A/N: A big thank you to everyone who reviewed (especially to the guest reviewers, whom I can't thank any other way), favourited the story or are following it. I'm honoured. The second part is not as polished as the first one, but since it's Christmas, I don't want to leave the story hanging in limbo on a dismal note.

The biblical reference is to Ishmael, Abraham's son by Sarah's slave Hagar. When Abraham and Sarah reached old age without any offspring, Sarah suggested that Abraham sleep with her slave Hagar, who bore him a son, Ishmael. Later, when Sarah's son Isaac was born, rivalry between the women escalated to such a degree that Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away into the desert.

Part 2

"Lisa, have you taken your break yet?" Dr Nielsen called in passing.

Cuddy looked up from the suture she was stitching. "No, not yet. I'll go after this one."

She gave her patient, a young man who'd cut his hand to the bone on a broken bottle, a reassuring smile. "I'll give you a scrip for a pain killer. You should take one as needed, every four hours at the most and a maximum of four per day. Keep the bandage dry; wrap it in a plastic bag when you take a shower. Have you got someone to take you home and keep an eye on you?"

"Yeah, my girlfriend's waiting outside."

"Well, then, merry Christmas!"

She watched him depart as she threw her gloves into the trash. Then she went to the passage that led from the ER to the interior of the hospital. She had her own little Christmas ritual, one that didn't include bottles or boyfriends, a ritual that she'd started practicing the year after Rachel was born and had resumed when she'd returned to Princeton.

No one knew Rachel's exact date of birth, but it was probably December 3, give or take one or two days. That was the date on her birth certificate and it was the day they celebrated her birthday, but for Cuddy another day exceeded Rachel's birthday in importance. It was Christmas Eve, the day she'd been told she could foster Rachel.

Then, as now, she'd taken the elevator to the fifth floor, to the NICU where Rachel had lain in a cot, unaware of the drama that had taken place one floor below in the general ward.

Today other infants lay in the NICU and the curtains were drawn. It didn't matter. Cuddy stared with unseeing eyes at the room, grateful for these ten minutes of peace that allowed her to celebrate her personal miracle. The past three years she'd volunteered for duty in the ER on Christmas Eve, placing Rachel in her sister Julia's care for the night, and had made a trip up to the fifth floor sometime between eight and midnight, as her work schedule allowed. She had considered including Rachel in her ritual, but she couldn't really justify letting Rachel commemorate an event that had only taken place because Rachel's biological mother had died. Rachel knew that her mother had died, but there was no need to confuse or traumatise the child by showing her where her mother had passed away. Hence her annual trip to the fifth floor remained her own secret.

Cuddy allowed herself to replay the scene once more in her mind. She had looked down on Rachel and had felt as Sarah must have felt when she'd first held Isaac and realised that she'd finally got what she'd been longing for all those years. She had brushed a finger along those soft cheeks, had held those tiny hands in hers, and had been overcome by a wave of thankfulness and of love.

And then House had come in behind her. She had sensed his presence, but she had been too focused on Rachel to take much notice. She couldn't remember what she'd said to him. He had said, "Merry Christmas, Cuddy," and then he'd left. Like Ishmael, he'd departed into his own desert exile.

Cuddy frowned. Why was House intruding on her memories now of all times? These past three years she'd managed to keep him shut out, to delete his presence from the drama that had brought Rachel into her life, to replay the memory without including him. Now for the first time he was intruding, spoiling her moment of happiness and sentimentality, damn the bastard!

She bit her lip anxiously, worried that she might be having one of those moments of panic that overtook her whenever she heard a car roaring down the road with screeching tires, but her heart rate, although accelerated, was steady and her breathing was even. She was angry, not panicky.

House didn't matter, she told herself as she turned away. He was dead.

Nevertheless, she soon found herself on the fourth floor, going down the corridor towards his office ('Chase's office,' she corrected herself). Nowadays she tended to avoid it, taking the staircase at the other end of the floor whenever she had to come up here. She had nothing to do with Diagnostics - she taught classes in health management, liaised between the university and its affiliated teaching hospitals (including PPTH), and volunteered one day a week in the clinic or, as today, in the ER.

