The phone rang.
It rang again.
It rang a third time.
"What?" Wilson answered.
"Hey."
"No. Just no, House. I'm on the freeway, it's trying to merge down to one lane because some stupid semi driver stalled out. No way."
"I just said, 'Hey'."
"It was the way you said it." Wilson glanced around, struggling to take everything in.
"I just wanted to know if you'd heard what New Jersey did this morning?"
"Unless it involves the turnpike changing in the next twenty minutes I don't care."
"Yes, you do. They legalized it."
"I'm sure my patients will be thrilled."
House laughed. "Wrong "IT". The one we're allowed to be happy about."
"Oh, that one."
"So, wanna?"
"No." A large black SUV came swerving into lane without signaling. Wilson slammed the brakes, swearing.
"Why not?"
"One, you don't really mean it. Two, you would only use it to annoy people. Three, my mother would kill me."
"Your mother likes me."
"And that will only continue if you never tell her she won't have grandchildren."
"I know better then to tell an old Jewish woman she won't get to smother little brats with cookies and…latkes?"
Wilson rolled his eyes.
"Besides." House continued. "Who says she won't?"
"You figured I said no to the marriage thing, so why not ask if I want to have kids." The traffic was at complete standstill. Wilson sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose were a migraine seemed to be forming.
"I just realized I never asked. Do you want kids?"
"I don't know." Wilson said. "Maybe, I guess." Something in House's tone made him nervous.
"Do you want my kids?"
"You know, irregardless of what you may tell everyone else at the hospital, I am in fact a man…"
"And regardless, because that's the word that you mean to use, of whatever issues you may have you should realize this is hypothetical. Hypothetically, there's a surrogate mother waiting on our doorstep. Would you want my kid?"
"Do I have to answer this?"
"Isn't it better then cussing at traffic?"
Wilson sighed. "I don't know. I hadn't put much thought into it. Got any history of Alzheimer's or leukemia?"
"That is just about the least romantic thing I've ever heard in my entire life."
"Well, sorry. I'd like to know what I'm getting myself into. Doesn't all of your mother's side have heart problems? Hell, you've had a heart attack, haven't you?"
"That was totally not my fault."
"Still. There's just that little bit of cancer on my dad's side so we should probably go with my genes."
"My kid's would be smarter."
"My kid's would be prettier."
Traffic moved forward approximately ten feet, then stopped again. The second the SUV in front of him moved that ten feet, a ostentatious minivan behind him sounded its horn loudly. Wilson swore again.
"Yes, god forbid you have to wait thirty extra goddamn seconds to get to get to soccer practice." He muttered.
"What?"
"Nothing. No. I don't want kids. I never want to see kids ever again." He moved forward the ten feet, the minivan behind him riding his tail. "And I want all stupid overly expensive vehicles outlawed."
"Don't you drive a Volvo?"
"Shut up."
"I'd be a good Dad." House said, veering back on topic.
"Oh, you would not."
"I would be a wonderful Dad and a wonderful husband."
"Okay, I get it. This is one of those conversations. Do I actually need to say anything or can I save my minutes and have you talk to dial tone?"
"I would be a wonderful Dad because I don't sugarcoat things."
"Not sugarcoating things does not make you a good father, it makes you…" Wilson thought a second. "Well, it makes you your father, actually."
Silence.
Wilson could tell House was pouting.
"That was mean." He said finally.
"I didn't say you were like your father, I just said that was something your father did."
More silence.
"I'm sure you'd be a wonderful father." Wilson said, finally.
"Why?"
"Because you don't talk to kids like there idiots." Traffic thinned again and Wilson began the nightmarish exercise of stopping and starting, pulling forward a few feet, then slamming on brakes. "Or you talk to kids like there just as much idiots as adults, or something. There's a respect thing…or there's a same amount of disrespect…I don't know, you're just good with them."
"You'd have to be the mother."
"What? Why?"
"Come on, whose more likely to give a damn if they skin their knee?"
"I can see that actually, 'Daddy, I'm to tired to walk.' 'When I was twelve I had to walk a mile and a half to school in three feet of snow!'"
"I did walk a mile and a half to school."
"Yeah, but it doesn't snow in the Sudan."
"You don't walk to school in the Sudan, you travel in trucks with armed guards. You walk to school in France, where is does snow and where the nearest school with a decent music program is a mile and a half away and don't you ever pay attention when I talk about my childhood?"
Wilson shook his head in amazement. Finally, finally, they passed the stalled semi and started the much less complicated process of spreading out across four wonderful lanes. Traffic sped up and soon you'd never tell there'd been anything in their way. The minivan he'd swore at passed him on his left. Wilson say a mob of sweaty tired children and one harried looking mother. A blond freckled boy was bouncing a nerf ball off the seat in front of him, a fat toddler in a car seat, asleep, her hair sticking straight up with static electricity. Between the front seats a small screen dangled from the ceiling playing a bright and presumably annoying cartoon.
Wilson took this all in very quickly as the car sped ahead of him.
"Yes." He said.
"No you don't."
Wilson realized House was still on the last subject.
"No, I mean yes. Yes. Hypothetically, if there's a surrogate mother on our doorstep, yes. Absolutely, one hundred percent. Yes."
There was silence. Wilson could here House breathing.
"But the marriage thing?" He said finally.
"Never. Not in a million years."
House laughed. "Good."
"You're not about to tell me you knocked up some college girlfriend and she's just tracked you down, are you?"
"Does that sound even remotely like me? How's traffic?"
"Much better. I'll be there soon."
"Alright…" Wilson heard him take a drink of something, presumably washing down a pill. "Thank you." He said.
"For what?"
"For saying no."
"Well, thanks for asking."
Dial tone.