a/n: So sorry for the delay in an update! Everything collided at once. Another reason for delay is that I wanted to put an end to this whole hospital merger, practice negotiation thing. I'm growing tired of it (as I'm sure many of you are). I had a very rough time figuring out how to do that. The last section of this chapter might be a little confusing because it throws a lot at you, but bear with it because I'm sure you'll like the outcome. I hope you enjoy this rather different chapter.

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Her eyelids felt like wet sandbags. She resisted any fight from within that involved opening them.

"Are you feeling alright?" Cameron felt the back of Chase's hand pressing across her cheek.

"Umph," was all she could reply. It was delivered with the proper lack of enthusiasm that told him she was fine, but unable to rouse herself. Not long after finding out she was carrying twins, getting out of bed became an impossible task. The two 7.5 inch beings growing inside were now plainly sucking the life out of her. Sleeping without discomfort was getting harder. She got too warm all the time even with no covers and a fan blowing on her. She had to get up to use the bathroom at least twice an evening. If she laid in the wrong position breathing because difficult. Sadly, that was usually the most comfortable position.

"I know it's hard, but you have to go to work. Need any help?"

Cameron shook her head and slowly let her eyes adjust to the light while clutching her forehead. "This sucks." She gently raised her torso up, having to support herself firmly on the soft bed until the world stopped spinning. The dizziness had started two days ago and was fast becoming a pain. She crawled out of bed carefully and gingerly.

"It can't be that bad." Chase said trying to toughen her up. "You're letting two miniscule little beings get the worse of you."

"These babies are stealing my will to live." Cameron growled. "Just look at what they are doing to me. I'm only halfway through this. Forget sleep. Look what they are doing to my body. Do you know how much pressure I feel on the veins of the lower half of my body? I'll have varicose veins worse than my grandmother in no time."

Chase laughed. "Very sexy varicose veins."

She grumpily tossed a pillow at him. "This is all your fault. Teasing a pregnant woman with twins is illegal in some countries. Both these girls are killing me."

Chase was surprised by her assumption. "So you're buying into the theory now that these are identical twins? I figured you'd be more open minded than that."

"Why do I need to be? The twins come from the father's side. Enough said."

Chase shook his head, wondering how badly the hormones were messing with his wife's brain. "You've worked for House how long and haven't learned that nothing is certain?"

"There are no twins in my family."

"Are you one hundred percent certain of that? You might have to dig back at least four generations before you make that claim. Just because someone wasn't born a twin doesn't mean it wasn't a twin pregnancy. Stillbirths were pretty common back then."

"Statistics tell me they're identical. It doesn't really matter anyway, because both of them are working together to do me harm and peril."

"Careful, those little brats are choosing our nursing home someday."

Cameron had enough of his teasing. "Get out! I've got to get ready."

Chase leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "Okay, I've got to get to work anyway. Try to have a good day."

"Yeah, my day should be fun." She sarcastically answered. "House won't let me do any long procedures were I have to stand on my feet. I've been spending lots of time in the lab these days."

"I'll call you later." He made a fast exit.

Cameron found herself unable to provide forward momentum as he left. Probably because she knew what was next. She carefully stood up and tried to move. Yep, leg cramps. That was another thing keeping her up a night. The irony that a doctor working unusual medical cases was suffering so much from a common condition was not lost on her.

"Irony sucks." She said to herself before painfully heading to the bathroom.

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House entered in normal fashion, abruptly and without greeting. Wilson knew instantly his mood was irascible, but that was nothing new. Smiling would have worried him more.

Wilson went about his work and for a split second wondered who would speak first. He stopped himself since he knew today it wasn't going to be him.

House gave Wilson a good look-over, but his buddy was too good a poker player. He wasn't going to give him any signs about what was going on. If Cuddy wasn't in meetings, he'd be bugging her instead.

"So, how did the dinner go?"

"Great. Foreman's wife was the big hit of the evening."

"Yes, I know. I got a personal message from Pamela."

Wilson stopped what he was doing and looked at House. He had his attention now. "Why would Pamela be sending you a message? Unless you..."

"Nope, I didn't have any spies. Guess I didn't need one. The pictures she sent me were pretty revealing."

"Pictures?"

House opened his phone and showed him the three snapshots delivered to him in wicked fun. "Congratulations to you both." House said in a bitter voice before taking his phone back.

"There's nothing between us."

