* Happy early new year, everyone!! Sorry it's been awhile... WAY too much time being taking up with RL holiday drama... believe me, I would much rather have spent my time working on my story. I'm breaking my own rule and posting this chapter even though the next one is not yet written, although it is well outlined. It may be a week or so before the next chapter is up, just so you know! And in the next chapter, you will have awaiting you the details of the Huddy baby's origins in flashback format :-) I have yet to decide whether or not that chapter will contain smut, which would bump this story up to an "M" rating, but it is a possibility. As always, thanks for reading, and thanks for the reviews. They are fabulous and they make me smile, so leave lots of them, s'il vous plait :-D
Unfortunately for James Wilson, oncologist and unofficial psychologist extraordinaire to all who were friendly with him at Princeton-Plainsboro, his overwhelming need to help those around him sometimes overshadowed his otherwise good judgment. When it came to House and Cuddy's relationship, or lack thereof, Wilson initially had been reticent to get involved at all.
He felt sympathetic toward each of their situations for different reasons, and in many ways he had no desire to be the central primate in his friends' ongoing game of monkey in middle. But once Dr. Fix-It was dragged into the action, repairing the situation became a necessity for him. Since he had failed countless times in mending his own personal relationships, it gave him a sense of balance in the universe if he could achieve for others what he could not achieve for himself.
At the present, Wilson was riding the elevator down to the first floor of the hospital and wondering just how he had ended up in this very position, yet again. He really had no idea exactly what he was going to say to Cuddy; he only knew that he needed to convey to her how deeply her lies were affecting and hurting House.
Unlike Wilson, who was all too aware of House's rarely seen soft white underbelly, Cuddy was in the group of people that liked to view House as incapable of having any feelings to speak of. Like Wilson and Cameron, Cuddy did know better, but she felt more justified in lying to House and keeping him out of the loop when she chose to believe that he was a year-round grinch.
The oncologist walked off the elevator, taking a deep breath and straightening his posture as he swiftly made his way through the clinic doors. Normally Wilson disliked imposing pressure on others, but in this particular case, he didn't think that Cuddy would listen to him if he didn't come on strong. Just as he was passing the nurses' station, however, he saw a flaw in his already scantily-laid confrontation strategy. Cuddy had Rachel in her office.
Wilson stopped for a minute to observe the picture before him. Cuddy was playfully lifting Rachel over her head and planting obviously well-received raspberries on the laughing baby's tummy. Not having seen Rachel in over a month, Wilson marveled at how big she had gotten. How old was she now, almost 5 months? For a preemie, Rachel was filling in quite well. She looked healthy and just as happy as her radiantly pregnant mother.
As Wilson continued to watch, Cuddy shifted Rachel so that she was cradling her in one arm, talking to her all the while. Cuddy then took Rachel's tiny hand in her own and held it against her growing belly. He knew it was a poor moment to intrude on mother and daughter, but Wilson was on a mission, after all. Afraid he would lose his nerve if he waited any longer, he quietly let himself into Cuddy's office without knocking.
"…and that's your little brother or sister in their kicking, baby girl… can you feel it?" Cuddy asked Rachel sweetly.
"I'm sure she can," Wilson interrupted gently, a congenial smile on his face.
"Hey, I didn't even hear you come in," Cuddy responded, returning his smile.
"Hi there, cutie!" Wilson said warmly, walking up to Rachel and planting a kiss on her forehead. "Did you come to help your mommy with the board meeting agenda?"
"Actually, she's here because the nanny came down with the flu and had to drop her off," Cuddy sighed. "Mommy isn't getting very much work done, but mommy doesn't really mind, does she?" she cooed at Rachel, tickling her under her chin. Rachel laughed and instinctively grabbed onto her mother's fingers.
"May I?" Wilson asked, holding his arms out toward Rachel.
"Sure," Cuddy replied as she helped Wilson get her baby situated.
"I just can't get over how much Rachel's grown since the last time I saw her," Wilson wondered aloud as he walked around the office with her a bit.
"I know, I can't either," Cuddy agreed, enjoying the scene before her. "She's in the 60th percentile for weight, which isn't bad at all for a preemie."
"No, it isn't… if I didn't know, I might guess she's four months instead of five, but hey. This little girl has overcome more obstacles in her five months that some people do by the time they leave for college."
"True," Cuddy said with a laugh. "What brings you down here, though? Did you need something?"
"Actually, yes," Wilson answered tentatively. "And as much as I hate to break up your bonding time, I think it might be better if Rachel went out to see Brenda for a little while before we talk."
Cuddy's relaxed demeanor immediately shifted, and that wasn't lost on Wilson. The only reason he could possibly have for sending Rachel out to the nurses' station would be that he wanted to discuss something involving House.
"Do we have to have this conversation right now?" she asked plaintively, clearly not looking forward to it.
"It's important that we do," Wilson answered simply.
