Fic: Paradoxes and Oxymorons
Title: Paradoxes and Oxymorons
Fandom: House
Characters: House, Cuddy, Blythe
Prompt: # 86 - Choices
Word Count: 8,125
Ratings: PG-13
Spoilers: None. Follows my other fic Everything Nice, I guess.
Author's notes: I realized too late I spelled Lilah wrong. Oops. I guess it's Lila. Sorry about that, Lilas of the world. This is an answer to the au100 challenge. You can find my complete table here.
"Oh, Greg."
House used his thumb to scratch his brow as he looked down at his desk, the phone pressed to his ear. He began to say something a few times, but only small sighs came out until he muttered, "Mom-"
"You're not serious, are you?"
He smiled uncomfortably. "You know I'm never serious."
Blythe waited on the line, and when the silence began to stretch, House became nervous. He looked up, glad he was alone in his office, prayed no one would barge in (especially Cameron), and looked down again. Suddenly he felt like a 5-year-old, caught doing something he wasn't supposed to have done.
"This isn't a joke, Gregory."
"I know," he said, looking up again, suddenly hoping he'd made this call from home, where there was plenty of privacy, and plenty of alcohol to boot.
His mother was quiet. Nothing good ever came out of prolonged periods of silence where his mother was concerned. Silence meant her wheels were turning, she was standing back and looking at the situation with mother eyes, irrational eyes, disappointed eyes, maybe all three. Silence meant the situation called for her to pick her words carefully and House failed to see where this warranted a silence.
It anything, it warranted a quick goodbye. Quickly he began to feel like hanging up. He felt like telling her it'd been a huge misunderstanding, "and I take it back. I take it all back. Say hi to dad for me, love you, bye," but he knew, just as he knew his mother, that that wasn't an option. So he pressed the phone to his ear harder and prayed his mother would understand this, because she's always been understanding, and if she couldn't do that then he had no idea what he was going to do with himself.
"You're having a baby?"
"No," he said quickly and suddenly felt frustrated. He didn't know why people were having such a hard time with this. "Lisa's having a baby."
"But it's your baby."
"It's her baby."
Blythe went silent again. House sighed, imagining all the things she was thinking, imagining all the wild theories running through her mind as she played with the chord of her phone (because his parents had never felt the need to upgrade their phones and he got the feeling this was why - because in case they ever received troubling news, God knows that chord needs to be there so they can twirl it around their fingers and look troubled and dramatic). He could practically see her chewing on the side of her mouth, looking ahead, wondering if her son had finally gone completely and unapologetically insane.
"There's nothing complicated about this," he added, sounding certain. "Why are people acting like it's such a big deal?"
"Because it is a big deal, Greg," she exclaimed. "You're having a baby!"
"No, I'm not," he repeated, feeling like a teenager all over again and no, that's not my pot, I'm just holding it for a friend. Don't you believe me, mom? "Biologically, yes, it's my sperm. But it's her baby. She gets to keep it. I don't wanna keep it. Trust me, I don't want this-"
"Then why did you do it?"
House sighed again. He could feel the dull beginning of a headache and reached inside his jacket pocket for a Vicodin in lieu of trying to think of an answer.
"You and Lisa need to talk about this, Gregory. A baby is not something you just make. It's not like buying a motorcycle or adopting a rat. It's a lifetime of responsibility-"
"I know," he said, swallowing the pill dry. "But it's not my responsibility."
"Oh, Greg, you say that now-"
"It's her responsibility. She wants this. I'm doing a good thing; I'm helping a friend. That's it. I'm staying out of it. It's-I'm not going to be in the picture, I can't be in the picture. She doesn't want me in her life," House said, and suddenly realized his voice was loud and quivering. So he closed his eyes, tried to relax, and added with a sigh and the bare hint of a smile, "Are you mad because you're going to be a grandma? That doesn't make you old, you know. Okay, so maybe it does--"
"Don't manipulate me, Gregory. I do want grandchildren," she said sternly. "I also want a daughter-in-law, and for you to get married, and have your own house-"
"Well, that's not happening," House replied. "Not now, and probably not ever. I've come to terms with that and-"
"By... having a baby with your boss?"
House sighed for the nth time. "I'm not having a baby with her."
"I don't understand, don't you hate this woman?"
"I don't hate her."
"Gregory, you keep doing these things... I don't know what to think anymore."
House smiled, trying not to cross a line because despite the unpleasant conversation, it was still his mother on the line. "And yet... you keep thinking."
"Because I'm tired of seeing you unhappy," she exclaimed. "I'm tired of seeing you miserable and I want something better for you, is that too hard to understand? Does that make me a bad mother?"
House went quiet, looking down at his desk, his fingers pushing a piece of lint back and forth and why the fuck was the Vicodin taking so long to work?
"I'm just a sperm donor," he said, because lately that had become his mantra, his best argument, his only argument. That's all he was. It was really all he was. It didn't sound complicated, why was it?
"Then why are you telling me this, Greg?" she said, her voice softer, sounded like pity and House hated that more than he hated the entire conversation. "Why did you call me, if it's her baby and you have nothing to do with it? Why are you saying I'm going to be a grandmother if the child is not going to be a part of your life, or my life?"
Finally, the Vicodin began to kick in, and as House sat back in his chair he stared at the ceiling, holding on to the phone and letting the numbness take care of the rest.
"You're not going to be able to stay away, Greg," Blythe said. "You're just not going to be able to."
He rode out the Doppler Effect of his motorcycle's roar and finally came to a stop, with an intense frown on his face, in front of Cuddy's house. He took his helmet off and placed it on a handle, sat there and waited, doing nothing, thinking nothing, merely following that physical something that had gotten him there in the first place.
During moments like these he hated himself with an immense intensity. He hated everything he was, everything he did, every one of those little voices in his head that told him he was no better than those losers on the street that committed a crime and returned to the scene, where they would get caught and thrown in jail for decades. They were morons, idiots, lacking basic common sense and intelligence... and he was their king.
But he tried to comfort himself with the realization that it wasn't an emotional yearn. It wasn't even a feeling, an overwhelming compulsion for doing nonsense for the instant gratification of it, feeling like a moth to a flame, a bug to a zapper. He wasn't trying to do the responsible thing, because God knows that's not him, had never been him, and besides, the responsible thing couldn't possibly feel this reckless. He wasn't trying to create something, form some sort of bond, because God knows that's the last thing he wants, the very last, and he wasn't trying to make a point, either, be a better person, be a good friend, be a good anything.
He was just curious.
That was all. Just curious, because he woke up last week and realized she'd be two months old now (or three, or four, who knows?) and he hadn't seen her since she left the hospital. It was mere curiosity that got him on his bike on a hazy Saturday afternoon, that caused him to turn Wilson and his basketball tickets down. Curiosity and maybe the realization that Cuddy must've found a day care center away from the hospital because her very first day back on the job she'd shown up thing-free. Curiosity and the fact that two months (or three, who knows) had gone by and she hadn't asked him over to see her and though he knew, he understood that he wasn't a part of this, a part of him was just curious.
He needed to know. He always needed to know. Not knowing had never been an option.
So he held on securely to the manila envelope in his hand, grabbed his cane and made his way across the path through her lawn, noticing how perfectly mowed it was and wondering if she'd hired another handyman, continued to employ Paco, or had created some sort of useless household department just for him, because she felt sorry for him and wanted to do away with her guilt.
It didn't seem to matter. He rang her bell hesitantly, because he never wanted to do these things, but he always seemed to find himself doing them. Rang it again, impatiently, and heard her inside, complaining, and he realized she was probably busy doing... whatever it is Cuddy does when she isn't at the hospital -- summon the devil, tinker with her broom, hang upside down from the ceiling, the like. He didn't care and when she opened the door, she would've looked less surprised to see Elvis standing in his place.
"House," she half-exclaimed, half-asked, her eyes wide, fingers playing with a rag.
"Hey," he said noncommittally, looking back and forth between her eyes, her chest, and the floor. She was wearing jeans and a U of M t-shirt and looking small and normal outside her power suits and high heels.
"What are you doing here?" She crossed her arms and smiled sardonically. "You're supposed to light the bag on fire first and then ring the bell."
He wanted to smile but didn't, merely produced the envelope and dropped it in her hands. "Here's the file."
Cuddy looked down at it suspiciously. "What file?"
"From the case."
She shook her head. "What case? I don't--"
"The file from the case, Cuddy, you wanted it on your desk," he said impatiently and his good leg was beginning to shake.
Cuddy looked at him. "Two days ago."
"Well," House said lamely. "Here it is, I got it, now will you leave me alone?"
Cuddy looked past him, trying to see if Wilson was hiding behind her bushes with a camera and attempting not to giggle, because House couldn't possibly be serious about this. "It's Saturday, House."
"So?"
"So, this couldn't wait until Monday?"
House narrowed his eyes. "You screamed at me, for two days, 'where's the file, House? I need the file, House. Did you finish the file, House? Am I going to have to send my flying monkeys in for the file, House?' and now that I bring you the file, you don't want it."
Cuddy rolled her eyes, looking deeply annoyed. She felt that familiar frustration quickly raising up her throat along with a stinger, but at the last minute she decided to be the better man and so she said nothing. The last thing she wanted was to give him ammunition; then he'd never leave.
"Well, thank you. Thank you for the file, House."
