House, M.D. 1. Chapter 1

_This story is the sequel to my story Stay. Thank you for all comments and criticism! _

**POSSIBILITES**

**I.**

You have been married to Allison for almost a year (it seemed weird even to you, to keep calling her Cameron after that) when Wilson sits down in your office and tells you that Sarah is expecting their second child. He looks happy, and is clearly waiting for your enthusiastic response, so you give it. Truthfully, though, the announcement has caused a slight discomfort in your midsection that can't exactly be called a hunger pain although you choose to do so and wheedle Rueben money out of the happy father-to-be.

While you eat lunch, Wilson continues to talk about the baby-to-be. He wonders if it will be a boy this time, but then insists that it doesn't matter to him and that he'll be happy with another girl. He asks what you think of the names Martha and Theodore and you ask if they are the elderly parents of your latest patient. He gives you a look that says he isn't amused.

For the rest of the day you are in a lousy mood, and refuse to admit the reason why. You snap at West when he makes the coffee too strong and then you snap at Allison when she gets home from work late. She looks at you like you've lost your mind. You've never clocked her arrivals and departures before. You just grump that you're hungry and had to hold off on ordering dinner because you weren't sure when she planned to show up. She still looks a bit confused when she says that she'll just throw some chicken and pasta together and toss some vegetables in the microwave.

You're still scowling when you go to sit on the sofa, knowing that a late dinner isn't what's got you so bent out of shape. You realize that you'd better snap out of it pretty damn quick, though, because eventually she's going to start asking questions you don't really want to answer.

You make the mistake of actually apologizing when she brings in a tray full of food, and that only makes her more suspicious. It takes her another two hours of silently trying to figure you out, before you feel yourself start to crack. You know it's only a matter of time before she starts gently prodding you in that way you hate; not asking about anything directly related to you, but instead asking about who you've seen and whether or not Cuddy's pissed you off.

"Sarah's pregnant again," you tell her during a commercial break.

"I know," she says. "She told me this afternoon when we met to get coffee. Eight weeks along."

You nod dumbly. She wasn't supposed to know. This was supposed to be your segue into a completely different conversation and now you're not sure how to get there, so instead you say nothing.

She's the one who does the talking, and it takes her until the next commercial break to say anything. Her delicate brows are knit together as she asks you, in a very doubtful voice, if that's why you're in such a bad mood.

A shrug is your response. "What do I care about them and their kids?"

Of course that's a bald-faced lie and Allison knows it. The two of you are actually pretty attached to little Rebecca and you know that she's seen your expression go all soft when the little girl calls you Unca Greg.

"Aren't you happy for them? They've been talking about having another baby for a while now."

Sure, they've been talking, but you weren't expecting it to actually happen. That's the problem with life. Just when you get used to things, someone decides to go and change them. You were comfortable in your life with Allison, and then Wilson had to go and get his wife pregnant again and pull up a bunch of feelings you'd completely forgotten about. And then Allison had to know you too well and dredge up the reason for your mood before you had a chance to work up a way to go from telling her about the new Wilson addition to mentioning that you wouldn't mind getting a piece of that action.

Now that your whole - completely unformed - plan is blown, you just cut right to the chase.

"Y'know we could get in on that whole baby thing too," you say and then the show comes back on and you turn your attention to the television.

Out of the corner of your eye, you're watching Allison and she's looking at you like you just slapped her. That's definitely not the reaction you were hoping for. She gets up a minute later and leaves the room, and you curse under your breath and let your head fall back against the sofa cushion.

You watch the end of the show before shutting off the television, turning off the lights and heading down the hallway to find your wife.

She's sitting up in bed reading. Or pretending to read. You aren't sure which.

What you'd planned to do was just go through your nighttime routine and wait for her to speak first, but there's something in her face that seems to control your mouth and the next thing you know, her name is dropping from your lips.

"Allison," you say, in a more conciliatory tone than you think you've ever used.

"We talked about this already," she says, looking up at you accusingly.

"That was two years ago," you say.

"So? What's changed?"

You just stare at her for a minute, because the question is one which takes you by surprise. What has changed? Why are you suddenly feeling like having a kid running around the place might not be the worst thing in the world? Why does the idea of Allison growing heavy with a child make your heart beat a little faster? Why did you look at Rebecca last weekend and envy Wilson in a way you never had before?

"I don't know, but things have," you say honestly.

"Not for me," she says and the resolute tone of her voice is startling because you know what's driving it and you've never seen her afraid before.

You sit down at the foot of the bed and she pulls her legs up and sits cross-legged so that you can't touch her.

"It was a long time ago," you say gently.

"Greg, please," she says and the way she says it actually makes your throat tighten up. "You promised."

You promised you'd never mention her baby again. You promised you wouldn't make her think about it. You promised, and now you're taking it all back.

"And I'm so well known for keeping my promises," you say, and at the moment you're angry. At her, at yourself, at the situation; a situation you never would have imagined you'd be in.

Her reaction is swift: a look of intense betrayal and now you're angry at yourself for feeling guilty. You rub your hand over your face and utter two words that are mostly unfamiliar to you.

"I'm sorry."

She says nothing.

"I --"

"Can we not talk about this?" she asks, cutting you off.

Your irritation comes back despite the pleading look in her eyes.

"No, damnit, we can't! We're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about how I'm suddenly feeling all paternal and I don't know how to shut it off. We're going to talk about how you're so damn afraid of something that happened fifteen years ago that you won't even think about taking another chance. We're going to talk about why the hell we can't discuss all this like a normal married couple."

"Because we're not normal, you bastard," she said, her voice very low and controlled. "You're a misanthropic asshole, and I'm damaged. Remember?"

Suddenly you don't want to fight. You just don't have it in you to hurt her. The last five years have really changed you, as much as you try to deny it.

You think she must see that in your face, and all at once you are watching her features crumple and the sorrow of fifteen years overflowing her eyes. You know that she won't flinch away if you hold her and that's what you do, moving up to the head of the bed and pulling her into your arms.

"I want… I want what you want," she says, "but I'm so afraid."

Her fear is even reflected in the way that she won't say that she wants a baby, she wants a child, she wants to be a mother, as if even saying the words will jinx her for sure.

"And you think I'm not?" you say, in an attempt to slow her tears. "I've got all these damn "fatherly" feelings floating around and I don't know where the hell they came from."

You feel her take a deep breath and then smile against your shoulder.

"They were probably there all along. You're just good at stifling them. After all, it took four years for you to admit you had feelings for me."

"If I recall correctly, you forced me into that by sucking my tongue into your mouth," you say, remembering that day so long ago when she came walking into your office and forced the hand you might never have played otherwise.

"I don't regret that," she tells you smugly.

"Same here."

A few breaths pass and both of you relax.

A few minutes pass, and Allison speaks.

"I need time to think about it," she tells you.

"I figured you might."

You get up a few minutes later and go into the bathroom, change, brush your teeth and make your way back to bed. She's reading again, but she puts aside her book when you get in bed. The two of you turn off your bedside lamps at the same time and you lie on your back staring up at the ceiling. Allison rolls onto her side to face you and you feel her hand curl around your bicep. You don't usually touch each other in your sleep but her touch is exactly the connection you need at that moment. It reminds you that all of the new feelings you've had recently wouldn't even have been possible if not for her.

￼


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you all for the reviews! I really appreciate knowing that people are still interested in what I have to write. Hopefully you will all enjoy the latest part.

II.

The next day, you say nothing about babies or children or even short adults. You drive into work together, you sneak up to immunology to steal coffee, you diagnose a patient, you steal lunch from Wilson, you mock Allison for having to stay late to do paperwork, and then you sit in her office listening to your iPod while you wait for her. All in all, a typical day.

The next day is much the same, and the day after that and the day after that. You wonder where all this patience is coming from. Must be something in the water.

On the fourth day, the routine is the same but when you are lying in bed Cameron finally says something. It's not what you're expecting.

