Hope my readers are enjoying this story so far... I originally had Cuddy expecting a girl, but then I switched it to boy because it seems like in all of fanfiction, they ALWAYS have girls. :D thanks to lightmyluminiere for helping me see this fact.

Chapter 39:

Around the same time that House and Cuddy were in an elevator doing much more than merely using it as a transportation tool on their trip down to the cafeteria after Cuddy's obstetrician visit, James Wilson and John Greene were seated in a booth across from one another in Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital's cafeteria.

John had a Caesar salad with grilled chicken in front of him and was digging in with his white plastic fork while the man opposite him took a bite out of his tuna salad sandwich on toasted rye.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," John said, as he swallowed his food and wiped his lips with the paper napkin that was beside his plate. "Barbara invited us over for dinner tonight."

After taking a sip of his water and setting his glass down, Wilson fixed his partner with a slightly bemused expression as he heard that John's sister had invited them over. "Wow. She liked me, huh? Must have 'cause I've been invited back," he replied.

John smiled, but didn't say anything, although his eyes twinkled. He glanced to his left and saw House and Cuddy enter the cafeteria and make their way over to the deli counter.

"Look who just walked in," John said, jutting his chin in House and Cuddy's direction.

House limped up to the deli counter with Cuddy right on his heels. After ordering his usual Rueben sandwich, dry, no pickles, he turned around.

"If you're getting a salad, pick one with chicken on it," he told her.

Cuddy rolled her eyes. "Yes, doctor," she grumbled.

House limped closer to her and stated in a low voice so that only she could hear, "You need your protein."

"I know," Cuddy replied, curtly, "but you don't have to keep reminding me every two seconds. I'm a doctor too, you know."

House exhaled slowly before leaning forward and resting his forehead against her own as he stared at her.

Surprised at the affection that he was giving her in front of the whole cafeteria, she remained silent and stared up at him, waiting for him to say something.

"I just don't want anything to happen," he whispered quietly.

For a moment, Cuddy said nothing; her breath hitched in her throat as she reached up and caressed his cheek with her fingertips, cupping his cheek with her hand. "Everything's fine. I promise," she whispered.

"You don't know that," House told her softly, as he continued to lock eyes with her.

A voice interrupted them before Cuddy even had a chance to respond. "Hey Doctor House, stop playing googly-eyes with your girlfriend. Your sandwich is ready," one of the male workers behind the counter called out to him.

As Cuddy went to peruse her salad selections over in the cooler against the wall, House grabbed his Rueben sandwich from the metal countertop and two waters from the cooler. As he limped up to the line of people, Cuddy met him in front of the cash register.

"Dr. Cuddy, you have a nice day," the young man behind the register said, looking up and smiling at her.

"Woah, hang on. If she doesn't have to pay then neither do I," House exclaimed, as he just watched Cuddy not pay for her $3.00 salad.

With a serene expression on his face, the boy said, in a deadpanned voice, "Are you Dean of Medicine? You sure don't look like her."

Cuddy rolled her eyes at House's immaturity. "Tom," she addressed the young man behind the register,"you will have to excuse Dr. House's behavior. I apologize for his actions. He's with me."

She turned to House with a mischievous grin on her face and pointed a finger at him. "You just better keep watching yourself there, mister. You're lucky you just didn't break the ice 'cause it sure is getting awfully thin."

And with a slightly amused smirk on her face, she turned her back on him, grabbed her tray, and headed off in the direction where Wilson and John were sitting.

"Mind if we join you?" Cuddy asked the two men, once she approached the booth with her tray. House was still a few yards behind her.

"Not at all," Wilson told her, scooting over in his seat to make room so his boss could sit down. John did the same when House reached the table.

"So you ready for today, John?" Cuddy asked him as she popped off the plastic top to her salad container.

"As ready as I'm ever going to be," John replied, with a small smile.

"Wow, and he even knows how to dress the part as well," House commented sarcastically, as he looked John up and down at the man's pressed light pink shirt, gray dress pants and light chocolate tie, "or did Wilson here have to help you with that?"

Cuddy kicked him underneath the table as she glared at him.

Wilson saw the icy glare and chose not to say anything, as he looked down and smiled to himself.

