Morning, May 15
Cuddy really didn't sleep after House left, not even after she turned off the light and stretched out in the bed. She dozed a little but always roused after a few minutes to look at the bassinet. Emma slept, at least, and watching her daughter sleeping so innocently was completely engrossing for Cuddy
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She laughed when House approved of Emma's lack of talking. "Better enjoy it while you can," she told House. "If she's a true Cuddy woman, she'll be talking your ear off before she can walk."
She was pleased, though, that House was talking to the baby in a positive tone. Emma didn't understand the words but she didn't need to. She understood and responded to the tone of his voice. She obviously felt comfortable with the way he was holding her as well because she was calm and content while he bathed her.
Cuddy left House to finish washing Emma and returned to the bedroom. She got a fresh diaper and went to the drawer to pick out a onesie for Emma to wear after her bath. She decided on one that had little pastel-colored, smiley-faced jungle animals sprinkled across the fabric.
She held the onesie up in front of her and was hit again with the mind-boggling knowledge she was a mom. She knew that, of course--she'd spent the entire morning with Emma-- but sometimes the immensity of that reality jumped up and gave her a kick in the stomach. It was a kick that made her happy but it was still hard to comprehend just how much this little girl was going to change her life, and House's. She was going to need some time to fully take that in.
Smiling to herself, she returned to the bathroom. "Is Her Ladyship finished bathing?"
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As if Emma had understood him, she suddenly let out sound that was somewhere between a coo and a whine. "I hope that means no," House replied. She made another noise. "Don't make me get a baby-to-English translator," he added.
He rubbed the wash cloth down her belly and carefully around the umbilical stump, down her legs and up along her arms. He was clumsy washing her - not only was she awkward to wash, and a little slippery from the soap, he was still awkward handling her. He wasn't sure he was doing any of this right. He wasn't even sure he was talking to her the right way, not that she'd know the difference right now either way. He turned his head to say something to Cuddy and realised she'd left the bathroom. Maybe to get some clothes, he thought.
He faced back to Emma, whose fist had found her mouth. As he wiped the cloth up around the crease of her neck, she fussed and squirmed against the sensation, not liking it much. Like a slam to the chest, it hit him all over again that this was his daughter. Each time that thought struck him, it was like he was being hit with the thought for the first time.
"You're a little horror," he murmured under his breath. He wasn't being serious but she was definitely a horror for getting him all twisted up in nervous knots. She made another noise and House replied with a snort, "Oh ho, yes you are. You're a horror. I know what you've been scheming while you were in Mommy's tummy. World domination. Armageddon."
Emma's hand jerked out and thumped her chest and her gums bared as she let out another whine. "Don't give me any of that 'but I'm just a cute baby' crap," he said, then looked over his shoulder at hearing Cuddy's voice.
Emma answered the question for him - she let out another whine, a higher pitched one this time, and started squirming out in agitation. "Her ladyship has spoken," he replied to Cuddy.
Wringing the cloth out, he tossed it onto the counter and slipped his hand under her bottom to lift her out of the bath. The cold air hitting her skin immediately made her tense up and House didn't even need to count to three to wait for her to start wailing. By the time he got her laid on the towel, she was red-faced, hands fisted and her whole body rigid with discomfort while her cries echoed piercingly in the bathroom.
"She's all yours," he said to Cuddy before pulling a face at how loud the baby was.
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"Why do I have the feeling that's going to be a theme?" she said to House in a dry tone. "Emma being mine when she's crying?"
She'd seen her brothers do the same thing--hand their fussy children off to their mothers, as if Mom had some magic ability to calm a baby. Or maybe they thought Mom had less acute hearing and wouldn't be as bothered by a baby's cries. Moms definitely heard their baby's cries loud and clear. Whether they were innately better at calming that baby was open to debate. However, like her brothers, House was going to have to learn to deal with a fussy baby. However, at that moment, Cuddy just wanted to calm Emma, not debate who was more suitable for the job.
Cuddy bounced a little, trying to calm Emma while using one hand to towel her dry. Emma kept crying, jerking her arms and legs as if fighting Cuddy's attempts to soothe her. Cuddy grabbed the diaper and onesie and carried them to the bed. She laid Emma down and finished drying her off, the baby wailing the whole time.
"Shhh," Cuddy said as she held Emma's flailing legs and got the diaper on and fastened around her belly. Emma made a few hiccuping noises and fussed, rolling her head from side to side. She'd gotten herself good and worked up and she wasn't able to settle down easily. Cuddy got the onesie on her, provoking another burst of crying, then she grabbed the receiving blanket from the bassinet and loosely wrapped it around the baby to make her feel warm. Emma's cries became more sporadic as she warmed up, cradled close to Cuddy's chest. She was shoving her fist in her mouth again, though, and sucking furiously.