"Why do you want a child?" she asks, her voice low but clear, coming to your ears through the darkness of the room.

You roll over to face her but she's staring up at the ceiling and you can't see her eyes. It's pretty clear that your answer to the question is going to have an effect on Allison's decision, and you know you'd better say something good, but you already told her that your recent feelings confuse even you. That explanation didn't work for her, it seems, and now it feels like you're about to take a make-up exam you didn't even know you were supposed to be studying for.

"Why wouldn't I?" you say, trying to distract her.

"Because you hate all people," she says bluntly.

"I hate kids less than I hate everyone else," you counter, but you know she isn't going to accept that.

Rolling back over again, you stare up towards the ceiling, not really able to make it out in the dim moonlight filtering through the curtains.

"I wouldn't have wanted kids with Stacy," you say, and hear her harsh intake of breath beside you.

"What?" It's spoken quietly, but you think you can hear an edge of hurt in that single word, and you wish you'd come up with a better explanation.

"If the leg had never happened, and she'd never crippled me, and we'd somehow managed to stay together, I still wouldn't have wanted kids with her."

"I don't--"

"You asked a question and I'm answering," you say, cutting her off. "Now listen up. I'm not going to repeat myself."

You take a breath and continue with what you were saying.

"I never would have thought about wanting to share her attention with some ankle-biter, and I wouldn't have wanted to devote any of mine. I wouldn't have wanted to see her pregnant. Hell, I still can't imagine that. You can keep asking me why I want a kid now, and what's changed, and I'm going to keep answering you the same damn way. I don't know. All I know is that I think about you with a fat belly and swollen ankles and it's something I wish I could see. I think about holding a kid while you sit next to me and it's something I want to do. I think about loving something else besides you and I actually think I can do it."

Tilting your head towards her, you can just make out her features.

"I'm not saying I won't suck at it," you feel it necessary to tack that addendum on to your pathetically sappy speech.

"I don't think you'd suck at it," she replies after a short pause.

When she doesn't say anything else, you don't know what to do. You aren't about to beg or pressure her into anything, and it's not like you've always been Mr. Forthcoming, so her silence isn't something you can resent. A few minutes pass and you think she's fallen asleep so you roll onto your side and wait for sleep.

"I'm not trying to be a bitch," she says quietly about five minutes later, just as you're on the edge of a dream.

Wakefulness returns and you say, "I know that. You couldn't be one even if you did try."

"I just--"

"Just wanted me to know that you're still thinking. This is why you would not suck. Which is good, because at least one of us would need to know what they were doing."

"I wish this wasn't so hard."

You want to reach over and touch her, stroke her cheek, rest your palm on her hip, but you don't do anything except say, "Same here."

When you've heard her breathing even out and the very light snore that signifies deep sleep, that's when you reach over, touch her hand and wonder when you got so greedy.

III.

Unlike the movies or soap operas, Allison does not immediately become pregnant. Two months pass but you are unconcerned. The statistics for a thirty-seven year old woman aren't great but you aren't about to suggest any extra doctor's visits. Technically speaking, while your little soldiers aren't as old as her eggs, the barracks they come from are pushing (okay pushed past) fifty but the idea of doing anything to help things along just doesn't occur to you. The fact that the situation has been discussed and decided upon is enough. For the moment.

Two more months pass and honestly thoughts of your virility and Allison's fertility rarely pass through your mind. The two of you are back in your comfortable routine. You wonder if Allison is happy about not being pregnant. You think about telling her to start taking a daily vitamin.

Wilson brings in an ultrasound picture of the new baby. It's a boy and he grins like an idiot while giving you a rundown of his vital statistics and pointing out his barely developed dangly bits. You never used to have to try to distance yourself from emotion. It was a knee-jerk reaction for years. Now when you hold a grainy black and white image of something that more closely resembles an alien than a human, you have to fight from spilling your guts to Wilson.

When you get home you find a copy of _Taking Charge of Your Fertility_ on Allison's nightstand. That answers your question about whether or not she's happy with the status quo. You don't plan on mentioning anything to her, but naturally your mouth outruns your brain later that night.

She's just coming out of the bathroom, freshly scrubbed and looking much too young for you (as usual) when you mention her new book.

"Looks like you picked up a little light reading."

Five years of dealing with you has her prepared, and she doesn't even blink before answering.

"I decided it wouldn't hurt to find out if all the sex we've been having is just a waste of our time," she says with a smirk.

Actually, your sex life has been the same as always… which is to say, you've been keeping busy. You smirk back at her.

"Right. Wouldn't want to be giving up extra hours of sleep for nothing."

"Well, it isn't exactly hours. More like minutes."

She finds that much funnier than you do and proceeds to laugh while you roll your eyes.

You've lost interest in the conversation by the time she's ready to be serious, but she draws you back in quickly.

"I always thought I'd have children," she says in a very matter of fact voice, causing you to glance at her face for some indication of what her emotions are doing. Surprisingly, her expression gives nothing away.

"Well, that makes one of us," you say, unsure if you're really supposed to be saying anything.

"Yeah, I figured they weren't high on your list as a kid, but they were always pretty high on mine. It just seemed natural. I'd grow up, go to college, go to med school. get married, have kids. Didn't quite work out that way."

Her tone has turned melancholic and you know not to interrupt.

"I was happy with my husband. Really happy. And then I lost him. Then, when I found out I was pregnant, of course I was upset but then I was happy. For the first time since the funeral I had something to look forward to. But that didn't last either. After that, I don't think I was ever really happy again until you."

She looks over at you then and she's looking a little ashamed or nervous or maybe scared that she has said too much. It's sickens you that even now, when you're husband and wife, your past behavior still causes her fleeting moments of doubt. Yes, if some patient had told you that story, you'd have ripped it to shreds saying that some antidepressants were in order and denying the existence of anything approaching "true love". The thing of it is, it is easy to be a bastard when it's not personal. When the person telling the story is Allison, and you know damn well that she's not overplaying her feelings or angling for sympathy, every word seems profound.

You tell her that you think you spent about thirty years not thinking that "happy" existed. Naturally you leave unspoken what changed your mind about that.

She huffs out a little sigh and smiles lightly before continuing her train of thought.

"So, now here I am. Happy. Content. Then you go and bring up babies and it was all I could do not to scream at you to stop pushing our luck. I don't want you to think you've pushed me into anything. I'm the one who decided it's worth the risk, but for the last two months I've still had a voice telling me to quit while I'm ahead and stop wishing for perfection."

"And how does that explain your new book?" you ask her.

"I bought it because I woke up and realized that I didn't want to just be along for the ride. I want to be excited about having a baby. I deserve that, and so do you, and I'm tired of being afraid to hope for more than what I have."

It's frightening how she has just summed up the better part of your adult life.

You kiss her and tell her you don't need the book tonight.

Forty-seven days later, she walks into your office with a patient folder in her outstretched hand. You take it with an exasperated sigh, wondering what hard-luck case she's trying to thrust upon you. When you open the folder you discover that you are going to be a father.

Later, Wilson asks you why you were sucking face with Allison with all the blinds open. Usually you're more discreet. You just smile smugly and say you were in the mood.


	3. Chapter 3

IV.

One week after Allison's positive test result, Wilson and Sarah have the two of you over for dinner. Sarah feels the baby kick and Wilson comments about his son the soccer player. You want to brag to Wilson that you may be a crippled old bastard, but you've still got it. Cameron already stopped you from doing that once. She doesn't want anyone to know. Not yet.

She goes to her first pre-natal appointment at her doctor's residential office instead of just arranging time at the hospital. Sure, there's doctor-patient confidentiality, but that doesn't keep people from seeing what floor you're getting off on and discussing the possibilities. She doesn't want anyone doing that.

The first appointment goes well. You don't accompany her because you know it isn't going to be very interesting and it's not like you don't know the basic mechanics of pregnancy. She doesn't mind because she's pretty sure you'd just upset her doctor anyway. You have to admit that she's right.