Cuddy didn't say anything else. She merely looked at Wilson, then at the door, closed her eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly. Taking the cue, Wilson brought Rachel outside to the nurses' station in the clinic, which was blessedly pretty dead at the moment. Cuddy viewed the exchange between Wilson and Brenda from her desk, dread quickly filling her from head to toe.
In less than a minute, Wilson was back in her office, taking a seat on the couch.
"Would you mind sitting over here with me? I don't think it's entirely fair that you get to sit in the boss's seat if we're going to have a conversation as friends," he asked, gesturing to the chair next to the couch.
"Why do I get the feeling that you're here more as House's friend than mine?" Cuddy sulked as she crossed the room to take a seat in the chair.
"You're both my friends, Lisa. I probably am closer to him than I am to you, but that doesn't mean I care about your well being less than I care about his. And since he does happen to be my best friend, no one knows better than I do what a pain in the ass he can be to deal with."
"He's completely impossible to deal with, as a matter of fact," Cuddy said angrily, crossing her arms over her belly. "And it's not like I'm driving him away on purpose. I would meet him halfway if he would at least make an effort."
"Really?" Wilson wondered aloud. "When's the last time you tried to have a conversation with him?"
Cuddy sighed heavily, then began. "His team finally revolted and refused to play gopher with the two of us last week after going back and forth between my office and his four or five times in an hour about a procedure," she explained. "House finally called down here himself and yelled at me…we fought about it for five minutes or so, and I gave in and let him do the biopsy." Cuddy seemed annoyed as she closed her eyes and recalled the memory, but Wilson couldn't help but notice the spark that appeared in her eyes when she talked about fighting with House.
"And let me guess," Wilson said, a sad smile on his face. "That five minutes was the highlight of your week, wasn't it?"
Cuddy's eyes shot up from her lap at his words, giving Wilson an exasperated look at first. Almost immediately though, she couldn't help herself. As Cuddy slowly nodded, her lips slid into a sad little smile quite similar to the one Wilson was wearing.
"What about a real conversation, though? About something other than work. How long has it been since you two had one of those?" he asked carefully.
Cuddy didn't answer him right away. She bit her lip nervously, finally answering, "A couple of days after Kutner died."
"Jesus Cuddy, that was almost a month ago…" Wilson began angrily, but trailed off in disbelief. "No wonder he's going crazy," he added aloud before he could stop himself.
"More crazy than he usually is?" she questioned sarcastically.
Wilson already felt sweat breaking out on his brow at this possible breach of House's confidence, but the snark in Cuddy's response told him that she had read nothing unusual into his slip of the tongue. His currently harried expression, however, betrayed the sentiment that had gone unnoticed in his words.
"Wait, you mean he's actually upset?" Cuddy inquired softly.
"Of course he's upset!" Wilson practically shouted, finally losing his usual cool. "First, you lie to him about being pregnant. Then when he finally finds out, he outright asks you if the baby is his, and you lie to him again! I don't care how difficult of a position you're in with this, you know if there's one thing House can't stand, it's being lied to. It's a huge risk where he's coming from to trust anyone, and I think before this whole mess happened, you were one of the few people he thought he could trust. And you stomped all over that by lying to him about this. Twice."
At her friend's harsh words, the Dean of Medicine was left entirely speechless. Wilson's tirade told her that he knew something about her night with House, but it was tough to tell just how many details Wilson was privy to based on what he had just said. Cuddy did her best to keep her expression devoid of emotion, but she had a feeling that wouldn't last long. Still, she continued to fool herself as she prepared to find out just how much her friend knew.
"So what did he tell you, exactly?" Cuddy probed coolly, propping her elbow on her knee and resting her head nonchalantly in the palm of her hand.
"Not much, voluntarily. He admitted that he slept with you when I asked him directly, but he averted every other question I threw at him. Refused to give me any details at all," Wilson stated soberly. At this admission, Cuddy felt somewhat relieved, but Wilson wasn't finished. "And the fact that he wouldn't tell me anything about it tells methat whatever did happen between the two of you was important to him."
Wilson observed Cuddy's body language very carefully as he spoke. She now sat very far forward on the couch, nervously tapping her foot as her bottom lip began to tremble and the tears that she was futilely trying to hold back welled up in her tired eyes. Worried that he may have spoken too harshly, Wilson scooted himself over on the couch until he was close enough to rest a comforting hand on Cuddy's back. She stiffened slightly at the unexpected gesture but didn't push him away.
"I guess it was important to you, too," Wilson said softly. Cuddy sent her friend a cautious sidelong glance, not confirming his assessment, but not denying it, either. She suddenly let out a curt, humorless laugh as she wiped the tears streaming down her face with a sweep of her hand.
"I'm gonna be completely honest, James. I don't know what the hell I'm doing anymore," Cuddy confessed helplessly. "At first I thought I had everything figured out. Hey, we slept together. It was bound to happen sooner or later… but we never really talked about it," she said quietly. "Then, we came back to work, my office was still a disaster area from House's exploits during the hostage situation…I moved into his office to torture him, he tortured me back…" But Cuddy trailed off, keeping her next thoughts inside.
