Author's Note: This part of the story was originally written long before the revelations in Season 3 of just how bad House's relationship with his father was, and the reasons behind it. So, therefore the relationship portrayed here is far from cannon.

Chapter 13: Meet the Houses

When House was finally ready to be moved to a private room, James stayed by his side. After they arrived, he helped Greg onto his left side, with a pillow propping up his right leg. He and Barry debated on the best location for the fetal heart monitor, before they stashed it underneath the bed, where it wasn't immediately obvious to anyone who entered the room. Automatically he checked the various monitors, and then sat in the chair next to the bed as Greg dozed.

He sat there for quite a while, until he checked his watch and realized that he couldn't put it off any longer. "Greg? I need to tell you something." He waited until House's eyelids fluttered open. "Your parents will be here soon. My mom is picking them up at the airport."

House sighed. "Do they know?"

"My parents do. Yours don't. Don't worry, I'll handle it. Try and get some sleep. I'll wake you when they get here." He watched as House wearily closed his eyes. James was still sitting there when John and Blythe arrived. He abandoned his chair and moved to the doorway with his mother so that House's parents could approach the bed. He watched as Blythe reached down to touch her son's cheek.

House opened his eyes. "Hi mom." He looked over at his father. "Dad."

"How are you?" she asked gently.

"Been better," he replied.

"What happened?"

"A kid bumped into the cane, and I fell."

"And that's why you were bleeding so badly that you had to have surgery? I don't understand."

"Don't worry, they stopped the bleeding. We're both going to be fine."

It was his father who caught the incongruity. "'We'? Who are you talking about?"

Wilson stepped in. "I think it would be best if we go up to my office and talk."

"You know something about our son, don't you? What aren't you telling us?"

"Go with Wilson, OK?" House pleaded. His parents finally capitulated, and turned to follow Wilson. Jane smiled encouragingly at her son, and sat down in the chair next to the door. On the way to his office, Wilson tried to formulate what he would say to Greg's parents. At least when it had been his own parents, he knew how they would react, and when he had told them about the baby, he had been fueled by anger and frustration. This is completely different. He'd met Greg's parents a few times over the years, but he really didn't know them all that well, and Greg rarely talked about them.

When they got to his office, Blythe and John automatically sat in the chairs placed across from his desk. He sat in his accustomed spot and opened his mouth, but no words came out. He sighed, and then just decided to dive in. "I know this is going to come as a complete surprise to you, but your son and I are dating." He cringed, 'dating' sounded so high-school. "We've been living together for a little over four months."

"Do you think I give a shit who my son is sleeping with!" John was yelling. "As long as it makes him happy. Now, could you please tell me what's wrong with my son!"

Wilson watched as Blythe reached over and laid a hand on her husband's knee. "A few weeks after I moved in, Greg got sick. I thought it was the flu, but weeks later it hadn't gone away. He lost nine pounds in less than two months. He finally let me run some tests, and his beta-hCG came back almost four orders of magnitude higher than normal. Beta-hCG is kind of a strange marker, because in women, it is an indicator of pregnancy, and in men, is indicative of testicular cancer." He saw Blythe go pale, and he quickly continued, "it wasn't cancer. In some ways, cancer would have been easier. Predictable – choose the best treatment option and move forward. Instead, we were in totally unknown territory."

He looked up and realized he was completely screwing up on telling them what was wrong with their son. They were completely terrified. "He's pregnant."

Their faces were blank. His words were nonsensical. He could have declared that grass was purple, and it would have made as much sense. He rummaged through his desk and pulled out the file. "I was doing an ultrasound of his abdomen, and this is what I saw." He pulled out a picture from one of the first ultrasounds. "It's an eleven week fetus. We couldn't believe what we were seeing, and we did a number of tests before we were convinced that it really was a fetus. Here's the ultrasound from last week." He watched as they stared at the ultrasound, which looked a lot more like a baby than the first one. "It's a girl," he offered.

"But that's impossible," Blythe's voice was distressed.

"Believe me, we had a hard time accepting it ourselves."

"Why didn't he tell us," she asked.

"I'm sorry about that. We planned on telling you at Christmas. I guess we thought it was best to tell you in person. Also, for so long, it hardly seemed real. Except for the ultrasounds, it was easy to pretend that it was just a little weight gain. It was easy to forget about how risky the pregnancy is."

"How bad is it?" Blythe asked.

Wilson paused, trying to figure how much to tell them. They deserved to know the truth. His voice was somber. "The chance that the baby will survive until delivery is probably less than one percent, and there is a chance that Greg could die as well." He reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Up until today, everything was going surprisingly well. The fetus looked great, and Greg wasn't having too many problems with the pregnancy. We'd hoped that he could make it to the end of the year before he had to start taking it easy. Today was the result of a freak accident. A kid bumped him at just the wrong time and he fell hard. The placenta pulled away in several places from where it was attached, and he was bleeding into his abdomen. If it hadn't happened in a hospital, the baby probably wouldn't have survived, and Greg could have bled out. As it was, it is pretty lucky that they could repair the damage and salvage the pregnancy." He looked down at the ultrasound pictures spread across his desk. "When I called you, I thought for sure that they would have to take the baby. At twenty-one weeks, there is almost no chance that she could survive."