Diagnostics was deserted, the lights off, but the table in the conference room was littered with papers and the whiteboard was covered in Chase's neat writing. No hint here as to why House should suddenly spring to her mind, refusing to be driven away now that his spirit had been roused.

She had no reason to feel guilty about House. He had driven his car through her house, not the other way round.

But that, said a voice in her head that sounded irritatingly like Wilson's, doesn't excuse your previous behaviour to him.

She leaned her hot face against the cool glass door of the office. She'd had the right to end their relationship. She had a responsibility towards herself and towards Rachel, and he'd been a liability, someone who wouldn't have been there when needed and who'd potentially corrupt her daughter. Hadn't her subconscious shown him offering candy, a symbol for drugs, to her daughter in the nightmares that had preceded the break-up?

And before that? What about when you got Rachel? Maybe House was Ishmael, the wild one, but you weren't Sarah, you were Abraham, who conceived a son outside the covenant, the slave girl's bastard. Then, when Sarah bore him Isaac, he cast his older son out and sent him into the desert to fend for himself because he wanted to protect the younger one, the one born within God's covenant. Had you not cast House aside, maybe the sequence of events leading to the ultimate disaster could have been avoided.

House wasn't dead because she'd neglected him, she told herself, or because she'd broken up with him. He wasn't even dead because he'd driven his car into her house. He was dead because he'd gambled once too often in an old, deserted warehouse, and he'd lost.

Unless Foreman was right. Foreman had approached her after Wilson's funeral, when she was standing among the groups of mourners wondering whether decency required her to offer condolences to Bonnie, Julie or Sam.

"You should know that House is still alive," he'd said quietly so that no one except Chase, who had come with him, could overhear him. Judging by his expression, Chase had been as gob-smacked as she.

She hadn't said a word.

"What makes you think so?" Chase had finally said.

"He left his ID jammed under my coffee table. It wasn't there before his funeral."

"That could have been Wilson's revenge, messing with your head because you couldn't keep House out of prison," Chase had said.

"Wilson liquefied all his assets and withdrew his entire savings from his bank account before his death," Foreman had continued. At their questioning gazes he had added, "He was providing for House. There's no other explanation."

Cuddy had finally found her voice. "If you believe he's alive, why are you telling me and not the police?"

"I'm not telling the police because I believe that House hasn't done anything to deserve going back to prison. I'm telling you because I believe that you deserve to know that you could run into him someday."

Chase's expression had been skeptical. "And you're sure you're not telling her to ensure that she doesn't come back to Princeton demanding her job back?"

Foreman had been at his most supercilious. "She won't get it back, no matter what. But I'm telling her precisely so that she does come back to Princeton. Princeton is the one place House can't afford to return to, because he's bound to be recognised. There's no safer place for Cuddy than here." And with that he'd left Chase and her standing there, pondering his words.

Ultimately she had done as Foreman had suggested and returned to Princeton. She lived in another part of town, one with fewer memories (and with speed breakers on the road). But the reason for her move back, the only one she acknowledged even to herself, was that now that House was dead she could return to the proximity of her family without any danger.

When her shift was finally over she returned home in a thoughtful mood. (This wasn't how she'd envisioned the evening would go, with herself in a funk of guilt and regrets instead of rejoicing that despite her age and marital status she'd been allowed to adopt Rachel.) The house still showed signs of their recent Hanukkah celebrations: the menorah still stood in the window waiting to be put away, Rachel's newest toy, a stroller for her dolls, stood in the hall, and next to the phone lay a dreidel.

The phone was blinking, indicating that there was a message on the answering machine. She walked over to it and pressed the 'play' button, absentmindedly twirling the dreidel as she waited for the message to replay.

The tin-like mechanical voice of the answering machine told her that she had one message, received at 00:23 a.m. Then there was a long silence, like when Rachel's friends phoned and were stymied by the answering machine, except that she could hear heavy breathing in the background. After five seconds of nothing but those sucked-in breaths - she was on the verge of deleting the message - the person at the other end cleared his throat.

"Hey, Cuddy. Merry Christmas!"

The bastard! The fucking bastard! He was still alive!

She stared at the machine, the dreidel clutched tight.

