"Green Apple? You're sure?" House asked Aiko who nodded, like she understood the question – and she probably did since House was doing the asking. "Green Apple it is then. Mind you, you were right about the Citrus and the Peach too so good job Little Love."
House was standing at the changing table in the green nursery with Greer on a towel on the table and Aiko in a bouncer next to them. Greer had just had her bath and House was getting ready to spread scented oil on her – which he had already done for Ben and Priya. Aiko had been with him all the time choosing the scents for each of her new siblings (citrus for Ben and peach for Priya). House divided his attention between Aiko and the baby, talking to both, asking Aiko's opinion on things. Aiko was still a little dubious about these new additions to her family, especially as they seemed to need a lot of attention and care from the rest of her family, but House insisted that even during this one day that the triplets had been home, Aiko was already getting used to them. Though she did seem a little disconcerted about Cuddy's tummy which was much smaller now and no longer moving!
Once House had finished oiling Greer (and singing to her, and testing her reflexes) he turned to Aiko, put some oil on her hand and helped her rub it on Greer's shoulder, like she had done with Ben and Priya, too, to finish the job, as House explained.
"There, now she's all done," House approved. "Don't you think so too, Greer? Do you like the scent your sister picked for you? I hope so, because you're going to smell like that tomorrow too. Now, all we need to do is to wrap you up in a nice warm package and then we can return you to MamaLisa. How's that for a plan? Ok with you, too Aiko?"
House put the diaper on Greer and got her ready for the night otherwise too and once he was done, he sat down in his wheelchair, wrapped Aiko against him first and then Greer and then he wheeled himself into the yellow room, which was where the triplets were sleeping for now. Cuddy was there with Kasumii seeing to Ben and Priya. They hadn't quite got the routine down, yet, but they didn't worry about it too much, as Kasumii expected it to take at least a week anyway.
"Here we are," House announced as he wheeled himself in. "All nice and scented and ready for bed."
"All of you?" Cuddy smiled.
"If that was an invitation, I'm game," House shot back.
"You know perfectly well that it was nothing of the sort," Cuddy glared at him. "Apart from the fact that it's only nine days since I gave birth, I'm also not insane."
"Aww, that was harsh," House pouted. "Oh, did I mention that I'm taking Aiko to work tomorrow?"
"No," Cuddy turned to frown at him. "You didn't. Why?"
"Apart from the fact that she needs some quality time with me to recover from the arrival of her siblings," House mimicked Cuddy's tone a little. "I need her for the interviews as well."
"Oh, yes, it's tomorrow," Cuddy remembered. "How is your team reacting to you bringing in a new fellow? I didn't have time to talk about that today, not with everything..."
"You know, I think I may have forgotten to mention it to them," House mused innocently.
"What!" Cuddy did a pretty good job of yelling at him without raising her voice – she couldn't as they were with the kids. "You're going to ambush them with it? What are you doing? They will think you're trying to hurry them along. That you want them to leave as soon as possible."
"Well, not as soon as possible," House shrugged. "But I told them three months ago that I would push them out in six. They haven't done anything to indicate that they are making any plans of their own so I need to remind them that they only have three months left."
"You know I was wondering why it was so easy to get you to start on the interviews this time," Cuddy glared at him. "I just never realised that you did it only to screw with your current team! Are you forgetting that they are important to Aiko and the Trips?"
"No, I'm not forgetting that," House said. "But I'm also remembering that they have lives of their own as well! They need to start thinking about their careers, about what they really do want to do for the rest of their lives. I'm not kicking them out of the family. I'm just pushing them into fulfilling their own potential."
"Was that what you were doing to Eric, too, today?" Cuddy demanded.
"Now don't go giving me god-like powers again," House accused. "I had nothing to do with Marcus Foreman becoming a patient of ours. Well, apart from accepting him as my patient, but I didn't do anything to make him ill or to make the prison send him to us."
"I know that," Cuddy stated. "And I wouldn't have expected you to let anyone else take him, not when he is Eric's brother; you wouldn't trust anyone else with him. I'm talking about the way you told Eric about it and the way you just left him out of the team."
"He cannot be his brother's doctor!" House pointed out. "That would be most unethical, and I thought you were all for ethics."
"I am," Cuddy admitted. "You, however, are not. Look, the kids are settling down, give Aiko to Kasumii and we will take this conversation downstairs. I'm sure your mother has a word or two to say to you about your behaviour."