She began to say something while simultaneously closing the door and in an instant his cane got in the way and the door bounced open again. She turned around, giving him a frown before she looked down at the cane and House suddenly felt the urge to smack himself with it.
"What are you-"
"I need to take a piss," he said and the amount of disgust he felt for himself nearly made him throw up in his mouth.
Cuddy shook her head and merely pointed towards the hallway. "I assume you know the way."
House smirked at the memory and walked into the house, closing the door behind him and keeping an eye on the back of her head as she scanned the file. He looked around, noticing the new details - she'd rearranged the furniture, gotten a couple of plants, painted - and the lack of baby paraphernalia pleased him, for some reason. As she continued her journey towards the kitchen he stepped into the hallway.
"Stay away from my hamper," he heard her call out as he disappeared down the hall, wondering why the idea of going through her dirty underwear hadn't occurred to him until now. It seemed so obvious. He was off his game.
Quickly he made a beeline for the bathroom, and once inside the self-scolding began. He opened up the faucet and splashed water on his face before he moved over the toilet, put the seat up and zipped his pants down. He waited a couple of seconds, but nothing happened and so he opened the faucet again, this time closed his eyes and jumped slightly in place, but it quickly occurred to him he didn't have to pee at all.
And so he waited, standing there, zipper down and admiring the color of her bathroom walls, and telling himself the damage hadn't been done yet, and there was plenty of time to back off, thank her for the toilet paper, go home, call Wilson, and maybe catch the game. He had time, opportunity, motive, and an unsuspecting victim - it was the perfect un-crime. A de-crime. He could walk out of the house now with Cuddy non-the-wiser and return to his regular life of desperate, unbearable curiosity.
And that was the new plan. He flushed the toilet to produce a sound effect and splashed water over his hands, ignoring the bottle of dainty purple liquid in front of him because the last thing he wanted was to walk out of the house smelling like a woman, or worse, Cuddy.
House stepped into the hallway and looked around, but Cuddy was nowhere in sight and so he just moved, mentally laughing at the whole thing, praying Wilson hadn't scalped his ticket, wondering what was the quickest way to get to the game, when yellow caught his attention.
Yellow. That didn't seem reasonable at all. Cuddy, being the epitome of femininity and power, had never given him yellow vibes. Cuddy was red, Cuddy was purple, or black, intense, powerful colors full of energy and strength.
Yellow was not Cuddy. Yellow didn't belong in Cuddy's life. Pink. Pink made sense. Blue, maybe, to satiate those feminist urges he knew she felt at times. But as he pushed the door open and glanced inside the room, feeling the curiosity take over with fury once more, he knew one thing was certain above all others: yellow was not a color he ever pictured in Cuddy's rainbow.
And ducks.
He frowned. For God's sake, ducks. Not ballerinas, not trucks, or clowns, or princesses. Fucking ducks. They waddled through the walls in a pathetic display of cute over cheap wallpaper and dull yellow paint. Not that he had a better option, or even cared, but... well, he'd never imagined Cuddy having a particular liking for ducks, is all.
He didn't care, he decided. He didn't care about the ducks just like he didn't care about the wooden crib next to the uncharacteristically yellow wall to his left. It was curious, a new development, an observation, "there's a person in this room with my DNA," and isn't that mildly interesting? Mildly interesting was good. Not quite interesting, not exactly uneventful. He could settle for that and just go, certainly no one here would miss him, but he took one more step and suddenly he was off the wagon again.
Falling into old habits, he realized, was the perfect title for an autobiography.
Because this was not what he wanted, he thought as he entered the room. He didn't want to see her, he didn't want to smell her or touch her or admit she was here at all. He just wanted to get on with his life, let Cuddy get on with hers, and spend the rest of his time on earth ignoring the fact that he and Cuddy had a child together, and Christ, that knowledge never felt so heavy until now, now that he stood there, a mere 7 steps away from the wooden crib. She wasn't an idea anymore, or a fetus, or a screaming mass of flesh and bones, she was an actual human being, with human being features and human being characteristics and in his experience, human beings generally weren't overly fond of him.
He felt nauseous and crabby at the thought of her. He generally felt nauseous and crabby at the thought of Cuddy women in general.
House looked back, expecting to see Cuddy there with a broom and ready to kick him out, but the hallway was empty and he could hear her doing things in the kitchen. So, knowing no one was around to ridicule him or prod him for what he was about to do, he took the impending seven steps, each one echoing after a mental insult aimed at himself.
He was starting to think this hadn't been such a good idea. A year ago, when Cuddy was torturing herself by going through files and files of troglodytes after mongoloids, it seemed like a viable option. Cuddy would get her baby, the world would get a human being with decent DNA, and he figured he could get away with a lot more things at work if he gave Cuddy a test tube of his dignity. Tit for tat. Nepotism rules.
Now, though, he found Cuddy was tired all the time, the world had one more mouth to feed, and he had absolutely no privileges at work. The "hey, remember that time I gave you a baby?" card, he'd found out, was completely useless. On top of that... Christ, he had a child with Cuddy. He had a child with Cuddy. He was biologically linked to Cuddy's spawn, the heir to the antichrist throne, Damien feminized.
He had this coming. This is what happens when Cuddy decides not to disagree with him.
Suddenly his mother's words came back to him, but House tried to drown out the words. In a daze he found himself standing over the cradle, his hands on the railing, and once more he found he'd been expecting a fanfare, but received none of that. Quickly, he realized she'd changed. The last time he saw her she was tiny and red and looking like every other baby he'd seen in his lifetime: ugly and misshapen. Now, there were lines of definition on her face, and her features were beginning to take shape, a small mass of black hair and blue eyes that could've been Cuddy's, or could've been his, he wasn't entirely sure that there was a difference nor did he care.
She was awake and entertaining herself by looking at her mobile, but as soon as he entered her field of vision she looked at him, opened her mouth and House was expecting her to say something completely crass or demonic, but she merely yawned, brought her fist up to her mouth and began to suck on it fiercely.
He didn't know why he felt a small amount of relief, felt his curiosity wane, like a junkie finally getting his fix after a sleepless night. She was normal, acted normal, was missing the horns and middle tooth he imagined she'd grown by this point. He tried to avoid the lame attempt to figure out if she had his nose or Cuddy's lips or Wilson's nagging because it was useless and degrading. Instead, he began to turn around to walk away when Cuddy walked into the room holding a blanket and a bottle.
"You can pick her up, if you want."
House looked back at her, following her with his eyes as she cleared a few things off the floor. "I don't want."
She turned around and rolled her eyes at him, and this time he thought the display was completely unwarranted, but that quickly faded to the back of his mind when he saw her walk to the crib, pick up the baby with all the grace in the world, and deposit it in his hands without his approval or amusement.
House stood there, holding the baby by her armpits awkwardly as her head swirled in all kinds of directions, and looking around, waiting for the thing to begin wailing but she didn't. She was heavier than he remembered, and bigger, and missing one sock. He tried not to dwell too much on the details and quickly moved away when Cuddy attempted to put a burp cloth over his shoulder.
"What are you doing?"
"She needs to be fed," Cuddy explained.
House shook his head instantly as the true meaning of her words sank in. "No. She came out of your vagina, you feed her."
"I have to clean, House. I have paperwork and chores."
"So what do you expect me to do about it?" he said, the baby's feet dangling back and forth as he talked.
"Well, you can either help me by feeding her, or help me by putting on an apron and scrubbing the kitchen floor. Your call."
"Funny, running away and leaving you alone to do all that doesn't seem to be one of the options. I say funny, because that's generally the option I would choose."
Cuddy bit the inside of her cheek. "It's 5:30. She needs to eat now."
"Oh, she needs to eat now," House said mockingly. "What happens if she doesn't get her precious boobie juice, will that awaken something old and vicious?"
"House."
"Something religion has been trying to warn us about for centuries? Something vile and cruel?" He gasped. "Oh, no. I think her skin is turning purple. Is that... a tail? I think... oh, no, this is what she uses to slowly drain the blood out of our bodies and use our carcasses as new vessels of evil and death! Oh, God, what have we created?"
Cuddy rolled her eyes at him. "I'm not kidding around."
"She's not even crying," he complained. "No crying, no hunger. Even I know that."
Cuddy looked at him, the vein on her temple beating, her eyes narrowed as she motioned towards a chair. "Just sit down and stick a nipple in her mouth. It's not rocket science."
"It will be if she manages to suck milk out of my nipple," House said.
Cuddy didn't reply, but her eyes narrowed even more and her hands came up to her hips. House looked at her with reproach. He suddenly felt like screaming "noooo!" spiking the baby on the floor and running away like a petulant child. It wasn't so much the activity, but the principle and perhaps sheer fright of it. Bonding time with the thing was out of the question, because if it had Cuddy's DNA it was entirely possible that it killed after feeding.
But Cuddy finally sighed and shook her head. "Fine, go. Go. I can handle it."
She reached for the baby but House swung her out of reach, his eyes narrowed. "You're being passive aggressive."
"And I'm gonna drop the passive if you don't hand her to me."
"I think the hormones are making you a little violent," House said. "FYI: nobody likes a crazy MILF."
"Just... get the hell out if you're gonna leave," she snapped.
House brought the baby down slowly, but didn't hand her over, continued to stare at Cuddy and he never thought he'd see her like this, all tired, disheveled, and out of control. Her hair was frizzy and wild, her feet were bare and she looked like she'd finished a triathlon dead last. He couldn't understand the drastic transformation; he was sure Cuddy would do the smart thing and hire help. Apparently, that hadn't been the case.