A few more weeks pass and the idea of impending fatherhood becomes more and more real. It isn't something the two of you talk about all the time, and yet it's always there. You still have your jobs and your normal routine, and you aren't the types to suddenly have every conversation revolve around a peanut-sized blob of cells, even if that blob is your child. Still, there are mentions of moving to a bigger place, and comments about where a crib will go, and other moments that keep the baby from drifting too far from your thoughts.

A pregnancy book appears on Allison's nightstand, along with a book of baby names. You remember Wilson's question about Martha and Theodore and decide that you will need to steer her away from any names like those. Something normal. Something classic. Just not something that reminds you of the geriatric ward.

You know not to offer up Thomas as a possible name. A few months ago you accidentally/on purpose discovered a box filled with Allison's old journals and you discovered that she'd considered her baby a boy and had named him Thomas. That entry was followed by a seven month break.

Allison hasn't started referring to this baby as a he or a she yet although you've started to wonder about that yourself. You think that maybe that goes along with not telling anyone about the pregnancy. You can't decide if you have a preference. If Allison has thought about it at all, you figure she's probably hoping for a girl if only to quell memories of her son. A girl might be best. You don't have any experience with them because you didn't have a sister and neither did any of your friends. What you do have is memories of how your father parented you and you think that having a girl would be safer. Having no experience is probably better than the chance of following a bad example. Allison would tell you to stop thinking that way if you told her about your reasoning. She's always had a lot more faith in you than you deserve.

She doesn't want to buy anything for the baby until after her ultrasound. It's scheduled for week fourteen which is still ten weeks away, so you push aside the ridiculous urge to buy an infant-sized Rolling Stones t-shirt online. You bookmark the link instead. It goes in the folder with the links to the "Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me" onesie and the rattle shaped like an electric guitar. Your kid will be cool if you have anything to say about it.

Leaves swirl around the balcony outside your office and you stare at them as they rise and fall, some flying off over the wall and some joining the pile in the corner. It looks like it could start snowing any time now, and you think about snowmen. You built one when you were six It took all afternoon and your breath froze in your lungs and your fingers felt like ice by the time your mother finally convinced you to come in. The next morning it had been kicked over and you ran to the breakfast table to announce that it must have been Mike from up the street. He'd wanted to help you build it but you'd wanted to do it on your own. Your father told you, without ever raising his eyes from the paper, that he'd done it when he got home. He didn't want the whole base to see what a puny little snowman his son had made. He told you he'd show you how to make a decent one over the weekend. You didn't want to make another one, which was good because he never kept his word.

You do not want to be that kind of father and fear grips your heart at the thought that you easily could be. But then you think of Allison and know she wouldn't allow that.

You still think you'd be better off having a daughter.

The leaves also remind you that Thanksgiving is just a week away and Allison asked you yesterday if you wanted to invite your mother to come down for the weekend. The fact that your father will never know his grandchild does not bother you, but you are happy that your mother will be able to spoil the kid. You even consider telling her about it when you call, but you don't think she'd be able to keep the secret and you aren't eager to upset Allison. When you asked her when she was going to tell her parents, she said that she'd send a birth announcement.

You've only met them once. Briefly. They came to your very small wedding and left the next day. They didn't strike you as monsters, just distant and critical, but those are two of your main characteristics and Allison seems to like you well enough. There has to be something else there, lying stagnant beneath the surface, but you will probably never know what it is. Between the two of you, you have one decent parent. Hopefully you'll be able to give your kid a complete set.

When Thanksgiving goes off without a hitch you think about the fact that this time next year, you will have one more thing to be thankful for. Just before your mother is about to head home, Allison pulls you into the bedroom.

"Tell her," she says.

"What?" you ask, not sure if you understand what she's saying.

"Tell her about the baby."

Yup, you understood. You just didn't believe she was having a change of heart.

"You sure?"

She nods and smiles broadly. Then she grips your arms and pulls herself up for a quick brush of lips against your scruffy cheek.

"I want her to know. It will make her so happy," she says. "I'm sure that grandkids are the last thing she ever expected out of you."

That last is said with a bit cheek and you give her a mock-aggrieved look.

You have to give your mother credit when she doesn't immediately burst into tears at the news that she is going to be a grandmother in a little more than seven months time. Her eyes are definitely moist though, as she pulls Allison into a gentle embrace. Allison is the one who lets one tear escape, but she quickly brushes it away.

That night in bed, she tells you that she's glad your mother knows. Two weeks later, you're sure she's regretting it.

She wakes you with an elbow to the ribs and you blink your eyes in the bright light that is already flooding the room.

"I'm trying to sleep here," you mutter with annoyance. It's Friday and you had a tough case all week.

Then you catch sight of her face and all thoughts of sleep vanish.

"Something's wrong," she says, hand over her belly, complexion as pale as your sheets.

"What is it? Cramping could be normal," you say, trying to sound bored and disinterested instead of concerned. Concern will only make her worry more.

"Cramps," she confirms, "but I was also spotting before we went to bed, and now…"

She doesn't have to tell you that her underwear is warm with blood.

You fumble around in your nightstand, feeling for the old stethoscope which is lodged beneath the Playboys you never got around to throwing out and the picture of a nude Allison which she refuses to let you frame. When you finally pull it free, she is hovering beside you, her skin ashen. You can see the red spot on the sheets behind her.

"Sit," you command, and then press the cold bell to her stomach.

You keep moving it, moving it, moving it, trying to catch some sound of a heartbeat. It's actually a few weeks early for that anyway, but you'd hoped to hear something reassuring. You pull away and tell her to throw on some clothes.

You know she will crumble if you ask her if it feels the same as it did last time. Besides, you already know the answer. She doesn't ask you if you heard the heartbeat. She already knows the answer.

She doesn't even balk at going to Princeton Plainsboro. She just sits in the passenger seat and stares out the window as you speed down the cold, empty streets. She does the same thing on the return trip. It's three hours later and the sun is just beginning to rise, and Allison isn't pregnant anymore.

When you arrive home, she immediately goes to the bedroom, rips the bloodied sheets off the bed and stuffs them into a trash bag, along with her stained nightgown. You move to help her put new sheets on - which you never do - but she stops you.

"I can manage," she says, words soft and hard at the same time.

You go out to the living room and collapse onto the sofa. When she passes through to get to the kitchen, you follow her. She's making coffee. It's a very old habit.

"You should be resting."

"Why? What am I resting for? I'm fine," she says, stressing the 'I'm' and leaving unsaid that the one who isn't fine is your baby.

"No you're not," you insist, the stress and pain bubbling up to the surface. "You just-"

She slaps you before you can say the words.

"Don't say it. Don't you dare say it!" she's shaking now and you know that you must just be a hazy blur to her behind her tear-filled eyes.

So you don't say it, but you do grab her and pull her to your chest and hold her so tightly you're surprised she's not gasping for air. But you can't loosen your hold because then she'd see your face. See that you're hurting too. See that now you understand why she was so afraid.

"I shouldn't have risked it," she's whimpering into your chest. "I knew I shouldn't have. I knew it. I knew it. Why did I listen to you?"

And there it is. You knew it wouldn't take long. A month ago she told you that she was excited and that the decision had been all hers. But now she's grieving and she needs to blame someone, and that someone is you.

For a long time the two of you just stand there in the middle of the kitchen while the rising sun fills the room with gold and the coffee maker signals that it's done. Eventually you go back to the bedroom and crawl beneath the blankets. You want Allison to curl against your side and rest her head on your shoulder, but she rolls over to face the window and you're left staring up at the ceiling.

Allison doesn't go to work on Monday, but you do. You need to know if any gossip made its way out of the ER. Thankfully, it didn't.

Cuddy sends you a patient and you pass the diagnosing off on your fellows. You're not interested in healing anyone today. You spend the day in your office with your iPod blaring. You call Allison twice, and both times she tells you that she's fine.

