A/N: My computer access will be almost nil for a while, and should there be any updates to this story... I'm sorry, but it's easiest for me to update my lj (auntietheo; I'll change my homepage link to go there too.) and that's where the chapters are going to be. It's just because the computer that I will have access to doesn't like and won't let me upload.
Also...ask and ye shall receive. PlayKate asked for longer chapters...this one is about 4X longer than most of the other chapters.
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Chapter 14
By the time Wednesday everyone knew that Dr. Greg House was engaged. By Thursday, everyone had heard just how possessive of his fiancée he was.
Cuddy had sent Cameron to listen to a guest speaker in immunology. If you hear it from House, dear, sweet Dr. Cameron couldn't just listen to the lecture, she had to stay after and ask questions leading the speaker to ask her to dinner. If you hear it from Cameron, she just stayed after to ask the speaker his view on a few other topics and he asked if she would like to get dinner to continue their conversation and so he could get a better understanding of the diagnostics department.
House had heard the doctor ask her out as she was giving a tour of Diagnostics. House's response was to ask if the guy had noticed the ring on her finger or that fact that the name on her lab coat was not what he was calling her. The doctor said he hadn't noticed and House responded with 'you're an idiot', followed by 'get your own.' Leaving another person totally stunned that such a sweet person would choose such an ass. What really got the visiting doctor was when Chase came in and said something had happened to Charlotte up in day care and both House and Cameron were gone before Chase even finished telling. The visiting doctor couldn't believe that not only were they engaged, but they also had a child together.
House had given a temporary reprieve to being grumpy and enjoyed scarring the crap out of the staff by being kind and as gentle as he could be with Charlotte, especially after the Thursday fiasco with a little boy in day care.
Cameron and House had just been focusing on making sure that Charlie was happy and healthy. They hadn't really talking about Danny since about the first month that she came to live with Cameron. The little snot in day care kept telling Charlie that she didn't have a dad. Charlie understood enough to say that she had 'Ouse' and the brat then told her that didn't count as a dad. It took an hour for both House and Cameron to calm her down and just as long for Cameron to talk House out of screaming to the boy mother for raising such a snot.
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Friday Morning
"Allison, did you and Greg ever decide about the visit with your parents? I only ask, because their lawyer called this morning asking if it would be happening." Stacy asked as she entered House's office finding Cameron sitting at his desk.
"I called my parents on Tuesday. They're coming in today. We are going to meet them at the park across the street from home."
"Don't you think that it would have been smart to tell your lawyer this?"
"House was going to tell you. I just didn't want to be forced to let them visit by themselves with her. I wanted someone to be there and not just any body."
"We could have worked something out."
"It's done now. We're meeting at 12:30 tomorrow in the park. I have clinic duty from 7-10a.m. and it's House's weekend off. I figure for lunch we'll picnic. Does that sound ok with you?"
"I didn't mean to come across this way."
"Well, you did. You can tell their lawyer that the visit is taken care of. Should there be any concerns let me know." Cameron got up from the desk and walked out of the office leaving Stacy to question what she had said or done to her.
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Later that day
"What happened with Stacy?" House asked once he reappeared.
"I don't want to talk about it here. I just want to go home and take a bath."
"She told me that you weren't very nice to her and I told her that it wasn't possible, because my Cameron is nice to everyone. Even is she doesn't like the person she's still nice." House told her, ignoring Cameron's distressed look.
"I may have been a little short with her."
"May have been? That's not what I heard."
"Well, the grapevine is wrong today. And I'm beginning to think that I was wrong to trust her with the adoption stuff." Cameron said tersely as she stuffed some paper work in her bag.
"What did she say?"
"Nothing really today. She wanted to know about the visit with my parents, which you were supposed to tell her about, and why she hadn't been told. My problem with her comes from the chat she had about us being engaged. She's not over you." Cameron let he guard down. She was tired of being at the end of Stacy's issues with House.
"It doesn't matter. I am over her and now I have you and Charlie. What more could I want?" He asked as he pulled her in to a hug.
"I love you. I just don't like her thinking that she still has some sort of claim over you."