"So Greg and the baby are all right?" she asked.

"They're both doing fine," he answered.

"So what's going to happen for the rest of the pregnancy?"

"After today, he will be on bed-rest. House doesn't know about it yet, and I know that won't go over very well. We hope that he can make it until thirty-four weeks, when the baby will be delivered surgically."

John spoke for the first time. "Thirty-four weeks. That's too early, isn't it?"

"It's six weeks premature. Thirty-four weeks is the standard in cases like this because at that point, most of the complications of a premature birth are minimized. The main thing is that at that point, the baby's lungs are fully developed. It's not ideal, but it's too risky to continue the pregnancy past that point."

Wilson stopped speaking, and waited for them to ask any questions.

"What about the pills?" The question came, naturally, from House's father.

"He's switched to a different set of medications, which will be better for the baby. Believe me, the period when he was switching over to the new meds wasn't fun for anyone." Wilson grimaced. "The new meds aren't as effective at controlling his pain as the Vicodin. As a result, he uses the cane pretty much from the moment he steps out of bed. Some days, the pain is pretty bad."

Blythe inhaled, and then found the courage to ask the question that always lingered in her mind. "Is he happy?" she asked quietly.

Wilson smiled. "Yeah, in his own way. He really wants this. Last week, he felt the baby move for the first time. For the rest of the day, neither of us could quit smiling. I think that some of the staff were a little disturbed. A few days later, we found out that we were having a girl. It was one of the best weeks of my entire life, and I would say that he probably feels the same way." He smiled in remembrance, and then his smile faded as he considered the events of today. "Why don't we go back down and you can see Greg again."

When they entered the room, they heard House answer, "I can handle it." Wilson could hear the tension in his voice.

Barry was standing next to the bed, and he didn't look happy. "That wasn't what I asked. How bad is the pain?" He leaned down so that he could look directly into House's eyes. "Remember our deal?"

House was first to look away. "It's pretty bad," he finally admitted. When he saw Barry moving toward the IV pump, he started to protest.

Barry cut him off immediately. "No, House. Richard and I know what we're doing, and this is best for the baby. What's best right now is for you to relax and get some rest. Your pulse is higher than I'd like and your BP is too high."

"But she's OK, right?" House asked, worry in his eyes.

Barry checked the fetal heart monitor again. "Heart rate's a little high, but still within the normal range." He sat down in the chair next to the bed. "You remember the other half of the deal?"

House's voice was resigned. "Bedrest."

Barry nodded. "Once you get out of here, you are confined to bed, the couch, and the shortest path between the two. Oh, and bathroom privileges. That's it. For now, I want you horizontal as much as possible. For at least the next week, I don't want you home alone."

It was a sign of just how frightening the past few hours had been, that House didn't argue as his life altered dramatically.

"I want to do another ultrasound, just to make sure that everything is OK." Barry looked up, noticing the extra people in the room for the first time. "We have company."

"My parents," House explained. Wilson performed the introductions. At Barry's inquiring look, House answered, "they can stay. They should probably see this anyway."

Wilson helped House shift onto his back, arranging the blankets and opening up the hospital gown to expose House's belly. From behind him, he heard Blythe's gasp of surprise, as the first real sign of her son's pregnancy was revealed. He stood back and watched as Barry stepped in to perform the ultrasound, deftly avoiding the fetal heart monitor that was wrapped around House's belly, as well as the bandages covering the recent incision sites. As he moved the wand, Barry was narrating for the sake of the parents. When he finished he looked up. "Everything looks good. Baby looks fine and there's no sign of any bleeding." He stood up. "I need to go talk with House's fellows. I want to set up a schedule so that House and the baby will be monitored hourly for the next 24 hours. I'd rather keep access to him limited to those that already know about the baby. Luckily, with his reputation, the nurses will be more than willing to relinquish his care over to his team." He looked over at the people gathered around the bed. "I'll give you another few minutes, and then I want all of you out of here. Wilson, you're allowed to stay as long as he gets some sleep."

They watched as he exited the room, and Blythe was the first to break the silence. "So, there really is a baby," she said wondrously. "I guess some part of me just kept waiting for someone to say it was all a big joke."

Wilson smiled. "I remember having the same feeling, in the beginning." He helped House back onto his side.

The reverie was interrupted by John's voice. "Why in hell are you risking your life like this?"

Wilson winced, hearing the love and concern in John's voice, but knowing that House would only hear the accusation.

"Because I enjoy being miserable and self destructive." House's voice was bitter.

John was going to reply when he was stopped by a pointed look from his wife.

