A/N: Alright, I am definitely doing Chateen (or whatever we're calling it), so don't be worried by this chapter. Chase and Thirteen won't be coming together for a little while yet, simply because Thirteen has to work through a lot of her issues first, many of which involve Foreman (those two have to find their closure) and Chase also has to work through his issues with Cameron before he can even think of having a healthy relationship with Thirteen. I know that, after reading Wikipedia, he did that in one of the episodes but once again I haven't seen it yet so this is still pretty much AU after Wilson. In short, Cameron never came back.

Also, there have been some suggestions that the baby should turn out to be Chase's. I was so, so very tempted to go with this but decided against it because of two main reasons.

Foreteen may not be my most favourite of ships but I do believe that when Thirteen and Foreman were together they did really like each other (we even know that Foreman probably loved Thirteen – when he changed her off the placebo House said he would do it if he loved her). So I didn't want to tarnish that and say that Thirteen had cheated on him.

Poor, poor Thirteen is going to be going through a lot of dramas in this story and I think it would be just too cruel to place THAT particular one on her shoulders on her shoulders as well.

Also, for personal reasons, I don't feel comfortable doing a fanfiction where the characters are having affairs.

So, I guess that's actually three main reasons. (shrugs) Oh, well.

Anyway, the baby is Foreman's but that is as far as their relationship will be going in this story. I hope that doesn't disappoint anyone.

Oh, and thanks for the reviews! I really appreciate it.

…

"Where there is love, there is pain."

Spanish Proverb

Foreman raised an eyebrow at the beer-hat resting on the patient's desk, having thought that only such a thing existed in the land of Homer Simpson. Chase had a slightly different reaction, however. He spotted the hat, widened his eyes for a moment, before allowing a grin to grace his lips.

"Cool," he said, walking over and picking up the hat. "I should get one of these."

If there was ever any proof that life without Cameron was not doing wonders for his colleague it was this. Not that Foreman could really complain – life without Remy wasn't doing him so great either. Speaking of Remy . . .

"Did Thirteen seem a little odd to you today?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant. He sniffed at something that might have passed for food on the table before retracting in disgust. Food poisoning could explain the patient's symptoms . . .

Only, House would never have picked the case if it was as simple as that.

Chase shrugged, still toying with the beer-hat. "It's Thirteen – she's always a little odd." Something broke off the hat and the blonde paused in his fiddling, hastily placing the hat back where it belonged. He cleared his throat after a moment. "Not that she's not entitled to a little oddness, of course. We all are really – working for House – and then there's her condition . . ." he trailed off, unbothered, while Eric resisted the urge to flinch at the reminder. "I wouldn't be too worried."

"Normally I wouldn't be but she looked horrible this morning." She really had, too; Forman had almost been convinced that she hadn't slept in years, judging by the circles beneath her eyes and the droopiness of her eyelids.

"She did," Chase agreed, moving onto the bookcase next. "But, really, you shouldn't be worried. Whether or not there is something wrong, it's no longer your place to worry about it. You guys broke up; you need to stop focusing on every little detail of her life, I doubt she'd want you to be."

Foreman sighed and nodded. "You're right." Though, to be honest, he didn't want him to be. Broken up or not, a part of him would always worry about Thirteen. She was an amazing woman. And he'd let her get away, or more correctly pushed her with all his might out the exit door of their relationship. He'd let his pride get in the way, not an uncommon thing, and now it was too late to rectify things. That was OK, though, he could deal with it. He hoped.

"Not that I don't understand, of course," the Aussie continued. "If Ali–Cameron was still around I'd be doing the exact same thing."

Eric frowned, looking over at his friend and colleague, feeling a bout of sympathy wash over him. "How are doing with that, anyway?"

Chase didn't look at him, placing a book back in the bookcase. It was titled: Please Kill Me; Interesting title. "I messed up. She's gone. Nothing to do about it now." He stared at the spine of the book for a moment, lost in thought. "I miss her."

. . .

House narrowed his eyes at the toddler on his lap. The creature gazed up at him unperturbed. This was not his idea of a good morning and his porn was already getting cold. Before he knew it the team would be back and he will have run out of time. Stupid Thirteen.

Who knew that convincing Cuddy to give her the baby in an attempt to provoke a soap-worthy reaction (Cuddy had taken all his soaps again) would result in him having to look after the little mongrel. There was no point in wiping snot and spit from a baby's mouth if you weren't going to get laid by the hot dean as a reward.

There was the sound of his door opening and Cuddy walked briskly in. Her shoes came to a sudden halt as she stared at the scene in front of her with wide eyes.

"What happened to Thirteen?"

"Huntington is pregnant. She got a little overwhelmed over Baby-Joy," he said in a conspiratorial tone. Rachel giggled.

"She – she's what?" Cuddy questioned, momentarily taken off guard.

"Pregnant. Up the duff. With child. Knocked up. Expecting. In the family way. Screwed." He smirked at that one and Cuddy shook her head in disbelief. "But, shh, don't tell anyone," he added with a wink. "It's supposed to be a secret."

Before Cuddy could even hope to respond the door to House's office opened again and his little ducklings made their way inside. House smiled pleasantly at them (it was the type of smile that would evoke unease in the strongest of people).