"I suppose she is hungry now," Cuddy said, glancing at the clock.
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A theme, his ass. Though, in all honesty, he wasn't sure he'd be any better at soothing Emma while she screaming than Cuddy would be. In fact, she would probably be better at it. She was the mother. Emma would probably be better comforted by her mother. "Besides, you have the mammary equipment to occupy her mouth with. Last time I checked, I don't come equipped with udders."
He tried his hardest to block the head-shattering screams out while he began putting things away. As Cuddy carried Emma out to the room, he tipped the water out in the sink, put the soap away and set the wash cloth aside to be put in the hospital laundry later. When he looked down, he noticed the front of his sweatshirt was wet. He wasn't cold at the moment anyway, so he stripped that off and hung it over the rail to dry.
He glanced at his watch as he entered the room. It hadn't been that long since Cuddy last fed but each baby had a different routine. In fact, newborns didn't even have a routine or body clock. So, for all he or Cuddy knew, she could be the kind of baby that demanded to be fed every hour until she became adjusted to being on the outside inside of in Cuddy's womb.
"Well, there's only one way to find out," he replied. He walked across the room and sat with a sigh on the chair by the bed. "Put those udders to use and see what happens."
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She figured once he saw he could do what needed to be done, he wouldn't be intimidated by it. Then she could start working on getting him to volunteer to do those tasks. She figured that might be slightly easier than getting him to volunteer to clean the bathroom.
Cuddy got herself comfortable on the bed, raising the back of the bed and laying a pillow across her lap to support Emma's weight, small as it was. Emma was still fussing, breaking into higher pitched cries every time she realized she wasn't getting any food from sucking her own fingers. It had only been a little more than two hours since she last fed but babies weren't born with a schedule. They were also unaccustomed to having to feed. The sensation of hunger was new and unpleasant and naturally, Emma wanted that bad feeling to go away.
Cuddy glanced over when House told her to use her 'udders.' She grabbed Emma's wet towel and tossed it at his head for being a crude bastard even though she wasn't all that bothered by it. Then she settled back and wrestled with Emma for a few moments until she could get the baby to latch on and nurse.
"Whoa," she murmured when Emma sucked hard, looking for something to sooth her. Nursing was a slightly strange sensation. It wasn't bad by any means but it was a bit weird, both the feeling of Emma sucking and the sensation in her breast as the glands let down to allow the liquid to flow.
Emma settled down, nursing in earnest, her little fist pressed against the top of Cuddy's breast. Cuddy ran her fingertip over Emma's knuckles, just watching her for a few minutes and enjoying the silence after the outburst of crying earlier. Then she looked over at House. She didn't know where his shirt had gone--presumably he'd gotten wet while bathing Emma. He was slumped a bit in the chair and he looked tired.
She stretched her hand out, reaching for his. "How are you doing with all this Daddy stuff?"
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"You didn't really think you were going to escape the bovine jokes, did you?" Rolling the towel up into a ball, he tossed it to the floor by his feet and settled back against the chair. For a minute or so, he closed his eyes and just tried to unwind.
God, he was tense. All over. And now he was sitting, he noticed he was pretty drained, too. A massage to rub away the stress in his shoulders and back, and his head and legs and pretty much everywhere else, would've been awesome right about now. He dropped his head forward and stretched his neck muscles at the back, then rolled his head in circles a couple of times until he felt his neck pop. With a sigh, he dropped his head back to the chair again and looked over at Cuddy feeding.
"Hmm," he answered with a barely there shrug. He stretched his hand out to meet Cuddy's and loosely tangled two of his fingers with hers. He let their hands hang there, supporting each other between them. "Give me about... I don't know. Another eighteen years, then I'll think about answering that question."
He shrugged again, with one shoulder. "I don't know," he then said honestly. "How am I doing with all this Daddy stuff? Nothing's ended up in a fight yet, so I must be doing something reasonably okay. Unless being a new mom is just distracting you from being at your usual level of annoying."
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She gave his fingers a warning squeeze, then let her head drop back against the raised head of her bed. Most new parents wouldn't consider a lack of fights to be even relevant. Most new parents didn't expect to have fights on the day of--or after--their baby's birth. But most new parents weren't she and House and in their case, no fighting was a positive step because they could fight about almost anything.
Of course, the day wasn't over yet but she wasn't going to dwell on all the possible ways they could screw it up. The only thing that mattered was they had a healthy new baby and they were off to a reasonably good start. A surprisingly good start, actually, given that House could've reacted in any number of negative ways.
"Besides, I didn't mean how are you doing with diaper changes or baths. You're doing fine with that stuff. I never doubted you would." She slipped her hand from his and adjusted Emma into a slightly different position because her arm was getting tired. She looked back at House then and tapped herself on the head. "I meant how are you doing up here. How do you feel about how you're doing?"