And he didn't want to feel or look sympathetic, because surely she'd known this wouldn't be easy before she took the decision to have a child on her own, and well, people get what they ask for. Still didn't mean he couldn't get something out of The Good Sperm Donor act.
"Okay," he relented manipulatively. "I do this for you, and I get Monday off."
"No."
Christ, he thought, pressing his lips together, trying to intimidate her. "I get to sleep in."
"You will be there at 9 am, just like the rest of us," she clarified sternly.
House narrowed his eyes. She narrowed hers. At the opportune moment, Lila began to cry out of hunger, and House's determination quivered. Cuddy smiled, and he knew at that moment she had him by the balls.
"Fine," he huffed. "Just don't be surprised if someone steals a sandwich from the cafeteria on Monday, you know, gotta keep up with the milk production. How much do I get paid for this?"
"Nothing."
He growled. "Make it a filet mignon."
Cuddy shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Whatever."
House looked at her a little longer, trying to be assertive, and when she pointed towards the rocker next to the crib once more he shook his head. "Mmmmno. Not happening. Got anything more manly?"
Cuddy sighed. "I don't know, House. Sit on the floor, sit in the toilet for all I care. Just feed her!"
And so five minutes later House was in the john, holding the thing with one arm and feeding her a bottle, using his left foot to prop open the lid of the hamper and try to glance at Cuddy's dirty clothes. When doing all that at the same time proved impossible, he began to admire the color of the walls again as the thing sucked on the bottle and made all kinds of human being noises that made him feel old and awkward. He made sure the door was closed, because even though he got the feeling Cuddy didn't care and she was too busy cleaning anyway, he hated the idea of someone seeing him in this degrading position, sitting in the toilet with a useless human being on his arm and looking like he might actually be doing something nice for her.
He glanced down at the lines carved on the side of the bottle and willed the milk to go down faster, having never been one for small favors or being confronted with awkward situations. He imagined new fathers all around the world relishing in moments like these, and he could see them crying in those cheesy Lifetime baby shows, babbling about how looking into your baby's eyes is like opening a window into your soul, or something equally pussy.
Not true, he found out today. Looking into your baby's eyes (Cuddy's baby, he reminded himself) is like reaching a fist down your own throat and pulling your intestines out slowly and mercilessly. It's not magical or miraculous, but downright frightening and distressing.
Suddenly she stopped sucking on the bottle to let out a sigh and House looked down, and she curiously looked around the bathroom but then her eyes landed on his face listlessly.
"Don't," he said crabbily and feeling ridiculous again, but she still continued to stare at him in a way that made him feel like she was trying to steal his soul.
House frowned, getting crabbier just because he knew that emotion so well and wanting to let her know, in any language necessary, not to get used to this, or get used to him because sperm donors don't go into the habit of bonding with their little zygotes of horror. The fact that she'd chosen such an unfavorable mother, the one woman whose mere name got him all turned about and demented, didn't help his situation. Had she chosen another mother, a younger mother, a model, perhaps, subservient and agreeable and with an affinity for tennis skirts, he would've already been named father of the year.
She made a face as she began to suck on the nipple again and he knew that face, and suddenly it was a mini-Cuddy there, looking at him as she did when he was talking nonsense and she felt like listening just to humor him. A little Cuddy and House suddenly felt like outspokenly belittling her while opposite thoughts ran through his mind, just to feel like he had the upper hand even though he rarely did. Now it wasn't one Cuddy in the world, he realized, but two Cuddys to make him feel crazy and out of control and fucking drawn as hell.
He looked down at her, and felt an urge to settle boundaries and make things clear right there, that there would be no heartwarming moments between them in the future, no family picnics in the park and under no circumstances would she ever identify with I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus during Christmas time. No trips to Disney World or daddy's participation in ballet recitals; no Bring Your Daughter To Work Day, and definitely no talks regarding female physiognomy. That he was already responsible for someone and his name was Steve and he was not to be replaced with a dog or a cat or anything pink and/or cute. That unlike her future friends, she was not the product of a loving marriage, or a marriage between a bottle of Jim Bean and a broken condom, but a marriage of rational thinking, a test tube, and a stack of Victoria's Secret catalogs. That she was better off looking up to Wilson, or Chase, Foreman, or even the damn mailman, any man but him and for a variety of reasons her mother probably had framed in her room somewhere.
Period. There was nothing here worth admiring except lies and deception and always a full bottle of Vicodin, if that was more to her liking.
But she looked at him nonetheless as the milk slowly disappeared and House half sighed, half growled as he looked away, his leg hurting under the weight of 11 pounds, whatever ounces.
He felt old and awkward. He got the feeling he would feel that way for years to come.
Finally, there was a gurgle and he looked down just in time to see her push the nipple out of her mouth. She disappeared out of his mind for a moment and House closely examined the bottle and its remains. He brought the nipple to his nose and smelled it, considered it from another angle one more time before he stuck it in his mouth and savored two ounces of Cuddy's breast milk with gusto before he swallowed it down.
"Hmm," he said at the bottle and then looked down at the kid. "Not bad."
She looked at him with milk around her mouth and suddenly she frowned. He recognized the frown and it definitely didn't belong to Cuddy. He frowned back as her skin began to turn red and she made all kinds of unpleasant sounds before the fussing began. House nearly panicked, looking around the bathroom as if the answer was written in the walls, and when she began to hiccup he groaned at the realization, quickly turned her on her stomach across his thighs and patted her back a few times before she burped loudly and he groaned again, wishing he'd opted for scrubbing the floors instead. There was more dignity in that.
A symphony of burps continued and as a distraction House reached over and opened the hamper again, blindly sunk his hand in and found a tank top. He held it in the air and looked at it curiously and with a frown before he brought it to his nose and sniffed it. It smelled like jasmines and hospital rooms. He put it back in the hamper, began to fish for other articles of clothing and the thing nearly rolled down his thighs in the process, but he caught her just in time. She continued to hiccup but the burping stopped, and as she dangled from his forearm he left the bathroom, looking around but he couldn't even hear Cuddy anymore.
When he left her in her crib she was still looking around curiously and he joined her as well, began looking around through drawers for something of interest, but found only baby clothes and other oddities. With half her fist in her mouth and drooling, Lila watched him as he snooped around, her legs kicking until the other sock came off and joined its partner at the end of the crib.
"You're boring," House said when nothing in the room satiated his dark assumptions. "Or clever. You make your mother miserable and get praise. I've been trying to figure out how to do that for years and I only have the first part down."
He picked up a stuffed duck from atop the bureau and stared at it with a frown because really, ducks? Why the ducks? He walked over and put it next to her in the crib, and she looked at the yellow thing before she looked at him again, drying milk stuck around her mouth and neck.
House could've sworn he saw his mother there, attempting to be right. She had that unbearable curiosity thing down, one of Cuddy's annoying habits, and House felt maybe he needed to say something or at least yell, but feeling awkward and frustrated, he merely grumbled something unintelligible at her and walked out of the room.
In the living room he stopped, his cane thumping the floor and his eyes narrowed at the scene. Cuddy was on the couch, her legs crossed, her cheek touching her shoulder and sleeping. He walked closer.
Okay.
He felt a small surge of frustration, having expected to find her in the kitchen, tired, dirty, and miserable. Instead, she'd parked her ass comfortably on the couch while he had to do all the dirty work. House narrowed his eyes at her, trying to decide what to do. He could thump his cane on the floor and produce enough sound to wake her up. He could take this opportunity to snoop around some more, maybe comb her underwear drawer more meticulously. Instead, he headed towards the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and growled at the seemingly hundreds of milk bottles inside, the half full gallon of orange juice... ugh, vegetables. He moved over to the freezer section and voila, buried way in the back, out of sight, probably to keep her grounded during those midnight cravings. Preggos. They're all the same.
House grabbed the pint of Cherry Garcia and a spoon from the drawer, turned the television on in the living room and headed towards the couch, sitting down with a grunt. When he began to look for the remote along the cushions, Cuddy's eyes finally shot open.
"Oh, hi!" House said, finally finding it wedged between pillows. "Did you have a good nap? Nice of you to doze off out here like a good daddy while I'm in there playing mommy."
Cuddy looked around, confused. "What time is it?"
House grabbed the pint of ice cream and focused on the television. "Fifteen minutes after you had me metaphorically castrated."
Cuddy frowned, and then smiled. "I am good at that."
"Touché."
She sat up, looking at the television, frowning at the way he gorged down the ice cream, and looking back towards the hallway. "Is she okay?"
"Yeah, she's fine," he said between spoonfuls. "I left her in her crib, playing with a plastic bag. Oh, she can play with that thing for hours. Whoever said kids are expensive?"
Cuddy sighed as House fiddled with the remote control. "Did you burp her?"
"Yes, I burped it, I'm not completely ignorant," he said, hitting the apparatus a couple of times to make it work.
"Really," Cuddy said dryly. "And stop referring to her as 'it'. For the last time, she's not a dog."
"It doesn't mind. I asked," House said and finally found the basketball game. "Oh yeah, baby."
Cuddy crossed her arms and looked at him. "Well, thank you for the help, you can leave now."
"And miss the beginning of the game?" he replied, putting his feet up on her coffee table and guiding a huge ball of ice cream into his mouth. "Got any beer?"
