Previously on House: the Present Days

This is the sequel to my story The Present Days. I recommend that you read that first (if you already have, you can skip this and go to the first chapter of the real story), but in case you don't want to do that, here is a recap of some relevant things that took place there:

After a phone call House disappeared for a couple of weeks to Japan and when he returned he had a child with him. On his return he saw Cuddy in her office and gave her an explanation:

"But back to the story," House sighed. "When I was fourteen my father was stationed in Japan. While there I met this doctor, who really inspired me to become a doctor myself. He was the go-to-guy. When no other doctor knew what was wrong with the patient they called on him. The thing was that that was the only time they did go to him. Other times they ignored, ostracized him because he was a hinin, a buraku – one of the untouchables. Once I finished medical school I went back to Japan for a year. I was not licensed to practice there, naturally, so I got a job in the morgue of the hospital where he worked. I spent a year doing autopsies under his supervision, finding out what really had killed the patients. He was my mentor. Once I came back, we didn't really keep in touch, just enough to make sure that if needed we could reach each other. He was the one who phoned me."

Cuddy was listening to House in absolute silence, she barely dared to breath. House rubbed his temple and went on explaining.

"His son and daughter-in-law were in an accident. They had been on their way to the hospital because Noriko's contractions had started. They were hit by a drunk-driver. The son died instantly, but Noriko was still alive when she was brought in. She didn't survive but they managed to save the baby. Noriko's parents had disowned her for marrying a buraku and as Benjiro was an only child Akira was left with the baby. He is not young anymore and his wife passed away two years ago, taking care of a baby would not have been easy, nor could he be sure for how long he would be around for her. Also he wanted something better for his granddaughter than what she was likely to have in Japan – even with the recent improvements on the status of burakus. He called me because I'm the only one who could help him, the only one he could ask."

"Who in his right mind would give you a child?" Cuddy stared.

"Hey, I'm not that bad!" House pretended to be insulted. "I'm a doctor, I have a steady job, I have friends and family – at least on paper I have – and frankly, I may suck as an option, but not as badly as the other one she had."

House adopted the child and thus he now has a daughter, Aiko. He asked Cuddy to help and in return, one night in his apartment, he also offered to help Cuddy:

"I'm not being disgusting," House huffed. Then he got serious. "Look Cuddy, I have now had Aiko for fifteen days. I didn't have time to want her or not want her before she was mine. I didn't have a choice. But I will kill anyone who tries to take her away from me now. So I can understand your yearning for a child now, at least a little. I know we are not friends in any conventional sense of the word, but conventional or normal has never quite worked for me anyway. In an unconventional but still a very real sense, we are friends. So as a friend I'm asking that as you are ovulating now do you want to do something about it?"

Cuddy stared at him trying to process what he had just said. "I'm not sure I'm ovulating," she finally told him trying to make some sense out of this strange conversation. "I know it's about the time I should be, but since I gave up trying to conceive, I haven't monitored it. I haven't taken my temperature, nor have I done the test."

"Then you just have to trust me: you are ovulating," House told her. "You don't tear up in front of me if you can help it, unless there is a hormonal reason for it."

"Maybe I am," Cuddy shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. I gave up on that dream."

"Why?" House asked. "Just because you miscarried once, is no reason to think you were never meant to be a mother. Yes, you don't have a lot of time before your biological clock ticks time out, but you can still give yourself at least another chance. Even if you don't want to accept my offer, don't let fear rob you off your dream. Afraid is not you!"

"Oh, that is where you are wrong, House," Cuddy smiled sadly. "Afraid is very me. That is why I have a career but no life. I would have thought, you of all people, would have recognised that."

"But even though you focused on your career, you eventually tackled the life issue, too," House pointed out. "And on your own; you didn't wait till you were lucky enough to have someone hand it to you. You did something to get what you wanted. Maybe I didn't completely agree with the way you chose to find a father for your child, but you went after what you wanted. Are you chickening out before you have even properly started?"

"I don't know," Cuddy sighed. "When you put it like that, I suppose I gave up too easily. But the treatments are rough."

"I'm offering you an alternative to them," House reminded her. "If you cannot stomach the idea of having me in your bed – or actually it would be my bed, but you get the idea – then I'm sure Wilson left a turkey paster in the kitchen somewhere. Mind you, I'd much rather wield my own than his!" The last sentence House said wiggling his eyebrows at her suggestively.

In the end they did it the "natural" way and Cuddy ended up pregnant; in fact she ended up very pregnant. After having had her first ultrasound she stormed into House's office with the picture:

"What is going on?" Blythe had just walked in and naturally wondered what Lisa was yelling about, though she was not surprised to find her yelling at House. Greg seemed to have a knack for getting people to yell at him. Cuddy turned to look at Blythe.