The four of them ate in a comfortable silence, occasionally making small talk in conversation. When it came time, Cuddy consulted her watch.

"Twenty minutes to one," she said, glancing at her silver Fossil watch that was around her right wrist. She glanced up at John. "We can go up if you want," she offered.

"Sure. Whatever works for you."

Cuddy went to stand up but was stopped when Wilson sputtered, "Woah! Hang on. You don't think I'm just going to let you go off without telling me the sex of the baby, are you?"

Cuddy smiled shyly but was beaming nonetheless as she leaned over and whispered in the oncologist's ear.

When she pulled back, Wilson was grinning.

"Oh my god! You're having a boy?" he exclaimed loudly, wide eyed as he stared at his boss and best friend.

"Shh," House reprimanded him, "god Wilson! You're so loud! Don't you think we don't want people knowing just yet?"

Wilson immediately blushed. "Sorry. I just got –"

"Over excited?" House finished for him, smirking.

"Thanks for the enthusiasm, James," Cuddy told him, smiling. Turning to face John, she asked, "Are you ready?"

John stood up once he was out of the booth. "Absolutely."

As Cuddy slid out of her side of the booth and grabbed her purse, she was met by House, who had gotten out of his side of the booth before John, and limped over to her.

"I'll see you when you're done, I guess," he murmured, as he went to kiss her on the lips.

"Good luck," Wilson told John softly.

As Cuddy and John walked away towards the elevators, Wilson and House sat back down.

After they had finished their lunches, it was almost ten after one. As House snagged an unopened bag of chips that was sitting in the middle of the table from Wilson's lunch, he opened the bag and popped two chips into his mouth, and looked at the man across from him with a slight smirk on his face.

"Oh god, you're about to do something, aren't you?" Wilson groaned, as he recognized the all too familiar look in his friend's eye. "Either that, or you want something from me, which isn't a surprise by the way, because you do it almost every day."

House wiggled his eyebrows as he continued to smirk at his best friend across the table, his smile getting wider by the second.

"Feel like taking a little trip with me, Wilson?"

"So John, I must say that I'm being remiss if I don't praise your amazing résumé," Cuddy said, as she scanned down the papers that she held in front of her.

She was seated on the floral patterned loveseat in her office, her ankles crossed on the floor in front of her. A pillow sat behind her to assist in the comforting of the low back pains she was sustaining due to her pregnancy.

John, who was seated diagonal to her in one of the fabric floral matching pattern single-person arm chairs, smiled to himself upon hearing his possible prospective boss say those words.

"You said you graduated third in your class?" Cuddy asked, briefly glancing up from the paper that was focusing all her attention at the moment, as her dark eyes met John's soft brown ones.

"Yes," John responded curtly, "From Columbia."

"How big was your class?" Cuddy inquired, curiously.

"I graduated with around 900 students."

John saw her eyebrows shoot up immediately following that answer. "Impressive," she told him, grinning.

"So what'd you do after graduation?"

John cleared his throat before speaking. "I knew someone at Blanch, so I did my internship there. I specialized in Personal Injury, so Blanch really didn't do it for me. After a year or so, I left and got a job at Weitz & Luxenberg, which was fantastic because all they dealt with was Personal Injury."

After taking a sip from his water glass and setting it down, he continued.

"I was at Weitz for…let's see… about twelve years as one of their junior associates. I eventually got the position of senior associate from being there for so long, and then I just decided to. . . leave on my own."

He chuckled to himself as he recalled the look on Perry Weitz's face when he told one of the company partners' that he was resigning as their senior associate.

"Perry wasn't too happy about it," he said, reminiscing. "So anyway," he began again after a moment's silence as he was momentarily still stuck years in the past, "I decided it was time for a change."

"And that is when you decided to form your own firm?" Cuddy asked him, after listening to what John had said, occasionally writing notes on the lined pad she held in front of her on her lap.

"Well yea," John told her, "but it wasn't immediate. About a year or so after I left Weitz, a buddy of mine who I graduated Columbia with had hinted to me that he was trying to run his own practice. So I received a call from him asking if I was interested a partner track with him."

"And since I was jobless at the time, I immediately accepted."