She frowned at the way a pink droplet of ice cream made its way down the corners of his mouth. "I'm breastfeeding."
"Oh, right," House said thoughtfully. "Great breast milk, by the way. Have you been eating rosemary lately?"
Cuddy groaned in disgust. "Oh, I knew it. I knew it."
House looked at her innocently. "What?"
"You actually drank it, didn't you?"
"She didn't finish it," House said with a shrug. "Why let it go to waste? You know, there are starving people in Africa. Seven pumps a week of those babies and you could save a whole village."
"That is disgusting."
"Oh, relax," he said, his attention on the game again. "It's milk."
"It's breast milk. From my," Cuddy made a few gestures with her hands before she blinked hard, "breasts."
"And yet it's perfectly okay to drink milk from a cow?" he argued, pointing the spoon at her. "At least you bathe. Well, I assume you bathe. And eat properly. Plus it's free."
"Well, you're not getting refills for your cereal, if that's where you're going."
"Fine," he said. "But if you need extra cash, I'm throwing a party. Wilson's bringing the Baileys, I thought maybe you could-"
"You're disgusting," she said again. "And can we stop talking about my breasts for once?"
"You're right; it's rude to talk about Melba and Helga while they're in the room." He muttered at her, "I'll e-mail you later."
Cuddy rolled her eyes, and thought maybe she needed to fire one back at him, but decided not to, and instead turned to the game. She hated basketball. Too much stress and too much yelling and too many sneaker shoes squeaking against the hardwood floors. There's very few opportunities to talk about the game, because as soon as you turn your head for five seconds, some something spectacular happens and everyone gets to see it but you. Baseball was more to her liking. Golf. Tennis when she felt particularly stressful.
Not that she had time to practice any of those lately.
"I thought you'd be at the game," she said absentmindedly.
House looked at her, but said nothing. She was staring at the television but not paying any attention to it at all and he briefly wondered if, despite it all, Cuddy was still unhappy with her life. He tried not to care, but an unhappy Cuddy was a quiet Cuddy and that could be an inconvenience. He relied on Cuddy's antagonism at work to keep going, to push him further, to inject him with adrenaline when otherwise he might be deflated. A good verbal round with Cuddy usually made him feel rejuvenated and invigorated.
Those had diminished lately. Cuddy spent most of her time doing paperwork and looking like a Mary Shelley character with the huge, dark bags under her eyes that even her power make-up couldn't conceal. He knew that would change as the thing kept growing, and he knew she knew it as well, which would explain why she never hired any help, but it was still frustrating, every time he barged into her office, yelling, and she was too tired to argue with him. It was so unsettling, he was beginning to pick fights with Nurse Brenda just to get him through the day, and that made him feel cheap and pathetic. Cuddy had a sense of right and wrong. She could have a nasty mouth, but usually knew when to stop. Brenda, on the other hand, was just plain evil, and many times forced him to walk away with his tail between his legs. Given the right amount of time, he was sure that woman could make him cry.
Wilson was much better at this, he thought, at overanalyzing people to death and putting them back together. House had the opposite talent. He was merely good at taking people apart. And he could do that now, stand up and do a little celebratory dance, rub it in her face and say, "I told you so!" but his Wilson voice told him that wasn't right. He hated change, and knew Cuddy did as well, however, between the two of them, she was the stronger one for embracing it when she felt it necessary. It was him who usually took the easy way out.
Things would go back to normal, he knew. Wouldn't be long before they found themselves going at each other's throats like they used to. Maybe she just needed time, and he hated the fact that he knew she also needed a little reassurance. That's what Wilson would say, anyway.
"She's probably lonely, House. You know a lot about that."
Damn Wilson. Damn him for getting into his head and damn his psychoanalysis, and damn him for being right most of the time.
"You're doing a good job," he said awkwardly and hating himself for it, "with Martina."
"Her name is Lila," Cuddy clarified dully.
"Right." House nodded.
She didn't look at him, and her voice was strained and he got to the feeling she felt as awkward as he when she admitted, "It's not easy."
House looked at her. "It's not easy running a hospital and raising a child simultaneously? Oh, no, why didn't anybody warn you!"
She looked at him and rolled her eyes in that way of hers, and it made him feel like maybe the old Cuddy was back. Oddly enough, he found her scorn comforting.
"Where did you get that stupid name, anyway?"
"It was my grandmother's name," Cuddy said proudly. "On my mother's side. She was the only woman who told me I should never have kids. I thought she'd get a kick out of it."
House raised his eyebrows. "Nothing like being named after a dead, lesbian Jew. You turned down all my names for that?"
"She wasn't a lesbian, House. She was just liberal," she said. "And I'm sorry, I'm not naming a child Greger or Gregoria."
"There's dignity in those names."
"There's playground torture in those names," Cuddy said. "You know, big kids calling you Mary and stealing your lunch money? Surely this brings up a lot of painful memories for you."
Dammit, he thought. Fine, that one gets a smile.
The game began with a loud whistle and House watched, but after a few minutes finally realized his mind wasn't much into it and he didn't feel comfortable. He frowned when Cuddy reached for the pint of ice cream and the spoon, her body coming way too close to his for his liking. She smelled like sweat and some type of cleaning product, and strangely, House found that sexy as hell.
Hell. There was probably a place in hell designated for sick people like him.
She sat back on the couch and didn't seem to give her post-pregnancy diet a single thought as she began working her way through the ice cream, licking the spoon every so often as she watched the game. House frowned, disgusted with himself, because despite the fact that yes, maybe he'd been stupid enough to give her a child (though sex was never a part of the deal), she was still Cuddy and this godforsaken attraction was plain sick.
Not that he found anything wrong in giving her the look-over every once in a while. He was, after all, a man, and the woman was hot. Infuriating, but hot nonetheless. She was an endless provider of good shower fantasies, and a great catalyst for getting off quickly, but there was still something disturbing in the whole ordeal, something he quite couldn't explain. He'd always been able to cover his tracks quickly but sometimes that wasn't easy with Cuddy. Sometimes she got into the habit of getting one step ahead of him and that was frustrating. It was easy to play with Wilson, who would merely sigh and proceed to ignore him as if House were a child. It was easy to manipulate Cameron with a couple of insensitive jabs or the misconception that he actually considered her suggestions.
For every jab he threw at Cuddy, however, she threw one back. Most of the time, it was fun. Other times, however, when things began to stir south of the belt buckle and he began to get images of him pushing her against a wall and shutting her the hell up in unholy ways, it was downright infuriating.
As was the way her full attention was on the pint of ice cream, and the way her bare feet were now up on the coffee table as well, and the fact that she wasn't wearing make up or showing cleavage or smelling like ugly flowers and yet he still felt like reaching over and dipping his fingers deep inside her pants just for the fucking hell of it.
He frowned at himself, annoyed. "Be kind to poor Garcia," House said. "You're not eating for two anymore, you know."
"Yeah, you're right," Cuddy said absentmindedly. "Tell me more about dinners for one?"
House grimaced. "Oh, zing!"
Cuddy smiled cynically and finished the pint, and as she stood up to discard the empty cup, a loud cry reverberated down the hall.
House rolled his eyes. "What's her problem now?"
"Diaper change."
He quickly stood up. "Well, look at that, time flies when you're in the company of misery."
"Relax, I got it," Cuddy sighed.
But House stood up anyway because he didn't want to be witness to Cuddy's interactions with her spawn child. The thing's existence was disturbing enough. He didn't want to add sweet images into her repertoire.
Cuddy stopped and looked at him, and he wasn't sure if her eyes were bigger or it was merely the huge bags under them that gave out the illusion that she was trying to grow two more holes on her face. He felt crabby and awkward again.
"You're..." he struggled with the words as she looked at him expectantly, "not going to go crazy and drown her in a tub, are you?"
She smiled as best as she could under the accusation and looked around. "I'm fine, House."
He nodded. "Cause I'm not feeding that thing again. Not sober, anyway."
"Well, the amount of therapy money I'll be able to save more than makes up for it," she said. "But thank you."
He rolled his eyes, not knowing why, grumbled something unintelligible at her and began his trek towards the door.
"Oh, and by the way, the file?" Cuddy said, holding it in the air. "The pages are empty."
House frowned humorously. "What... oh, you wanted me to fill it out! I thought you were just out of paper."
Cuddy sighed and walked over, slapping the file on his chest. "On my desk by Monday afternoon."
"My desk is less susceptible to splinters," House growled suggestively. "Unless you're into that, of course."
"Ugh. Bye, House," Cuddy said, annoyed, and pushed him out the door.
Outside, House frowned at the knob for a second, hearing the click of the lock, and feeling weird, but somehow sedated after two (or three, four) full months of agony. The flowers she had planted along the house emitted a strong smell, and it contrasted heavily with the stench of baby on his shirt and pants in a way that made him feel feminine and dirty. He needed to shower. Desperately.
On his way back to his motorcycle, House reached for his cell phone and dialed a few numbers. Wilson picked up after a couple of rings and he sounded annoyed. Good. House hoped he'd managed to distract him from an important play. He could hear the game in the background, the audience cheering, and felt a little jealous.
"Hello?"
"I drank Cuddy's breast milk, and I liked it."
For a long time, there was silence on the line.
"What did you-where the-what?"
"Just thought you should know."
He hung up and pocketed his cell phone, straddled his motorcycle and ignored the subsequent ringing of Wilson's call as he sped out of the neighborhood.