House cackled with a malevolent tone. "You're lying. It's okay. I'm cool with it."

"She wasn't feeling well and needed some help at the party. I was there for support."

"Come on, even Pamela Foreman saw through it and I'm willing to bet Cameron was right by her side. They can't be the only ones."

"We're friends."

House stopped his interrogation as something finally sunk in. "Wait a second, she wasn't feeling well?"

Wilson knew that look. Once House got a theory in his head, it wasn't going away. "People get sick you know."

"Not Cuddy. She's a fanatical health freak. Her immune system is as big and tight as her ass. That and her-" House stopped himself, pulled out the pictures and found his final missing piece of the puzzle. He left the office and slammed the door before Wilson had time for a reaction.

Wilson lowered his head. "He was bound to figure it out sometime." He picked back up his pen and went back to work.

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Cuddy adjusted her position in the chair, thinking she would give anything for an emergency to get her out of this never ending meeting. She snapped out of her wandering thoughts when she got a tap on her shoulder.

Her assistant pointed her finger toward the door, thus giving Cuddy her wish for a way out. "Excuse me." Cuddy told the others and followed her assistant into the hall.

"You need to speak to Dr. House now."

"Is it a medical emergency? Did a case come in?"

"No case, but it is an emergency, at least it is to the clinic staff. He's sitting outside your office and he's verbally harassing everyone. They managed to ignore him for a little while, but then he started switching labels on blood samples, answering the phone in silly voices and hiding medicines, usually in his own pocket. When he managed to knock over a pile of charts on the desk thus mixing up sheets inside, then knocking them across the floor with his cane when someone tried to pick them up, we knew it was time to get you.

"Be careful what you wish for." Cuddy said in a low voice.

"What's that?"

"Nothing. I'll take care of it."

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"No games, just tell me what you want." Cuddy said as she closed the door to her office. She knew it was something important at least to him, and that usually required everyone to drop everything.

"Don't you have something to tell me?"

Cuddy pasted on her best appalled stare. "Good morning?"

"It's one thing to hide it from me, but another to scheme about it with Wilson."

"So you dragged me about of my important duties regarding the future of this hospital to cry about me giving one child more attention than the other? Boo hoo, isn't life unfair."

"Is it mine?"

"What the hell are you asking?"

"You know exactly, but you don't want to answer. I know for a fact it can't be Wilson's. Judging by the size of your breasts and the illness symptoms, the timeline seems right."

"We aren't having this discussion right now."

"So it is mine!"

Cuddy grabbed her forehead and took in a deep breath. Does she just confess, or should wait for a better time. Oh yeah, there is never a better time with House. "Your interest is purely for entertainment and not concern."

"I have a right to know if I'm procreating in anyway."

"Why does it matter? You aren't going to be there anyway."

"So that's why you won't tell me?"

"Tell you what House?" Cuddy stammered and shook her head in frustration. "Instead of playing these games just tell me what you want to ask!"

"You're pregnant and I'm the father! There, I said it."

"Yes, and you can try and prove that with a court order after the baby is born."

"So until then, Wilson plays expectant dad? How did he find out?"

Cuddy headed for the office door. "If you're lucky, he'll tell you. Otherwise, we are done talking. I have real work I must get back to. Leave the staff outside of my office alone."

House grabbed Cuddy's arm as she tried to leave. "There's a reason why you don't want me involved. I'm not going to stop until I figure that out."

Cuddy yanked her arm away. "Good, I'm glad to see you have something to keep you busy for a while. Lord knows having actual patients hasn't been doing that these days."

She slammed the door shut, leaving House surprisingly at a loss over his next move.

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House came back to his office to find Cameron in his lounge chair, feet propped up, sleeping soundly. He thought about rudely waking her, but considering the mess she was earlier and how much she was grating on his and Foreman's nerves, her being out of reality was probably best for everyone.

Wilson entered a few minutes later after House paged him. "Took you long enough. Your office is just around the corner."

"I was with a patient, and shouldn't we be talking in my office? I didn't think you'd want to wake sleeping beauty over here."

"She's so hormonally whacked she won't hear a thing. Of course this is a subject matter she can relate to. How did you find out about Cuddy?"

"How did you?"

House scoffed. "Please."

Wilson nodded, accepting that Cuddy was out of time in keeping her secret anyway. "Fine, if you must know, she was very lethargic one day. I thought she was anemic and ordered her to have an exam. I ran the blood test and an unexpected result happened."

