Chapter 5

House was happy. His initial thought that his patient had Graves' disease was proven right and Cuddy was busy entertaining investors so she wasn't hounding him for clinic duty.

He was relaxing with his legs up on his desk, playing his PSP and sucking a cherry lollipop when he saw Rerrie enter the conference room and poured herself a cup of coffee.

He sighed.

He really didn't like her or the way she was always leaning over the table towards him or "accidentally" dropping stuff and bending over to pick them up.

He was about to confront her when his office door was flung open and a six year old girl with black hair and steel grey eyes rushed in.

"School's done!" she proclaimed.

"Forever?" House asked widening his eyes.

She giggled, "No! For today!"

House laughed. Catherina Wilson was the best part of Cuddy.

"Where's Mattie and Ally?" he asked the little girl.

"Stop calling him that," Cameron said walking through the door carrying a sleeping Matthew.

"Oops! I spoke too soon," House said looking down at Cat with feigned horror.

The little girl giggled, "You're in trouble!"

"Na aah!"

"Ha aah!"

"Na aah!"

"Ha aah!"

"Na—"

"Drop it House," Cameron ordered.

"Now you did it. You made Ally mad," Cat said with a big grin.

"No I didn't, you're the annoying one," House denied.

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"You are both annoying," Cameron told them cutting the argument short and moving to place Matthew on the couch in the other room.

House rolled his eyes behind her back, "If anyone's annoying it's you," he mumbled under his breath.

Cat giggled.

"I heard that!" Cameron called through the open doorway.

House looked down at Cat and feigned shock causing the little girl to giggle once more.

"Watch your son House," Cameron said standing in the doorway to him, "I'll be right back. I'm going to walk Cat over to Wilson and have a word with him. Come on Cat."

"Don't hurry back on my account," House told her with one of his signature smirks plastered on his face.

Cameron smiled sweetly at him over her shoulder as she led Cat away by the hand.

"Hey wait!" House called after them, "Do you want a lollipop Cat?"

"Yeah!"

"Catch," House said tossing a grape lollipop to her.

She barely caught it and they continue their journey down the hall to Wilson's office.

House relaxed into his chair and returned to suck his forgotten cherry lollipop.

Cameron had barely been gone for a minute when Rerrie entered his office.

House sighed. Why couldn't he have gotten a few minutes of peace until the love of his life returned?

"Are you just going to stand there like an idiot or are you going to say something?" he asked.

"Was that little girl your daughter?" she asked.

"Is that any of your business?"

"Aah…I guess not."

"Why don't you scurry on outta here then?"

Rerrie paused for a second as if considering her options before hurrying from the room.

She was already in the other room and Cameron was already returning when it suddenly hit him. Damn he should have fired Rerrie just now.

"Hey," Cameron said interrupting his train of thought.

"Hey," he answered giving her a smile he reserved specially for her, "Wanna sit on my good leg?"

Cameron chuckled and sat gently on his offered leg.

"Wanna give me a kiss?" he asked.

Cameron draped her arm around his shoulder and nestled closer to him, "Wanna stop telling me what to do?" she asked, "I could always get up and leave."

"Leave? No!" House said feigning outrage.

Cameron chuckled, "Okay then shut up and kiss me."

House complied unquestioningly and as they kissed he spotted Rerrie through the corner of his eye leaving the conference room with an unidentifiable expression on her face.

He only hoped that not firing her wouldn't return to bite him in the butt.

A little over an hour later:

Cameron was gone and House had move to sit on the couch next to his sleeping son while he returned to playing his PSP.

"Daddy?" came Matthew's sleep filled voice from next to him.

"Hey little man, you're finally awake."

"Where's mommy?"

"Great! The kid wakes up from his nap and the first thing he does is ask for his mother. What am I? I'm not even worth more than a talking sponge."

"That's not true daddy," Matthew said crawling onto his father's lap and nuzzling him, "you're cooler than SpongeBob."

"Really? How much cooler? This much?" he asked holding his two hands a small distance apart.

"No!" Matthew denied shaking his head, "This much!" he threw his arms as wide apart as possible.

"He loves me he really loves me!" House shouted causing Matthew to giggle and climb further up his body to give him a big hug.

House grimaced.

"You leg ok daddy?"

"It's is your leg ok," House corrected him, "and yes it's alright."

"Then what's wrong?" the little boy asked kneeling on House and cupping his face between his two hands.

House grimaced again, "I just realized that I really really have to pee."

Matthew giggled and eased off of House who quickly made his way to the bathroom.

A few minutes later House returned from the bathroom expecting to see Matthew waiting for him but the whole Diagnostic department was empty.

House limped over to Wilson's office to see if Matthew had wandered over there, but he only found Cat in a corner working with paper and a pencil diligently and Wilson working behind his desk.

"Hey, have you seen Matthew? I left him in the conference room for a sec but he's gone."

"Maybe he went looking for Allison," Wilson said not even looking up from his paperwork.

House thought about it then took off.

"You should go check in the clinic," Wilson said finally looking up to see that House was long gone.

House made his way down to the clinic and found Cameron and Cuddy talking with a nurse.

"Where's Matthew?" Cameron asked when she noticed his approach.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I went to the bathroom and he wasn't in the office when I got back."

"You lost our son?"

"What! No! Maybe."

Cameron was about to say something when Cuddy cut in.

"I'll get security to help look for him," she said.

"I'll go ask Foreman and Chase to help look for him," Cameron added, "Greg you should go check the roof. Matthew loves going up there with you, he might have gone up there.

"Yeah," House agreed and limped off to do just that.

Matthew wasn't on the roof and House even looked off the edge to see if he had fallen off.

Now he really was getting worried. He made his way down to his office and paged his fellows to meet him there.

Rae and Corrodus were waiting for him in his office when he got there, "Where's Rerrie?" he asked them.

"I don't know," Corrodus said, "she doesn't exactly play well with others."

"I saw her earlier," Rae added, "she said something about taking the rest of the day off for personal reasons. What's going on House?"

"Matthew is missing I left him here for a few minutes and when I got back he was gone. Cuddy is organizing a security search of the building and Cameron went to get Chase and Foreman to help with the search." House told the two men, "I want you two to go help them."

"Yes, of course," Corrodus said getting up and heading to the door.

Rae remained sitting, "How long ago did Matthew go missing?" he asked.

"About fifteen minutes ago," House asked him.

"Rerrie took off around that time and she has been acting funny all day," Rae told House.

"Damn!" House said getting up and limping out of the room with Rae and Corrodus right behind him.

He knew it. Not firing Rerrie had definitely returned to bite him square in the butt.

Author's Note: Okay so it has been a while since I last updated. A long while, but I do hope you all enjoy this chapter and I think next chapter will be the last. It's about time I finished up a few of my fanfics that I've left for a long time.