"Mother would not dream of telling me how to do my job," House announced huffily, knowing full well that that was not the real issue Cuddy was talking about. However, he did comply with Cuddy's request and gave Aiko to Kasumii to follow Cuddy downstairs – without his wheelchair, which he left into the nursery.
Blythe was in the kitchen drinking tea with Dr Higa and Grey but when Cuddy and House got there she told them to take their argument to another room. She did tell House that she hoped he knew what he was doing with Eric, but other than that, she had no comment. As instructed Cuddy and House took themselves into the living room to continue their discussion.
"See, I told you Mom wouldn't interfere," House gloated.
"Just because she is still reserving her judgement about your actions does not mean she won't interfere at a later date if she thinks it's merited," Cuddy insisted. "But that is beside the point. What I want to talk about now is what I think of your behaviour. Why did you leave Eric behind? I know he cannot be in charge of the case when it's his brother, but why are you excluding him entirely? You didn't stay out of it when Aiko was ill and you did all the tests on Greer yourself. Why are you being so unreasonable with Eric? Even if he were unable to contribute to the diagnosis or treatment, at least he would know what is going on and he could be there for his brother."
"I didn't ban him from the sickroom," House pointed out. "He can visit his brother as much as he wants. He had his own car; he could have followed us to the hospital and go to Marcus. But did he?"
"After the way you treated him?" Cuddy defended Foreman. "Did you expect him to?"
"No," House stated. "And that is my point. He didn't even ask if he could. Don't you think that's a little odd? I would have expected the Foreman I know to tell me to go screw myself and then leave to stay by his brother's bedside no matter what I said or ordered. That is, had it been someone he cares about."
"Marcus is his brother!" Cuddy exclaimed. "Of course he cares."
"Actually, I'm sure he does," House admitted. "But in this case things aren't as easy as that. Foreman has a lot of issues about his family, his background even his past that he has never dealt with. Having his brother here, possibly dying means that he needs to deal with at least some of them. And that will not be comfortable."
"But do you need to make it harder for him?" Cuddy demanded.
"I'm not doing that, not really," House prevaricated. "I may push a little, but nothing I do will really make any difference. Foreman needs to deal with this. Even Miss Hill thinks he is not fulfilling his potential because of his issues with his past."
"Anna? She said that about Eric?" Cuddy wondered.
"I believe her opinion was that Foreman needs to get his head out of his ass to become a good doctor and a good human being," House remembered. "I don't really care about that human being part, but he is definitely not fulfilling his potential as a doctor because he is too conscious about what people think of him."
"But people think well of him!" Cuddy was mystified. "He doesn't need to go out of his way to be respected and liked. Sure, not all like him, but then that is the case with most people."
"That's where we come to his background," House explained. "You can take a boy out of the ghetto but you cannot take the ghetto out of the boy. Sure, there are others who have come from the ghetto and it hasn't stopped them. But they have come to terms with their background. Some have left it behind and truly see it as irrelevant, others are proud of it and what they have achieved despite of it, some make it their life project to help others there... you have seen it. But Foreman has not made peace with it yet. He still feels that somehow he has cheated his way out of there and someday someone will catch him on his lie and send him back."
"If that is how he feels, and you know that, why are you always throwing his past into his face?" Cuddy wanted to know. "If it's that difficult for him, why are you turning the knife?"
"To make him see that there is no wound," House decided to play Cuddy's metaphor. "I keep telling him that I know all about him, his past, his present, his deeds – bad and good, but have I ever told him to go back where he belongs? Have I ever treated him differently from my Wombat or my Fluffy Bunny?"
"Are you trying to tell me that for three years you have been telling him that the secret is out and nobody cares, but he still hasn't got it?" Cuddy stared.
"Pretty much," House nodded. "But you see, that's where the having his head up his own ass part comes in. So we need bigger ammunition and now we have it. Mind you, even this might not help, but we'll see."
"Ok," Cuddy bit her lip. "I suppose I have to let you try. Just remember: if you break him, you bought him!"
"Hey, that's slavery!" House exclaimed indignantly. "That would be illegal."
"You know very well what I meant," Cuddy said as she turned to go back to the kitchen. "If you break him, you will be responsible for gluing him back together again."
