Ch 43: Playing Doctor with Doctors

"Are you sure this is the best thing to do?" Cuddy asked her fiancé as she followed him to the observation room above surgery.

"If you want the kid to survive, yes," he replied. "You know she can't undergo certain treatments with a baby inside her. Not only could trying to save her kill the kid, it could take her out too."

Cuddy sighed. "I can't believe this happened so fast."

"Foreman's a bit of an ass…he started this whole problem. Doesn't seem too guilty either," House told her.

"Maybe he just doesn't know how to handle things…"

House didn't respond to her theory, he was busy watching Chase wheel his team member into the OR, anesthesiologists giving her pain medication and a dose of gas in case she suddenly came out of it as she was being cut into. The Aussie scrubbed up, and then approached his patient cautiously. Within moments he was making the first incisions.

Wilson entered the observation room as Chase cut open Thirteen's swell of a belly. The oncologist was more than a little shaky and for good reason. He watched, hands held in Cuddy's, as Chase opened his girlfriend up and extracted the tiny baby. He choked back a sob as the nurse took the baby off to the side to clean it up.

"What did you find?" House demanded of his ex-fellow. Chase had set to sewing Thirteen up vigorously.

"She's about to crash!" he announced as the first cries of the child cut through the air.

"Your baby's alive," Cuddy said consolingly as the machinery attached to Thirteen went berserk. Nurses were all around the young doctor, helping Chase seal her up, checking for a pulse and monitoring her respiration.

"Get down here!" Chase yelled at House. Wilson broke into a sob and was escorted out of the observation room by the Dean of Medicine. House moved as quickly as possible into the OR, not stopping to get scrubbed up.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Look at her belly," Chase instructed. House found several bruises along Thirteen's abdomen.

"You don't think Foreman had anything to do with this, do you?" he asked as the surgical team stabilized Thirteen.

"No. They're her finger prints. She was holding on to her belly pretty tightly and apparently burst a blood vessel."

"Can you fix it? Why didn't we see it before?"

"She was bleeding into her liver."

"Could she survive with a partial transplant?" Cuddy asked House. Wilson had been taken to see his son and was unaware of his girlfriend's condition.

"It's ruined. No chance unless we can get her a transplant."

"She's got Huntington's," Cuddy breathed.

"Yes I know that," House replied annoyedly.

"She won't qualify for a transplant."

"Unless we ask for a transplant for someone who doesn't need one…someone who would qualify," he suggested.

"I-I…House…"

"I'm not asking you to lie to the board…I'm asking you to keep quiet."

"I'll do it," she answered after a few moments. "But who could you use as an excuse? Does anyone here 'need' a liver?"

"Not at the moment…"

"Then what are you going to do?"

"I have no idea, woman. I just came up with this plan fifteen minutes ago," he replied, exasperated. He paced around his office for a few moments.

"Why was she grabbing her stomach that hard?" Cuddy asked, changing the subject in hopes of getting a better result from talking to House.

"Pain. Her body apparently didn't enjoy the stress she was being put under and interpreted it as pain. A muscle cramp blown out of proportion."

"So it had nothing to do with her baby?"

"Not directly. It's still good that we got the baby out, though. It would have been killed very quickly with the amount of bleeding she's doing," he pointed out.

"A patient just came into the ER with a gunshot wound to the abdomen," Cameron announced from the door, she was breathless, as though she had ran to get to House.

"Need a liver transplant?" he asked.

"Nope."

"Good." Within ten minutes he had a meeting with the transplant board. Documents were produced stating that Carver Lyman needed a liver transplant and a liver was on the way to PPTH within the hour.

House stopped long enough to explain what was happening to Wilson. "She needs a full transplant?" Wilson asked incredulously, fear filling his eyes."

"Yes. Don't panic, though. I've got it covered. As soon as the liver gets here, she'll be in surgery."

"Will she make it?"

"I won't let this one go," House assured him. "Keep your eye on that kid…"

Wilson sat impatiently in the newborn ward waiting to hear from House about Thirteen. Cuddy had suggested he stay with the baby, and had made sure to keep him company so he couldn't view the procedure. He would have been in hysterics already without some kind of attendance.

"What are you going to call him?" Cuddy asked, rubbing Wilson's shoulder gently.

Wilson sniffed back some tears and looked at his boss. "We were thinking about Evan. My middle name."

"I think that's a great idea," she told him. "Any middle name?"

"Williams was her mother's maiden name. We're taking William as his middle name."

"You're kid's initials are 'EWW'?" House asked, coming up behind his best friend. Wilson looked up at him expectantly. "She's in recovery. Awake and all."