Author's note: I meant to post this 8 hours ago, so I wouldn't keep you hanging, but fanfiction was having one of its little fits. Also, Enya should appreciate all of the messages of support from readers of this story.

Chapter 26: Visiting Hours

As Barry summarized all of the results and his recommendations, all eyes were fixed on House, waiting for the next explosion. There was silence, until he finally replied. "Fine." Then everyone in the room visibly relaxed.

House gripped the armrests of the wheelchair and used them to push himself upright. He was leaning over to grab his cane from the conference table, when Wilson asked, "House? What are you doing?"

"Gotta pee," he announced to the whole room.

"Well, you aren't going to walk down to the other end of the hall," Lisa declared. "Sit down. I'll push."

Knowing every doctor in the room would back her up, House slumped back down in the chair, and Lisa laid the cane across his lap. She deftly turned the chair and maneuvered it through the door. When they reached the door of the men's room, she set the brakes and then helped him out of the chair. She ignored his glare. "You're on your own from here."

When he had finished, she helped him settle back into the chair. They were both silent as they made their way down the hall. She was about to turn right when he suddenly ordered, "go left."

She mentally shrugged and silently followed his orders. When they reached the nurse's station, he gestured for her to stop.

"What room is Sheila Carstairs in?" he barked at the nurse behind the counter.

"I'm sorry, sir, but visiting hours are over. You'll have to come back tomorrow," she replied, not even bothering to look up from her paperwork.

"So, have they taken away my privileges as well as my freedom?" he snarled.

The nurse looked up to find the Dean of Medicine glaring at her. "Please tell Dr. House what room his patient is in."

The woman's eyes widened. "8372. It's five doors down on the right," she supplied with belated helpfulness.

Lisa pivoted the wheelchair and followed the nurse's directions. They were almost at the door when he signaled for her to stop. "After you drop me off, why don't you go back to the meeting."

"You don't want to go with me?" she asked, genuinely surprised.

"Why? To hear how they plan to cut me open? It's not like they'll listen to me anyway." His voice was tinged with bitterness.

"Ok," she softly replied. She pushed open the door and then they were inside. "Hi, Sheila. I wanted to introduce you to Dr. House."

Sheila looked at the man slumped in the wheelchair. This was the man who had been responsible for saving her life? He didn't even look like a doctor—she would have sworn he was a patient. The whole situation made no sense. He'd never even bothered to see her when he was treating her, sending his team to do the dirty work. But now he came to visit after she had been transferred to OB? Belatedly she tried to thank him for saving her life, but he waved her off, obviously uncomfortable with her gratitude.

"So, how are you feeling?" he finally asked.

"Still sore from the surgery, but better. It's nice to be back to a high risk pregnancy, rather than an imminent death sentence."

Cuddy had watched the somewhat awkward exchange, feeling like she was intruding. She looked away, and her eyes fell on the other bed in the room, "Is this occupied?" she asked.

Sheila shook her head. "Nope. When you came in, I thought that maybe I was getting a roommate."

Lisa looked down at the wheelchair's occupant. "You've been sitting up for too long already. Why don't you lay down for a bit? I will have housekeeping make up the bed again when you're through with it."

Sheila watched in amazement as her former doctor was tucked into bed like a four year old. The Dean of Medicine even leaned down to remove his shoes for him. Everything about this visit seemed strange. She'd heard the nurses gossiping, and at least one had referred to him as The Limping Bastard. She'd also heard that he had cancer, but he didn't look like someone undergoing chemotherapy. Mainly he looked tired and sad. When Dr. Cuddy left, she finally asked, "Dr. House, are you all right?"

There was no mistaking the bitterness in his answer. "Nothing time won't fix."

The ensuing silence seemed oppressive. House sighed. It had been so much easier communicating when it had been words on a computer screen. As he tried to think of something to say, he thought back to the first time she had posted on the discussion board.

