Chapter 5
A shower at Wilson's loft and clean clothes felt wonderful. House trimmed his prison-length hair. On the way back to Princeton General, they stopped at Princeton Plainsboro. House smiled with a happiness that surprised him as they walked together through the glass door. They rode the elevator in silence to the fourth floor and to House's old office. Chase's name on a temporary plaque covered his for now, but the office was still his home as much as his apartment was home. He thought of the new house he hadn't seen yet that would be his home with Cuddy and the children.
In the office his stuff was carefully stored on shelves on one wall. He pushed the door open. Chase looked up from the computer, then stood up. Seeing his happy smile, House felt a sort of warm clench in his stomach. The stress of the last months unwound a little more.
"You're back," Chase said, redundantly, but House didn't mind.
"No license. This is still your department. How can a wombat run a department?"
Chase snorted appreciatively at the dig. Things would go back to normal. "Just a matter of time till you're official, and I can escape being abused and go back to Surgery. Meanwhile, I hate to keep you at a desk in the conference room, terrorizing the fellows, but that's all the room we have."
House eased himself into the chair across the desk from Chase. "It's not prison. I'm grateful for that."
"That's not how you dealt with it last time."
"Priorities change."
"Yeah, they do."
"Well, I suspect the women want me to spend the afternoon getting ready for tomorrow. I think I'd better be there, especially since Cuddy isn't supposed to do anything except look good tomorrow and say 'I do.' Oh, and not give birth tomorrow."
Chase laughed outright at that. "It would make for a shotgun wedding. Should I bring one?"
"I suggested it. She didn't seem to think it was funny…"
House dutifully looked into the chapel on the way back to Cuddy's room. Arlene was kibitzing as the florist decorated the chapel. He noticed that the huppah** was set up already. He had expected to be nervous. He wasn't. Tomorrow the woman he had loved for years would become his wife. It was all happy.
Dominika had offered to give him away, but he knew that Cuddy wouldn't find it amusing. Besides, Dominika's knish food truck was flourishing and it was a weekday; her loyal customers near the downtown office buildings would be disappointed if she didn't show up. She needed the income for the coming birth of the baby whom she and her husband, the Ukrainian bouncer, were expecting in a few months.
Wilson had the look of a proud parent as he followed House around Princeton General. House, ten years older, several inches taller, and world weary, was tolerantly amused by Wilson's brotherly concern. How strange, he thought. How strange that the tough parts of their lives would lead to this. Crippling injury, psychosis, prison, Wilson's cancer, and it ended up with an imminent wedding and a soon-to-be-born baby. He pushed into Cuddy's office/living space/hospital room. "Madam Director," he murmured.
She looked up as she was logging off her computer. "I like Cuddles better. And Mama." She shut the lid on the laptop. "See, I'm being good."
"Astounding. Is it okay if I don't call you Mom?"
House felt arms snake around his middle. "You call me Mom," his mother said. "Greg."
He turned in the circle of her arms and embraced her. "Mom," he murmured.
"Rachel is delightful. I can't wait until I have two grandbabies to spoil."
House looked up to see Cuddy's happy face. Heart bursting with an unexpected burst of pure happiness, he led his mother over to the sofa in the corner. "Mom," he said again, and let the unaccustomed feeling envelop him.
There was a small rehearsal dinner in Cuddy's suite that evening. The rehearsal run-through had Cameron standing in for Cuddy, equally pregnant to House's amusement, but ten years younger and likely to carry her second child to term. Rachel threw her imaginary flower petals around with great diligence, then sat between her two grandmothers giggling. House stood next to Wilson while Rabbi Perlman explained the ceremony. The Reverend Thomas Bell, House's not-quite-father-either, stood next to him, beaming.
-tbc-