"Why unexpected?"

Wilson knew he was going further down the rabbit hole. "A few weeks before that she asked me to do her pregnancy test after the fertility treatment. It was negative."

House threw his hands in the air, it all making sense now. "Damn, I get it. She didn't come to me because at the time I was trying to get into her pants. She went to dependable ole Jimmy instead and got hooked."

Wilson shrugged. "What can you say? I'm such a great guy."

"Are you willing to play daddy for this child?"

"We haven't exactly gotten that far. Besides, we both know who the father likely is. Are you willing?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"There's still a good chance she will lose this."

Wilson sneered at his friend's denial. "She's twelve weeks along. Her odds are getting better."

"Not at her age. She'll still be at risk for a while. Unlike young mama over there, who's just getting more miserable."

Cameron was snoring by now, not at all aware as to what was happening around her.

"You just don't want to think about the notion of Cuddy actually having your baby. As soon as she started with fertility treatments, you started bothering her. The fact is and always has been, you don't want to be the dad, but you don't want anyone else to be it either."

"That's crazy. She shouldn't have a baby because she's throwing her life away."

"Fine, act that way. In 28 weeks when you're holding your child, you will see it differently." Cameron let out another loud snore as Wilson turned to leave. "At least your denial means you don't have to constantly put up with a hormonally out of control woman. I'm thinking Chase is the bravest person in the world right now."

"Chase is an idiot for embracing parenthood!" House told Wilson as he left. He turned toward the window to think over everything Wilson said.

"You're an idiot too." Cameron said as she got up and walked out.

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"Wow, you aren't color blind today."

Chase looked down at the conservative selection of colors he made. "I did that for your sake."

"My sake? I think you are mercifully sparing all of us in the room."

Chase laughed at Pamela's putdown and looked around the lobby. "Who's supposed to be here?"

"I have no idea. It could just end up us two with "suckers" written across our foreheads."

"Yeah, well I'm not saying a word. I'm leaving it all up to you."

"You're going to have to speak too you know. I just wish I had some idea of what was going on."

"It can't be that bad. I thought we were just going to hear what he had to say."

"I'm preparing for the worst."

After twenty minutes of nervously waiting, Chase went to fetch some coffee out of the machine. He got one for Pamela and handed it to her. "You can't be serious. I don't drink colored water. Don't they have a Starbucks around here somewhere?"

"It's better than nothing."

He sat down while she gave him a confused look over how he could drink that stuff. "That weak crap can't possibly keep you going through an all-nighter. If I ran this hospital, I'd be saving it from all the lawsuits brought on because it was too damn cheap to provide the right coffee to keep the physicians awake."

"You'd get my vote." Chase said before taking a sip of his weak coffee.

"Mrs. Foreman, Dr. Chase, you can follow me." They followed a well dressed woman to a small conference room where there were only four chairs. "Sucker," Pamela said to Chase, waving her finger in front of her forehead.

Before Chase could reassure her, Jerry Anderson entered. He instantly noticed Chase's beverage. "I can have my assistant get you some way better coffee than that. She was going to do a Starbucks run for me."

"Make that two for us, please." Pamela said, giving Chase an "I told you so" look.

Jerry sat down, gesturing Chase and Pamela to do the same. "I'm going to get started. We are willing to relieve Dr. Chase of his contract and waive all prior non-compete clauses so he can start his practice. As you know, our network is a Mixed Model HMO. Your practice will get a fee from us for each member of ours you treat. Anyone not in our network you will have to negotiate and follow the guidelines from the Managed Care or Insurance provider."

Pamela had no idea where he was going, but folded her arms, ready to play hardball. "Yes Jerry, we covered all this with your subordinates earlier. I indicated in our plan a range of fees we need to maintain a sustainable practice."

"Yeah, but I've got Dr. House on staff, whose fee is ridiculously low. What can you offer that he can't?"

"What, beside flexibility, less hassle, and a guarantee to examine each case sent to us? The key to success in any practice is good service, and that is a big need we can easily fill compared to Dr. House. We offer a diagnostic expert in Neurology, Immunology, and Intensive Care. House's specialty is Infectious Disease. We compliment one another nicely and would be expanding on a growing need."

"How so? Why is diagnostics so important? House got that position because Dr. Cuddy needed his mind and had to put him someplace. What makes you think an exclusive practice will survive?"