"Your son knocked me up with triplets!" Cuddy cried in distress.

The effect of her words was immediate. Wilson, who had taken the picture and was preparing to sit down to examine it, missed his chair and found himself on the floor, Chase rocked his chair too far and ended up on the floor as well. Foreman had just poured himself a mug of coffee and he missed with the pan and it ended up on the floor broken and splashing his trousers with hot coffee. Cameron dropped the file she had in her hand and stood at the white board like a deer caught in headlights. With deep satisfaction House surveyed the havoc Cuddy's statement had created and he said: "Way to go Cuddy!"

Blythe was the only one unaffected, besides House. She walked to Cuddy, took her in her arms and said: "Oh, Lisa my dear," then Blythe turned an accusing – if slightly twinkling – eye to House and admonished: "Gregory, how could you!"

House's mother, Blythe, is separated from her husband and thinking of divorcing him. She found out about the abuse her son had been subjected to as a child and could no longer stay with her husband:

"What is it, Mother?" House asked as he took Blythe to sit on the couch.

"I had an argument with your father," Blythe revealed. "And the end result was that I told him to go home."

"Alone?" House questioned carefully.

"Yes, alone," Blythe confirmed. "I'm not sure what else will happen now, but I could not have him near me now."

"What was the argument about?" House asked, though he had a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach telling him that he already knew.

"Well we started with Aiko, of course," Blythe sighed. "I truly cannot see what his problem is with her, but he has one. Anyway, that is irrelevant now. We didn't stop there. He finally told me what had happened between you two during the three weeks I was with my mother when she was ill. I'm sorry Greg. I should have known, I should have seen."

"How? If neither one of us told you anything how were you supposed to know," House told her. "You're not clairvoyant; you don't read minds, though sometimes I suspect that you do. If I didn't tell you about the baths and sleeping out, how were you supposed to know?"

"He should have told me," Blythe said. "He behaved like what he had done was just normal. Just part of bringing up a boy. That it was something all boys needed. But if it was that normal; that much of no big deal, why did I hear of it now! Why not when it happened? Why, if that was what he was planning to do, didn't he talk it over with me before I left? He must have known he was wrong. He must have known it was not right thing to do. You were a child! I could, maybe, understand his actions had you been a teenager. Once you had taken a proper interest in sports it could have made sense to toughen you up as he put it. But not when you were a child."

"I'm sorry mother," House didn't know what else to say.

"You have nothing to be sorry about," Blythe caressed his cheek. "I saw how you had changed, but I thought it was because you felt I had abandoned you. And I had, hadn't I? Then when we found out that you had pneumonia, I thought all your listlessness had been because of that. And that's another thing; how could your father have forgotten that you ended up in hospital with pneumonia! But even when that had cleared up, you were changed. And I didn't really see it. I'm your mother! And I didn't see. I thought you had changed because of the illness; that you had grown out of your childhood. And though I was right about that, I should have seen why! I should have seen then, what I see now: how you avoided your father ever since; how you never wanted to be alone with him again. How you actually feared him till you grew old enough to stand up for yourself."

"He's my Father," House pointed out. "How could you suspect him of anything? It wasn't like he had given you any reason to before, or even since. You didn't abandon me; you left me with my father, you husband the one person you should have been able to trust with anything."

"I told John off today, for thinking that he is always right though he often isn't," Blythe gave a rueful, almost bitter laugh. "I pride myself of being a judge of people; of being able to tell almost instantly if they are lying. The Fates must really be laughing their heads of right now."

Finding himself with unexpected responsibilities, House got a Nanny for his daughter, a physical therapist for himself (for pain management) and a house big enough for his family:

Cuddy looked at the house. It was huge but it was in proportion. It did not look cumbersome or contrived. Though the main part of the house was two stories high, the ground floor seemed to be L-shaped and the part that faced the other street was on one floor. There was a huge Japanese Chestnut tree on the front lawn seemingly sheltering the entrance to the house. It was difficult to say for sure from the front but Cuddy thought that the house probably had a fenced back yard. The neighbourhood, the yard, the tree were perfect for Aiko, but what in the name of all that was holy was House going to do with such an enormous house!

"Are you out of your mind House?" Cuddy wondered out loud.

"Probably," House agreed with her. "In fact I'm probably a whole lot more out of my mind than you can even guess right now. But reserve your judgement till the end of this tour, because regardless of my mental state I still want your opinion of this property."