The End
Fandom: House
Characters: House, Cuddy, Blythe
Prompt: # 86 - Choices
Word Count: 8,125
Ratings: PG-13
Spoilers: None. Follows my other fic Everything Nice, I guess.
Author's notes: I realized too late I spelled Lilah wrong. Oops. I guess it's Lila. Sorry about that, Lilas of the world. This is an answer to the au100 challenge. You can find my complete table here.
"Oh, Greg."
House used his thumb to scratch his brow as he looked down at his desk, the phone pressed to his ear. He began to say something a few times, but only small sighs came out until he muttered, "Mom-"
"You're not serious, are you?"
He smiled uncomfortably. "You know I'm never serious."
Blythe waited on the line, and when the silence began to stretch, House became nervous. He looked up, glad he was alone in his office, prayed no one would barge in (especially Cameron), and looked down again. Suddenly he felt like a 5-year-old, caught doing something he wasn't supposed to have done.
"This isn't a joke, Gregory."
"I know," he said, looking up again, suddenly hoping he'd made this call from home, where there was plenty of privacy, and plenty of alcohol to boot.
His mother was quiet. Nothing good ever came out of prolonged periods of silence where his mother was concerned. Silence meant her wheels were turning, she was standing back and looking at the situation with mother eyes, irrational eyes, disappointed eyes, maybe all three. Silence meant the situation called for her to pick her words carefully and House failed to see where this warranted a silence.
It anything, it warranted a quick goodbye. Quickly he began to feel like hanging up. He felt like telling her it'd been a huge misunderstanding, "and I take it back. I take it all back. Say hi to dad for me, love you, bye," but he knew, just as he knew his mother, that that wasn't an option. So he pressed the phone to his ear harder and prayed his mother would understand this, because she's always been understanding, and if she couldn't do that then he had no idea what he was going to do with himself.
"You're having a baby?"
"No," he said quickly and suddenly felt frustrated. He didn't know why people were having such a hard time with this. "Lisa's having a baby."
"But it's your baby."
"It's her baby."
Blythe went silent again. House sighed, imagining all the things she was thinking, imagining all the wild theories running through her mind as she played with the chord of her phone (because his parents had never felt the need to upgrade their phones and he got the feeling this was why - because in case they ever received troubling news, God knows that chord needs to be there so they can twirl it around their fingers and look troubled and dramatic). He could practically see her chewing on the side of her mouth, looking ahead, wondering if her son had finally gone completely and unapologetically insane.
"There's nothing complicated about this," he added, sounding certain. "Why are people acting like it's such a big deal?"
"Because it is a big deal, Greg," she exclaimed. "You're having a baby!"
"No, I'm not," he repeated, feeling like a teenager all over again and no, that's not my pot, I'm just holding it for a friend. Don't you believe me, mom? "Biologically, yes, it's my sperm. But it's her baby. She gets to keep it. I don't wanna keep it. Trust me, I don't want this-"
"Then why did you do it?"
House sighed again. He could feel the dull beginning of a headache and reached inside his jacket pocket for a Vicodin in lieu of trying to think of an answer.
"You and Lisa need to talk about this, Gregory. A baby is not something you just make. It's not like buying a motorcycle or adopting a rat. It's a lifetime of responsibility-"
"I know," he said, swallowing the pill dry. "But it's not my responsibility."
"Oh, Greg, you say that now-"
"It's her responsibility. She wants this. I'm doing a good thing; I'm helping a friend. That's it. I'm staying out of it. It's-I'm not going to be in the picture, I can't be in the picture. She doesn't want me in her life," House said, and suddenly realized his voice was loud and quivering. So he closed his eyes, tried to relax, and added with a sigh and the bare hint of a smile, "Are you mad because you're going to be a grandma? That doesn't make you old, you know. Okay, so maybe it does--"
"Don't manipulate me, Gregory. I do want grandchildren," she said sternly. "I also want a daughter-in-law, and for you to get married, and have your own house-"
"Well, that's not happening," House replied. "Not now, and probably not ever. I've come to terms with that and-"
"By... having a baby with your boss?"
House sighed for the nth time. "I'm not having a baby with her."
"I don't understand, don't you hate this woman?"
"I don't hate her."
"Gregory, you keep doing these things... I don't know what to think anymore."
House smiled, trying not to cross a line because despite the unpleasant conversation, it was still his mother on the line. "And yet... you keep thinking."
"Because I'm tired of seeing you unhappy," she exclaimed. "I'm tired of seeing you miserable and I want something better for you, is that too hard to understand? Does that make me a bad mother?"
House went quiet, looking down at his desk, his fingers pushing a piece of lint back and forth and why the fuck was the Vicodin taking so long to work?
"I'm just a sperm donor," he said, because lately that had become his mantra, his best argument, his only argument. That's all he was. It was really all he was. It didn't sound complicated, why was it?
"Then why are you telling me this, Greg?" she said, her voice softer, sounded like pity and House hated that more than he hated the entire conversation. "Why did you call me, if it's her baby and you have nothing to do with it? Why are you saying I'm going to be a grandmother if the child is not going to be a part of your life, or my life?"
Finally, the Vicodin began to kick in, and as House sat back in his chair he stared at the ceiling, holding on to the phone and letting the numbness take care of the rest.
"You're not going to be able to stay away, Greg," Blythe said. "You're just not going to be able to."
He rode out the Doppler Effect of his motorcycle's roar and finally came to a stop, with an intense frown on his face, in front of Cuddy's house. He took his helmet off and placed it on a handle, sat there and waited, doing nothing, thinking nothing, merely following that physical something that had gotten him there in the first place.
During moments like these he hated himself with an immense intensity. He hated everything he was, everything he did, every one of those little voices in his head that told him he was no better than those losers on the street that committed a crime and returned to the scene, where they would get caught and thrown in jail for decades. They were morons, idiots, lacking basic common sense and intelligence... and he was their king.
But he tried to comfort himself with the realization that it wasn't an emotional yearn. It wasn't even a feeling, an overwhelming compulsion for doing nonsense for the instant gratification of it, feeling like a moth to a flame, a bug to a zapper. He wasn't trying to do the responsible thing, because God knows that's not him, had never been him, and besides, the responsible thing couldn't possibly feel this reckless. He wasn't trying to create something, form some sort of bond, because God knows that's the last thing he wants, the very last, and he wasn't trying to make a point, either, be a better person, be a good friend, be a good anything.
He was just curious.
That was all. Just curious, because he woke up last week and realized she'd be two months old now (or three, or four, who knows?) and he hadn't seen her since she left the hospital. It was mere curiosity that got him on his bike on a hazy Saturday afternoon, that caused him to turn Wilson and his basketball tickets down. Curiosity and maybe the realization that Cuddy must've found a day care center away from the hospital because her very first day back on the job she'd shown up thing-free. Curiosity and the fact that two months (or three, who knows) had gone by and she hadn't asked him over to see her and though he knew, he understood that he wasn't a part of this, a part of him was just curious.
He needed to know. He always needed to know. Not knowing had never been an option.
So he held on securely to the manila envelope in his hand, grabbed his cane and made his way across the path through her lawn, noticing how perfectly mowed it was and wondering if she'd hired another handyman, continued to employ Paco, or had created some sort of useless household department just for him, because she felt sorry for him and wanted to do away with her guilt.
It didn't seem to matter. He rang her bell hesitantly, because he never wanted to do these things, but he always seemed to find himself doing them. Rang it again, impatiently, and heard her inside, complaining, and he realized she was probably busy doing... whatever it is Cuddy does when she isn't at the hospital -- summon the devil, tinker with her broom, hang upside down from the ceiling, the like. He didn't care and when she opened the door, she would've looked less surprised to see Elvis standing in his place.
"House," she half-exclaimed, half-asked, her eyes wide, fingers playing with a rag.
"Hey," he said noncommittally, looking back and forth between her eyes, her chest, and the floor. She was wearing jeans and a U of M t-shirt and looking small and normal outside her power suits and high heels.
"What are you doing here?" She crossed her arms and smiled sardonically. "You're supposed to light the bag on fire first and then ring the bell."
He wanted to smile but didn't, merely produced the envelope and dropped it in her hands. "Here's the file."
Cuddy looked down at it suspiciously. "What file?"
"From the case."
She shook her head. "What case? I don't--"
"The file from the case, Cuddy, you wanted it on your desk," he said impatiently and his good leg was beginning to shake.
Cuddy looked at him. "Two days ago."
"Well," House said lamely. "Here it is, I got it, now will you leave me alone?"
Cuddy looked past him, trying to see if Wilson was hiding behind her bushes with a camera and attempting not to giggle, because House couldn't possibly be serious about this. "It's Saturday, House."
"So?"
"So, this couldn't wait until Monday?"
House narrowed his eyes. "You screamed at me, for two days, 'where's the file, House? I need the file, House. Did you finish the file, House? Am I going to have to send my flying monkeys in for the file, House?' and now that I bring you the file, you don't want it."
Cuddy rolled her eyes, looking deeply annoyed. She felt that familiar frustration quickly raising up her throat along with a stinger, but at the last minute she decided to be the better man and so she said nothing. The last thing she wanted was to give him ammunition; then he'd never leave.
"Well, thank you. Thank you for the file, House."
She began to say something while simultaneously closing the door and in an instant his cane got in the way and the door bounced open again. She turned around, giving him a frown before she looked down at the cane and House suddenly felt the urge to smack himself with it.