She paused, a thoughtful look on her face as she remembered something that had almost slipped her mind in all the excitement. She had to stop and think to even remember what day it was since to her, today was just an extension of the previous day. Once she figured out the day, she had to think on what had been planned for this day before Emma turned everything upside down.
"Don't you have an appointment with Megan this afternoon?"
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He went to open his mouth to answer but Cuddy cut in with a reminder about Megan. With a jolt at suddenly remembering he had an appointment, he looked straight at his watch. "Crap," he muttered under his breath before letting his head drop back against the chair. He added unenthusiastically, "Yeah."
He was still trying to get used to having to see her once a week. But more than that, he was so damn tired and was hardly in any mood to sit down for an hour, examining his feelings and his thoughts. He'd done more than enough feeling and being unable to think because of those feelings for the last eighteen hours, thanks very much. He puffed out a sigh with his cheeks inflated as he dropped his hand back to his lap. "I'm supposed to see her at eleven. A little over an hour from now."
Well, now he wasn't sure what to do. He'd committed himself to seeing her each week and he planned on sticking to that commitment - so far, at least. But he wanted to stay with Cuddy, too. And he wanted to sleep. He glanced over at the loveseat and considered taking a raincheck with Megan for today and spending the day here, perhaps get a nap in somewhere if he was able to.
He looked back to Cuddy with an indecisive frown. "Well, that's inconvenient."
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She thought he needed to go, though. She guessed that his thoughts and emotions were probably even more chaotic than usual. Her thoughts and emotions were a jumble and she didn't have all the issues to deal with like he did. She was also unfailingly happy about Emma's birth and she knew his emotions were more mixed. The inside of his head was probably a real mess...which was exactly why he should go to his appointment.
"It's inconvenient," she agreed. "But you should go." She shrugged and looked down at Emma. "I'm not going to be doing anything while Emma's nursing. And then she'll probably go down for a nap. I will, too, if I can. You won't be missing anything here." She nodded toward the loveseat. "In fact, why don't you take a quick nap? Then you can go and get this appointment out of the way."
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It didn't quite go that way, however. He gave a glum roll of his eyes. He knew he should go. But he didn't want to go. But he'd also promised Cuddy he'd commit to this, he'd promised Megan and he'd promised himself. In some ways, he'd even promised Emma.
At Cuddy's nod to the loveseat, he looked back over to it. Regardless of his appointment, a nap was so tempting. His eyes were scratchy with tiredness and his whole body felt weary. With a sound of displeasure at the fact he had his appointment today, he got to his feet and stretched his arms above his head until he felt his spine pop. Then he dropped his hands to his sides and approached Cuddy's bedside, stifling a yawn.
"Can't you just shove over so I can sleep on the bed with you?" he whined. He propped a hand against the upright part of the bed and looked down at Emma. She was still feeding but the rigourousness of her sucks had lessened significantly. She'd probably be asleep within a matter of minutes.
"I should just send you off to see Dr. Lecter," he said to the baby. "Being squeezed out of Mommy's hoo-hoo is bound to be way more entertaining a story to share than the stories your old man has to tell."
The baby just gave a couple of light, sleepy sucks on Cuddy's nipple. "Then again, maybe not," he observed of Emma's rapid descent into sleep. "Want me to put her in the bassinet?"
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She was relieved when he didn't argue. For one thing, she simply didn't want to argue. She never wanted to argue with him but she especially didn't want to argue on this day of all days. More than that, though, she was glad he was taking his therapy seriously. His committment to getting better could only mean good things for both...for all three of them.
She ran her finger over Emma's cheek, provoking a couple of lazy sucks from the baby but Emma was pretty well out of it. It had been a big day for her already and she was half asleep. Cuddy looked up when House whined at her, and he looked like he was half asleep, too.
"There's time enough for her to get into therapy," Cuddy observed dryly. Emma barely stirred when Cuddy pulled her away from her breast. The baby was completely relaxed, her mouth parted slightly, and Cuddy was taken again by how beautiful she was.
"Yes, please," she said, wrapping Emma more snugly in her blanket and handing her up to House. While he settled Emma in her bassinet, Cuddy rearranged her gown to cover her breast and straightened the bed covers a bit. She leaned back against her pillows and waited for him to finish, then she held her hands up, arms open.
"Come here," she said quietly. "Rest a little. If you fall asleep, I'll make sure you're up in time to make the appointment."
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As Cuddy tightened the blanket and lifted Emma up to him, he took her in his arms and transferred her to the bassinet. She stirred but only a little, her little arms jerking out reflexively as he lay her down. He folded her arms down and wrapped the blanket more securely around her. He went to step back but her sleeping form distracted him for a moment. He'd already stared at and watched her sleep a couple of times already and there was nothing different about how she looked sleeping now than she did before. In fact, there was nothing interesting about how she slept at all. But it wasn't the sleeping that fascinated him; it was her.
