Chapter Eighteen

A Proposal and A Rejection

Thanks to RHSecretLove, DrusillaBraun, PaulaAbdulChica2007, CalleighWolfe, Boys Don't Cry, HouseAddiction, Huddytheultimate, starstacey, HOUSEM.D.FanForever, gabiroba, mj0621, BlkDiamond, SavvyKitten, and Shikabane-Mai for their reviews.

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Disclaimer: I do not own anything pertaining to House. I only mess with their characters' lives and at times badly.

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"Dr. Cuddy please rise." The judge started.

Cuddy sprang to her feet and then steadied herself on Stacy and Madeline. House looked up with eyes filled with plain fear and worry. Wilson gripped his arm to keep him from running to Cuddy.

"I find that Dr. Cuddy has done nothing wrong in raising her child. She obviously loves her child and takes care of her responsibly, and with lots of care and love." The judge said with a small smile in her direction.

Cuddy felt the tears come in warm rushes and she had never been so happy to allow them to flow. A smile lit up her face where worry had darken and paled it. She was beautiful, radiant, and joyous. "Thank you." She wept.

House limped toward her, wanting to speak to her, to apologize, beg for forgiveness, anything to make her forgive him one more time, like all the other times she had.

"Dr. House." The judge started, focusing a steady gaze on him. He looked at her with a surprised expression on his face.

"You will control you use of Vicodin. Judging by your testimony you are obviously in pain and need them, but you will control how much you drink and take them. Your role in raising your daughter will solely be in the hands of Dr. Cuddy."

House nodded and looked at Cuddy who looked back at him with an expression that broke his heart. Happiness mixed with rage, relief mixed with fear. He looked away.

"Ms. Cabot." The judge now addressed. Heads whirled to see a slim blonde woman rise to her feet. "Detective Tritter has brought a groundless case before me. A case completely out of his area. I suggest you do a thorough background check of his past cases before investigating him for abuse of power. If he brings another groundless case based on petty revenge into my courtroom, I will find him in contempt and investigate why you did not prevent it."

She nodded, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "It would be my pleasure."

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Outside the courthouse, Cuddy demanded to see her daughter and House could no longer put off giving her the news that would bring her grief so soon after her moment of relief and joy.

"She's in the hospital." House said.

Cuddy whirled on him with an expression so filled with fear and rage that he stumbled back, as if the force of her gaze was enough to push him. This was a woman who could face down lions barehanded and her stormy blue eyes radiated a fury so ferocious House wondered if the mere power of her eyes was enough to stop armies.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She screamed at him, raging, her previous hurt created by him still unhealed.

"I told him not to." Wilson stated, coming up behind him. "I was afraid you would lose it if you knew before trial was over."

She glared at him. Her prejudice, however, kept her from jumping down his throat like she had done House's. He was the logical one. The one who was well adjusted and stable. She trusted him in ways that she did not trust House, even when she disagreed with him.

"I'll drive you." Stacy volunteered, motioning for House to join them. He did and they raced to PPTH without a single word. The silence speaking volumes.

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"She's okay. Just malnourished. The social worker is in the lobby." Dr. Faber of Pediatrics said.

Cuddy breathed a sigh of relief as she enclosed her former employee with a hug. "Thank you." She murmured.

"Anything for you, Dr. Cuddy. Can I ask if you're coming back? That Fisher is a bad one." He said.

Cuddy looked at her feet. "I'm sorry I can't." She answered.

He shrugged. "I'm taking a job elsewhere then. I can't stand her treatment plans."

She was about to answer, but her gaze moved past him to the woman who had just appeared in the doorway.

"Dr. Cuddy?" She quivered. "I'm Jennifer. I'm your daughter's social worker. I just got the call that you won the case."

Cuddy took a step toward the younger woman, foreboding and angry. "You're the one that got her into this condition? You moron! How dare you treat her with such little responsibility?" She screeched at her. Angry enough to fight, kill, anything to protect her young.

Jennifer was shaking in her skin. "I'm sorry. It's just she wouldn't stop crying." She burst into tears.