"She has nothing over me. Let's go get Charlie and get out of here. You want pizza or Chinese for dinner?"
"Chinese. Charlie seems to like that better than pizza. We need to stop on the way home at the grocery store. We need some things."
"Why? We're getting Chinese."
"Because we're out of juice for Charlie and if we're having a picnic tomorrow we need food for that and I'm not going to want to do it tomorrow."
"Fine, but I'm staying in the car."
"I wouldn't expect anything different." Cameron said as they stepped in to the elevator.
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Saturday Morning
House awoke to find himself alone in bed. Glancing over to look at the alarm clock he watched the red numbers move from 4:23 to 4:24. It was not a common occurrence to find himself alone in bed and the sheets cold. He gingerly made his way from the bedroom to the bathroom for his pills. Once they were swallowed he made his way to the living room. He saw Cameron and Charlie watching TV.
"What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?"
"You're watching commercials."
"We are watching Little House."
"Is that what sweet Mid-western girls do?"
She would have hit him if the closed thing to her hadn't been his right leg.
"It was a good show."
"It was never a good show. You're going to ruin Charlie by making her watch this crap." He said as he sat next to them.
"I'm nervous about today. I don't know what's going to happen."
"Nothing bad is going to happen."
"You don't know that."
"Sure I do. I'm the only that can cause problems in your life."
She smiled at him and turned back to the TV.
They sat in relative silence until Laura stole a kiss from the one she loved.
"Is this where you learned to steal kisses from? You scare off any potential girlfriends and then you steal kisses from them?" House snarked
"I do no such thing."
"You don't? Then what was our first kiss?"
"It was mutual. You kissed me." Cameron retorted
"Ah, ah, ah, ah you stole that kiss. I just happened to enjoy it so I reciprocated."
"Whatever. If anything you stole it from me. You were the one that was trying to hide from Cuddy."
"When am I not hiding from Cuddy? You just happened to be there when I needed cover."
"So you admit that you kissed me!"
"I admit nothing. I just said that we should pretend to kiss; I never actually said that you should kiss me."
"You wanted it. You had that look in your eye, the one you get when you get a new video game." She grinned at him.
"That is not the look I get from looking at you."
"Are you sure, cause I think it is."
They were both getting a little to hot and bother in the company of the little girl who was now passed out in Cameron's lap.
"How about I put her back to bed and you can show me the face you think you make when you look at me."
"I think I might be up for that."
Cameron groaned at his joke as she got up from the couch.
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Cameron was thankful for the slow day in the clinic. House had managed to relax her some; she would have been more relaxed had their morning activities been closer to the time that they were meeting her parents.
"Oh my God," She moaned when she opened the door to the house and saw the scene that lay before her.
"Hi Mommy," House said as he waved Charlie's arm at her and Charlie just giggled at her.
"What happened here?"
"We were playing 'camp-out' since I can't go camping. We made a fort."
The fort was sheets spread out over the furniture encapsulating the TV, where some cartoon could be hear playing.
"I'm going to go in the kitchen to start lunch, why don't you—," she stopped and waved her hand at the mess and then disappeared around the corner.
"I don't think Mommy's to happy," House said to Charlie as they crawled back under the wall of their fort.
"Momma mad Daddy," Charlie squealed loudly.
House stopped and turned to look at her. That was the first time that she's called him anything other than House. Charlie's squeal also sent Cameron running in to the room.
"Did she just say what I think she said?" Cameron exclaimed.
"Yes," came a quiet response from within the sheets.
Cameron dropped to her knees and crawled under the cloth.
"Charlie, sweetie, what did you say?"
"Momma mad Daddy!" She squealed again.
"Charlie, where's Daddy?" Cameron asked.
Charlie crawled in to House's lap and snuggled into him and said daddy.
"Rugrat," as House affectionately called her, "who said I was Daddy?"
"'elly." House looked at Cameron unsure as what to say. They had never talked about having Charlie calling him anything but House. They'd also not told the daycare people not to refer to House and Cameron as Daddy and Mommy.
