A/N: This fic assumes Bombshells and on never happened and that House and Cuddy are capable of being adults in an adult relationship. How novel. Special thanks to melissaisdown and Essy for betaing and gammaing, respectively.

Disclaimer: I don't own House and Cuddy. I do, however, have them locked in a barn somewhere in rural Montana, and I'm not giving them back until my demands are met.

Prelude

He does it like he does everything – brash, insensitive, and with incredibly bad timing. She's carrying two wine glasses to the table, both of which she drops.

He stands up and silently retrieves the broom and dustpan and holds them out to her. She just gapes at him. "What?"

"I asked if you were still interested in getting pregnant." He presses the handle of the dustpan into her palm. "Here. I'll sweep."

She squats down and obediently holds the dustpan steady while he sweeps shards into it, still not speaking. When all the shards are swept up, he takes it from her and empties it into the garbage and returns with fresh wine glasses to find her sitting at the table with her head in her hands. He calmly takes a seat across from her and pours himself a glass of wine, and then hesitates. "I guess I should probably wait for your answer before I pour for you."

She reaches across and takes the bottle from him, filling her glass like it's juice. She takes a long drink. He nods. "Guess that answers that."

"First of all – " She takes another drink. "If you think you're going to spring that on me and I'm not going to immediately start drinking, you're out of your mind. And second of all, having a glass of wine has nothing to do with the chances of conceiving."

"Well sure, not if you want a Mongoloid."

"House." She refills her wine glass. "What made you ask me that?"

"The desire to know the answer, mostly. Although seeing your reaction was a bonus, I have to admit."

She looks at him for the first time, her eyes searching his face for whatever it is she hopes to find, there. "I'm serious."

"So am I." He shifts in his seat a little.

"You're offering to have a baby with me?"

"I'm asking if it's still something you want. Whether or not I'm willing is irrelevant."

She rubs a hand over her eyes, the weight of the conversation already exhausting her. "I'd say it's pretty relevant. What's the point of asking me if you're not actually willing?"

"To find out if you're going to resent me for not giving it to you, for starters." For the first time since the subject was broached, the apple pie sitting on the table is acknowledged. He cuts a slice for her, first, and then one double in size for himself. "I'm not actually trying to screw with you, Cuddy."

She concentrates on her pie for a few minutes, not even eating it, just moving a warm apple slice around on the china and contemplating the magnitude of the moment – both the question at hand and the fact that House is actually asking her out of an apparent desire to better their relationship. Eventually, she takes a bite, chews, swallows, and speaks. "I honestly haven't thought about it."

"Right." He rolls his eyes. "The weekly pilgrimage to the maternity ward is to check on sanitation standards."

"I like babies. It doesn't mean I've been fantasizing about having one."

"So your attention to the ones with blue eyes is just coincidence."

She smiles. "They all have blue eyes, House."

"Exactly."

She slides a hand across the table and brushes her fingers across his wrist, the fine hairs of his arm tickling her. There's something to his tone that stirs her own emotions, and she can't help but think it's a hint of resentment. It stings her. "I have Rachel. And I barely get to see her, as it is. It doesn't seem fair to bring another baby into the equation."

"I didn't ask if you thought it would be fair."

"I know." She twines her fingers with his. "Lucas and I talked about it." She feels his muscles tense under her palm. "And that was what I said."

"You didn't want a baby with him." His ability to extract the underlying facts from her words is uncanny.

"I…no. I don't think I did. And it was easier just to use that as my reasoning than to get into the bottom line." Or the line below that, for that matter, she thinks. "And since we've been together, I haven't thought about it."

"Because you figure I don't want one."

"Because I've been happy with what we have," she corrects him. She feels his muscles relax a little, and his palm turns over to meet with hers.

"Good."

She blinks. "Good? You were just checking to make sure –"

"I mean 'good' that you're happy." His thumb rubs across her index finger and he shovels a forkful of pie into his mouth. She's surprised that he waits to swallow before speaking again. "You still haven't answered my question, though."

"I know." She stands up, still holding his hand, and rounds the table until she's beside him. Lowering her weight to his good leg, she leans against him and kisses him, softly at first, and then erotic. When she pulls back, she licks her lips, tasting apples and cinnamon and wine. "I need to think about it before I give you an answer."

He nods, eyes a little glazed over, either from the kiss or the massive amount of sugar he's just ingested. "Kay."

"Thank you for asking me. Even if it's not an offer."

He cuts himself another slice from the dish and nods before replying. "Thanks for making me pie."

They don't talk about it again, not for a few days, until she brings it up again with the same lack of lead-in that he, himself, employed. "I'd have to stop working, at least for awhile. It wouldn't be fair to do it, otherwise."