Cuddy took a step back, breathing hard. House kept his distance. He knew Jennifer had meant no harm, but this was his baby they were talking about. His child. Any harm coming too her was intolerable and anyone who had hurt her deserved a death sentence no matter how innocent.

The doctor poked his head out of the room. "You can see her."

By the time he finished his sentence, Cuddy had already pushed past him and had her child cradled in her arms. House followed, giving the pediatrician a nod of thanks, something he never did. The surprise was evident in the other doctor's face.

He leaned in the doorway and watched her. She was crying through her smile, as she kissed her baby's forehead and snuggled her close. She laughed when Jesse grabbed a fistful of her dark hair and giggled. Her blue eyes were radiant, sparkling with unguarded joy. He started to limp away. Jesse had his DNA, but Cuddy was the one that had raised her. Taught her her first words, taught her how to smile, fed her, changed her diapers, comforted her when she cried at night. Cuddy was her parent. House was not.

"House." Cuddy called before he could take a step.

He spun around and was captured by her gaze within a split second.

"Come here, hold her. She's yours too." She said with a smile.

House didn't need to be told twice. He took the invitation without any hesitation and was soon fussing over his child just like Cuddy was. She watched him closely. He had changed. In the short time that they had been together, he had changed. Still as snarky as ever. Still as clever as ever, but now there was a softness to it. Like Jesse had taken the edge off and only left his personality without the bitterness. Like he had been in college, before life had taken its toll on both of them and how they ran blindly in every wrong direction before crashing back into each other.

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Things had quieted down when Wilson slipped into the room. Cuddy was sitting in a chair with her head on House's shoulder while he softly snored. Their baby in a crib before them. She lifted her head when he came in. House kept sleeping.

"He's exhausted." She whispered.

Wilson nodded. "The board of directors want to speak to you."

She looked at him with a look on her face that told him that she was less than content to speak to the people who were once her colleagues, whom she once leaded before House's mistakes caved in on her. However, that look was quickly replaced with one of set fearlessness. The board could criticized her all they liked, her decisions, her romantic involvement with House right down to her child and she would not let it affect her, or how good she thought her life was.

She followed him to the oversized conference room that used to be what House had once called her 'court' with her as queen.

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She sat down facing the board as Wilson sat down across from her, in his usual place. Fisher was not there, so her former chair was empty.

Wilson decided to start because it was already obvious that most of the member were feeling ill at ease at facing their former Head of Administration rather than sitting beside her, one side.

"The board has been alerted to some abuse of power and failure to properly perform tasks on the part of Dr. Fisher, current Dean of Medicine. It has been noted that you were her former intern after graduating medical school and performed the first year of your residency under her wing."

"You want dirt on her." Cuddy concluded without need for further explanation.

"Not dirt necessarily." One bolder member that Cuddy remembered as Thomas spoke up. "We'd like to either find these charges groundless or ask her to resign her position because we cannot afford for our patient causality numbers to rise nor can we spare the loss of anymore doctors."

"What was she like during your residency?" Wilson asked.

Cuddy leaned back and let out her breath, not even aware she had been holding it. "She was overbearing. She talked more than she treated and was always convinced she was right."

The board was listening quietly, making it much too easy for Cuddy to painfully relive the details of her past. A period of time she wanted to forget, the mistake she made, the life she had cost.

"We had a patient that had an array of symptoms. She concluded that it had to be one disease and coincidences didn't occur. I thought differently. I thought we should split the symptoms and treat the possible two condition separately. She shot me down."

Cuddy swallowed hard, trying to keep herself professional, objective, everything she had taught herself during her days as Dean.

"The patient died less than a week later and upon autopsy it was found that my diagnosis was right. Fisher told me otherwise. She had said that because I had delayed her treatment with an unfounded diagnosis of my own and that caused the patient's death." Cuddy said bitterly. "I only found out about the actual autopsy at the end of my residency through the coroner's report."

The board exchanged glances with each other. Cuddy's words rang in all their ears and their decision was confirmed. They nodded to her and she knew it was her dismissal. That was new she thought with a slight mirthless smirk. Now she knew how House felt every time she told him to get out.