"I'm ok with it. We'll have to tell her that she has two daddies, because she does." Cameron told him.
"We're going to have to tell her, eventually, that she has two mommies, too."
"I know, but for now I just want to get through this thing with Sarah and my parents."
"And we will, cause now were Mommy and Daddy."
"Daddy!" Charlie bounced in her daddy's lap.
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The plan was to meet the grandparents around 12:30. Cameron figured that if they went to the park at about 11:30, let Charlie play for a little bit to work up an appetite, not that she wasn't already a little hungry from playing 'camp-out' with House. They would eat around noon and relax a bit, before her parents showed up.
"Daddy, side." Charlie said as she pulled him across the park to the playground.
"I can't go on that with you. We can go on the swings."
Charlie thought about it for a second before changing a direction slightly to go to the swings.
Cameron watched as House propped up his cane to pick Charlie up and place her in the baby swing, only to see the girl shake her and pull him towards a big kids swing. She then went back to laying out their blanket and setting their cooler on top of it before joining her family by the swings. She knew that House wouldn't be able to swing very well with his leg, so she was going to offer her services to be the pusher.
"You don't you swing with Mommy now that she's here. She's better at it than I am." House asked as they gently swayed as best as he could get their momentum going, but Charlie just shook her head.
"Daddy, I can push you." Cameron said quietly as she lovingly watched the two sway.
"Well, if you want to." House replied.
It took a few pushes before Charlie turned enough in House's arms to see Cameron pushing them. After about 10 minutes on the swing, Cameron noticed that House was struggling to keep his right leg up.
"Charlie, would you like to go on the slide with me?" Cameron asked.
"No, swing Daddy."
"Are you ok to swing some more?"
"I could use a pill or two." House responded. "Rug Rat, why don't we take a break, Mommy made lunch."
"Apple?"
"I think so and I think that she made your favorite sandwich." House told her, hoping that the swing would end soon.
"Nana 'n' nutter?"
Charlotte didn't notice as the swinging was slowing coming to a stop.
"Yup, I made you a peanut butter sandwich and spread some banana on it." House made is yuck face, which he made every time it came to Charlie and her nutter nana.
"Yay, nutter nana now please."
House set the girl down, who immediately did a u-turn towards the picnic blanket. House fished out his pills as soon as Charlie's feet hit the ground.
"You doing ok?" Cameron asked as she reached for the cane, that was now lying in the sand.
"Yeah, but next time she's not getting a choice as to which swing she wants. She's going right in the baby one. I think we have one of those kids that could spend hours on them."
"I think so too." She said as she helped House off the swing. "You going to be ok on the ground to eat?"
"Yeah."
They watched Charlotte as they walked towards here and noticed that she's already opened the cool, because she was drinking out of her sippy cup.
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"Good lunch Mommy." House said as he stole a piece an apple from Charlie, who nodded her agreement.
"I'm surprised you liked it, Daddy. There was a lot of healthy food there that you don't normally eat."
"Well, we need to eat healthy if we want this one to grow-up and be smart like her mommy."
"Momma 'mart." Charlie piped in.
"That's right she is. And if you keep eating the good stuff like apples you can be smart just like Mommy." Charlie nodded like she understood what he was saying.
"Daddy 'wing?"
Cameron could see the groan that wanted to escape his lips written on his face.
"Sweetie, why don't we go down the slide a few times and then our visitors should be here by then."
"Wing?"
"Baby doll—," Cameron started.
House could see the happy expression on the girl's face change from happy to one that he recognized as Cameron's 'fine, but I don't want to" face in the matter of a few seconds.
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House sat under the tree, where they had lunch, watching Cameron and Charlie at the slide. He was extremely amused when he watched Charlie force Cameron to go down the slide with her. He wasn't sure how much time had passed and he wasn't really watching to see when Cameron's parents would get there. He figured that if they were even a little late and Charlie was done playing that they could leave.
When he turned back from watching the latest car go by, he noticed that he girls had moved from the slide back to the swings. Cameron had managed to cokes Charlie in to the baby swing. They were facing him and Charlie would wave and call to him periodically.