When you arrive home, she's cleaned the townhouse and made dinner. She's not as pale as she was and she's dressed in jeans and a turtleneck. After spending the weekend in pajamas and a robe, it's an improvement. She asks you how your day was.

You ask her how she's feeling, because she can't keep up this Stepford routine for long. Her eyes are still red-rimmed and you spotted the half-empty bottle of wine on the counter.

She tells you she can't talk about it right now. She needs time.

You don't. You want to talk about it now. You know the statistics, and miscarriage was always a possibility, but you never let yourself think about it. Now you're forced to, and you're also forced to realize that there will probably not be a second try. You want to apologize and absolve yourself of blame at the same time. You say none of those things. You spent thirty-plus years keeping your emotions inside, and it's a habit that's easy to slip back into even if you don't really want to.

Allison throws herself into her work and so you do the same. No sense going home early if she's not there. You delete the baby gift links from your computer and you throw away the t-shirt you bought Allison for Christmas. It was special ordered with "Property of G. House" printed across the belly. It was tacky and completely inappropriate but you'd known that she would wear it around the house anyway.

Calling your mother is one of the harder things you've done. She's upset, as you knew she would be, and supportive, as you also knew she would be. There is quiet surprise when she reveals that she had a miscarriage before having you. When she asks if she should call Allison, you tell her that Allison isn't ready to talk about it yet. She says she understands. You wish you did.

Countless times you think about storming into Wilson's office and letting your pent up emotion spill out all over him. The anger, disappointment and grief feel like they're strangling you. The feeling grows stronger as Allison becomes quiet and distant. You want your wife back.

The Wednesday before Christmas, Sarah gives birth to a healthy baby boy. They name him Nathanial and Allison holds him and kisses his head and somehow keeps from crying.

A/N: This was a hard and sad part to write and I am will be very indebted to any who comment. I believe that the scenario is realistic, and I am hoping that it does not seem overly-dramatic, because that is not my intent. As with all of my stories, I've tried to take real situations and present them with emotion, but without too much drama. Only you can tell me if I've succeeded.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Here is the next part of this story. Thank you all so much for your comments. They mean a lot, especially after my extended absence from writing.

V.

Christmas is very quiet and low-key. You had expecting it to be one of your best ever, but you're reminded how things rarely turn out the way you expect. You watch Allison as she waters the tree and force yourself to remember that sometimes they turn out better than you expect. You should just be grateful that you have her. Everything else is a bonus.

The tree is set up next to the piano, and decorated with tiny colored lights and glass ornaments. Allison accidentally knocks one off and it shatters against the wood floor. She swears under her breath and then takes a deep breath. You wish that she'd stop taking those deep breaths every time she starts to get emotional. You want her to just drop her façade and finally talk to you.

On the twelfth of January you arrive home to a dark, cold house and shrug out of your coat while shuffling over to the thermostat. You pass the answering machine on the way and see a message waiting.

It's Allison's doctor. Her first ultrasound is scheduled for tomorrow and the message is her reminder. The muscles in your jaw tense and you scrub your face with one hand before running it through your hair. You don't need this now. You're just glad you heard it before Allison.

That's when you spot the envelope on the kitchen table.

It's a letter from her. A damn letter. Short and concise, it just tells you that she needs to get away for a little while. She writes that she loves you and she'll be back, but she needs space.

First she needed time and now she needs space. Your world is falling apart and it all comes back to your own greed. The two of you would still be happy if you hadn't brought children into the equation. The letter is crumpled in your fist and you hurl it to the floor and stomp down the hall to the bedroom. The closet door is open and you can see that she took her small suitcase and her overnight bag. Well, at least she didn't pack her whole wardrobe.

You look out the window where a light snow is falling and a stream of swear words falls from your mouth. She's out there alone and you don't know where she is, and you can't stand it. Pulling your cell phone out of your pocket, you push her speed-dial number automatically. Then, a split second later you cancel the call. If she sees your number you know she won't answer.

You dial Wilson instead.

"What do you mean, she's gone?" Wilson asks when you tell him that Allison has left. "What the hell did you do?"

"I got her pregnant! That's what I did!"

His question is absolutely the worst thing he could say - or maybe it's the best - because you start shouting at him. Shouting all the things you've wanted to shout for almost a month. You start with how hard it was to even convince her to try and go right on through telling your mother and then having to take it back. By the time you've finished, you're breathing hard and both hands are clenched, one around the phone and the other around your cane.

"Damn… House…" Wilson is struggling for words. "I'm - I'm sorry." He's obviously searching for something more meaningful, more helpful to say, but he's left with the trite standard.

"Yeah. Thanks," you mutter, feeling tired and drained and old.

"So… um… where do you think she's gone?"

You tell him that you have no idea and that's why you called him. You need him to call her, or better yet, have Sarah call her. She'll probably talk to her. Just find out where she's staying and make sure it's not some run-down Bates Motel. You tell Wilson not to tell Sarah anything about the baby. If he just tells her that you and Allison have had a fight, that will be good enough. Before he has a chance to ask you anything else, you hang up the phone.

A tumbler and the dusty bottle of scotch from under the kitchen counter become close acquaintances again as you sit on the sofa and stare at an episode of some simplistic police drama. The phone is beside you and you're waiting for Wilson to call.

He ends up knocking on the door instead, and he's carrying pizza and beer so you let him in.

Allison is staying at the Marriot down near the university, and she told Srah about the baby. You're surprised at how relieved you are by all of this information. You want to know how she sounded on the phone and Wilson answers with just one word: upset. You down the rest of your scotch and reach for the pizza.

There aren't many words spoken between you and Wilson. He doesn't ask any questions and you're glad because you don't know if you're ready to answer any. You're glad that Allison is in a safe place but you are angry and upset as well. She should have been able to stay home and deal with things. Yeah, things suck, but you're supposed to be going through them together. You're an idiot when it comes to relationships, and even you know that much.

Wilson stays until almost midnight and you're surprised. He's got a wife and two kids at home and carousing with you doesn't seem like his scene anymore. As he's gathering up his coat he tells you that you're invited to dinner the next day. He also tells you that Sarah's the one who insisted he come over. It's strange to have her not hate your guts, since all of Wilson's other wives have roundly despised you. She met you after you'd already been with Allison though, and although you don't think you'd changed much at that time (you still don't think you've changed much) maybe just the fact that a woman like her was willing to be around you was enough to make Sarah give you some slack.

After Wilson's gone you limp off into the bedroom and collapse on top of the covers. You toe off your shoes and get under the covers, but you're still cold. This bed used to be only yours, and you happily sprawled from edge to edge. Now you stretch your bad leg over to Allison's side but it doesn't feel right anymore and you pull it back. When morning comes you open your eyes and feel like you haven't slept at all.

Wilson doesn't come over, but he does call and ask if you need anything. You tell him you're fine and then you grab another beer out of the fridge and plant yourself on the sofa and let your mind turn to mush as you watch one B-movie after another on cable. Half a dozen times, you reach for the phone and then stop. It pisses you off that she's making you feel this way and you try to work up enough righteous anger to throw her out on her ass when she comes back, but it's impossible. She's hurt you but you don't feel bitter or vengeful about it.

You shake your head at the fact that at fifty-two years of age you have actually matured.

Sunday is a replay of Saturday, but you watch football instead of bad movies. Your diet has consisted of beer and snack foods and Allison would punch you if she knew. Of course she probably does know.

All day long you keep expecting her to come in the door. You're bound to see each other at work so it only makes sense that she return before that. And yet she doesn't. At six o'clock you call Wilson and make him call her. She's still fine. Wilson invites you over for dinner but you decline. The idea of being a visitor in their happy family doesn't appeal to you right now. Just before you hang up, you hear Nathanial crying in the background and the sound makes your stomach clench.

You're right about seeing her at work on Monday. Cuddy keeps you busy in the morning, insisting you do clinic hours and then sending you a patient who's already critical - a switch for you since usually it's your team that makes the patient critical before coming upon a cure. Wilson comes to collect you for lunch, and that's when you see her. She's sitting in the corner eating a pathetic little salad.

