, and she'd be home soon. She hoped it wasn't a lie.
Christmas holidays were hard to anticipate. Sometimes the hospital was slow and sometimes packed. Usually, at least, the clinic stayed empty since Princeton's campus was closed for winter break. Cuddy was relieved to see that two days before Christmas, the hospital was quiet and under booked. She was scheduled to have the next three days off – always on call, but no one wanted to talk about donations during their vacations anyway.
She went to House's office to see Cameron in the lounge transcribing dictation and House watching cartoons on his old television. He didn't have a patient and they didn't want one.
"Where are Chase and Foreman?" she asked.
"Don't know, don't care," he said. "Shh, Frosty is about to come alive."
"Are you coming over later?" she asked.
"Tomorrow, I thought. When your mother arrives." He was right, it was the plan, but she was just tired of Thomas asking questions about him.
"All right," she said.
"I have dinner reservations for my parents," he said. "Boring."
"Well, I'm going," she said, crossing her arms over her stomach. "My feet hurt and I have to pee every ten minutes and I'd rather be with my passive-aggressive baby brother than here." She turned to go.
"Hey," he said. "You're pretty."
She left, soothed in spite of herself.