Disclaimer: I do not own House MD or any of the characters, but I sure as hell wouldn't mind owning Hugh Laurie!
A/N: Yay, I'm back … ish. So, here's a new chapter (thanks to Huddislove for the message on fanpop :P I needed a little push to write more :D) And thanks to all the rest of you who have been faithfully reading and reviewing. Now, the way I figure it, there are still quite a few more chapters to come on this … not sure how many … but possibly more than I had originally anticipated. Since I love this story, that makes me happy, hope it does you too :D Also, thanks to those of you who are also reading and reviewing 'Stand', I'm really happy people are liking that one too.
So, to help pass the time until Monday's amazing Huddyness, I hope you enjoy this chapter and keep me posted :D
Anyways, Enjoy!
In the OR, Chase was wrist deep in House's shoulder. So far, things were going well. His heart rate was stable, his neck was being kept in place by as many things as they could use to do so, and, if all continued to go as it was, his shoulder should be fixed in less than an hour.
That would be ideal.
But very little about the situation was ideal.
And the quickly increasing 'beeps' coming from one of the monitors told Chase that the situation was going to continue to be as far from 'ideal' as ever.
"Shit" he cursed as the beeps got dangerously close to one another and the nurses yelled at him about lower BP's and 'crashing'
"Paddles" he commanded pulling his hands out of his ex-boss' shoulder and doing his best to shock him.
Normally, shocking an unconscious patient would have had no difficulty to it whatsoever, but House's neck couldn't be moved, and the position he was in right now wasn't exactly the most practical for shocking.
Still, the skilled internist managed. At first, there was nothing but a continued beep. So he shocked him again and …
There it was.
A zigzagging heart line. Just the kind of thing a surgeon likes to see.
"He's back" proclaimed a short nurse who was standing by the monitors.
"Very well people" sighed Chase "let's keep going before he crashes on us again"
And with that, he returned to the incision he'd made on House's shoulder and restarted the process of reattaching ligaments to their respective bones and bone pieces to their respective puzzle-like complimentary parts.
Watching from the observation room above, Cameron sighed of relief when Chase handed the paddles back to the nurse and retook the scalpel.
It wasn't that she loved House. It wasn't even that she still felt anything for him. But she did admire him. She knew what an asset he was to the hospital and the medical world. She knew how much losing him would impact Wilson, Cuddy, even Chase and Foreman. Because, no matter how much those two insulted the man and argued with him, she knew that, at least Chase, regarded him as something to live up to, something to achieve. Maybe not the snarky-ness or the arrogance. But definitely the skill and the intelligence.
Pulling out her phone, she quickly called Wilson who had begged to be kept updated.
At Cuddy's home, Wilson was currently sitting on Lisa's couch as he had been when he'd arrived. Except now, he was holding her as she slept. She'd cried for a long while, scared of losing House, scared of never having the chance to tell him, well, everything. Now she was fast asleep.
Hearing his phone vibrate, he shifted slightly, managing to reach into his trouser pocket for the vibrating object.
"Hello?" he answered it in a whisper
"Wilson?" replied Cameron's voice
"Cameron, what's wrong?" he asked her, forgetting who was currently curled into his side and suddenly being faced with her very scared eyes.
"House crashed during surgery"
"He what?!" asked Wilson, cursing himself, knowing he was doing nothing to calm Cuddy's nerves
"He's fine now and it shouldn't be too long before his shoulder's fixed, but he crashed and had to be shocked twice. You asked to be kept in the loop so …"
"No, yes, thank you. Well, keep me posted" he replied, quickly closing the phone and turning to Cuddy who was now sitting up and looking terrified.
She knew that "keep me posted" meant House was still alive, after all, there was really nothing to update anyone on once someone was dead. But still, her nerves refused to calm until she heard Wilson say it.
Looking at Wilson, she waited for him to explain.
"He crashed during surgery. They shocked him back and Cameron says Chase should be done in a short while"
"How is he?" she asked, a part of her dreading the answer
"He's stable for now" he nodded as she sighed and sunk back into his shoulder.
There were a few moments of silence as they just sat there, each silently hoping House would be his stubborn self one last time and pull through it all.
"Wilson?" Cuddy broke the silence looking up at her friend
"Yea?" he asked, unsure what the determined look in her eyes meant
"I want to go see him" she replied sitting up and interrupting him before he even opened his mouth "you can't make me stay here, Wilson. You know as well as I do that I'll just stress and that won't be good for the baby"
Wilson was silent for a bit "Well … you really shouldn't Lisa …"
"James! Please" she had tears in her eyes again.