Walking over to her is an automatic action on your part, and you drop your tray down across from hers. She looks up, startled and almost fearful. She's probably expecting insults or yelling or public humiliation.

"Coming home anytime soon?" is all you say as you sit down, and your tone isn't the slightest bit nasty.

Now she looks surprised and she answers you with a nod.

"Tonight."

"Good," you say, and then Wilson is at the table and you pick up your tray and leave her alone.

She beats you home. The beer bottles and chip bags and jar of salsa have all been removed from the living room. The cushions are straightened and plumped, with the throw blanket draped artfully over one corner instead of tangled in a heap on the floor. The kitchen is clean, the bed is made, and the towels in the bathroom have been swapped out for fresh ones. None of those things mean a thing to you. You don't relax until you see her. She's putting her suitcase back in the closet and when she turns around the two of you just stare at one another for a good minute and a half.

"So you're back."

"Yes."

"Planning on leaving again?"

"No."

She walks over to you and rests her hand on top of yours on the handle of your cane.

"I didn't want to leave."

"And yet you did," you say, letting just a little but of your anger color those words.

She releases your hand and lets out a long breath.

"I heard the message on the machine. The one from the doctor," she amends, as if you don't know exactly which message she's talking about. "I'd thought I was doing pretty well. I mean I go to work, I don't spend my day crying, I thought I'd been doing okay…" she trails off as she starts repeating herself.

"How could you be okay if you never talked about it?" you ask.

She just shrugs.

"When I heard that message… it was like everything just swept back over me again. I felt like I was going through it again right at that moment, and all of these emotions came back. I was sitting on the kitchen floor crying and hitting the cabinets and it wasn't just that I was sad, I was angry. I was angry at you, and that's not what I wanted to feel."

She looks up at you then and her eyes are wet and pleading with you to understand and amazingly enough, you do.

"I didn't want to blame you. It's not your fault. I know that. You know that. But I just couldn't seem to let it go. I tried to start dinner, but I just kept getting more and more upset, and that's when I knew that I needed to leave. If I'd stayed we would have fought and it wouldn't have been a good fight, it would have been mean and hurtful and terrible. If I hadn't left, I think I would have driven you away."

It's easy to see how real that fear was for her. It's written all over her face. You start to tell her that there's no way she could have done that, but you stop yourself because even you aren't entirely sure if that's true. You've been right on the edge yourself, and who knows what the wrong words would have led you to do? Sure you'd have regretted it later, but by then you might have been too damn stubborn to admit you'd made a mistake.

With your free hand you reach out and pull her closer until she's snuggled against your chest. It's easier for you to talk when you can't see her face.

"I don't blame you for being pissed at me. I didn't make you lose the baby, but if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be going through this pain now."

"But I wanted it too."

"Could you shut up while I'm baring my soul here?"

You feel a very small smile against your shoulder and a nod follows.

"Maybe I should have pushed you to open up earlier, but I've been trying my best to ignore it myself. You don't realize how much you want something until it's gone. Now I know why you didn't want to try in the first place." It's the best you can do to tell her that you're in pain too.

"It hurts," she whispers.

"I know," you say, and the words are more than just a pat response.

"I'd started thinking about how we'd decorate a nursery and what kind of stroller I wanted. I walked through the hospital nursery and imagined myself holding our baby. Maybe it's horrible to say this and maybe even thinking it is what made me miscarry, but I wanted this baby even more than…"

She stops talking and just sniffles and takes a few shuddering breaths.

"This baby was part of both of us, and that meant so much to me. So much," she whispers.

"I'd already lined up some necessary accessories for the rugrat," you say, and you think about how both of you had been keeping your excitement tamped down and how it hadn't save either of you any grief.

Allison backs up to arms' length and looks up at you. "Losing the baby made me feel like a failure, and then when I couldn't get back to feeling like myself, I felt like I could lose you too."

Staring right into her eyes with your most serious expression you tell her that there's not a chance in hell of that happening. Unlike earlier, you now feel, down in the deepest part of your being, that you are speaking the truth. If she'd tried to push you away, you'd have pushed right back and stood your ground, because you can imagine her having your child, and you can imagine being a father, but you can't imagine ever not needing her.

That night as you are lying in bed you are acutely aware of Allison's presence beside you. She has promised not to leave again, and you've told her that even if she needs to get mad at you, you won't go anywhere either. As you fall asleep, you feel her hand reach over to touch your arm and you hazily think that eventually you'll both start hurting a little bit less.


	5. Chapter 5

Sorry it's been a while between updates, but I hope that people are still interested in this story! Let me know what you think of this part.

**VI.**

You buy her roses on Valentine's Day. It's completely out of character. Well, almost. You get them from the hospital gift shop so it isn't like you went very far out of your way.

Unfortunately Wilson sees you buying them and makes a comment about you being sweet. You want to hit him with the roses. Instead you tell them that you also got her a pair of edible underwear and hid it in her computer case. Wilson makes a face and leaves you alone to finish your purchase.

You weren't lying about the underwear.

Things have gotten closer to normal, and you're very happy about that, but Allison still isn't smiling quite as much as she used to, and she's still quieter than she was, and if a little thing like flowers can make her happy, you're willing to look like a sap.

The weather in Princeton has been frigidly cold, but it hasn't snowed for weeks, leaving the town with dirty snowdrifts and salt-covered cars. You look out your office window and across the parking lot and feel yourself growing grumpier. Then you open your desk drawer and find a schmaltzy card with a raunchy limerick written inside. It puts you in a good mood for the rest of the day.

That night the two of you make love for the first time since the miscarriage. She doesn't wear your gift, but you don't miss it. When you're inside her for the first time in over a month, you feel like your heart is going to explode, and not just from the physical sensations. When she rests her head on your shoulder afterwards, you think you detect slight moisture on her cheeks. You don't say anything about it, but you curl your arm around her protectively. It's embarrassing how much you need her.

You've started your weekly dinners with the Wilsons' again, and you hope that Sarah will be able to help Allison through her lingering grief, but it doesn't work out that way. During the week, Wilson tells you that Sarah is at a loss. They both are. If you have a hard time knowing what to say, you're not surprised that they are too. That night you stay at work late. Your patient coded at 4:17 and was brought back so he needs to be babysat overnight. Normally you'd force your team to take every shift, but this time you shrug and say you'll stick around until nine.

When you shuffle in your front door at nine thirty, the townhouse is quiet, and for just an instant your heart is gripped by fear. Then you shake your head and scoff at yourself for your weak knee-jerk reaction. There is light spilling down the hall, and you hang up your jacket and let your step-thump gait carry you towards the bedroom.

Allison is sitting on the bed, surrounded by a used tissues, but she isn't crying anymore. In fact, she shoots a quick, tentative smile in your direction as you enter.

"Sappy movie?"

"Your mom called," she tells you. "We had a long talk."

You nod and don't say anything else. You especially don't tell her that you called your mother earlier in the day and told her that you thought Allison was ready to talk to her. You're just glad you were right.

That weekend, Allison suggests taking a vacation. At first you just stare at her stupidly, as if the word is from some foreign language. You haven't gone away on a vacation in years. During life pre-infarction, you'd gone on ski trips and golf trips and scuba diving trips, but post-infarction there didn't seem to be much reason to leave your comfortable surroundings.

Maybe now there's a reason.

With the weather so miserably cold, she wants to go somewhere warm, and so you settle on St. Thomas. You make her arrange everything, partly because you're lazy and partly because she's so excited about it all. By Sunday night, she has purchased plane tickets, booked a hotel and signed up for a snorkeling cruise. She apologizes for that last thing, saying that she knows it's not the same as scuba diving.

Stacy tried to get you to go snorkeling after the infarction and you'd told her that you weren't going back to the kiddie pool after swimming with the sharks. Apparently you were a real ass back then. Good thing, too, or else you might not have wound up with Allison.