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House was telling Jesse that Chase was her puppy and she could ordered him to sit whenever she wanted because Chase had no backbone when Cuddy came back into the room. Cuddy motioned at the door to Chase, clearly giving him the order to get out. He obeyed out of habit.

"Where were you?" House asked the moment he saw her.

"Board wanted to talk to me." She responded and relieved him of his burden.

He stroked her hair and looked at her a look in his eyes that frightened as much as it warmed her.

"I'm tired of this." He whispered softly. "I'm tired of needing to be a bastard just to keep myself from kissing you. We had one weekend together. One weekend where we relived our past feelings. I don't want it to only be one weekend. I want it to be forever."

His words were completely unlike himself. Cuddy knew it. She never believed that House was unable to love or feel, but she knew that he was incapable of saying such a speech without rehearsing and preparation. What he was saying was not what she wanted to hear. She already knew how he felt. His words didn't matter to her. Before she could call him on it, however, he heaved himself out of his chair and went down on one knee, forcing himself not to show the pain that shot up his leg as he did so. "Lisa, will you marry me?"

Cuddy sat there for a moment, shocked and frozen in place. A prepared speech for her, she had been ready for. Something along the lines of a proposal, never. Then a look of comprehension dawned on her porcelain face.

"No." She answered. "No I won't."

House slumped, his eyes dropping to the floor as sign of his defeat. He had done everything right. Cuddy was still a woman. She wanted a family. She wanted things that she grew up dreaming about before her path was consumed by her career. He was offering all those things to her, against his better judgment. It would been all worth it to make her stay.

She placed her daughter back into the crib and took him by the hands, pulling him up, knowing the physical pain he was feeling alongside his emotional one. He had kept himself at a distance from people for so long, she knew he didn't know how to come back and was feeling his way around now, using methods that were cliché because they had worked for other people. She knew him more than he knew himself.

"No, because you don't want to get married. Not yet at least." She told him.

"I asked you to marry me didn't I? That usually means I want to." He threw back, hiding his pain and slight embarrassment between comments spoken in a tone of voice filled with such bitter resentment that it made her want to slap him.

"No, you don't. You just don't want me to go back to New York. Wilson tells you to do whatever necessary to make me stay because the minute I leave he's convinced I won't come back. You are too." She concluded.

House was silent. She had hit a nerve, the bull's eye. Dead on target. They had had that talk, him and Wilson. Wilson hadn't exactly told House to ask her for her hand in marriage, but he had been at a loss for ideas, for some reason, simply telling her he loved her didn't seem to be enough.

"You figure, I marry you. I can't leave. You know I want to get married, have that perfect family and you figure that if you give me that I won't turn my back on you." She finished.

Then she shook her head. "You are a manipulative bastard." She told him.

He looked away, biting his lip, his hand tightening around his cane until his fingers were white at the knuckles. She touched his face and he looked up, surprised to see her smiling.

"But I love you House. I just couldn't let you ruin Jesse's life or mine. Today, though, you saved us. You rode in one that big white limping horse and pulled us right out of Tritter's claws." She told him. "For that I know I can trust you to be there and I won't walk away from that."

Hearing those words, he pulled her into his arms and she buried her face into his shoulder, taking in his scent, one she had memorized. They kissed passionately, for a moment, forgetting the presence of a child, but they needn't have worried. Jesse was already fast asleep, worn out by lessons on how to become a world dictator. They pulled apart and looked at each other, smiles filling both their faces.

He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off.

"Walk a little straighter, House." She whispered, moving around to peer down at their sleeping daughter.

He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, placing his head on her shoulder and looking down at Jesse as well. "Hm?"

"Walk a little straighter, Greg. You're leading her."

Walk a little straighter daddy
You're swaying side to side
You're footsteps make me dizzy
And no matter how I try
I keep tripping and stumbling
if you'd look down here you'd see
Walk a little straighter daddy
You're leading me

-Fin-

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Author's Note:

There will be an epilogue after this to sum it all up. It'll be a little more light hearted than this story's been. I hope you liked it. Sorry the ending was a little cliché and corny and fluffy. And yes I know the characters were a little not themselves, but I haven't actually seen House in a scene like this, so I'm not sure how he would react. I hope you enjoyed it.