"And ... I'm sorry." A pause. "Don't worry, I'll never bother you again." His voice petered out, followed by the click that signalled that the connection had been severed.

She swallowed hard. His last words had penetrated her anger, leaving no doubt in her mind about what he intended to do after this phone call. Wilson had told her that House had OD'd one Christmas; she had no doubt that he'd try to end his life once again - or had done so already.

The answering machine jerked her out of her musings. "If you wish to delete the message, press one. If you wish to return the call, press two. If you want to ..."

She hurriedly pressed the two.

"The connection is being established," the machine said in a monotone. Over the loudspeaker she could hear the phone at the other end ringing two, three, four times. No one took it. Was she surprised? No. She was probably too late; it was a quarter to one, twenty minutes since he'd called. He was probably dead by now.

The number being dialled was up on the display. She picked up the pen lying by the phone and jotted it down without considering why she was doing so. After six more rings she disconnected the call. Then she stood there, wondering what to do.

She didn't need to do anything, she supposed. She was under no obligation towards House. He had forfeited the right to count on her help when he'd steered his car at her living room with the intention of damaging her property and in the full knowledge that he risked injuring or even killing her.

And yet she was a doctor and he was a fellow human in distress. Not helping him was tantamount to committing manslaughter. Everyone had a right to aid when in distress, no matter what their crimes. After he'd assaulted her she'd wanted him locked away in prison, but she hadn't wanted him dead, and she didn't want him dead now.

So she picked up the phone and called the police.

She explained that she had a friend whom she believed to be in distress. She had a phone number, but no address. Could the police trace him and send in a team of paramedics? Yes, he had a history of suicidal behaviour. (House would deny it, but as he said, everybody lied.) No, she had no idea how he'd try to end his life, but vicodin or other opiates were a reasonable bet. And no, she really had no address.

The police thanked her for the information and said they'd do their best.

She went to bed, but tossed around unable to sleep. It was one thing to live her daily life believing that House was dead - when she'd heard the news of his death in the warehouse, it had been too distant to feel real and she hadn't allowed herself to grieve. It was another to know that he could be dying right now without her being able to do anything about it. She gave up the struggle at five a.m., took a shower, made herself a cup of tea and sat in the kitchen drawing patterns on the kitchen table. Maybe now was the time to grieve for House, to think back on the good times, to remember him at his brilliant, eccentric, witty best.

The telephone rang. "Princeton precinct, Officer Kaminsky speaking. Dr Cuddy, our colleagues in New York found your friend. He was alive, just about, and he's been taken to hospital. We'd like to thank you for your assistance and your quick thinking."

Her mind numb, she jotted down the address of the hospital.

She needn't go. She shouldn't go. Nothing had changed. He was still the maniac who had decided to vent his feelings by assaulting her. Yes, he'd apologised, but that didn't mean she had to forgive him.

But neither did it mean that she wasn't allowed to forgive him. Forgiving didn't mean that she was obliged to forget what had happened. Maybe it was time to leave the anger behind as well as the feelings of hurt and betrayal.

Besides, she wasn't scared of him. She'd been furious when he'd driven through her house, but even then she hadn't really been worried about a repetition. She'd known even then that if she focused her attention on him, she could get him to back away, the way she had earlier that day at the hospital when his grasp had been tight enough to be painful. She'd looked him in the eye and unclasped his hand, and that had been it. If there was one thing she regretted about her behaviour after their break-up it was that she'd left the heavy lifting to Wilson, ignoring House as much as she possibly could. Given House's nature it had not been the best way to handle him. Like a petulant two year old, he'd pushed and poked to get a reaction until he'd gone too far. His behaviour wasn't her fault - she refused to feel guilty about it - but some of it could have been avoided if she had not chosen to ignore him.

And if she were honest with herself, leaving him to his own devices after the break-up in the knowledge that he was bound to relapse wasn't one of her proudest memories. She could have, should have, done better, if only in view of the years they had spent as colleagues and the responsibility she'd always taken for him.

House deserved an apology from her.

House didn't believe in words. Fine, this time he'd get it in deeds.

She put on her coat and shoes, picked up her car keys, and went out into the cold morning of Christmas Day. She'd bring House back home.

The End