When you inform Cuddy of your vacation plans on Monday, she is almost as shocked as you were. She recovers faster than you, though, and quickly agrees, saying that she'll make sure your team doesn't solve any really interesting cases while you're gone. Two weeks later and you're flying over the ocean with your happy wife by your side.

The vacation is what you both needed, and it's better than you expected it to be, but also much different. You weren't expecting all of the talking.

In between lying by the pool sipping drinks out of coconuts, and sailing excursions, and snorkeling trips, Allison starts talking about things she's never mentioned before, and you surprise yourself by responding in kind.

She finally tells you why she doesn't get along with her parents. She was their first child, but their son is the one they doted on, and any time she tried to do anything, they encouraged him to top it. They even pushed him into medical school, and when he couldn't handle it and fell into a destructive drug addiction, they blamed her. It's hard to think about her altruistic, optimistic, intelligent nature being trodden upon for years. You carefully ignore those years when you continued the trend.

You finally tell her about your father and his idea of discipline. You can tell she's horrified, which is part of the reason you never told her before, but she doesn't pry, she doesn't try to fix the unfixable. She doesn't treat you any differently the next day or the day after that, and you find yourself telling her more of the things the two of you have just never bothered to talk about. She does the same, and at the end of the vacation you're sure you've learned more about each other than you ever expected.

The one thing you don't talk about is the baby, because that isn't what this trip is about.

On the plane ride home, you can't remember the last time you've felt so relaxed. Glancing to your left, Allison's sun-kissed, sleeping face comes into view. It's good to see her like that.

When that relaxed, open expression remains on her face even after your first week back at the hospital, you know that you will always agree to any vacation she suggests. You know the trip has put you in a better mood too, which Wilson doesn't fail to point out as you're stealing lunch money from his wallet.

Three days later, Wilson asks if you and Allison are going to try for another baby. You clench your fist around your cane instead of punching him in the face. He doesn't know that you haven't been able to even broach that subject with Allison.

"We haven't talked about it," you tell him, but then, as you think back, you don't remember seeing her birth control pills on your trip.

Wilson picks up on the tension in your voice and looks ashamed.

"Sorry. I was just asking to see if you were thinking of going to another doctor. One of Sarah's friends is a reproductive endocrinologist."

You shake your head. "I don't think we'll go that far even if we do try again."

"Allison seems… happier… lately," he comments.

"She is," you say, and then a second later. "Don't let Sarah ask her about another baby."

"No, no, I don't think she would anyway, but I'll tell her."

"Good. Now follow me to the cafeteria and I'll let you buy me coffee."

With each step towards the elevator, you think about how you're going to ask Allison what she wants to do. At the same time, you're trying to puzzle out what you want yourself. You've been through one miscarriage with her, and you don't ever want to do that again.

You allow a few days to pass while you mull over the conversation you are reluctant to have with her. You already suspect that she isn't taking any birth control, and she hasn't told you to use condoms, so maybe that's her subtle message to you and she's just waiting for you to say something to solidify the plan. Then again, maybe she's started keeping her pills in her nightstand and you just never noticed.

She catches you with her journal in one hand and her moisturizer in the other, staring down into her nightstand drawer. She doesn't say anything, just looks at you with an utterly confused look on her face.

You straighten up, drop her things back into the drawer, pick up your cane and use it to shove the drawer shut. There is a disinterested, even mildly bored, look plastered on your face when you turn towards her.

"You're not keeping your birth control pills in there."

One of her eyebrows raises.

"No, I'm not."

You walk around the bed so that you can stand in front of her.

"You want to try again," you say, and it is not a question.

Her gaze wavers and you watch her it dart to the floor, your stubble, your Rolling Stones shirt, before settling back on your eyes.

"I don't want to say we're trying," she tells you, "but I don't want to say we're not, either. I just want to see what happens for a little while."

You nod. It's no longer a surprise when her feelings about things are so close to your own. You now know the full weight of the fear she had the first time you walked down this path together. It's so easy to shake off tragedy as a natural part of life when it is just theoretical. Not so easy in the reality. And yet the longing has remained through it all.

"Trying without trying sounds good to me too," you say, and then you trace a finger across her shoulder, along her collarbone, and down into her cleavage.

You raise an eyebrow of your own and let a lecherous gleam into your eyes.

"I take it you're in the mood?" she says.

The chuckle that rumbles from your throat is because you're glad she's always been quick on the uptake.

The days and weeks pass, and Easter comes, along with a visit from your mother. Cameron loves her, and now that you know her family history, you make a point of using your leg as an excuse for sending them off together on errands and even a trip to the university museum. You love your mother, but you're willing to share.

Wilson doesn't ask again about whether or not you and Allison are trying, but one night over beers and pre-season baseball you tell him anyway. Sarah is hosting a Tupperware party of all things, and Allison was actually happy to attend, so you and Wilson have the townhouse to yourselves. There is silence from the other end of the sofa, as Wilson contemplates what to say in answer to such a blunt statement of fact.

"I'm glad," he says at last and leaves it at that.

A few minutes later he mentions that coffee helps sperm motility and that some studies show that full-fat milk products can aid in female fertility. You roll your eyes and chuck a bag of pretzels at him, but still don't regret telling him. Before he leaves, you tell him not to talk to Sarah about any possible future baby, or to at least tell her not to ask Allison about it. He agrees, and after he's gone you wonder if Allison is having the same conversation with Sarah.

After the miscarriage, Allison stopped eating and cooking the way she always had, but lately she's started thumbing through her cookbooks and Martha Stewart magazines, and you are extremely happy about that. When you arrive home on the Friday after the Tupperware party, you smell something delicious wafting from the kitchen.

She's in there with her hair pulled back and a comfortable sundress skimming her knees. It's only April, but apparently the recent sunshine has put her in a summery mood. You stand in the doorway and watch her for a minute, completely content with the scene before you.

"I know you're looking at my ass," she says playfully and you smirk.

"Actually I was looking at the complete package, but your ass is a particularly nice component."

She rolls her eyes and adds fresh rosemary to the chicken breasts she's sautéing.

"Good day at work?" you surmise just based on the fact that she beat you home.

"Pretty good," she replies as she stirs a pot of rice pilaf. "I think I've just been in a good mood lately."

You can't argue with that. You've both settled into that comfortable place you'd occupied for so long before any talk of babies or miscarriages or "trying" had taken place. It feels good, and you wonder if you're incredibly stupid or incredibly selfish to still be hoping for more, albeit in a much more casual way than last time.

Dinner is delicious and is followed by a movie of your choice which turns into blank on the sofa. It isn't something you indulge in very often because frankly, a bum leg doesn't do much for your agility or flexibility, but it's always worth the aches and pains that follow.

Afterwards the two of you shower, at Allison's insistence. You know she's only doing it because the hot water helps loosen your muscles. Years ago you would have been annoyed at the implication that that you're an old cripple who needs that kind of thoughtfulness. It's taken a long time for you to accept the fact that you ARE an old cripple, but apparently at least one woman still thinks you're hot.

Sleep comes easy to you once your head hits the pillow, and the next thing you're aware of is the soft morning sunshine filtering in through the curtains and spreading over the bed. You're stiff, and you grab for your pills before rolling over, intending to pull Allison close and let her warmth soak into your leg.

She isn't there, and your eyes spring from half-lidded to wide open. You listen for a second and hear movement in the bathroom, so you relax, close your eyes and wait for her to rejoin you. When she doesn't emerge after fifteen minutes, you pry yourself from the bed and grab your cane. Some quick mental calculations have you realizing that she's probably started her period. That event hasn't seemed to bother her for the past few months, but you know how quickly emotions can change.

You nudge the door open and take a step inside. She's sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, with her hair cascading over her shoulders and shielding her from view.

"You okay?"

She looks up at you and almost seems surprised to see you there. Then she holds out a slim plastic wand and says, "I'm pregnant."

It's not what you were expecting, and neither is her somewhat stunned expression, but as all of those old possibilities come rushing back into your mind, they are joined with some you'd just as soon forget and then her reaction becomes more understandable.