"You didn't stop working when you got Rachel," he points out, ignoring the subtext.

"One kid is one thing. Two kids – that's less time for both of them. And I wasn't in a relationship when I got Rachel. All of my free time went to her."

"You are now. You still go to work."

"Are you trying to guilt me?"

"Wouldn't dream of it. Your powers are far too strong for my measly goyim guilt trips. I'm just pointing out facts."

She sighs, and he watches her unbutton her shirt from his prostrate position. "Rachel's adjusted, at this point. If she were calling Marina 'mommy,' I'd worry, but she's not." She unzips her skirt and her hips shimmy as it slides down. "I'm trying to be realistic. A baby would mean less time with her, less time with you – it wouldn't work unless I took time off. Six months, at the least, maybe more."

"Little Greg would be supportive of that, if it means more time for him." His eyes are trained on the curve of her backside as she sits on the edge of the mattress and peels off her nylons.

"You do realize how difficult it is to have two kids and a sex life, right?"

"Obviously not. And neither do you. Just because your sister popped out a couple of kids and shut down the muffin factory doesn't mean you have to."

She slides on a pair of silky little shorts and pretends not to notice his face fall. "Even assuming all that wasn't a problem – that I took time off and could raise two kids and keep you…entertained…there are other considerations. I'm forty-three. Assuming I could even get pregnant, there are considerable risks."

"That's why we doctors came up with this neat thing called the amniocentesis."

"If something was wrong…I know you look at it from a medical perspective, but there are emotional aspects. You don't just throw out a bad batch and start over."

"Maybe you don't – "

"You wouldn't either, if it was your child." A matching tank top slides down her arms, falling gracefully around her torso. She finally moves to lie next to him, curling into his side in an ironic posture. "You don't have to believe me, but you wouldn't."

"Plenty of women at your age reproduce. Between the Catholics and the movie stars, forty-three is the new sixteen and pregnant."

She doesn't want to know if he intended the reference. "Most of them aren't doctors."

"Most of them are morons. Somehow they still manage to churn out kids with forty-six chromosomes. Stands to reason you could."

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you're trying to convince me."

"I'm trying to stop you before you analyze this thing to death. Either you want a baby or you don't."

"Wanting something doesn't mean you should actually have it, House."

"I never asked if you thought it was a rational life choice. I asked you if you wanted it."

She doesn't say anything right away, just enjoys the feeling of being pressed against him and the intimacy of actually talking to him. No yelling, no clinic hours, no domestic disputes over toothbrushes or toilet paper rolls. Sometimes the mere fact that they've reached this point boggles her mind.

Eventually, she turns over so her hands are folded neatly on his chest, chin resting on top so she's staring at the grey stubble on the underside of his jaw. He shifts a pillow under his head so he can look down at her. "It's…you. It's hard not to want it."

"I like how you used 'hard' and 'want' in the same sentence, there."

"Shut up." She doesn't want to smile, but it happens all the same. "It's not a requirement for me to be happy, though."

"Hypothetically speaking, though, me knocking you up would be a bonus."

"A…I don't know. I can't just separate the risks from – "

"Oh good God, Cuddy." His hands side from where they had been resting on her back to flop to the mattress, dramatically heavy. "Just answer the question, already – is it something you want?"

Blue locks on blue, and she knows – has known since the conversation began – that this is more than him offering. House doesn't offer things he isn't willing to give. Doesn't want to give.

She tries to tread delicately.

"Do you? Want to?"

"Not particularly."

Her sigh tickles the sparse hairs on his chest. "That's not really the sentiment one hopes for when discussing this kind of thing."

He shifts, and she slides off of him so she can get a better look. Sometimes reading his expressions are all she can do to make sense of what comes out of his mouth. "I don't vehemently not want to. Which is about as much enthusiasm as I'm humanly capable of, when it comes to this."

"I see." And she does, kind of. Everything with him is on a sliding scale of sanity. "So…what role do you see yourself playing, in all of this?"

"I think 'sperm donor' is kind of a given."

She feels something sink inside of her. "Oh."

"Just because we're all but shacking up and I've built up a vague tolerance of your preexisting kid doesn't mean I suddenly want to be a Daddy. Or that I'd suddenly make a decent one. You, on the other hand, are perfectly capable of raising a child, as proven by the fact that Rachel is still alive and you've prevented me from doing any irreparable harm to her, psychologically or otherwise. It's reasonable to assume that you could raise two of them." He pauses and there's a glimmer in his eyes that she can't decide if she likes or not. "Modern capable woman as you are, though, you still can't knock yourself up. That's where I come in."

"I…" She opens her mouth, closes it, tries to figure out what the hell she wants to say to him. "I…thank you."

