Hi guys!

Here's the new chapter. It's been a few months... The reason why is that I haven't been enjoying working on this fic lately, so I've decided to take a break and focus on other things. Hopefully inspiration will come back (it always does, eventually).

In the meantime, I had this chapter ready-ish. I'm not fully satisfied with it but I hope you'll like it anyway.

Please don't hesitate to leave a review, let me know what you think. I love hearing from you guys!

Thank you for your patience, and I'll see you soon :)

Chapter Eleven

It was still night when they were awakened by Rachel jumping on the sofa bed. House groaned and didn't dare look at the time. He heard Cuddy rub her face.

"Honey," she whispered.

"Get up, Mama!"

"She's still on east coast time," she told House.

He grudgingly opened an eye and looked at the microwave clock. "Well it's still five in the morning P.S.T. You're the endocrinologist, deal with her."

Rachel sat astride her mother's stomach and put her hands on her face. "C'mon, get up!"

"Rachel, honey," Cuddy said softly as she took her hands. "Do you remember when I told you we were so far from D.C. we're actually three hours behind?"

"No," she giggled.

"Well, your body –"

"Suprachiasmatic nucleus," House corrected, still turning away from them.

"– still thinks you're in D.C., but here in San Jose it's still night-time. So if you're hungry I'll get you breakfast, but if not, you can try going back to sleep for a little while, or play quietly in House's room."

"I'm not sleepy."

Cuddy smiled. "Oh, I think that if you close your eyes and really try to relax, you'll find you've still got some sleep in ya."

"Santa won't bring you any gifts if you don't," House mumbled. Cuddy swatted his shoulder.

"Nana said Santa don't bring gifts to Jews," Rachel said as she climbed down the bed. Singing, she grabbed her pile of books and took it to House's bedroom.

"I will kill my mother," Cuddy sighed once Rachel was out of earshot. House rolled onto his flank and spooned her.

Within half an hour, Rachel had joined them and curled up against her mother's chest.

Since Rachel was very much awake and the sun was out, they shared a brunch and drove to the nearest beach for the afternoon. House retrieved the towel he and Cuddy had in San Francisco, and they bought Rachel some beach toys on the way.

Once at the beach, Rachel immediately requested to go bathing, no matter how many times Cuddy had told her it would be too cold. They settled on dipping their toes. Rachel stood in front of her mom and laughed when the cold waves licked her feet. They didn't stay too long and joined House who was sitting on the towel further back, thoroughly drying their feet before putting their socks and shoes back on.

"San Jose or San Francisco?" Cuddy asked House, her head resting on his shoulder, as they watched Rachel fill her bucket with sand.

"Well, San Fran is very nice, but it's hell on my leg."

She nodded. "I'll look into preschools here then, see if I can get Rachel in before January."

"You won't change your mind then?"

She looked at him. "Nope."

"We made this crazy decision to live close to Shaun, move in together, and we don't even know if he'll want to meet us."

"The weather is nicer here than in D.C. or in Jersey," she argued. He smiled.

"I'll give you that."

"And Shaun isn't the only one I want to live close to."

They looked at each other. House smiled shyly.

Rachel upturned her bucket too far from the ground, and instead of the nice tower she was aiming for, all she got was a shapeless pile of sand. She had a disappointed pout. "Oh."

"Not so fast, kiddo," House said as he scooted closer to show her.

Cuddy watched with tenderness her boyfriend show her daughter how to make the best sand towers – he was patting the sand inside the bucket with her shovel to make it more compact.

She started planning the next few days – she'd have to find a house in San Jose and a preschool nearby, fly back to D.C. in January to prepare the move, pack her stuff, put her current house on the market, resign from the hospital, find another job…

"You'll have to tell me where that storage room is, in Trenton," she told House. "Where Wilson kept your things."

House turned to her with a timid, grateful smile.

…and return to San Jose as soon as possible to hopefully meet their son.

Rachel upturned her bucket when House told her to, and cautiously lifted it to reveal a tower. She clapped with excitement and House congratulated her.

She'd leave Rachel with House if it worked with his schedule at the bookstore. She didn't want the kid to miss too much school or to be always in between flights or long car rides. She had no doubt that he would agree, too.

Cuddy grinned. It might have seemed daunting to anyone else, but she'd administered a major hospital for years. This would be a walk in the park.

The following days, Cuddy went in search of a place when House wasn't at work, leaving Rachel with him. She explored San Jose with her kid when he had to be at the bookstore – it was owned by an old man who had to leave the shop frequently and didn't mind paying House under the table. He sold mostly antique books, which House hadn't been able to resist when he had walked past the shop. They'd immediately stricken up a conversation about old surgery textbooks, and when he'd told him about his frequent absences, House had offered to replace him.

