Disclaimer: I do not own House, MD.
A/N: It is the end. It's been a pleasure being challenged, though I wish the epilogue didn't have to take this long. Includes my version on how Season 3 would have ended and how Season 4 would have been.
Wide, cerulean eyes fringed with auburn focused on the long, thin object on the floor. The toddler blinked and looked at the sleeping giant snoring softly on the couch. He turned his attention back to the long thing on the floor. Seeming to make up his mind, Christopher abandoned his Corn-Popper push toy and waddled towards the long object.
Christopher plopped down next to the interesting object, near the part where it curved. He picked it up and leaned forward to take a bite...
"Not again, short-man," House muttered crossly. Christopher paused to look up at his father when he spoke. House received his son's attention for a second before the toddler focused again on cane's handle. House snorted and took the cane, pulling on it just enough to prevent his still-teething son from bringing it near enough to gnaw on it. It took a moment for the toddler to change tactics, leaning forward to achieve his innocent purpose. House rolled his eyes and pulled up the cane. Christopher grinned; he held on the cane so tightly, he followed the cane's upward progress until he was completely standing. His father rolled his eyes before he leaned forward to encircle a free arm around his son's waist, twisting himself into a sitting position.
After successfully prying his brand-new cane from his son's eager clutches, House lifted his son by the armpits and raised him up, then down, testing his weight.
Twenty-month old Christopher started walking two months ago, to his parents' great delight (and relief).
--
He surprised everybody at eight months when he gave up rolling around to regular crawling, and House was there to witness it when he set the baby loose inside Wilson's office during lunch. Wilson wasn't pleased when he walked in minutes later and found that the baby's father had placed all his knick-knacks on the floor for the baby to play with, including an expensive pen-holder Cuddy gave him on their six-month anniversary.
"You have a CONFERENCE ROOM, House!" Wilson grumbled as he gently wrestled the penholder from his happy godson's clutches. "It's bigger than my office! Why didn't you set Christopher there?!"
"Be-CAUSE your carpet is softer and mine has blood on it," House replied serenely. "Plus, you have all these cool toys for Nemo to play with!"
"You refused to have Cuddy change your carpet, which has YOUR blood on it, and you HAVE toys!" Wilson growled, succeeding in getting his penholder back, which made Christopher cry. In the end, Wilson had to sacrifice a lab coat-wearing Dr. Teddy Bear (a gift from one of the nurses the previous Christmas) to make Christopher stop crying.
--
House placed Christopher next to him. He took an orange pill bottle from his pants pocket, faced away from his son, and took two white pills. He popped them into his mouth and dry-swallowed before placing the bottle back into his pants.
Though House was cavalier about Cameron's concerns about his Vicodin-a-minute habit, in reality, he always made sure to turn away from his son's intent gaze when taking his pills. The day after Christopher started walking, House took an inventory and hid his stash of Vicodin pills in a special corner of the house.
"Dada, bwah!" said Christopher.
House felt his son's small, strong hands on his left shoulder as the precocious child tried to pull his father towards him. House pretended to give in while he pocketed his Vicodin bottle back into his pants pocket. He looked at his wristwatch and sniffed.
"Time to suit up, Nemo," House said, wrapping an arm around Christopher. After setting the little one on the floor, House picked up his cane and stood up. He held out his left hand for the toddler to take, then led him out of the living room. "Let's hope Mommy didn't use up all the hot water…"
--
Three weeks before Christopher's first birthday, Cameron and Wilson sold the house they co-owned and split the proceeds between them. While Wilson handled the sale, Cameron and House took Christopher on a house-hunting trek. They settled on a large and handsome bungalow house with five rooms. They chose one for themselves, one for Christopher, one guest bedroom, one for an office, and the last one House reserved for his musical instruments. House almost selected the master bedroom as the music room, but he backed down when Cameron threatened to tell his mother.
House huffed. "Well, I still say we need to soundproof this room."
Cameron raised an eyebrow at him. "Why?"
House looked at her and waggled both his eyebrows. "Do you really want to broadcast our hedonistic performance around this neighborhood? Especially on 'no-condom' ni—?"
Cameron suddenly smacked his arm with Dr. Teddy Bear; Christopher was too surprised at the sudden loss of his stuffed companion to cry.