"You're welcome? I mean, I know I spread rumors about you having a penis, but – "

"I meant for thinking I'm a good mother."

"Who said anything about good? I said capable."

She ignores him. It's a natural reflex, at this point. "I don't want you to be just my sperm donor, House." Not this time, at least. "You asked me if I wanted a baby with you, and you wheedled an answer out of me. I do, but not…like that. I'm not saying you'd have to be Mr. Mom, but…I don't know what I'm saying."

"You want more." He looks utterly unfazed. Like he'd known that all along.

"Yes."

"How much more is more?"

"I honestly don't know. More than just…getting me pregnant. And I think if we did this, we'd have to figure out a way so that Rachel didn't feel like she was being treated unequally."

"So the Squirt gets all the rights and privileges bestowed upon my legitimate heir?"

She suddenly wishes she hadn't waited until they were getting ready for bed to bring it up. Typical cowardice, she thinks – leaving it until the last minute. Or, she supposes, atypical. At work, she confronts the difficult parts head on. At home, she's no better than he is, the king of procrastination. "I don't really know. A lot of it, we'll probably have to make up on the fly. I just want to make sure Rachel doesn't suffer because of any of this."

"You're using the future tense."

"What?" She rubs at the creases in her forehead, wondering how much deeper they'll be when this conversation runs its course.

"Up until just then, you were using the conditional. Now you're using the future. Which means something changed. Now it's not a 'what if,' it's a 'when.'" He looks almost smug. "You decided."

"I – it doesn't matter what tense I used. I'm tired."

"You're smart and you spend ninety percent of your time at work drafting memos and proposals. You know the difference. Which means, your subconscious knows the difference."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, House."

"Christ has nothing to do with this, I assure you. He doesn't mettle in normal methods of conception. At least when there are Jews involved."

"Mary was a Jew."

"And a virgin. You're not."

"Thanks for that update. Can we please turn the conversation back towards the issue at hand and away from…whatever weird religious discussion that was?"

"What for? It's obviously been decided."

She's starting to feel that heavy ache in the crown of her skull, like when she's staring at a budget report that doesn't add up or one of House's doctored case files. "Did I black out just then? Because I don't recall us coming to a decision, either way."

"You said 'when.'"

"No, I didn't."

"You implied 'when,' which means that your subconscious reached a decision while the rest of you was having a conniption over everything that could possibly go wrong."

"I see." Sometimes the way his mind works is beyond her comprehension. Sometimes she finds that infuriating. Right now, she finds it oddly comforting. There are still a few hundred questions that need working out and discussing and she still needs to get an answer of some sort out of him as to his role, which is going to be like pulling wrought-iron teeth, but ultimately, as usual, he's right. She's already decided. The rational part of her hasn't quite caught up to the emotional, but she knows that it will, in time.

And for all his complications and hesitations and resistance, what she's witnessed, the evolution of his relationship with Rachel, gives her some hope. Or not hope, maybe – more suspicion, that underneath the thick armor he wears, there exists someone who does have the ability to bond with a child, in his own strange way. And that whatever he professes to the contrary, he won't be able to completely keep himself from bonding with a child of his own flesh and blood.

She studies him, frowning in that perpetual way he has, and she thinks maybe part of her rational self has caught up. Or at least, it's on its way.

"You don't happen to still keep track of my menstrual cycles, do you?" It's a redundant question, and the northward journey of his eyebrows reaffirms that. "It's depressing that you know it better than I do."

He shrugs. "I have a more vested interest in your vagina. Does that mean you've conceded to yourself?"

"It means…you should probably get in some quality time with yourself, because you're going to have to give up masturbation for awhile."

"Lame." He gives a little nod. "Roll over."

"Why?"

"So I can peel that patch thing off you. It's going to get in the way if you plan on getting knocked up."

"House." She rolls obediently to one side, giving him access. "Do me a favor?"

"I feel like I've already committed to a lot of those."

"Please stop calling it 'knocking me up.' We're not in a Judd Apatow movie."

"Says you. Personally – " he tears the patch off with a flourish, "I'm angling for a biopic."

She studies him, in all his immature humor and convoluted reasoning, a one-thirty-in-the-morning shadow across his neck and chin, and tries to make sense of it for a moment – why now, whether it's right, all of the things that might still go wrong. It's impossible, she thinks, to do, to find reason in a relationship with House. Absolutely all of it defies logic, not to mention natural instinct, except the magnetic attraction she has to him, physically, emotionally, everything. And as much as he scares the living hell out of her on a continuous basis, the bottom line is that the prospect of procreating with him, of having his child, makes her heart race like she's front row at a Springsteen concert being pulled onstage.

It's nothing short of exhilarating.