"We should probably let him rest," Wilson suggested. He leaned over to kiss Greg on the lips, intentionally not looking over to where his mother was standing. "I'll be back later tonight."

He stood back as Greg's parents and his own mother took their leave. When they were in the hallway, Wilson looked over at his mother, not sure what to do.

"I'm staying," she replied, to his unspoken question, "for as long as I need to be here." Her face hardened. "Your father can manage for a few days without me."

"You can sleep at my apartment; I'll stay at the hospital tonight, and I wouldn't recommend the couch at House's place."

The drive back to House's apartment was silent. He carried Blythe and John's suitcase into the apartment and put it in the bedroom. As he was changing the sheets on the bed, he realized that none of them had eaten since lunchtime. When he walked out to the living room, he saw all three of the parents chatting amicably. He went to the kitchen and pulled out the leftovers from last night's dinner. If he chopped up the chicken breasts, he could probably stretch the meal to feed four, especially if he made a large salad and added some vegetables. He was tearing lettuce and chopping vegetables when his mother joined him. When dinner was ready, he took two of the plates out into the living room, while Blythe joined his mother in the kitchen.

Before he and his mother left, Wilson found the keys to House's car. He also wrote out the directions to his apartment, so that John and Blythe could pick up his mother in the morning before they all returned to the hospital. He also grabbed a change of clothing, and after a moment of consideration, grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of sweats for his mother, who was stranded without a change of clothing.

When they got to his apartment, the first thing he did was turn up the thermostat. It had been weeks since he had been back and it was ice cold in there. As he went into the bedroom to change the sheets and make out the bed for his mother, Jane walked around the apartment, mentally comparing it to the one she had just left.

Unlike House's apartment, the walls were painted a stark white. In the living room, there was only a battered couch that looked like it had been rescued from a dumpster. Stacked along one wall was a pile of boxes that had never been unpacked. The entire place had the air of abandonment.

She thought back to the apartment she had been in earlier that evening. The furniture had been comfortable, but there was a certain elegance to it that seemed unexpected for Greg House, who had always appeared fairly unkempt every time she had seen him. The biggest surprise had been the antique baby grand piano that occupied most of the living room. She wasn't intentionally trying to pry into her son's life, but it was clear that two people lived in House's apartment. The telltale signs had been hard to miss—the two toothbrushes in the holder in the bathroom, the McGill coffee mug sitting on the counter. Mainly it had been the ease at which James had moved in the kitchen, preparing a meal, clearly familiar with his surroundings. And then there had been the clothing he had packed into a duffel bag pulled from the closet.

As she wandered around her son's apartment, it was clear that he wasn't living here. She walked into the bedroom, where James was just finishing making up the bed. Like the rest of the apartment, there was very little furniture in the bedroom, most of which she recognized from the spare bedroom when he had been married to Julie. She sat down on the edge of the bed, the only place to sit in this room. "When you first told us that you were involved with House, you said that you had been living together," she asked hesitantly.

Wilson ran a hand through his hair, not meeting his mother's eyes. "Yeah."

"I don't understand why you still keep this apartment if you are living together."

"It's complicated." He slumped down next to her on the bed. "When I moved in, it was a struggle just to clear out an entire closet for my stuff. Mostly getting rid of a bunch of sports equipment that he'll never use again." He sighed. "Also, when we decided to live together, it wasn't immediately obvious that it would work out. When I camped out on his couch after my marriage to Julie fell apart, we nearly killed each other. He put my hand in warm water one night and I sawed his cane in half. It wasn't pretty." He stared off into space, lost in his memories.

"But clearly, it's worked out. Why haven't you gotten a bigger place?"

His voice was sad. "What do we get? A two-bedroom place would be fine for just the two of us. A little bit more wall space for bookshelves, more closet space. Have the second bedroom as an office, maybe with a couch with a foldout bed for guests. We talked about it a little bit, but at the time, he wasn't feeling well, and we never got around to it. Then we found out he was pregnant. With a baby, we'd need at least another bedroom. But when…" He cringed and started again. "But if he loses the baby, it would be another reminder of what we'd lost." He looked down at the floor. "It's just one more thing that we don't talk about."

She turned to embrace him, and he leaned into her shoulder, feeling the same comfort he had felt as a child. He let out his breath in a shuddering sigh. "I'm just so scared."

She reached up to pet his hair. "It's OK to be scared. You just have to try and believe that everything is going to be all right." When she felt his tears soaking through her blouse, she turned and wiped away his tears with her thumbs. "None of that, now. You don't want him to see you with red eyes. You have to be strong for him, so that he believes that it is going to be OK."

He nodded and tried to compose himself. "I need to get back to the hospital. Is there anything that you need?" He reached over to the duffel bag and brought out the clothes he had selected for her. "I have an extra toothbrush in the bathroom you can use."

"I'm fine. Go." She pushed him towards the door. "Call me if you need anything. I'll see you tomorrow."

TBC