"How thoughtful of you," he replied to Cuddy dryly. But then he looked over at Cuddy and her outstretched arms, and he moved straight to her. He leaned into her arms until he was bent over, embraced in her arms a little awkwardly.
"I'd prefer to go next week, not today," he said, muffled into her shoulder. Or not at all, he thought to himself. He withdrew from Cuddy just enough to lazily climb onto the bed. There really wasn't enough room for him to fit on the mattress, not with where Cuddy was seated, but he somehow managed to get himself wedged onto the bed with a fair bit of nudging and prodding. At last, he was reclining on the bed with his legs stretched out, squashed up next to Cuddy.
He scrubbed his face with one hand as he yawned. "Too much has happened in the last twenty-four hours," he said once his yawned tapered off. "My head's going to explode if anything else happens."
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She wrapped her arms around his shoulders again once he was settled against her. She rubbed her hand up and down his back while he yawned, and she tried not to yawn herself. It wasn't that she was tired, although she was, but yawns were oddly contagious. If she let him get her started, she wouldn't stop until she fell asleep.
"I think it's safe to say there won't be anything happening bigger than what's already happened," she said quietly. She reached up and combed her fingers through his hair. "I think your head is safe from explosion for now."
The events of the last twenty-four hours--less--had literally changed their lives. Yesterday they'd been a couple, now they were a family. Yesterday they'd had only their own lives to be responsible for, now they were completely responsible for another human being. It was enough to make your head explode, or your heart. Her thoughts were a jumble but that didn't matter next to how full her heart was. She figured her thoughts would sort themselves out as she and Emma got settled at home. She couldn't imagine her heart ever recovering.
"Maybe that's a good reason to see Megan today," she continued in a soft voice. She continued rubbing his back soothingly as they lay together. "Maybe she can help defuse your brain."
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Though, maybe his brain had gone on automatic lock down for the time being because even when he thought about the two huge changes he'd had to face, neither of them seemed real or even that huge right now. He was mentally still somewhere back when Cuddy was still pregnant in some ways.
Just as he was thinking that, Cuddy mentioned Megan and her helping him diffuse his brain. He made a quiet but argumentative grunt, though let Cuddy keep rubbing his back. That felt soothing, almost as much as her fingers running through his hair.
After a sigh, he pulled back a little from Cuddy and let his head rest against the raised bed. "Feels like I need at least a week to let everything sink in, though," he said. "None of it seems real yet. Well, it does. But it doesn't at the same time."
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Still, she understood what House meant. Having a baby was such a huge change and it happened so quickly.... Okay, it wasn't exactly quick. It hadn't been for her anyway. She'd felt the physical effects of pregnancy almost from the very beginning. Being pregnant was shockingly different to being a new mother, though. Even the hours of labor didn't give much time to take in the reality of the situation because she'd been too caught up in getting through labor to think much about how it would end.
That moment, though, when the doctor held up her new daughter had spun her world 180 degrees. Part of her brain was completely caught up in the joy of being a mom. Another part of her brain was still trying to process it. She couldn't imagine how House felt. He'd been ambivalent to begin with and then he hadn't ever felt the baby kicking inside him or struggled through a contraction. He was less prepared for the change than she'd been.
"Just wait," she said, turning her head against the pillow to look at him. "In a few weeks...months...we'll probably wonder what all the fuss was about." She didn't really believe that but she did think they'd settle into a new routine and it would start to feel normal.
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Still, he went on to explain. "Remember when you had concussion, how weird everything seemed to you." God, that felt like a lifetime ago now, he thought to himself. "Everything was real but to you it seemed foggy." He turned his head against the mattress and looked at her. "That's kind of like me at the moment. I got hit on the head with a reality two-by-four yesterday and now I'm waiting for the fogginess to pass."
In all honesty, this wasn't how he expected the birth of their kid to be like for him. Actually, come to think of it, he wasn't sure what he expected. He'd tried envisioning it enough times before the baby was due but even then, it had seemed such a surreal situation to be in that he could never quite grasp an idea of what to expect.
As Cuddy replied that they'd both soon enough wonder what the fuss was all about, he snorted lightly. "Be careful what you wish for. Maybe in a few weeks time, we'll be wondering when the hell all the fussing ends."
Maybe Cuddy had a point. Or maybe he had an even bigger one. Having a new baby was so far into the realm of the unknown for House that he just didn't know where this new change would take him. Or Cuddy, for that matter.
He leaned in closer and kissed her, a barely there press of their lips on each other. When he pulled back, he was stifling another yawn. "Think I will have a nap," he decided. He started to sit up. "You should, too. You look about as glad to be awake as a zombie."
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