12.

Cuddy was at the front desk, receiving a stack of messages and reminding herself for the umpteenth time to hire a new assistant, when she glanced up to see House come through the front doors. He either didn't see her, or was ignoring her - the latter option being far more likely. She looked down at her watch. It was five past eleven, and he was just arriving.

"Brenda? What are Dr House's clinic hours today?"

The nurse turned to her computer screen and after a few mouse-clicks said, "He's... not scheduled today."

"Why don't we change that?"

Brenda gave her an approving smile. "Gladly."

She caught up to him just as he was stepping onto the elevator.

"Dr Cuddy," he greeted her as if he'd only just now seen her. "I'd say good morning, but it doesn't look like one for you. Rough night?"

"And you, Dr House?" she asked, glancing down at her watch again. "Any reason you're... over two hours late?"

"Well speaking of rough nights, this girl kept me up till all hours and I was so worn out I slept right through my alarm. Well I would have if I'd set an alarm, anyway."

She refused to react to that. There was no one on the elevator with them, but she still wasn't going to encourage him. "How nice for you. I hope you enjoy the extra two hours in the clinic I've scheduled you for this afternoon just as much."

The doors opened on his floor and she exited while he remained in place for a moment, glaring after her. She glanced back, spurring him into action.

"So this girl," he went on loudly as he stepped after her. "She couldn't get enough of me. And she was into some kinky stuff. Very demanding. And loud, let me tell you."

"I'm surprised you could keep up," she remarked archly, effectively shutting him up just long enough for her to get a word in edgewise. "I have a case for you," she told him. "The guy keeps getting passed around from department to department and -"

"What a shocking waste of hospital resources. Your head must be about to explode from the inefficiency of it all."

"You weren't here earlier so I left the file with Dr Foreman. Just figure out what's wrong with him. That's what you do, remember?"

"Oh all right, I suppose I could take the case as a special favour to you," he said as he pulled his office door open. "With the understanding you'll be doing me a special favour later." His voice dropped suggestively and he leaned in towards her.

She spared a glance into the next room where House's team were seated around the table, and ducked past him into the office. "I'm not going to bribe you with sex to do your job."

"I really think you should. Productivity will increase by leaps and b-"

"You'll take the case," she interrupted, "and not just for the obvious reason that I am your boss, and you will do the work I assign you to do." She smiled, confident in spite of his attempts to disarm her. "You'll do it because you love making a diagnosis where five other doctors in this hospital have failed. Your ego can't resist."

"Don't bring my ego into this. It doesn't like being talked about, it's sensitive."

"The big ones always are," she drawled.

"Ouch. See, now you've hurt its feelings. It needs to go somewhere quiet now for a nap, you know, to recover. Emotionally."

She rolled her eyes and pointed to the conference room next door. "Just get to work, will you?"

"Ooh, yes Ma'am." He threw open the adjoining door and addressed his team. "I love it when she orders me around!"

"I'll remember you said that," she tossed over her shoulder as she left by the other door.

Back on the elevator she found herself wedged in between an orderly pushing an elderly patient in a wheelchair, and a large man in a suit who had apparently showered in cologne that morning.

She tried to breathe shallowly as she watched the floor numbers slowly descend. The cloying scent seemed to stay with her, though, even after the doors parted and she barrelled out ahead of the other occupants and headed towards her office, afraid she wouldn't make it before being sick everywhere.

It wasn't just the cologne - although she had to admit that was one of the benefits of House never shaving - everything made her nauseous these days. Constantly nibbling crackers or raw vegetables at her desk and sipping endless cups of horrid ginger tea in a vain attempt to settle her stomach, this was just how her days went now.

It was exhausting, feeling sick all the time, and there was the added pressure of having to hide it from her colleagues, too - not the easiest of tasks when working in a hospital constantly surrounded by healthcare professionals.

She knew it likely wouldn't last much longer, but that knowledge didn't make her feel any better here in the present. On her knees, hunched over the toilet in her private bathroom, she found herself cursing House. This was all his fault.

No, she amended the thought guiltily. As satisfying as it would have been to lay the blame for her circumstances squarely at House's feet, there had been two people in her bed that fateful night. And she had been the one to get drunk, kiss him, and invite him back to her place.

She really only had herself to blame for what had resulted from that particular tryst. But the handful of nights they had spent together since then? She knew it wasn't a good idea, but she couldn't seem to make herself put a stop to it.

What am I doing? she asked herself. She really didn't know. All she did know was that it felt good, being with him. When everything else in her life had suddenly become so complicated and out of control - House, in a truly bizarre turn of events, had somehow become a port in the storm.