He was now nervous. He had no clue as to what would happen with her parents. He realized that this was not only a meeting to help figure out what was going to happen with the little girl, that now called him Daddy, but he was meeting his fiancée's parents, more than likely not only for the first time, but probably the last time.
House had turned away for just a second to reach for his pop, but when he looked back at Cameron he noticed right way that her posture had changed. He glanced around the tree that he was leaning against and saw three people watching towards them. He recognized one of them as Cujo. He reached for his cell phone immediately calling Wilson to tell him to come to the park and bring Foreman with him and then placing a call to Stacy.
"Stacy, it's Greg. I need you to come down to the park as soon as humanly possible." He said into the phone even before she had a chance to question why he was calling. "Cameron's parents just showed and they brought Sarah with them and I know that that was not supposed to happen."
Stacy told House to stay calm and that she would be that as soon as she could.
House pulled himself off the ground as gingerly as possible and made his way towards the swings. He could tell that Cameron was already nervous. He stood with his back to them so they wouldn't be able to see the scowl on his face.
"She is not supposed to be here," she said quietly through gritted teeth.
"Try not to get too worked up over it. Back up is on its way and Stacy is coming too."
"Backup? Who did you call?"
"Wilson, I told him to bring Foreman with him. Chase is too much of a pussy to do anything."
"That's a dollar for the jar."
"Come on, you know it's true."
"It might be, but there's a little picture with big ears."
"I'm sorry."
"It's still a dollar."
"What are they doing now?"
"They're sitting at the picnic table watching us."
"It's a good thing I made the calls before they saw me then. I don't want them to be freaked before they have to be."
"You don't think that my parents aren't as nervous as we are?"
"I'm not nervous," House denied.
"Whatever, you didn't think I saw you watching all those cars go by or look around every time there was a car door slam that sounded close." Cameron grinned at him and he sheepishly looked around. "When is everyone getting here?"
"Amazingly enough everyone was at the hospital. My guess would be any where between 20 and 30 minutes."
"Yeah."
"Daddy 'wing more?" Charlotte broke into the adult conversation.
"Not right now. We're going to wait for Uncle Wilson and Foreman to come."
"Ducky!" Charlie yelled out.
House and Cameron just chuckled at the choice word. It was apparent that House had referred to his doctors as duckling quite a bit in the child's presence.
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Both parties stayed in their own areas waiting for the other to make the first move.
Cameron was getting impatient waiting for her cavalry to arrive so she made the first move, by going over to talk to her parents. She left House and Charlie on the swings. There was no need to get everyone upset.
"Hello." She said when she reached the table.
"Allison you look so beautiful." Her mother gushed.
Her father sat quietly and looked her over.
"We're going to have to reschedule this, because I had agreed to let the two of you," Cameron said as she pointed to her parents, "but I never agreed to, nor would I ever, to let Sarah visit."
"Allison, you have no right to keep me from seeing her." Sarah spat at her.
"I have every right. Even if I wasn't able to care for her, I am her legal guardian. I get to make those choices for her. If you hadn't gone about doing things the way you have, I might have a different opinion on how to handle this situation. When you showed up to my apartment back in January with the attitude that you had and you haven't showed me anything different since then, so I am not inclined to do anything for your benefit. You forget that you signed away your rights."
"I'm trying to get them back." Sarah told her.
"Yeah it took me about 2 seconds to figure that out when I was told that my parents wanted visitation. You're not a smart as you think you are. I don't know of any judge in their right mind would give you back your rights with all that love that you've shown Charlotte." Everyone at the table could hear the sarcasm dripping from the word love.
"Allison Cameron, we did not raise you like that! You need to apologize for that out burst." Her father finally broke in.
"That's right you didn't, you raised to believe that it was ok the kill your children by denying them medical treatment. You can contact my lawyer and we'll work out a visitation with them. It's not going to happen today. And it's not going to happen with her." Cameron finished by pointed at Sarah and then turned and walked away.