"You're happy about it, aren't you?" you say, gruffly hesitant with your words.

"Yes!" she blurts out quickly, and then takes a breath. "I'm happy, but…"

"Yeah. I know," you say, dropping the pregnancy test onto the counter and reaching for her hand.

She comes to you easily, and loops her arms around your waist.

"I'm more happy than scared," she murmurs against the soft cotton of your t-shirt.

Resting your chin on the top of her head, you breathe in her scent and memorize this moment.

"Same here," you tell her, only slightly surprised that it's the truth.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Apologies for the long gap between chapters. While House and Cameron go through their pregnancy, my husband and I are having difficulty conceiving (probably due to the surgery I had back in 2006). It's made for an emotional few months lately as we try some new medical procedures. Appointment with an IVF clinic doctor is next Monday, so good thoughts would be most appreciated. Now, on with the story! As always, comments and criticism are welcome.

**VII.**

Allison does a great job putting forth her happy face during the first two weeks of her pregnancy, but you know that inside she's a basket-case of worries. She seems to have forgotten that you practically have a doctorate in reading human behavior, and after almost seven years, she is an open book to you when it comes to things like anxiety.

You don't say anything to her about it until one night when you're lying in bed watching a movie. The two of you had been engaging in some strictly R-Rated activities and your limp hand is resting on her bare stomach. You feel it rumble beneath your palm, and an instant later you feel her entire body tense up.

"The baby's fine. You ate too much burrito," you tell her.

"What makes you think I was worried about the baby?" she asks, acting slightly affronted.

"The full body flinch," you say, mildly.

She huffs out a breath and crosses her arms over her chest.

"You need to relax."

"Relax? How am I supposed to do that? Every little twinge has me running to the bathroom to see if I'm bleeding. Every tiny pinch has me thinking that I'm losing this baby just like last time."

She rolls away from you and you know it's because she doesn't want you to see that she's getting tears in her eyes.

"If you're going to have a miscarriage then it's going to happen whether you worry about it or not. Being on edge the whole time isn't going to prevent it."

"Thanks for the news flash," she throws back at you.

With a sigh, you shift closer to her and rest your hand on her shoulder.

"What's going to make you feel better?"

"I don't know. I'll worry less after I have my prenatal blood work done this week."

"Okay," you say as you swing your legs over the side of the bed and grab your cane in one hand and your previously discarded t-shirt in the other.

"Where are you going?"

"Get up," you tell her. "You're coming too."

"Coming where?"

"To get your blood work run."

"Greg, it's after ten o'clock."

"What, and your blood goes to bed at nine? I think I can draw blood and run the tests as well as any first year lab tech."

She's shaking her head, but there's the hint of an amused smile at the corner of her mouth and she gets out of bed and starts reaching for her clothes.

The hospital is very quiet, and the lab even more so, but the time you arrive. Allison obediently hops up onto a stool and you set to work with a phlebotomy kit you grabbed from a supply room on the way down. Less than two minutes later, you have three vials of her blood and are pressing a gauze pad against the crook of her arm.

"If you wanted to make yourself useful, you could go make us some coffee - decaf for you, full strength for me," you say as she scoots down from her perch. "This'll take a little while."

"Greg?" she says, touching your arm so that you'll look into her eyes. "Thank you."

She kisses you lightly on the cheek then, and you watch her walk out of the lab and down the hall.

It annoys you when you find that you're actually a little bit nervous as you run the series of tests which will show that Allison is fine and that all of her hormones are at pregnancy-friendly levels. You're sure that everything will test out normal and yet you can't quite push out that sliver of fear. The last thing you want is to find a problem and then have to be the one to break the news to her.

Thankfully, that isn't the case, and an hour and a half later you're sipping a cup of cinnamon hazelnut and reading off a list of normal test results.

"So, are you going to stop worrying now?" you ask as you hand over your findings.

"No," she replies, "But I'll worry a little less now.

And that's how the bargaining begins. She says she'll worry less when she passes the one month mark, and then she says she'll worry less when she passes the point where she lost the last baby, and then she says she'll worry less after the first ultrasound. You know better than to try to convince her that no worrying is necessary because at least she seems more at ease than she started out. Besides, you feel those moments of profound anxiety yourself, and talking yourself out of them is impossible. It takes seeing Allison and knowing that she and the baby are okay to put your mind at ease.

The ultrasound is a strange experience. Allison asks you if you want to go with her, and of course you know she wants you there, and you have to admit that you want to be there, and so you drive across town to her doctor's office. You still haven't told anyone that she is pregnant and after last time you're particularly sure that you don't want everyone at Princeton Plainsboro to know.

You've heard fetal heartbeats before. You've seen ultrasound pictures. Hell, you even delivered a couple of babies back in your residency during your ER rotation. Nothing compares with hearing that low, fast, 'lub-lub-lub-lub-lub-lub-lub' and knowing that it's your child's heartbeat. If it was anyone else's child on the fuzzy black and white monitor, you wouldn't have given it a second look, but it's your child and you can't tear your eyes away as you make out a cheek and a nose and a tiny fist balled beneath a chin that already looks like Allison's.

The ultrasound tech - you think her name is Marie but you can't be sure - asks if the two of you want to know the baby's sex. It's something you and Allison haven't discussed. She shrugs when you look at her, so apparently it's up to you. You're not the sentimental type who longs for the ultimate surprise during delivery. You're the pragmatic type who likes to have all information possible.

It's a girl.

And at once, the child is more familiar and more foreign at the same time. You won't know what to do with a girl, a delicate little thing like her mother, but you remember that a girl is what you'd hoped for last time.

"So, I guess 'Greg Junior', is out," you quip.

Allison lets out a bell-like laugh and you continue to look at your daughter moving around on the screen and pretend not to notice when Allison wipes tears away from her eyes.

Over the next two weeks, Allison finally becomes more relaxed. The baby name book reappears on her nightstand, along with "What to Expect When You're Expecting". You read the reviews of that book and then throw it in the trash after discovering that apparently it is designed to make expectant mothers afraid during every stage of pregnancy. When Allison asks about it you tell her you spilled beer all over it. Then you give her a copy of "The Unofficial Guide to Having a Baby" instead.

When her little belly begins to grow, you know it's time to start telling people, but you wish you could just keep the whole pregnancy between the two of you. It seems safer that way.

Like last time, your mother is the first person you tell. She is thrilled for you both and then she tells you to get off the phone and let her talk to Allison. You laugh and hand the phone over. That weekend at the Wilsons', you make the official announcement. Sarah squeals and Wilson claps you on the back, and then ushers you into the family room to watch the ball game while Sarah drags Allison upstairs to go through her old maternity clothes.

"Happy?" Wilson asks as you settle into the most comfortable chair in the room.

"Not bad, not bad," you tell him, and let a slow grin spread across your face.

Allison is five months pregnant when the subject of living arrangements comes up. You come home from the hospital and smell dinner already cooking when you walk through the door. She's not in the kitchen, so you go searching for her and find her sitting in the study.

"How's the alien?" you ask.

She rolls her eyes at your pet term for the baby before answering.

"She's fine."

"Why are you sitting in here staring at the wall?"

"Thinking of what color to paint it. We have to start thinking about a nursery. I don't want to get rid of the guest room because I'm sure your mother will be visiting us. I think if we squeeze things over a bit, we can fit a crib in here."

She sounds slightly doubtful and you look at the tiny room. You know that Allison would rather move into a bigger place. She made an offhanded remark to that effect months earlier, but you quickly changed the subject and she never mentioned it again.

You've lived in the same place for almost twenty years. You know every creak in the floorboards and every ding in the woodwork – some of which were made from you slamming your cane into doorways when you were frustrated. You had the built-in bookcases installed in the living room and the floor reinforced to support your piano.

There is a lot of history within these walls, and even though some of it is very bad, there is enough in the very good category now to make things even. You will miss the place, but you are not going to "squeeze" your daughter in just because you detest change. She may not be born yet, but she still deserves more than that.