Wilson placed most of his things in storage and prepared to move in with Cuddy. He informed House while the two men whiled away some time inside the men's room. House surprised Wilson by sniggering.
"You're either the bravest man I know," House said reverently as he zipped up his pants. "Or the stupidest. Personally, I think you're the stupidest serial husband I know of. The Discovery Channel should make a project out of your life."
Wilson just grinned as House hobbled away towards the sink and continued with his litany: "She lives in a purple house with mold growing around the pipes and a makeshift dungeon in her basement. The moment you step foot in there, she'll be waiting for you in her leather dominatrix Dean-of-Medicine costume and a leather spike collar with your name on it."
"While she's six months pregnant?" Wilson asked wryly when he stepped next to House's sink and washed his hands.
This reminder made House look up from his hand-drying, seeming to reconsider. "Okay, make that a leather dominatrix maternity dress for Deans of Medicine. And a purple latex diaper with your name on it."
Wilson looked thoughtful when he finished washing his hands and shaking them under the dryer.
"A kinky love dungeon in the basement, huh?" he told House, who started nodding in mock earnest. "Interesting—I'll suggest it to Lisa when we get back from the honeymoon next week."
Wilson smiled broadly as he left a slack-jawed, boggle-eyed House inside the restroom.
--
Inside Christopher's room, House found that Cameron had left out a set of clothes on the changing table next to the crib. After inspecting the blue and yellow striped shirt and tiny black pants, House sighed.
"Mommy didn't get the memo," he wryly told his son, who didn't look up while he inspected the orange and red flames detailing at the base of his dad's cane. "See, even you can't bear to look at it."
House let Christopher play with his cane while he picked up the offending clothes and turned to a large, navy blue chest on the other side of the changing table. He bent down to open the chest, dumped the rejected clothes in it and picked out a small white shirt with intricate black detailing and short sleeves and a pair of toddler-sized blue jeans.
"Thanks for holding on to my cane," House said, taking the object itself from Christopher's hands. He hooked the cane on a corner of the changing table, picked up Christopher and set him standing on the chair. He deftly removed the simple blue shirt and red shorts off the toddler, replaced his Easy-ups diaper with a fresh one (thankfully, there wasn't anything solid), and dressed him in the newly approved clothes. The entire process was hampered by House balancing himself on one leg as he tried to keep Christopher from bouncing himself off the table and on the floor.
"Hey, you dressed him up!" Cameron exclaimed happily from the doorway. House grinned as he stepped sideways—hands still on Christopher's sides—and presented the result of his hard work to his live-in partner.
Cameron closed her eyes and an expression of pain briefly passed on her pale face.
"What's wrong with the clothes I brought out?" Cameron asked, stepping forward to take Christopher into her arms. Christopher squirmed around in his mother's arms until House handed him Dr. Teddy Bear in a scrub suit.
House rolled his eyes at Cameron, as though she had failed to figure something out. "You're making him dress up like a nerd. All the cool Jewish kids will laugh at him if he showed up in those nerdy duds you picked out for him."
Cameron snorted. "And you're turning him into a mini-me—er—you," she grumbled. She looked at her gold wristwatch and declared, "You better get ready. We don't want to be late."
As Cameron walked out of Christopher's room, she finally let go of a grin as House asked loudly, "How is looking like me a bad thing?"
--
Thirty-five minutes later…
House and Wilson had decided to retreat to the safety of the sofa, where they occupied both ends of it. Christopher sat on Wilson's left while he bit into a giant multicolored lollipop that was half the size of his head. On House's right was an infant seat occupied by an adorable, curly-haired baby wearing a blue and white stretchy suit and sucking placidly on a white pacifier. Little Gabriel bore a strong resemblance to Wilson, but he inherited his mother's heavy-lidded, light blue eyes and (according to House) her nose.
House dangled a set of big, plastic keys over Gabriel's head, not seeming to care or notice if the baby was attracted to the colorful, noisy toy.
"How did I get dragged into this?" House muttered.
Despite the noise level inside the living room, Wilson had no trouble hearing House. "Because you owe Lisa after she fibbed in court during that Tritter episode, and that was while she was having contractions. You should be surprised she invited you at all."
House rolled his eyes.