"Fine, I'll look it over for you, but I will be very, and I mean very surprised if I end up recommending the purchase to you." Cuddy shook his head.

They toured the house. The real estate agent told them that it had been recently remodelled to operate as a bed and breakfast place. For that reason it had also been made handicap accessible with a lift to the second floor. Upstairs they found six bedrooms, two big ones at each end of the corridor both with en suite bathrooms and four smaller ones in between with two shared bathrooms. Downstairs they found one more bedroom with toilet and a shower near it though not en suite. Most part of ground floor was taken up by the living room, dining room and kitchen which also had room for a small breakfast corner. Through the kitchen there was access to a small self-contained flat obviously meant for a housekeeper or a cook. The flat had a spacious bedroom, nice living room and a very small kitchen, mostly meant for making breakfast or evening snacks. From the main part of the house it was also possible to descend to the basement where they found a small gym, a steam room with showers and a Jacuzzi.

Once they had toured the main house they went through the living room to the side entrance which lead to the annex or granny-flat as the agent called it. It was obviously the part of the property where the owners had intended to live. The annex was a two bedroom flat with a spacious living room that had a window alcove big enough to serve as a small dining area. The kitchen was not very big but well fitted. The flat had its own front door which gave to the other street. Outside they did indeed find a fenced back yard suitable for children and dogs.

When the tour was over the estate agent left them alone saying she would be back in half an hour to get the key but that till then they could have the house to themselves.

--------

"Do you have a plan for taking care of the triplets while you work?" House asked Cuddy.

"Well, I'm only just getting used to the idea of having them so I haven't really given it much thought. Why?"

"When we assumed that you were going to have only one baby, I had no intention of being closely involved in his or her life," House revealed. "Sure I meant it when I said that I would help, but you would have been the child's only parent. I would have been more like an uncle or something. But now there are three of them and the situation is different. I really need to be more involved because you really need the help. That also means that Aiko will be even closer to them than originally planned. If we are going to co-parent the kids, we need to be closer to each other. And I mean that literally. No way can it work if we both live where we live now. Besides, even though you do own your house it is not big enough for three kids."

"Are you asking me to live with you?" Cuddy wasn't sure how she felt about that possibility.

"Hell no!" House replied instantly. "Even if we were madly in love with each other we couldn't live together. Not you and I. We are too different in many ways and way too similar in some other. If we lived together one of us would murder the other within six months if not sooner."

"Then what are you talking about," Cuddy was puzzled.

"I would like for you to move into this house," House said.

"How would that help?" Cuddy didn't feel particularly enlightened. "If you stay where you are living now, we will be even further away from each other than we are now and if you move to live in here as well then how is it different from living together?"

"I was thinking of moving into the granny flat," House stated.

"I see," Cuddy said to win time to think because she surely did not see.

"Yeah, I know, a most unconventional solution," House squirmed a little. "See, the idea I have is that you, Kasumii and the kids would take over the upper floor, mother would live in the housekeepers flat – or if she doesn't end up divorcing Dad then we get a housekeeper. I will live in the granny flat and the ground floor is common ground. That way I have my own space, you have your own space and when we cannot stand each other we can retreat into our corners. I know it would not be easy, but I cannot see how else we could be parents to the kids."

"So we would be parents to the kids," Cuddy repeated. "What about us? What would we be to each other?"

"Friends?" House suggested. "At least when I'm not getting too much on your last nerve."

At the beginning of this new story House's daughter, Aiko is six months old and Cuddy is five months pregnant. They have not yet moved into the new house as it is being furnished and partly redecorated – mostly the nurseries and the granny flat. House's mother Blythe is living upstairs from her son for now, and will move in to the new house with him once it is ready. She hasn't yet made up her mind about divorce, but she is definitely staying in New Jersey, as she doesn't want to be far away from her grandchildren. She is the only one who knows for sure that House got Cuddy pregnant the traditional way; others have been more or less told that House just made a donation and there was no actual sex involved. The main reason for this lie is that the hospital board is not too happy about Cuddy's pregnancy and might get difficult on her if they found out that she had had sex with one of her employees.

The new characters that were introduced to PPTH in The Present Days are:

Kasumii Tanaka, Aiko's Nanny, 21 years of age, Japanese but as her mother is married to an American has dual citizenship. House treats her like she was his niece or something and he often calls her an infant.

David Grey, 29, House's physical therapist, an Englishman, can hold his own with House most of the time, in love with Kasumii. They are dating.

Dr. Akira Higa, Aiko's paternal grandfather, sixty something, probably 65. Lives in Japan but is expected to come and visit his granddaughter.