"What are you-"
"I need to take a piss," he said and the amount of disgust he felt for himself nearly made him throw up in his mouth.
Cuddy shook her head and merely pointed towards the hallway. "I assume you know the way."
House smirked at the memory and walked into the house, closing the door behind him and keeping an eye on the back of her head as she scanned the file. He looked around, noticing the new details - she'd rearranged the furniture, gotten a couple of plants, painted - and the lack of baby paraphernalia pleased him, for some reason. As she continued her journey towards the kitchen he stepped into the hallway.
"Stay away from my hamper," he heard her call out as he disappeared down the hall, wondering why the idea of going through her dirty underwear hadn't occurred to him until now. It seemed so obvious. He was off his game.
Quickly he made a beeline for the bathroom, and once inside the self-scolding began. He opened up the faucet and splashed water on his face before he moved over the toilet, put the seat up and zipped his pants down. He waited a couple of seconds, but nothing happened and so he opened the faucet again, this time closed his eyes and jumped slightly in place, but it quickly occurred to him he didn't have to pee at all.
And so he waited, standing there, zipper down and admiring the color of her bathroom walls, and telling himself the damage hadn't been done yet, and there was plenty of time to back off, thank her for the toilet paper, go home, call Wilson, and maybe catch the game. He had time, opportunity, motive, and an unsuspecting victim - it was the perfect un-crime. A de-crime. He could walk out of the house now with Cuddy non-the-wiser and return to his regular life of desperate, unbearable curiosity.
And that was the new plan. He flushed the toilet to produce a sound effect and splashed water over his hands, ignoring the bottle of dainty purple liquid in front of him because the last thing he wanted was to walk out of the house smelling like a woman, or worse, Cuddy.
House stepped into the hallway and looked around, but Cuddy was nowhere in sight and so he just moved, mentally laughing at the whole thing, praying Wilson hadn't scalped his ticket, wondering what was the quickest way to get to the game, when yellow caught his attention.
Yellow. That didn't seem reasonable at all. Cuddy, being the epitome of femininity and power, had never given him yellow vibes. Cuddy was red, Cuddy was purple, or black, intense, powerful colors full of energy and strength.
Yellow was not Cuddy. Yellow didn't belong in Cuddy's life. Pink. Pink made sense. Blue, maybe, to satiate those feminist urges he knew she felt at times. But as he pushed the door open and glanced inside the room, feeling the curiosity take over with fury once more, he knew one thing was certain above all others: yellow was not a color he ever pictured in Cuddy's rainbow.
And ducks.
He frowned. For God's sake, ducks. Not ballerinas, not trucks, or clowns, or princesses. Fucking ducks. They waddled through the walls in a pathetic display of cute over cheap wallpaper and dull yellow paint. Not that he had a better option, or even cared, but... well, he'd never imagined Cuddy having a particular liking for ducks, is all.
He didn't care, he decided. He didn't care about the ducks just like he didn't care about the wooden crib next to the uncharacteristically yellow wall to his left. It was curious, a new development, an observation, "there's a person in this room with my DNA," and isn't that mildly interesting? Mildly interesting was good. Not quite interesting, not exactly uneventful. He could settle for that and just go, certainly no one here would miss him, but he took one more step and suddenly he was off the wagon again.
Falling into old habits, he realized, was the perfect title for an autobiography.
Because this was not what he wanted, he thought as he entered the room. He didn't want to see her, he didn't want to smell her or touch her or admit she was here at all. He just wanted to get on with his life, let Cuddy get on with hers, and spend the rest of his time on earth ignoring the fact that he and Cuddy had a child together, and Christ, that knowledge never felt so heavy until now, now that he stood there, a mere 7 steps away from the wooden crib. She wasn't an idea anymore, or a fetus, or a screaming mass of flesh and bones, she was an actual human being, with human being features and human being characteristics and in his experience, human beings generally weren't overly fond of him.
He felt nauseous and crabby at the thought of her. He generally felt nauseous and crabby at the thought of Cuddy women in general.
House looked back, expecting to see Cuddy there with a broom and ready to kick him out, but the hallway was empty and he could hear her doing things in the kitchen. So, knowing no one was around to ridicule him or prod him for what he was about to do, he took the impending seven steps, each one echoing after a mental insult aimed at himself.
He was starting to think this hadn't been such a good idea. A year ago, when Cuddy was torturing herself by going through files and files of troglodytes after mongoloids, it seemed like a viable option. Cuddy would get her baby, the world would get a human being with decent DNA, and he figured he could get away with a lot more things at work if he gave Cuddy a test tube of his dignity. Tit for tat. Nepotism rules.
Now, though, he found Cuddy was tired all the time, the world had one more mouth to feed, and he had absolutely no privileges at work. The "hey, remember that time I gave you a baby?" card, he'd found out, was completely useless. On top of that... Christ, he had a child with Cuddy. He had a child with Cuddy. He was biologically linked to Cuddy's spawn, the heir to the antichrist throne, Damien feminized.
He had this coming. This is what happens when Cuddy decides not to disagree with him.
Suddenly his mother's words came back to him, but House tried to drown out the words. In a daze he found himself standing over the cradle, his hands on the railing, and once more he found he'd been expecting a fanfare, but received none of that. Quickly, he realized she'd changed. The last time he saw her she was tiny and red and looking like every other baby he'd seen in his lifetime: ugly and misshapen. Now, there were lines of definition on her face, and her features were beginning to take shape, a small mass of black hair and blue eyes that could've been Cuddy's, or could've been his, he wasn't entirely sure that there was a difference nor did he care.
She was awake and entertaining herself by looking at her mobile, but as soon as he entered her field of vision she looked at him, opened her mouth and House was expecting her to say something completely crass or demonic, but she merely yawned, brought her fist up to her mouth and began to suck on it fiercely.
He didn't know why he felt a small amount of relief, felt his curiosity wane, like a junkie finally getting his fix after a sleepless night. She was normal, acted normal, was missing the horns and middle tooth he imagined she'd grown by this point. He tried to avoid the lame attempt to figure out if she had his nose or Cuddy's lips or Wilson's nagging because it was useless and degrading. Instead, he began to turn around to walk away when Cuddy walked into the room holding a blanket and a bottle.
"You can pick her up, if you want."
House looked back at her, following her with his eyes as she cleared a few things off the floor. "I don't want."
She turned around and rolled her eyes at him, and this time he thought the display was completely unwarranted, but that quickly faded to the back of his mind when he saw her walk to the crib, pick up the baby with all the grace in the world, and deposit it in his hands without his approval or amusement.
House stood there, holding the baby by her armpits awkwardly as her head swirled in all kinds of directions, and looking around, waiting for the thing to begin wailing but she didn't. She was heavier than he remembered, and bigger, and missing one sock. He tried not to dwell too much on the details and quickly moved away when Cuddy attempted to put a burp cloth over his shoulder.
"What are you doing?"
"She needs to be fed," Cuddy explained.
House shook his head instantly as the true meaning of her words sank in. "No. She came out of your vagina, you feed her."
"I have to clean, House. I have paperwork and chores."
"So what do you expect me to do about it?" he said, the baby's feet dangling back and forth as he talked.
"Well, you can either help me by feeding her, or help me by putting on an apron and scrubbing the kitchen floor. Your call."
"Funny, running away and leaving you alone to do all that doesn't seem to be one of the options. I say funny, because that's generally the option I would choose."
Cuddy bit the inside of her cheek. "It's 5:30. She needs to eat now."
"Oh, she needs to eat now," House said mockingly. "What happens if she doesn't get her precious boobie juice, will that awaken something old and vicious?"
"House."
"Something religion has been trying to warn us about for centuries? Something vile and cruel?" He gasped. "Oh, no. I think her skin is turning purple. Is that... a tail? I think... oh, no, this is what she uses to slowly drain the blood out of our bodies and use our carcasses as new vessels of evil and death! Oh, God, what have we created?"
Cuddy rolled her eyes at him. "I'm not kidding around."
"She's not even crying," he complained. "No crying, no hunger. Even I know that."
Cuddy looked at him, the vein on her temple beating, her eyes narrowed as she motioned towards a chair. "Just sit down and stick a nipple in her mouth. It's not rocket science."
"It will be if she manages to suck milk out of my nipple," House said.
Cuddy didn't reply, but her eyes narrowed even more and her hands came up to her hips. House looked at her with reproach. He suddenly felt like screaming "noooo!" spiking the baby on the floor and running away like a petulant child. It wasn't so much the activity, but the principle and perhaps sheer fright of it. Bonding time with the thing was out of the question, because if it had Cuddy's DNA it was entirely possible that it killed after feeding.
But Cuddy finally sighed and shook her head. "Fine, go. Go. I can handle it."
She reached for the baby but House swung her out of reach, his eyes narrowed. "You're being passive aggressive."
"And I'm gonna drop the passive if you don't hand her to me."
"I think the hormones are making you a little violent," House said. "FYI: nobody likes a crazy MILF."
"Just... get the hell out if you're gonna leave," she snapped.
House brought the baby down slowly, but didn't hand her over, continued to stare at Cuddy and he never thought he'd see her like this, all tired, disheveled, and out of control. Her hair was frizzy and wild, her feet were bare and she looked like she'd finished a triathlon dead last. He couldn't understand the drastic transformation; he was sure Cuddy would do the smart thing and hire help. Apparently, that hadn't been the case.