Then there had been the desk in her redecorated office. Her desk from college and from medical school that House has arranged to have removed from storage and shipped to Princeton. The same desk on which she had spent many hours studying, both alone and with him. The same desk at which they had both been studying when House had brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face and kissed her so passionately for the first time. The same desk that had sat stoically by the bed in her dorm room where they had first made love. The same desk he had ever so romantically sent to her after they had made love the last time. But House had thrown it all away by retreating to his old habits with the oldest profession in the world.
"And then?" Wilson interrupted her thoughts, thoroughly puzzled, but intrigued by the wistful look on Cuddy's face.
"And then… nothing," she lied. "It was just a few weeks later when I walked into that abandoned crack house and found Rachel, and I just pushed that whole thing with House to the back of my head and focused all my energy on her."
"Until that day in the emergency room when you got a pretty heavy-handed reminder," Wilson added knowingly.
Cuddy smiled weakly and nodded. After this revelation, it was as if some of the weight of the world had lifted from her consistently burdened shoulders, and Cuddy silently acknowledged this by leaning back into her chair and closing her eyes for a moment.
"So you weren't really with anyone besides him?" Wilson clarified delicately.
"No," Cuddy replied in almost a whisper, keeping her eyes closed.
"Then you have to tell him," Wilson stated firmly. "This is not just your baby, Lisa. It's his, too. And I think in spite of every lie you've tried to feed him, he believes that's the truth deep down. But he needs to hear it from you. For his sake."
"But he doesn't want a kid… he never has. He would never want that kind of responsibility for another human being," Cuddy argued as she stood up to pace the office. "And I did try to tell him the truth about the baby after Kutner died. He got emotional, we hugged, but it was more than just a hug… I think he was going to kiss me, but then the baby kicked and he was furious," Cuddy explained as Wilson listened intently. "I was going to tell him right then and there, but he just pushed me away and refused to listen to anything else I had to say."
"Well, can you blame him?" Wilson asked somewhat harshly. "In his mind, he was probably thinking, 'Here's Cuddy, coming on to me, again, and the baby she's carrying that she says belongs to some other guy is socking me in the stomach.' It was just another blow to the gut for him, literally and figuratively. He wouldn't be able to deal with something like that, Lisa. I know it's just easier for you to chalk his reaction up to him being a bastard, but it's deeper than that where he's concerned, and you know it."
From Cuddy's perspective, James Wilson was possibly one of the most annoying people she knew besides Gregory House, and actually for a fairly similar reason; they were both right a maddeningly disproportionate amount of the time.
"The main reason I didn't tell him at first was because I was afraid of how he would react," Cuddy began slowly. "I was sure he'd run for the hills if I just came right out and told him. But from the way he's bent over backwards every step of the way to get the truth out of me…" she hesitated, then asked Wilson, "Do you think he actually wants this baby?"
"Yes, I do," he answered honestly.
"But why?" Cuddy questioned. "That's the part I just can't piece together."
"Really, Lisa? You honestly can't think of a single reason why he would want this baby?" Wilson asked, dumbfounded that Cuddy could be so dense about the issue. But she looked at him square in the eyes and completely seriously shook her head.
"He wants this baby because it's yours. It's you and him. And I don't know if he's anywhere close to being able to say it out loud, but I'm pretty sure that he's head-over-heals in love with you. And since that baby is yours, he's going to be head-over-heals in love with it, too."
By this point, Cuddy's tears were flowing freely, but this time around they were more out of happiness than grief. For a long time, Cuddy knew deep down that she loved House, but she was so sure that he could never withstand a serious relationship that she had tried not to get too invested in her feelings for him. Hearing this information from Wilson, however, gave her new hope that coming clean with House might be worth a try.
"Thanks for telling me that," Cuddy told Wilson sincerely. "I want him to be part of this… I was just so scared of his reaction, I really let my fear get the best of me."
"You've been in a tough position, no question," Wilson affirmed. "But now you have a chance to make it right with him, and you can also give him a chance to make things right with you."
"I will," Cuddy stated firmly, giving Wilson a thankful hug. "After I tie up some of these lose ends with my paper work, I'll see if Brenda can keep Rachel awhile longer. Then I'll go up to House's office and talk to him."
"I always know I can count on you to be the adult in the situation," Wilson smiled as he got up from the couch and made his way to the office door. "Actually, if you want, I could take Rachel back to your house in about half and hour and watch her for as long as you need, that way you won't feel like you have to be in a big hurry when you talk to him."
"Thanks James, I would really appreciate that," Cuddy replied sincerely.
"See you in half an hour," Wilson said as he walked back into the clinic.
Cuddy took a minute to compose herself in the comfort of her cushy chair. She really did want to finish up her paper work before she went to talk to House, but her conversation with Wilson had sent her mind reeling in several different directions. The one it was sticking to most prevalently at the moment, though, was the very night that their baby had been conceived. That night had simultaneously been both the best and worst of Cuddy's life, and she couldn't help but allow herself to mentally wander back to it as she pondered her impending conversation with the father of her child.