Chase leaned forward to answer that one. "Nowadays, diagnostics is harder than ever. While before there wasn't enough knowledge about variations of common medical problems, now there is too much information. It takes years of training to successfully filter through all the possibilities and get to the heart of the problem while knowing what risks to take. That's why you need more specialists."

Jerry shook his head in disagreement. "Diagnostics is a fringe specialty at best. If you end up billing as many cases as Dr. House, what use do we have for you in our referral network? Wouldn't it be better if each of you went private in your own specialty?"

Pamela had an easy answer. "We can do it that way if you want, but the long fellowships for each of our doctors under the famous Dr. House would be pretty hard to ignore on the "more info" page of our website."

Jerry let out a slight chuckle. "The reason you're in this mess is because Princeton General doesn't want to let Dr. Chase go. All your qualifications don't amount to anything if that doesn't happen. Are you willing to make Princeton General your home hospital?"

"No." Pamela said.

Chase and Jerry waited for more, then looked at each other and shrugged. They hoped Pamela would be a little more verbose than that.

Pamela got her cue and sighed. "Get real Jerry. All of our doctors are products of the PPTH program under the evil genius himself. We will offer a full expansion of services that goes beyond the whims of one eccentric mind, but we also must easy access to House in cases were a consult is needed. It's a win-win if we are all there together. A patient could end up with the brilliance of Dr. House, but they don't actually have to deal with him. That access is the insurance policy we need to sell, otherwise we go nowhere."

"What if Dr. House needs your firm for a consult?"

"We have an arrangement with Dr. Cuddy. In those cases, we will handle it in exchange use of House's new team, which gives them the training they need, and we get some form of compensation from the hospital. It's all about building relationships Jerry, and we need to start with our strengths or we don't succeed."

Jerry was still insistent on playing devil's advocate. "Private practices are facing all sorts of challenges these days. Liability costs are going through the roof, the amount of time and resources set on meeting a managed care pre-approval process and treatment plan approval are pinching time that would otherwise go to care, and billing practices must conform to insurance guidelines or you don't get compensated. How do you plan on overcoming all that?"

"Through sound business management and excellent service," Pamela replied. "I'm the person to make sure they succeed at that. I want to make sure the doctors do what they do best, which is be experts in their field."

Jerry paused, as if he heard all he needed to hear. "They've got a big problem if you're their only hope Mrs. Foreman, because you won't be able to be there to help them much."

Pamela and Chase stared at Jerry with frozen expressions, then looked at each other with confusion. "Excuse me?" Pamela asked.

"You won't be working for them."

Pamela opened her mouth in disbelief, but nothing came out but a bunch of sighs and grunts. Finally, she got some words together. "How can you say that?"

"Because, you're going to be working for me at Trinity. After the transition, I start my new position as Director of Operations for Trinity Health, Northeast US. I need an Assistant Director."

Pamela never thought before that a black woman could turn pale white. "Me, what? I have no hospital administration experience or training at all."

"Those skills can be taught. What you bring to the table can't be taught, and I need someone like that. Plus, given everything you told me today, it sounds like you know how to do homework and are a quick study."

Chase and Pamela turned to each other with mouths open, trying to grasp what was going on. They leaned in close and started to discuss in whispers. "Is he nuts?" Pamela asked.

"Accept the damn job. That way he can't take it back." Chase urged.

"But-"

"Do you know how much those positions pay?"

"No."

Chase whispered into her ear. Pamela jumped out of her chair. "I'm willing to entertain an offer. This practice has to happen first though."

"Done. You help Dr. Chase and new associates get started and I'll get together the contracts to make it happen. As for your offer, you'll have something in writing from me tomorrow."

Pamela wanted to scream for either joy or frustration, but she fought every fiber in her being for composure. "Thank you Jerry," she said very calmly holding out her hand. "I'm glad we could come to an agreement."

Both Jerry and Chase shared a snicker over her restrained reaction. "I'll talk to you later Pamela. You better get busy, you've got a lot of work to do. Robert, good luck and I'm sure we'll be crossing paths again." Jerry shook both their hands and left the room.

Pamela sunk down in her chair, her mind working like mad to comprehend what the hell just happened.

Chase noticed her stupor and shook her shoulder. "Pamela, say something."

"Uh, did we win?"

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a/n: Sorry for the long transition chapter, but just consider it me reeling in the plot threads. Coming next, Chase and Cameron's moving day.