And he didn't want to feel or look sympathetic, because surely she'd known this wouldn't be easy before she took the decision to have a child on her own, and well, people get what they ask for. Still didn't mean he couldn't get something out of The Good Sperm Donor act.
"Okay," he relented manipulatively. "I do this for you, and I get Monday off."
"No."
Christ, he thought, pressing his lips together, trying to intimidate her. "I get to sleep in."
"You will be there at 9 am, just like the rest of us," she clarified sternly.
House narrowed his eyes. She narrowed hers. At the opportune moment, Lila began to cry out of hunger, and House's determination quivered. Cuddy smiled, and he knew at that moment she had him by the balls.
"Fine," he huffed. "Just don't be surprised if someone steals a sandwich from the cafeteria on Monday, you know, gotta keep up with the milk production. How much do I get paid for this?"
"Nothing."
He growled. "Make it a filet mignon."
Cuddy shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Whatever."
House looked at her a little longer, trying to be assertive, and when she pointed towards the rocker next to the crib once more he shook his head. "Mmmmno. Not happening. Got anything more manly?"
Cuddy sighed. "I don't know, House. Sit on the floor, sit in the toilet for all I care. Just feed her!"
And so five minutes later House was in the john, holding the thing with one arm and feeding her a bottle, using his left foot to prop open the lid of the hamper and try to glance at Cuddy's dirty clothes. When doing all that at the same time proved impossible, he began to admire the color of the walls again as the thing sucked on the bottle and made all kinds of human being noises that made him feel old and awkward. He made sure the door was closed, because even though he got the feeling Cuddy didn't care and she was too busy cleaning anyway, he hated the idea of someone seeing him in this degrading position, sitting in the toilet with a useless human being on his arm and looking like he might actually be doing something nice for her.
He glanced down at the lines carved on the side of the bottle and willed the milk to go down faster, having never been one for small favors or being confronted with awkward situations. He imagined new fathers all around the world relishing in moments like these, and he could see them crying in those cheesy Lifetime baby shows, babbling about how looking into your baby's eyes is like opening a window into your soul, or something equally pussy.
Not true, he found out today. Looking into your baby's eyes (Cuddy's baby, he reminded himself) is like reaching a fist down your own throat and pulling your intestines out slowly and mercilessly. It's not magical or miraculous, but downright frightening and distressing.
Suddenly she stopped sucking on the bottle to let out a sigh and House looked down, and she curiously looked around the bathroom but then her eyes landed on his face listlessly.
"Don't," he said crabbily and feeling ridiculous again, but she still continued to stare at him in a way that made him feel like she was trying to steal his soul.
House frowned, getting crabbier just because he knew that emotion so well and wanting to let her know, in any language necessary, not to get used to this, or get used to him because sperm donors don't go into the habit of bonding with their little zygotes of horror. The fact that she'd chosen such an unfavorable mother, the one woman whose mere name got him all turned about and demented, didn't help his situation. Had she chosen another mother, a younger mother, a model, perhaps, subservient and agreeable and with an affinity for tennis skirts, he would've already been named father of the year.
She made a face as she began to suck on the nipple again and he knew that face, and suddenly it was a mini-Cuddy there, looking at him as she did when he was talking nonsense and she felt like listening just to humor him. A little Cuddy and House suddenly felt like outspokenly belittling her while opposite thoughts ran through his mind, just to feel like he had the upper hand even though he rarely did. Now it wasn't one Cuddy in the world, he realized, but two Cuddys to make him feel crazy and out of control and fucking drawn as hell.
He looked down at her, and felt an urge to settle boundaries and make things clear right there, that there would be no heartwarming moments between them in the future, no family picnics in the park and under no circumstances would she ever identify with I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus during Christmas time. No trips to Disney World or daddy's participation in ballet recitals; no Bring Your Daughter To Work Day, and definitely no talks regarding female physiognomy. That he was already responsible for someone and his name was Steve and he was not to be replaced with a dog or a cat or anything pink and/or cute. That unlike her future friends, she was not the product of a loving marriage, or a marriage between a bottle of Jim Bean and a broken condom, but a marriage of rational thinking, a test tube, and a stack of Victoria's Secret catalogs. That she was better off looking up to Wilson, or Chase, Foreman, or even the damn mailman, any man but him and for a variety of reasons her mother probably had framed in her room somewhere.
Period. There was nothing here worth admiring except lies and deception and always a full bottle of Vicodin, if that was more to her liking.
But she looked at him nonetheless as the milk slowly disappeared and House half sighed, half growled as he looked away, his leg hurting under the weight of 11 pounds, whatever ounces.
He felt old and awkward. He got the feeling he would feel that way for years to come.
Finally, there was a gurgle and he looked down just in time to see her push the nipple out of her mouth. She disappeared out of his mind for a moment and House closely examined the bottle and its remains. He brought the nipple to his nose and smelled it, considered it from another angle one more time before he stuck it in his mouth and savored two ounces of Cuddy's breast milk with gusto before he swallowed it down.
"Hmm," he said at the bottle and then looked down at the kid. "Not bad."
She looked at him with milk around her mouth and suddenly she frowned. He recognized the frown and it definitely didn't belong to Cuddy. He frowned back as her skin began to turn red and she made all kinds of unpleasant sounds before the fussing began. House nearly panicked, looking around the bathroom as if the answer was written in the walls, and when she began to hiccup he groaned at the realization, quickly turned her on her stomach across his thighs and patted her back a few times before she burped loudly and he groaned again, wishing he'd opted for scrubbing the floors instead. There was more dignity in that.
A symphony of burps continued and as a distraction House reached over and opened the hamper again, blindly sunk his hand in and found a tank top. He held it in the air and looked at it curiously and with a frown before he brought it to his nose and sniffed it. It smelled like jasmines and hospital rooms. He put it back in the hamper, began to fish for other articles of clothing and the thing nearly rolled down his thighs in the process, but he caught her just in time. She continued to hiccup but the burping stopped, and as she dangled from his forearm he left the bathroom, looking around but he couldn't even hear Cuddy anymore.
When he left her in her crib she was still looking around curiously and he joined her as well, began looking around through drawers for something of interest, but found only baby clothes and other oddities. With half her fist in her mouth and drooling, Lila watched him as he snooped around, her legs kicking until the other sock came off and joined its partner at the end of the crib.
"You're boring," House said when nothing in the room satiated his dark assumptions. "Or clever. You make your mother miserable and get praise. I've been trying to figure out how to do that for years and I only have the first part down."
He picked up a stuffed duck from atop the bureau and stared at it with a frown because really, ducks? Why the ducks? He walked over and put it next to her in the crib, and she looked at the yellow thing before she looked at him again, drying milk stuck around her mouth and neck.
House could've sworn he saw his mother there, attempting to be right. She had that unbearable curiosity thing down, one of Cuddy's annoying habits, and House felt maybe he needed to say something or at least yell, but feeling awkward and frustrated, he merely grumbled something unintelligible at her and walked out of the room.
In the living room he stopped, his cane thumping the floor and his eyes narrowed at the scene. Cuddy was on the couch, her legs crossed, her cheek touching her shoulder and sleeping. He walked closer.
Okay.
He felt a small surge of frustration, having expected to find her in the kitchen, tired, dirty, and miserable. Instead, she'd parked her ass comfortably on the couch while he had to do all the dirty work. House narrowed his eyes at her, trying to decide what to do. He could thump his cane on the floor and produce enough sound to wake her up. He could take this opportunity to snoop around some more, maybe comb her underwear drawer more meticulously. Instead, he headed towards the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and growled at the seemingly hundreds of milk bottles inside, the half full gallon of orange juice... ugh, vegetables. He moved over to the freezer section and voila, buried way in the back, out of sight, probably to keep her grounded during those midnight cravings. Preggos. They're all the same.
House grabbed the pint of Cherry Garcia and a spoon from the drawer, turned the television on in the living room and headed towards the couch, sitting down with a grunt. When he began to look for the remote along the cushions, Cuddy's eyes finally shot open.
"Oh, hi!" House said, finally finding it wedged between pillows. "Did you have a good nap? Nice of you to doze off out here like a good daddy while I'm in there playing mommy."
Cuddy looked around, confused. "What time is it?"
House grabbed the pint of ice cream and focused on the television. "Fifteen minutes after you had me metaphorically castrated."
Cuddy frowned, and then smiled. "I am good at that."
"Touché."
She sat up, looking at the television, frowning at the way he gorged down the ice cream, and looking back towards the hallway. "Is she okay?"
"Yeah, she's fine," he said between spoonfuls. "I left her in her crib, playing with a plastic bag. Oh, she can play with that thing for hours. Whoever said kids are expensive?"
Cuddy sighed as House fiddled with the remote control. "Did you burp her?"
"Yes, I burped it, I'm not completely ignorant," he said, hitting the apparatus a couple of times to make it work.
"Really," Cuddy said dryly. "And stop referring to her as 'it'. For the last time, she's not a dog."
"It doesn't mind. I asked," House said and finally found the basketball game. "Oh yeah, baby."
Cuddy crossed her arms and looked at him. "Well, thank you for the help, you can leave now."
"And miss the beginning of the game?" he replied, putting his feet up on her coffee table and guiding a huge ball of ice cream into his mouth. "Got any beer?"