By the time Christmas Eve rolled in, Cuddy had visited a few houses, but hadn't found the one yet – not that she had expected to so soon. House had surprised her by bringing home a small tree, which they'd helped Rachel decorate with a bunch of old ornaments in a cardboard box that he had brought as well. They had a nice meal and watched whatever holiday movie was on TV, before tucking in Rachel way past her bedtime.

House and Cuddy washed the dishes and showered. When they were sure the kid was asleep, they put under the tree the presents they had gotten for her.

Then, they opened the sofa bed and made love quietly.

"It's my first real Christmas since…" House reminisced as they lay on their back, staring at the ceiling in the dark. Her head rested on his shoulder and he caressed her bicep with his fingertips. "Since I was a kid. And even then it wasn't fun. Either my father was working and my mom felt lonely, or he was there and it didn't feel like Christmas."

"You didn't celebrate with Stacy?" she asked, curious.

He shook his head. "No kids so no tree, no Christmas traditions. Just a turkey and wine and an exchange of gifts."

"You had a case on Christmas, the year we were together," she remembered. They hadn't celebrated either, but then that was usually the way it was, working in medicine. He hummed. She took the hand caressing her arm and brought it to her lips, kissed the back of his fingers and held his hand close to her face. He extended his index finger and touched her cheek, light as a feather. "Do you like it so far?"

"I like what we do once the kid is asleep," he deflected. She grinned.

They slowly drifted to sleep. Cuddy felt him tap his fingers on his thigh, like on a piano keyboard.

It was time to move his stuff here.

On New Year's Eve, Cuddy had found a place that she liked and taken Rachel to visit it, who had approved. House had declined coming with them, reminding her that it was her house and that they'd decided not to move in together right away. She had also managed to get Rachel in the nearest preschool.

Every night she was exhausted by the time she came back to the apartment. House usually had Rachel bathed and in her pyjamas. She liked how they worked as a team to build their future in San Jose. For the first time, she felt like she could really trust him and count on him as a partner. He really had changed.

On the last day of the year, they shared a big meal and decided to wait until midnight to go to bed, although Rachel fell asleep by ten. They tucked in the kid and sat on the sofa bed, talking quietly while they watched TV on mute. At half past eleven, House suggested they opened the bottle of champagne that was in the fridge.

"Just open it like a normal person this time," Cuddy implored as House sat beside her with the bottle and two glasses.

They both smiled at the memory, but their smiles faded when they remembered Wilson had knocked on his door right after he'd broken the bottle – House even glanced at the door.

"Come here." House set the glassware on the coffee table and curled up on the sofa bed, resting his head on Cuddy's lap. She gently ran her hand through his hair as they thought about Wilson and waited for midnight.

"When you're in Jersey," he spoke up after a while. "Will you go to his grave?"

"Of course."

"I'll go as soon as I can fly again."

"I'll go for both of us in the meantime." He nodded. She kept caressing his hair. "I understand if you feel like you're leaving him behind."

House didn't answer, but that didn't surprise her. She thought that it would help that he wasn't looking at her. But admittedly, it was a difficult question; it upturned his vision that the after-life didn't exist, that since Wilson was dead and gone it didn't matter that he now lived two thousand miles away from his grave – except it did matter because the distance made him feel awful, things he didn't have words for because he wasn't used to them.

"I feel like I am," she confessed. "Even though he's not there. But we have all our memories with him there. We're reminded of him by any little detail. Here, it feels like we'll lose touch with our memories."

"I taunted him for wanting to move away after Amber died," he said.

"I know. But it's different, isn't it? You're not running away from his death. You're running –"

"Limping would be more accurate," he interrupted her, which she took as a sign that he was feeling a little bit better. She still rolled her eyes.

"You're limping towards meeting Shaun, towards life with me and Rachel." He hummed. "Besides, you have memories in San Francisco with Wilson. You shared them with me. He's all over the country now. You could go anywhere and he'd still be with you."

He smiled. "You know," he continued. "I didn't get to see his grave. I didn't go after the funeral because I didn't want to risk being seen. And after I saw you I drove straight to Casper."

"You will," she promised. They were silent once again. "He would want this for us, you know," she whispered.

He looked up at her. "I know."

They shared a smile. Cuddy glanced at the microwave clock, and bent over to kiss him.

"Happy 2013, House," she whispered against his lips.