He'd been having a particularly lousy day. Foreman had just left to go back to the hospital, when he'd been surprised by the nausea he'd later come to expect after eating. He didn't quite make it to the toilet before retching, and he'd decided to take a shower to get rid of the stench. When he had finally felt clean, he had wrapped a towel around his waist and had limped into the bedroom to dig up some fresh clothes. As he came around the corner, he'd caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length mirror Wilson had insisted on mounting on the inside of the closet door. As a rule, he generally avoided looking in mirrors, but this time, something had made him take a good, hard look. He started at the top – face haggard and pale from months spent indoors. His upper body was usually somewhat toned from the extra work caused by using his cane, but his arms looked skinny and he could see every bump on his sternum, like some anorexic supermodel. All a result of months of minimal use. He dropped the towel, so he could look at his body. All he could think of was the starving children in Africa, their bodies grotesquely bloated from eating grass. And finally, there was the usual train wreck that was his right thigh. He'd turned away in disgust.

When he'd logged onto the discussion board, a new member had posted and he could still remember her words: My body has become alien to me. I look down and I don't recognize myself anymore. Some days, I am convinced that I will never survive this pregnancy. I want this baby with every fiber of my being, and if I lose it, it may well kill me, but some days, I am so angry that my life has been reduced to this one room. Locked away while everyone else's life continues outside these walls.

He'd read her post, shocked to see his own thoughts already written down. He'd immediately started typing a reply, and their on-line friendship had begun.

As he tried to find a comfortable position on the unfamiliar hospital bed, he found himself asking, "Do you still resent the baby?"

"What?! Why would you ask that? Why would you even think it?! I don't resent the baby. I risked my life to continue this pregnancy!"

"But to not be able to see your dying father. Go to his funeral. Your job. Derrick. Everything."

"How do you know about all of that?"

He realized he might have made a mistake. "From Dr. Cameron," he supplied, hoping that his underling had stayed true to form.

"I never told her all of that. The only person who I told that to was Gretchen, and she would never tell anyone." She remembered the nurses' opinion of Dr. House, and she looked at him with growing revulsion. "You jerk. Those emails were personal! You had no right to read them. What kind of sick bastard reads other people's private email!"

"I didn't." He could see that she was getting upset, which wasn't good for someone in her condition. To stop the storm of invective, he snapped, "I read those emails because I'm Gretchen."

If he thought that would calm her down, he was mistaken. "What! So you enjoy pretending to be someone you're not, just to get people to pour their hearts out to you? What kind of person does that? I'm not sure what's worse…"

"Look at me!" he interrupted, and there was a thread of desperation in his voice that caught her attention. He threw down the covers, and yanked up the bulky sweatshirt. "Now do you see why?"

She saw the desperate plea in his eyes, but she was still confused. "So, you're overweight, like most Americans."

He looked around, trying to find a way to make her understand. Because they were in the high risk antepartum ward, there was a fetal monitor next to every bed. He turned it on and moved the sensor over his belly until he found the heartbeat. With his left hand holding the sensor in place, he used his right to turn the monitor so that Sheila could see the numbers dancing across the screen.

When he finally spoke, his voice was calm. "The only things I lied about were my name and my age, but hey, lying about your age is practically a national pastime, right? Everything else is true." He sighed. "It's not like I had a choice. Who'd believe that a 47 year old man was pregnant?" He let the sensor fall away, and he turned off the monitor. He pulled up the blanket and waited for her response.

Sheila was thinking hard. It was difficult to reconcile the two people: Gretchen – her online friend, who had always been able to understand her hurt and anger, because she was just as scared and frustrated, and Dr. House – the brilliant, sarcastic doctor who had saved her life. When Sheila spoke, it was with a calm acceptance of a bizarre situation. "At least you don't have much longer to go. You're almost at 34 weeks."

He sighed, and then decided to share Barry's devastating news. "They were supposed to deliver her in," he looked up at the clock, "46 hours and 27 minutes," he said bitterly.

"'Supposed to'? What's wrong? What's changed?" she asked, concerned for her friend.