She frowned at the way a pink droplet of ice cream made its way down the corners of his mouth. "I'm breastfeeding."
"Oh, right," House said thoughtfully. "Great breast milk, by the way. Have you been eating rosemary lately?"
Cuddy groaned in disgust. "Oh, I knew it. I knew it."
House looked at her innocently. "What?"
"You actually drank it, didn't you?"
"She didn't finish it," House said with a shrug. "Why let it go to waste? You know, there are starving people in Africa. Seven pumps a week of those babies and you could save a whole village."
"That is disgusting."
"Oh, relax," he said, his attention on the game again. "It's milk."
"It's breast milk. From my," Cuddy made a few gestures with her hands before she blinked hard, "breasts."
"And yet it's perfectly okay to drink milk from a cow?" he argued, pointing the spoon at her. "At least you bathe. Well, I assume you bathe. And eat properly. Plus it's free."
"Well, you're not getting refills for your cereal, if that's where you're going."
"Fine," he said. "But if you need extra cash, I'm throwing a party. Wilson's bringing the Baileys, I thought maybe you could-"
"You're disgusting," she said again. "And can we stop talking about my breasts for once?"
"You're right; it's rude to talk about Melba and Helga while they're in the room." He muttered at her, "I'll e-mail you later."
Cuddy rolled her eyes, and thought maybe she needed to fire one back at him, but decided not to, and instead turned to the game. She hated basketball. Too much stress and too much yelling and too many sneaker shoes squeaking against the hardwood floors. There's very few opportunities to talk about the game, because as soon as you turn your head for five seconds, some something spectacular happens and everyone gets to see it but you. Baseball was more to her liking. Golf. Tennis when she felt particularly stressful.
Not that she had time to practice any of those lately.
"I thought you'd be at the game," she said absentmindedly.
House looked at her, but said nothing. She was staring at the television but not paying any attention to it at all and he briefly wondered if, despite it all, Cuddy was still unhappy with her life. He tried not to care, but an unhappy Cuddy was a quiet Cuddy and that could be an inconvenience. He relied on Cuddy's antagonism at work to keep going, to push him further, to inject him with adrenaline when otherwise he might be deflated. A good verbal round with Cuddy usually made him feel rejuvenated and invigorated.
Those had diminished lately. Cuddy spent most of her time doing paperwork and looking like a Mary Shelley character with the huge, dark bags under her eyes that even her power make-up couldn't conceal. He knew that would change as the thing kept growing, and he knew she knew it as well, which would explain why she never hired any help, but it was still frustrating, every time he barged into her office, yelling, and she was too tired to argue with him. It was so unsettling, he was beginning to pick fights with Nurse Brenda just to get him through the day, and that made him feel cheap and pathetic. Cuddy had a sense of right and wrong. She could have a nasty mouth, but usually knew when to stop. Brenda, on the other hand, was just plain evil, and many times forced him to walk away with his tail between his legs. Given the right amount of time, he was sure that woman could make him cry.
Wilson was much better at this, he thought, at overanalyzing people to death and putting them back together. House had the opposite talent. He was merely good at taking people apart. And he could do that now, stand up and do a little celebratory dance, rub it in her face and say, "I told you so!" but his Wilson voice told him that wasn't right. He hated change, and knew Cuddy did as well, however, between the two of them, she was the stronger one for embracing it when she felt it necessary. It was him who usually took the easy way out.
Things would go back to normal, he knew. Wouldn't be long before they found themselves going at each other's throats like they used to. Maybe she just needed time, and he hated the fact that he knew she also needed a little reassurance. That's what Wilson would say, anyway.
"She's probably lonely, House. You know a lot about that."
Damn Wilson. Damn him for getting into his head and damn his psychoanalysis, and damn him for being right most of the time.
"You're doing a good job," he said awkwardly and hating himself for it, "with Martina."
"Her name is Lila," Cuddy clarified dully.
"Right." House nodded.
She didn't look at him, and her voice was strained and he got to the feeling she felt as awkward as he when she admitted, "It's not easy."
House looked at her. "It's not easy running a hospital and raising a child simultaneously? Oh, no, why didn't anybody warn you!"
She looked at him and rolled her eyes in that way of hers, and it made him feel like maybe the old Cuddy was back. Oddly enough, he found her scorn comforting.
"Where did you get that stupid name, anyway?"
"It was my grandmother's name," Cuddy said proudly. "On my mother's side. She was the only woman who told me I should never have kids. I thought she'd get a kick out of it."
House raised his eyebrows. "Nothing like being named after a dead, lesbian Jew. You turned down all my names for that?"
"She wasn't a lesbian, House. She was just liberal," she said. "And I'm sorry, I'm not naming a child Greger or Gregoria."
"There's dignity in those names."
"There's playground torture in those names," Cuddy said. "You know, big kids calling you Mary and stealing your lunch money? Surely this brings up a lot of painful memories for you."
Dammit, he thought. Fine, that one gets a smile.
The game began with a loud whistle and House watched, but after a few minutes finally realized his mind wasn't much into it and he didn't feel comfortable. He frowned when Cuddy reached for the pint of ice cream and the spoon, her body coming way too close to his for his liking. She smelled like sweat and some type of cleaning product, and strangely, House found that sexy as hell.
Hell. There was probably a place in hell designated for sick people like him.
She sat back on the couch and didn't seem to give her post-pregnancy diet a single thought as she began working her way through the ice cream, licking the spoon every so often as she watched the game. House frowned, disgusted with himself, because despite the fact that yes, maybe he'd been stupid enough to give her a child (though sex was never a part of the deal), she was still Cuddy and this godforsaken attraction was plain sick.
Not that he found anything wrong in giving her the look-over every once in a while. He was, after all, a man, and the woman was hot. Infuriating, but hot nonetheless. She was an endless provider of good shower fantasies, and a great catalyst for getting off quickly, but there was still something disturbing in the whole ordeal, something he quite couldn't explain. He'd always been able to cover his tracks quickly but sometimes that wasn't easy with Cuddy. Sometimes she got into the habit of getting one step ahead of him and that was frustrating. It was easy to play with Wilson, who would merely sigh and proceed to ignore him as if House were a child. It was easy to manipulate Cameron with a couple of insensitive jabs or the misconception that he actually considered her suggestions.
For every jab he threw at Cuddy, however, she threw one back. Most of the time, it was fun. Other times, however, when things began to stir south of the belt buckle and he began to get images of him pushing her against a wall and shutting her the hell up in unholy ways, it was downright infuriating.
As was the way her full attention was on the pint of ice cream, and the way her bare feet were now up on the coffee table as well, and the fact that she wasn't wearing make up or showing cleavage or smelling like ugly flowers and yet he still felt like reaching over and dipping his fingers deep inside her pants just for the fucking hell of it.
He frowned at himself, annoyed. "Be kind to poor Garcia," House said. "You're not eating for two anymore, you know."
"Yeah, you're right," Cuddy said absentmindedly. "Tell me more about dinners for one?"
House grimaced. "Oh, zing!"
Cuddy smiled cynically and finished the pint, and as she stood up to discard the empty cup, a loud cry reverberated down the hall.
House rolled his eyes. "What's her problem now?"
"Diaper change."
He quickly stood up. "Well, look at that, time flies when you're in the company of misery."
"Relax, I got it," Cuddy sighed.
But House stood up anyway because he didn't want to be witness to Cuddy's interactions with her spawn child. The thing's existence was disturbing enough. He didn't want to add sweet images into her repertoire.
Cuddy stopped and looked at him, and he wasn't sure if her eyes were bigger or it was merely the huge bags under them that gave out the illusion that she was trying to grow two more holes on her face. He felt crabby and awkward again.
"You're..." he struggled with the words as she looked at him expectantly, "not going to go crazy and drown her in a tub, are you?"
She smiled as best as she could under the accusation and looked around. "I'm fine, House."
He nodded. "Cause I'm not feeding that thing again. Not sober, anyway."
"Well, the amount of therapy money I'll be able to save more than makes up for it," she said. "But thank you."
He rolled his eyes, not knowing why, grumbled something unintelligible at her and began his trek towards the door.
"Oh, and by the way, the file?" Cuddy said, holding it in the air. "The pages are empty."
House frowned humorously. "What... oh, you wanted me to fill it out! I thought you were just out of paper."
Cuddy sighed and walked over, slapping the file on his chest. "On my desk by Monday afternoon."
"My desk is less susceptible to splinters," House growled suggestively. "Unless you're into that, of course."
"Ugh. Bye, House," Cuddy said, annoyed, and pushed him out the door.
Outside, House frowned at the knob for a second, hearing the click of the lock, and feeling weird, but somehow sedated after two (or three, four) full months of agony. The flowers she had planted along the house emitted a strong smell, and it contrasted heavily with the stench of baby on his shirt and pants in a way that made him feel feminine and dirty. He needed to shower. Desperately.
On his way back to his motorcycle, House reached for his cell phone and dialed a few numbers. Wilson picked up after a couple of rings and he sounded annoyed. Good. House hoped he'd managed to distract him from an important play. He could hear the game in the background, the audience cheering, and felt a little jealous.
"Hello?"
"I drank Cuddy's breast milk, and I liked it."
For a long time, there was silence on the line.
"What did you-where the-what?"
"Just thought you should know."
He hung up and pocketed his cell phone, straddled his motorcycle and ignored the subsequent ringing of Wilson's call as he sped out of the neighborhood.
The End