"And," Cuddy said, "pardon me for interrupting, but correct me if I'm wrong. The firm you worked for was Greene & Perry, correct?"

"That is absolutely right," John replied.

"I've heard of it. Never dealt with you directly, but my very good friend who is a lawyer works with Mr. Perry… Quite often I think."

"Stacy Warner. Well that's her married name," Cuddy told him, "Barrett is her maiden name."

"The name rings a bell," John recalled, "I remember a while back, Nick, my law partner at the time, talking about a woman Barrett. He said she was a very good lawyer. Knows her stuff. Works hard. Dedicated."

John paused and cracked a smile. "And boy did she have a wicked sense of humor. I used to work with her quite frequently in fact."

Chuckling softly, Cuddy agreed. "That sounds like her."

"Anyway," she continued, setting the paper in front of her down on the coffee table as she readjusted the pillow behind her lower back, "James told me you left the practice."

"I did," John answered. "Still in the process of moving things."

Cuddy folded her arms across her chest as she leaned against the back of the couch, surveying the man diagonally to her with a penetrating stare. "Why?"

"Pardon?"

"Why," Cuddy repeated, "leave a very successful, I'm sure, law firm in the city where you were one of the principle owners, and come down to Princeton, New Jersey?"

Pausing briefly, she added questionably, "I'm assuming it is not for Dr. Wilson?"

Chuckling softly, John leaned up against the back of his chair, folded his clasped hands across his crossed legs, and fixed Cuddy with a small smile before he answered her.

"No it wasn't," he began, "…well, it wasn't ALL because of him." He paused, and then said, "I wasn't prepared to leave the firm, and then…"

At this, Cuddy's eyebrows rose, as she silently waited for an elaboration.

John smiled softly as he spoke the next five words. "…and then I met James."
"I was doing the back and forth commute from Princeton to New York for the past month, and I must say, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic is not exactly the way I like to spend my mornings five days a week," he finished out, with a small smile.

"Quite understandable," Cuddy agreed.

"So, a little while ago," John continued, "the day after the Christmas party in fact, I told Mr. Perry that I wanted a commute closer to my sister's…I'm sure James told you about my sister's divorce…"

Cuddy shook her head. "He did not, but please, continue on…"

"…So I told him I wanted a commute closer to my sisters. Of course, I told him it would be temporary, but…now, I'm thinking…maybe not…"

"People do crazy things for love," Cuddy remarked softly.

John chuckled as his dark eyes twinkled. "Yes, they do," he remarked softly, "…Nick wasn't crazy about me leaving. He assumed my decision was not only because of my sister's problems, but he assumed I had met someone."

Cuddy's eyebrows went up again.

"…I told him it was because I wanted to help my sister out a little, which is true…and that the commute was getting to be a little rough," he said, "I just…left out some minor details," John finished out, with a cheeky grin on his face.

Cuddy couldn't help but laugh. "Yea…some minor detail, alright," she said, chuckling.

John cracked a small smile.

Cuddy straightened her posture as she sat up a little straighter on the couch. "Ok, I have to ask this, although I know it will not be a problem for you, but part of policy," she stated. "Are you okay with working with a female boss?

"Although you'll kind of be in your own department so you won't really have to report to me so often…"

"It's fine," John answered.

Cuddy smiled. "I knew it wasn't going to be problem for you."

She surveyed him with a serious look. "I assume you aren't doing this for the money?"

He shook his head. "No," he replied, glancing out the glass double doors when something white caught his eye. He saw House's head dart around from a corner, staring directly into the glass doors in Cuddy's office.

John had barely blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, House was gone. Turning to Cuddy with a small smile, with a small jerk of the head, he said, "I think we have an audience."

Very nonchalantly, Cuddy angled herself in a position so that she could see to the side of the column that was immediately before the clinic desk. She saw the back of Wilson's head and chuckled.
"I think your boyfriend is checking up on you," she teased.

Outside Cuddy's office, Wilson's head turned, and he immediately blushed when he saw Cuddy staring at him. He saw Cuddy smirk and raise her eyebrows at him.

Swallowing, he turned his head. "She sees us," he told House, who limped over to Wilson.