--
House got into trouble with a hard-assed cop when he stuck a thermometer up the man's rectum and left him bent over the exam table inside a Clinic room. Detective Michael Tritter caused trouble and a lot of stress for everyone at Princeton Plainsboro Hospital and the debacle went to court. Tritter's goal was to make House lose his medical license on the grounds of carelessness and House's dependency on Vicodin made Tritter's job easier…
House almost lost his job, what few friends he has, the loyalty of his underlings, and his family to Tritter's bizarre sense of justice and lack of understanding of House's pain. In the end, House even admitted to himself that he was at fault, though true to his own stubborn nature he never admitted it to anyone. He only told Christopher when Cameron wasn't around, but that was only because Christopher was still a baby.
He would also never admit to Cuddy how grateful he was when she stepped up and testified in his defense, even though it was a pack of lies. What Wilson had failed to add was that House got himself pardoned when he suddenly stood up and went to Cuddy just as she couldn't take the pain any longer. After he accompanied Cuddy to PPTH and returned to court, the hearing resumed and the jury pardoned him, though the judge sent House to jail for one night because he disrupted the proceedings.
It was Cameron, when she visited him in his cell that night, who informed him that Cuddy was delivered of a healthy baby boy.
--
"I remember now," House said, then he swallowed the rest of his beer and gave the empty can to Wilson. "She forced my hand while we were in the ambulance."
Wilson grinned. "Shecrushed your hand all the way to the hospital."
House winced and whined, "She tried to turn me into a cripple." He leaned over Gabriel and said, "You and your bad timing."
Gabriel just gurgled and drooled.
Wilson just snorted, handed Christopher to his father and left to dispose of the empty cans.
House carefully moved Gabriel's seat away from him a bit, then settled Christopher in the newly made space. He snorted and looked around. The large living room was crowded, composed mostly of Cuddy's and Wilson's immediate relatives (parents, siblings and their offspring) and a few friends from PPTH.
The Wilsons had even invited Chase and Foreman. The two men no longer worked with House now that they have finished their residency with him. Chase decided to work in the ER of PPTH and Foreman was leading his own team of diagnosticians at another hospital. Cameron would have moved on to a key position in the Immunology Department, but Cuddy convinced her to stay and keep an eye on House.
"God knows what he'll do to these guys," Cuddy had muttered. She was referring to the three new residents House had recruited, American Idol-style. As with the last group, the newbies were composed of one woman (whom House had called "Thirteen"; she didn't even bother to change it and now the number stuck) and two men (Doctors Kutner and Taub). They were left at the teaching hospital to "watch out for fresh and interesting patients", as House ordered them.
Wilson returned to his side of the sofa. "So—when are you going to make an honest woman out of Cameron?"
House snorted. "Not yet. Haven't ..."
House was cut off by a shrill wail that seemed to have originated from House's side and resonated throughout the house. All activity and noise stopped as everyone turned or stretched to look at the source of the distress. Just as soon as the wailing had started, it abruptly ceased.
House and Wilson looked down. Christopher looked up at his father while sucking on a white pacifier. Gabriel was oblivious to the shock he caused as he stuck out his tongue and licked on the partially eaten lollipop Christopher had handed over.
The two men looked at each other with identical, strange expressions on their faces just as Cameron and Cuddy had stopped at the sofa. The women took one look at the scene and started giggling furiously. House just grinned and grinned at his son. Wilson chortled as he extracted a thin digital camera from his pocket, which he handed to Cuddy.
"We'll need some kind of proof when they're older," he explained.
--
Back at their house, Cameron had finished preparing Christopher for bed. House headed to his music room and left the door open, letting out some beautiful piano music.
After lulling the toddler to sleep, Cameron headed for the master bedroom and turned towards the bathroom/walk-in closet. She opened her side of the closet, opened the drawer that contained her underwear, and looked down in shock.
Someone had used her pink bra and panty ensemble with the black lace trim to make a nest. In the middle was a small, dark blue, velvet-covered box. Cameron's eyes began swimming in tears as she picked up the box with shaky hands and opened it to reveal a beautiful diamond engagement ring. Looking closely at the top half of the opened box, Cameron noticed a tiny piece of blue paper with a bit of writing on it. She held it close to her eyes and read it aloud,
"Let's make it three and legal. Greg"
FIN