"The results of the amnio came back. Her lungs aren't fully developed. So he wants to wait another week to minimize the risk of her having chronic medical problems."

He was silent for a long time, before he finally admitted, "I don't want to do this anymore."

She had to strain to hear his halting words. "I'm sick of the nausea and the vomiting, and the pain that never goes away. I'm sick of laying on my couch and never leaving my apartment. Hell, clinic duty is starting to look appealing. But mostly, I'm sick of knowing something could go horribly wrong at any moment. When he told me that it would be another week, part of me didn't care about hurting her. I just wanted it to be over." He waited for her condemnation, but it never came.

"It's OK to feel that way, you know. You've had a hard time, even worse than most people have on bedrest. You think it's selfish to want it to be over?" She waited until he nodded. "It only makes you human. If you were selfish, you wouldn't have continued the pregnancy. You knew what you were getting into, right?"

There was no humor in his laughter. "I didn't think it would be this bad."

She grimaced. "No one ever does." She thought for a minute. "Everyone always says that pregnancy is a time to be enjoyed and treasured. Those people either had easy pregnancies, or forgot how miserable pregnancy can be sometimes. You have every right to be upset that it isn't going to be over in two days." She looked over and saw that he was looking more relaxed. "Are you going to go the extra week?" she asked.

"Yeah," he grudgingly replied. "At this stage, even a couple of days can cut a week off of a NICU stay, let alone decreasing the chances of respiratory problems later in life."

"How will you do it? Another week, I mean?"

"Same as usual, I guess. Hopefully the team will find another patient, but I think the order's gone out: no more cases."

"Why?"

"Stress, plus patients have a tendency to have problems at inconvenient times, like when I'm supposed to be resting. I guess if I get really desperate, there's always internet porn."

Sheila laughed. "You're tough. You'll find something."

When Wilson entered the room a few hours later, he wasn't sure what he expected to find. It certainly wasn't finding them both having a midnight snack of fruit and pudding cups while discussing what was the worst naval base to live on when growing up. When Wilson attempted to steal a grape, House batted his hand away.

"Patients only."

"You haven't been admitted," Wilson protested.

"Fine. Only people eating for two."

Wilson was shocked by the casual reference to the pregnancy, and he glanced over at the occupant of the other bed, who was laughing at their antics. Guess that question was answered. "Will you hurry up then? It's after midnight, and you should be getting to bed soon." He turned to maneuver the wheelchair next to the bed, while House awkwardly sat up and swung his legs over the side. Wilson finally located House's running shoes under the bed, and he stooped down to help House get them on his feet.

Sheila had been watching their progress. "So, you two are a couple, right?"

Wilson looked up from tying House's shoelaces, looking like a deer caught in headlights. It was the first time he'd been confronted by someone who didn't already know. "Yeah? How'd you guess?" he asked, wondering if something about them screamed 'gay'.

"Uhm… matching double platinum rings? Kind of a dead giveaway. When I saw Greg's rings, I knew I'd seen someone wearing an identical set, but I couldn't remember who was wearing them." She laughed. "You only came in that one time, and I wasn't exactly very with it at the time."

"Yeah. Glad that you are doing better," he replied.

He helped House down from the bed and into the waiting wheelchair.

She didn't ask any more questions, and Wilson wondered what they had found to talk about all this time.

"Hey, Greg, feel free to give me a call if you're bored out of your mind." She watched as he nodded agreement. "Let me know when the baby's born, OK?"

"That will be Wilson's job. I plan to be enjoying the pleasures of IV painkillers."

She laughed. "It's something to look forward to." She watched as they exited the room.

They slowly made their way down the almost deserted corridors, Wilson pushing the wheelchair. As they passed the nurses station, a falsely cheerful voice called out after them, "have a nice night Dr. House."

House was laughing, and Wilson quickly maneuvered the wheelchair into the elevator. "What was that about?"

"Cuddy can be a scary person," House replied, refusing to elaborate further.