"No she doesn't," House remarked, rolling his eyes, but immediately regretted saying those words as he leaned out from behind the column to see his girlfriend smirking at them through the glass doors of her office.

"I think someone's in trouble," Wilson remarked, as he saw the change in expression on House's face.

"Me? There's no way I'm the only one taking the heat for this," House retorted, turning to glance at him. "You were the one to agree to it."

"Yea, but it was your idea," Wilson told him, smirking, "And she's YOUR girlfriend…"

Two nurses who were behind the clinic main desk smirked to each other as they listened to the two doctors' conversation with remote interest, both of them staring curiously in House and Wilson's direction.

"You didn't have to follow me," House told Wilson, ignoring the last remark. "You just wanted to do it because it involved your boyfriend," he finished out, smiling wickedly as he stressed emphasis on the last word.

Wilson's face and neck immediately turned a bright shade of crimson, and he glanced down at the speckled tiled floor, taking a strong interest in the black tiny speckles that danced across the floor; meanwhile, the two nurses drew their heads together, occasionally shooting small smiles in the oncologist's direction as they discussed this new piece of gossip.

House smirked. "Wow! That's all it took to make you blush? If I knew it was going to be that easy, I wouldn't have tried so hard," House remarked, a smile curving upwards at the corners of his mouth.

The two nurse's, who had been softly giggling at the conversation that was transpiring right in front of them, suddenly stopped as they glanced past House and Wilson. "Um…Dr. House?"

House looked towards the nurse who spoke as she gestured with her head. He whipped around to see Cuddy standing with one hand on her hip and a smirk on her face, as she clicked her tongue against her cheek.

"Ah, Dr. Cuddy," he began in a falsely cheery voice. "Fancy seeing you here. I was just…" His eyes quickly scanned the dark oak counter of the desk that sat underneath the clinic entrance sign, "…going to fill in some clinic hours. Dr. Wilson here was just…assisting me…"

Chuckling softly at House's lame pathetic excuse, Cuddy couldn't help but let her eyes travel swiftly down his profile of his body, taking in his rumpled t-shirt and dark blue jeans, trying very hard to restrain herself from running her hands along the inside of his t-shirt, against his sleek toned abdominal muscles, while pressing her lips onto his mouth.

Licking her bottom lip, she said coyly, still with a smile on her face, "That was pathetic."

House limped closer to her. "You liked it," he said, knowingly. "And I would seriously stop trying to undress me with your eyes," he teased, locking eyes with her.

"It was pathetic," she repeated, ignoring the last part of his sentence, trying very hard to not let a smile creep upon her lips, although her eyes twinkled with absolute delight of the thoughts running swiftly through her mind.

"Your lips say no, but your eyes and body language tell me that-" House started to say, but was cut off.

"Don't you dare finish that sentence unless you want to be doing double clinic duty for a week!" Cuddy warned him dangerously.

House smirked. "Wow. You're rather sexy when you're pissed off and pregnant." He turned to Wilson. "What do you think, Jimmy?"

Wilson opened his mouth to speak, but Cuddy cut across him.

"Do not answer that, James," she told him, roughly. She turned back to House, and warned, "And I think THAT comment just earned you triple."

The two nurses smirked at each other and caught Wilson's eye as he moved back out of the verbal line of fire between House and Cuddy.

Cuddy however, saw him edging his way back, and she chuckled softly as a wicked grin crept upon her face. "Oh, you don't seriously think I'm going to let you get away with this, are you?"

Wilson stammered and turned a deeper shade of crimson. "N-No."

Cuddy chuckled, and snapped into administrator mode, fixing both doctors' with a stern look. "I was under the impression that I hired two doctors', not two undercover sleuths," she told both of them.

House smirked. "Ah, see what happens when I can be both?"

Ignoring him, Cuddy continued. "While your spying powers may be useful when you are Jason Bourne, you're not, so get back to work and quit stalking my interviewee!" And with that said, she turned on her heel and walked back towards her office, failing to notice that House's eyes were glued to her ass on the entire return trip to her office.

TBC...

Thoughts? Think John is getting the job? Stay tuned.

And I did not bring up Stacy for nothing. She will come up again, especially since she works at John's old law firm, but not for a while.