Cameron was some what pleased that she managed to hold back everything that we was feeling and upset that she had just let loose on her parents and Sarah like that. She couldn't even fathom what was going to happen in court now.
When she finally looked past her thoughts she saw that Foreman was standing was House and Wilson was swinging was a giggly Charlie.
"What happened?" House asked.
"I...um...didn't ask why they brought Sarah will them. I just said that there wasn't going to be a visit with Sarah here. I...ah...yelled a little at Sarah from going about things the way she had. My father yelled at me for my attitude and said that wasn't the way they raise me. Then I told them that they raised me to believe that it was ok to kill my children by denying medical treatment." She finished in a whisper.
No one knew what to say. They had never heard her say a bad word about anyone, let alone anything that bad. House had a faint grin on his face. He was a little excited to see the Cameron could actually be mean, but he could tell that she was upset with herself saying what she said so he pulled her in to a hug.
"Wilson, why don't you take Cameron and Charlie home. Go the long way. I don't need Cujo knowing where we live. Me and the juvenal delinquent are going to have a chat."
"House, please don't. I already messed it up. Let's just let Stacy handle it from here."
"Why does Foreman get to go with you?" Wilson almost whined. He wanted to see what House was going to do.
"Because I need someone to be my wing man," House didn't quite gag when he said that, but it wasn't pretty, "who looks menacing."
"I can look menacing."
"You may be my bestest bud, but you, my friend, are a lover not a fighter. Take them home, please. Also if Stacy wanted to handle this she would have been here already. I called her before I called these two and everyone was at the hospital. What does that tell you?"
Cameron just nodded, "So Monday we find a new adoption lawyer?"
"Yup. Foreman let's go."
Wilson and Cameron watched as the other two stalked across the park towards where the Camerons and Sarah were still sitting.
"Let's get you guys home, before something happens. I don't want to be a witness in an assault case."
"He wouldn't do that. I have to get the blanket and cool yet."
"I'll get it. Why don't you start and I'll catch up." Wilson offered.
"I'll stay here and swing a minute." Wilson nodded and walked towards the tree where everything was lying.
Cameron sat quietly gently swaying with Charlie as they waited for Wilson to return. Cameron wasn't sure what came over her. Maybe it was years of pent up anguish over what happened with her brother. She didn't really know, but now she was mad at herself for saying those things.
When Wilson returned they walked around the block, the long way. Which was really just walking through the alley to come up though the back yard.
By the time they made it home and Cameron went to the front window to see what was going on with House in the park, she saw that Sarah was no longer sitting at the picnic table and Foreman was doing his best to look menacing beside House.
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"What's going on?" Cameron exclaimed in to the phone when she saw House's number on the caller Id.
"I chased Sarah off," she could hear the smirk in his voice, "I've been talking to your parents and they want to apologize for bring Sarah with them. They were under the assumption that you knew they were bringing her. Also, they would like to try and visit. Before you say anything, if you want and only if you want, we could do this at the daycare center or Forman has offered to let us use his place."
"I'm not sure what to do. I feel awful about what I said."
"Hey, you don't need to tell me that. I knew eventually the sweet, always nice Cameron would come back and feel guilty."
"Sarah isn't going to be part of this correct?"
"No, she's long gone. Did Stacy ever come to the house?"
"No, did she ever call you to say she wasn't coming?"
"No."
"Let's do this at the daycare, because then there will be hospital security and then I can have a chat with Stacy."
"Can I be there when you talk to her?"
"No, this is going to be between Stacy and myself."
She could hear House huff his disappointment over the line.
"It's not like we're going to be mud wrestling. I'm just going to go in and ask for the file about the adoption and tell her that she's fired."
"Yeah, right and have you feel guilty for that too. I think not. I'll get the file from her."
"When are we doing this?"
"Right now if you want."
"Fine, why don't you ride with my parents and I'll drive over with Wilson."
"Why don't I just come home and we can go together and you're parents can follow us?"
"I thought you were the one that did want them to know where we lived and you're ok with them knowing what we drive?"
"Fine, I'll meet you there."
Cameron wanted to beat House there so that she could speak with Stacy without House interfering.