"Right, let's hope he's not Humpty Dumpty then," House muttered a little frustrated, though he had sort of expected this reaction from Cuddy. That was why he had been hoping he didn't need to explain but he had really known that was a vain hope. Now that they were living in the same house he really couldn't escape Cuddy when she really wanted to find him. And since they also needed to understand each other better in general, because if they didn't co-parenting would be even more difficult than it was going to be anyway, he knew he needed to open up more to her now. Well, the kids were worth it. They were worth all the changes he had made and would need to make still. He just hoped he would be able to keep it up. That didn't mean, though, that he couldn't have fun with Eric and his soul-searching. House was grinning when he, too, limped back into to kitchen.
-------------------------------------
Next day Foreman was late for work. Cameron was all concern over it, but Chase just shrugged and said that Foreman needed get over himself. As soon as Foreman did get to work he (with a very short I'm fine to Cameron) went to the clinic saying that he didn't want to deal with House yet, so when House got to work at his usual time he found only two of his ducklings present. He didn't seem to mind, he just sent them to finish the tests on Marcus Foreman and then he went into his own office with Aiko (who had greeted Chase and Cameron with enthusiasm stalling the lecture that Cameron was obviously burning to give to House).
House was lying on the floor on his back listening to music and playing with Aiko (who currently was sitting on his chest; always a favourite spot with her) when he heard someone say from the door:
"Is this the fearsome Dr House I see before me?"
He looked up and saw John Henry Giles standing tall at the door.
"The one and only," House responded. "I see you have gained full use of your legs now."
"I have," Giles nodded. "And my air."
"So I have heard," House agreed. "In fact, aren't you playing somewhere near here tonight?"
"I am," Giles admitted walking to House's desk and leaning against it while looking down at House and Aiko. "Which is why I'm here. Well, why I'm here is because my manager managed to break her wrist and we came here to get it treated. But in Princeton because I'm playing."
"Broken wrist," House repeated. "Do you want me to look at it?"
"No, thank you," Giles smiled. "It's a simple fracture and Dr Foreman is seeing to it. But I was told to wait outside so I thought I'd take a chance and see if I can find you."
"And gloat about your regained mobility?" House suggested.
"Not gloat," Giles corrected. "Just show you that you were completely right."
"I knew that already," House pointed out without even a shred of modesty.
"I know," Giles responded dryly. "But I have to say that Daddy House took me quite by surprise. This was possibly the last thing I expected to find when I decided to come. Baby-sitting isn't something one would expect you to do, and yet you seem to be natural."
"I don't know about natural," House mused. "But I have learned which is a good thing since I have three more of these at home; though the triplets are only ten days old so I won't be taking them to work with me for a few more weeks yet."
"Your children? Four?" Giles looked stupefied.
"Long story, but the short version is that I inherited Aiko from friends who died in a car crash," House explained. "Then Dr Cuddy needed help in getting pregnant, I offered and that was supposed to be that until we found out that she was expecting triplets and it seemed a little hard to leave her deal with them alone so we made arrangements that allow us to co-parent all the kids."
"It seems like you have your hands full then," Giles noted. "Does that mean that the tickets I was going to offer you for tonight won't be accepted?"
"Were you going to offer them or are you just saying so now that it seems safe?" House queried.
"I am offering them," Giles said seriously. "Do what you want with them. Give them to a friend or sell them on the e-bay. I'd like to see you there, but it's up to you." Giles set the tickets on the desk.
"Thank you," House said. "I'll see if I can make it. Cuddy could use a break and we do have reliable help. We'll see. And if I can't come, I'll probably give the tickets to my mother. She likes you too."
"Fine by me," Giles nodded standing up. "I'll leave you to your, well I don't know if I can say work but whatever it is you are doing."
"I'm waiting for someone to come and interview for a position in my team," House revealed.
"Someone in your team is leaving?" Giles frowned. "Dr Foreman didn't say anything."
"They are all leaving," House stated. "The fellowship is for three years and they have all been with me that long. Of course, they are not all leaving like tomorrow, but I thought it would be beneficial to have at least one of the new team work with the old one for a while so I'm interviewing."
"So your team is busy looking for jobs then," Giles pondered.
"Not terribly busy," House denied. "They are now House-trained so they can pretty much write their own ticket."
"Interesting," Giles said neutrally. "But never mind, I did what I came to do and I'll get out of your hair. Thank you for my legs and my air. If there is anything I can do for you in the future, let me know. I owe you."
"No you don't," House stated. "But I'll still keep it in mind."
"Daddy House," Giles shook his head in wonderment as he walked out. "Who would have thought."