But then, things had always been mixed up where that man was concerned. She'd known him for a long time, and it seemed that their relationship was destined to always be fluid, changing. He was at times a patient, a colleague, an adversary. Always a challenge. Something like a friend. And now this - he was becoming something else again. They were going to be tied together from now on, they were going to be family. What did that make him to her? A lover? A partner? An occasional babysitter with benefits?

Calling it complicated was a vast understatement, really. The morning sickness was nothing compared to the churning thoughts in her head.

Yes, she cared about him. And yes, she was attracted to him, but she wasn't a love-sick teenager; this wasn't an infatuation. Spending the night together a few times didn't change that. And it was the same for him, she knew. During that late night ultrasound in the clinic two weeks ago things had gotten very emotional and it had seemed natural in the moment to turn to each other. And yes, fine, they had slept together a few more times since then, including just last night. Which, again, had made for very pleasant distractions. But that's all it was - a diversion from reality, something they both needed right now.

Because the fact was, she reminded herself as another wave of nausea rolled over her, she had bigger problems to deal with than whatever was happening with House.

She left that night at six thirty, passing the familiar orange bike in its usual place. He was probably in his office right now, she thought, still drilling his team or brooding over test results and medical journals.

It went in cycles. One day he would be playing gameboy in the janitor's closet and ducking out before five, the next he was haunting his office until all hours of the night. His obsessive need to solve a puzzle once presented to him would override his desire to slack off, only for him to revert back to his lay-about ways just as soon as the solution was found.

He had nothing like a work ethic. For him, it was all about occupying his enormous brain, and whether that was with a medical mystery or a video game or by delving into his colleagues' personal lives, it didn't seem to matter much.

She had to wonder what he would be like as a parent. It was difficult to picture. Would a child present a new, ever-changing challenge for him, or would the humdrum, everyday routine of parenting bore him?

This was the kind of question that was constantly occupying her thoughts of late. She wondered how he was going to handle this. She wondered how she was going to handle this; whether she was going to be a good mother. And she worried. A lot. About everything - about the months of pregnancy ahead of her, about the baby's health, and her own. She worried about the hospital, and how she was ever going to hand it over to someone else to run.

She worried that she wasn't going to like this whole motherhood thing, and that she was going to spend her maternity leave wishing she was back at work. And she felt guilty. Because even thinking about that sort of thing made her feel like a bad person, focusing on her career when surely her priorities were supposed to be different now.

Apparently she was capable of being a bad mother before she even became one. It didn't exactly bode well for the future.

So she spent the drive home from the hospital worrying, and when she got home she made herself a plate of toast and ate it while she sorted through her mail and made a shopping list for when she finally got around to going to the grocery store. She forced herself to attend to a few other small chores, and then finally went to her room and collapsed on her bed. Where she worried some more.

Aside from giving herself an ulcer, at this particular moment in time she wasn't feeling too bad, just tired and sluggish. She found herself missing exercise - she just hadn't had the energy lately. Usually she jogged in the mornings, went to the gym on the weekend, scheduled a game of tennis or golf with friends when she had time. She hadn't done any of those things in weeks - and there was another concern to add to the pile, because the fitter and healthier she was, the better for the baby. And right now she was feeling neither of those things.

With a sigh she rolled over onto her side, arms wrapped around her middle. As she did, her eyes fell on a pile of dark material hanging over the back of a chair, frowning when she didn't recognise it. Then she remembered - House's shirt. He'd left it there a few mornings ago, when she had all but shoved him out the front door without waiting to see if he'd left anything behind.

She stared at it, lying there so innocuously. It was just a shirt. But she remembered pushing it off his shoulders and down his arms, running her hands up under his t-shirt while his mouth assaulted her throat and how they shuffled awkwardly across the room till her knees hit the side of the bed. And then when her back hit the mattress...

She sat up quickly, trying to dispel the image from her mind.

Yes, sex with him was nice - very nice - but there was no point dwelling on it. He was likely still at work, she thought. And if he wasn't... She knew she could call him and ask him to come over, and he likely would. Or she could show up on his doorstep, and he would let her in. She chewed her lip, thinking about it in spite of herself.

She felt like this was a bad habit to be getting into. She couldn't just go running to House every time she needed to take her mind off her troubles. Even if he didn't seem to mind too much, and even if she was starting to discover she felt more like herself when she was with him than she had since this whole mess began. Even so.

What she really needed, she decided, was to take a bath and relax, and then go to bed early and catch up on some of the sleep she'd been missing lately.

The thing to remember, she told herself as she slipped into the warm water a few minutes later, was that her problems only seemed overwhelming. But they weren't. She knew she could handle things - handling things was what she did.

You can do this, she told herself, repeating it a few more times. You can do this, you can do this, you can do this. Like a self-help tape for people with low self-esteem, running on a continuous loop in her head.

Yes, she could do it. She could get her life back under control. Just as soon as she figured out how.