"Where's Thirteen?" Taub asked curiously, no doubt wondering why the other doctor hadn't joined him on the tests they were supposed to be doing together.

"Mama had to go on account of personal issues," House told, earning a glare from Cuddy. Foreman and Chase exchanged a significant look. "And, no, that's not code for I actually know where she went. If I did, I would have said something more like 'she's having sex with one of the nurses in the supply closet' and I would be there with a video camera in hand right now." He glanced down at Rachel. "Somehow I don't think that's where she went. Which is really a shame because that would just be hot."

"That's it. House, give me my daughter back," Cuddy demanded, obviously not wanting her little, impressionable angel to spend another moment in such a bad environment.

"What?" House feigned disappointment. "I feel like we were really starting to bond here. No joke."

. . .

Remy Hadley shrunk back from her mother as the older woman started up another bout of shouting. Remy had gotten her hands on the last of the chocolate (it had been a race between her and her older brother, Benjamin) and she really hadn't thought that it would bother anyone, apart from Benny, of course. She hadn't expected her mother to have wanted that last piece and to be so upset over not getting it.

The words spewed out of the other woman's lips in disjointed exclamations of fury but if anyone asked Remy what she was saying she wouldn't be able to tell them. The nine year old wasn't paying attention to what her mother was saying, only to the tone with which she said them and the feeling of her own personal anger bubbling up inside her.

At first she had been shocked, then scared and hurt when the outburst had begun. Now she was just angry, so very angry at the unfairness of it all. Remy had been over to her best friend's, Michaela's, house and her mother didn't shout at all. She was a nice young woman with synthetic blonde hair who baked cookies with them last Saturday. She spoke in soft, gentle tones that only escalated when Michaela tried to climb up onto the top of the roof (she was a monkey, that girl).

She wanted a mother like Michaela's. Or even just one that didn't shout so much and embarrass her in front of her friends. None of them would even come over anymore; they were too intimidated by Anne.

She just wanted a mother who didn't hate her so much.

Her father tried to explain to her that it was the disease – Hunting or whatever – that was making her do it but that didn't make sense at all. She'd seen the movies and read the books – most serious diseases were like cancer and stuff. And they only made your hair fall out and your skin very pale. They didn't make you shout.

"Remy, look at me, for God's sake, when I'm talking to you!" Anne Hadley demanded and Remy clenched her fists, trying to keep the anger in and failing miserably.

"I hate you!" she exploded, causing the woman to become momentarily stunned. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" She placed her hands over her ears, closed her eyes and screamed. It was a completely immature response from someone of her age but she didn't care. Months of boiling, bubbling emotions that had been kept beneath the surface rose out of the nine-year-old and it came out in a scream. Remy needed to scream, she needed to let it out.

She couldn't hear her mother when she screamed, she couldn't hear anything, only a dull ringing in her ears. That was better.

And there was silence. The screaming stopped, her mother stared and the distant sound of her father's thudding footsteps slowed to a walk. All was silent.

She should feel better now . . . but she didn't.

Thirteen swore as she slammed her hands down against steering wheel, narrowly avoiding hitting the horn. "Fuck!" She'd given up trying to stop the tears about twenty minutes ago and now let them run their course down her cheeks in an endless tide that she barely noticed anymore, the only sign of their presence being the never-ending sting in her eyes. Just like that time when she was nine years old, she wanted to scream. She wanted to shout at the top of her lungs and kick her feet and flail her arms about in an immature tantrum. But like before, the result would be the same – It wouldn't make her feel any better.

And the brunette wasn't a child anymore – she couldn't throw a tantrum. She had to sort this out rationally, like an adult. She didn't have the luxury of being anything else.

She couldn't do this. She couldn't have her child hate her the same way she had hated her mother. Remy couldn't curse it with the same disease she'd been given either. She just couldn't. It didn't matter that the thought of getting an abortion made her sick inside or that, really, all she wanted to do was curl up on a couch at home with one of those baby books that normal mothers got to have, reading all about just what was happening to the little being inside of her, even if she already knew most of it anyway. All that mattered was that, in the end, she was going to have to do the selfless thing and terminate that possible future before it had even begun because, in some twisted way, it was the right thing to do.

Her watery eyes glanced out her car's side window at the clinic across the road. A few people bustled in and out, caught up in their own lives and problems. For a moment, she would have given anything to just flitter out of this body and into one of theirs, become one of them. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling – she hadn't wanted to be her since she was seventeen years old, maybe even before that if she really thought about it.

Thirteen's hand unconsciously made its way to her stomach, tracing over the skin that rested beneath her cotton shirt. She could feel the bulge already, the evidence of what was inside, and for a moment she thought she might cry again.

Instead, she took a deep breath and reached for the door handle. "I'm sorry." And she was.

"Buffy: The world is what it is---we fight, we die. Wishing doesn't change that.

Giles: I have to believe in a better world.

Buffy: Go ahead. I have to live in this one."

- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 3, 'The Wish'

A/N: And, yes, there really is a book called, PLEASE KILL ME, though I haven't read it. Also, don't be put off by Chase's whole blase-ness, just because he's acting that way around Foreman doesn't mean he actually doesn't care about Thirteen.