Amber Cameron was delivered by caesarian section on a Wednesday in December. On Thursday, she was diagnosed with genetic congenital pulmonary hernia. That Monday, a team of neonatologists operated and learned that Amber's lungs had lied; her chance of survival increased from zero percent to one-eighth of a percent to eighty percent in a matter of hours.
Until Christmas, Cameron spent every day in the NICU and every night at House's apartment; she couldn't stand to look at the empty crib knowing that there was only an eighty percent chance that her daughter would ever sleep there.
On Christmas Eve, Cameron went back to her apartment because her parents were coming to visit on the 25th. She didn't invite House to have dinner with them.
She spent the night of the 24th with House, Wilson, and Sarah, the three guests she thought most appropriate for her first day back in her apartment. Wilson cooked. (He insisted.) House made fourteen cracks about Cameron's non-Christian Christmas Eve guests. (Cameron counted.) Wilson talked excitedly about the presentation he and the neonatal surgeons would make to the Board of Directors after the start of the new year, and Sarah offered advice.
Despite the twenty percent hanging over Cameron's head, life seemed strangely normal, perhaps more normal than it had been since the day she'd first interviewed at PPTH, almost five years earlier.
House stayed after Wilson and Sarah left. ("A hundred bucks says those two go home together," House said, and Cameron smacked his arm but was nevertheless unwilling to bet against the possibility.) He took it upon himself to lay down in her bed while she showered. Exhausted – and worried – she stretched out across him, resting her head on his chest.
"You're making promises you can't keep, Cam – Allison," he said, squirming a bit beneath her.
"Sorry." She laughed and moved her legs so that she now lay beside him. Her head was still on his chest. "You want to stay for dinner tomorrow?"
"Maybe," he answered.
She'd already known he wouldn't be willing to invest that much in family life.
"So, no," she said.
"Probably not. I'll consider it, though."
"Mmm, that's okay." She sleepily slid a hand down to his bare right leg and started to knead the mottled skin and absent muscle.
He caught her by the wrist and held her arm above both of their heads. "Nope," he snapped. "Stop thinking you can heal me. You never will. Accept it."
"I do," she said, sitting up. "You're going to be dependent on Vicodin for the rest of your life. All I ask is that you use only pills prescribed to you, you keep them on a high shelf when the baby's around, and you don't act like a drug addict."
Silently, he examined her face. "That's all you ask?"
"I know it's all I'm ever going to get."
"Have you learned nothing from working for me? Every once in a while, ask for more. Ask for too much. I won't listen to you, but if you really want me as your kid's father, you have to be tougher and a lot more demanding."
On December 27th, the NICU doctors told Cameron that her baby's lungs were developing normally. She'd be off the respirator and breathing on her own by the middle of January, which meant that by February, she'd be sleeping in the crib in Cameron's apartment.