He sighed. "Lisa …" but he couldn't say no to that look, besides, he knew as well as anyone that she was right. Staying there now would be much worse for the baby than if he took her there.
"Ok"
She smiled and was about to thank him when he continued "but … you're going to sleep now, and relax. I'll stay here on the couch. In the morning, I'll take you in for a bit. While you're there, you will go and see Dr. Bates and get checked out … those are the terms"
Smiling, she nodded "ok, I'll go to sleep … but James, if anything happens … please wake me?"
Nodding, he agreed.
Three hours later, House was in the ICU. He was still on a ventilator, he was about 30 minutes from the anaesthesia wearing off and he was still stable. His whole right arm was in a cast, the sheet over him was covering up the lengths of bandages wrapped around his leg and torso. He had several cuts on his face, two of them stitched closed and his brain was still swollen. There would be no knowing if he had brain damage until he woke up and, as the minutes ticked away and Chase checked in on him, there was no telling when that would be.
"How's he doing?" whispered Cameron moving to stand next to Chase who was reading House's file
"Stable. But that's it …" he replied placing the chart back on the end of the bed and moving out of the ICU with Cameron
"You think he's going to be ok?" she asked him
Raising his eyebrows and inhaling, Chase looked through the windows to the ICU "if the swelling goes down … he should be … unless we missed something" he added, hoping to God they hadn't.
The next morning, rather, afternoon, Wilson woke Cuddy. He had thought of going in at 10 am. But after checking in with Cameron and finding that things were still stable, he decided to let Cuddy sleep as long as she wanted. But when it got to 12 pm, he figured it was time to feed the pregnant lady before the unconscious father woke up on purpose to beat him up.
"Cuddy?" he whispered as he shook her arm a little
"Hmm?" she hummed as reality came flooding back to her
"Want some lunch?" he asked
Taking her nod into her pillow as a yes, Wilson moved back towards the kitchen to fix them both something to eat and left her to revel in those last few moments of sleep.
As he cooked, he thought.
Cuddy was 6 and a half months pregnant with House's baby. Sure, he'd known that for quite a while, but it still managed to get to him. For months, House had known, and he hadn't said anything, he had resisted. And now. Now that it was becoming increasingly evident that he might just do something or say something, this happened.
It was sad, really. And in a way, very typically them. Nothing about House's relationship with Cuddy had ever been easy, and as their best friend, he was sure it would never be. But even he was starting think this was ridiculous.
If House didn't spring, or 'limp', might be the more appropriate term, from that bed in a timely manner and tell Cuddy how much he loved her, Wilson was sure he, himself, would hurt House.
And it was smiling about the thought of House springing out of anything that Cuddy found Wilson.
"What are you doing here?" he asked turning around to look at her "I was going to call you when lunch was ready"
"I smelt food" she said shrugging and smiling slightly as she sunk into one of the kitchen chairs.
Smiling as he turned back to the frying pan in front of him, Wilson spoke "well, I had thought, once you were well fed, we could drop by the hospital …"
He could sense her smiling from behind him.
"Wilson?" she called looking up at him as her left hand played with some crumbs she'd just found on the table-top
"Yes?" he asked looking over his shoulder at her again
"Thank you" she smiled "you know, for being here. For caring"
Turning the stove off and carrying the frying pan and a couple of plates onto the table, he smiled back at her and, as he began to place the food on the plates, replied with a nod "you're welcome, Cuddy"
For a few minutes they just sat there and ate in silence.
"I was thinking about names. Last night. When I couldn't fall asleep?" she started looking up at him as she brought the fork to her mouth again
"Anything good?" he asked
"Well, I just thought … I might just be because of what's happening now but … if it's a boy … I want to have 'Gregory' in there, you know …" she looked back down at her plate as Wilson watched her face
"He'd never tell you. But I'm sure it'd mean the world to him" he smiled
And Wilson was right. Because no matter how much House tried to hide his feelings, he felt a lot more for the baby growing inside Cuddy's womb than he let people see. And to have that baby be officially linked to him. To have that baby have his name. It would not only make him feel secretly happy, it just might bring him closer to the baby and, as a result to Cuddy.
"And if it's a girl?" he asked
Shaking her head, Cuddy swallowed the food she had in her mouth and replied "I still don't know"
TBC
Ok, well, to be fair, Cuddy might not know ... but IIII do :D Hopefully you enjoyed that … A little bit of suspense, a little bit of drama and a little bit of happiness in there too … Hope it at very least helps pass the time until the AMAZING episode that awaits us next Monday :D
Thank you for reading!
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CJS-DEPPendent