"No way," you tell Allison.

"Greg," she says reasonably, "she can't sleep in the closet. We have to make room."

"We'll make room in a new house," you say and when Allison just stares at you, you leave the room and dial Wilson's number.

You already have the name and number for a real estate agent when Allison joins you in the living room.

She doesn't ask you if you're sure about moving, or if you want to think about it some more, and she doesn't thank you for doing what you should have done a month ago. She just squeezes your shoulder and then goes into the kitchen to finish cooking dinner.

House-hunting is just as horrible as you imagined it would be, complete with cheery real estate agent and house after house that prove unsuitable. Too many stairs, too old, too new, too small, too big. Granted, you're the one making most of the complaints, but it's still an irritating process.

A month and a half of looking, and you finally find the perfect house. You don't think it's perfect at first, because you never think anything is perfect, but you quickly warm up to it.

Wilson is the one who puts you on to it, telling you that he's heard that the head of Princeton's biology department is finally retiring and heading to Florida. You know the man, and know where he lives, and you drive Allison by the house the next day. It is a Craftsman style home and sits in a pretty little neighborhood less than a mile from the Princeton campus and about two miles from the hospital. Allison loves it at first sight and you have your creepily cheerful real estate agent take you around it the next day.

With an open floor plan, four bedrooms, redone bathrooms and kitchen, and no stairs, it really is ideal. You pick on the worn wood floors, but secretly like them and all of the built-ins and period mantles and moldings. There is space for your piano and you decide that you can be happy there.

Five years ago you wouldn't have been happy anywhere, and it's hard to admit that now you would be happy - or at least as close to happy as you're ever likely to get - anywhere, as long as Allison and your baby were there as well.

Your baby.

While Allison has finally started to relax and enjoy being pregnant and planning for the baby, you find yourself resisting the pull of happiness. It's too risky.

You've been in the new house for a week and a half when you get the 911 page to the emergency room. It's Allison. As you're rushing for the elevator and swearing about your limp, Wilson hears you and falls into step beside you. He guesses that something is wrong, but you brush him off. You can't deal with well-meaning friendship at the moment.

Cuddy meets you at the elevator. She's the first one who checked Allison out in the ER and she tells you that the head of obstetrics has looked her over as well. With terse words, you ask what happened. She knows to skip over the details. Allison passed out up in the immunology department and so far it just looks like her blood pressure is a bit high. You're at the curtain area by the time she finishes and you push the white material aside, metal slides rattling against each other on the ceiling.

"I'm fine. The baby's fine," Allison says, sounding tired and a little annoyed, but looking pale and scared. "It's not pre-eclampsia, I just need to cut back on the salt and rest more."

That's when it hits you. Against your best efforts, you were terrified for the baby as much as for Allison. You've lived months thinking that she could lose the baby at any moment. It's been a thought that you pushed down and aside and away, but it's always been there. You've become accustomed to the idea. What has been harder to ignore and impossible to think about for any length of time is the idea that you could lose Allison at the same time. You actually imagined this moment, but in your mind you were concerned only about your wife, checking her vitals, touching her clammy skin. Now you collapse onto the stool beside the bed and reach over to rest your hand on Allison's belly.

You feel the baby kick and you tap in response.

"Teaching her Morse code?" Allison asks.

"Not yet," you say, and follow it up with a saucy wink because you know that's what she'll expect.

A few minutes pass before Allison speaks again.

"I was really scared."

You concentrate on the veins on the back of your hand. "Yeah," is all you say before leaning over and kissing her hard on the lips. The stool skitters away as you stand up to get more leverage.

"No more clinic hours. No more patient rounds."

Ordinarily she would instantly protest against your authoritarian demands, but not this time.

"Lisa already told me the same thing."

"About time she got some sense."

"I can't believe you still harass her so much," she says with a touch of amusement.

"Everyone has to have a hobby."

She shakes her head and chuckles. It's good to see your sense of humor has grown on her. You tell her to stay put and that you'll drive her home after you dump all of your clinic hours on your fellows. You can tell that she'd rather just hop out of the bed and go back to work, but she reluctantly nods and closes your eyes. You pause for a second and just stare at her. Your heart rate has gone back to normal, your breathing is even, and the palm gripping your cane isn't sweaty anymore, but you still never want to feel that kind of fear again.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Apologies for the long wait between parts! I hope some people are still following this and interested in how everything turns out. All comments and criticism are very welcome.

**VIII.**

A week after her visit to the ER, Allison is back at work. She's been remarkably calm about everything and she's happy to be seeing patients again. You, on the other hand, are not happy to have her back at work and you're only calm because 'overprotective husband' is not a title you're eager to have hung around your neck. In fact, you've been purposely keeping away from her to avoid even the appearance of hovering.

Apparently you've been doing too good a job, because Wilson keeps asking you if everything is all right. You aren't ready to talk to him or anyone else about your thoughts, much less your feelings, because they are confusing even to you.

After the miscarriage, the only thing you could tell yourself that was of any comfort, was that at least you still had Allison. When she got pregnant again, of course you were thrilled, but you tempered that with the thought that she'd had one miscarriage and could have another, and that you would get through it as long as she was all right. This latest little scare has brought all of your fears back to the surface, and now they're worse because you can't tell yourself anymore that the baby is just a collection of tissue and that Allison's life is the only thing that matters.

You've had pregnant patients in the past, and dealt with expectant fathers who couldn't hold themselves together and couldn't make a clear decision about whose health was more important, their wife's or their child's. You swore that you would never be like that. If anything happened, you were going to immediately be there to tell everyone to do whatever they had to do to save Allison. You know you'll still make that same decision, because living without her isn't an option you're willing to consider. But now there is guilt involved, and you know you'll have to think twice, three times, before finally giving the order.

This is something you should talk to Allison about, but you know it will upset her, and besides, you're really not in the mood to argue about it and you're sure she'll argue. It's very possible she'll see the baby the same way you saw your leg, and that scares the hell out of you.

She has been talking about decorating the nursery. She's already picked out a crib and dresser and a rug with flowers around the edges. She wants to paint the room a pale green color and hang pale lavender curtains on the windows. You've avoided discussing it beyond grunts. You haven't even bookmarked anything you want to buy for the little spud.

On Thursday night, you arrive home first and decide to start dinner. Usually she's the one who does the cooking, but you're a lot more handy in the kitchen than you ever let on to Wilson when he was staying with you. By the time you hear the front door opening, you have two chicken breasts baking in the oven and couscous ready to go on the stove.

Her smile as she walks in the kitchen warms you in ways you still have a difficult time accepting and will never reveal to her or any other person. Just as she's about to open the oven to see what's inside, she stops and reaches down to her belly. For just the smallest, smallest instant, you are gripped with fear, and then she smiles again.

"She's really been active this afternoon," she says. "Here, feel."

She steps towards you, grabs your free hand and presses it to her hard, rounded little stomach. You feel a hard kick and quickly move your hand away.

"Yeah, regular soccer player," you comment before turning back to the stove.

There is a quick flash of disappointment or confusion or concern in Allison's eyes, but she hides it well and tells you she's going to change into more comfortable clothes.

When she leaves the room, you look down at your hand an can still feel the sensation of your daughter's movement against it. You need to talk to Wilson.

The next morning, you arrive at work to a new patient. That puts a significant kink in your plan to find Wilson and talk to him about your irritatingly confusing feelings. At least the patient is interesting. You have an hour-lng diagnostic session before sending your minions off to do your bidding. West will get the patient history from the family, Pierce will run a CAT scan and Mason will run all the blood work. That leaves you free to hunt down Wilson.

You start by wandering out onto the balcony to peer into his office. There are drifts of fallen leaves around the low brick walls, and they crackle beneath your shoes and your cane. You remember that at this time last year, Allison had just found out she was pregnant. Now she's two months from delivering. With a shake of your head, you clear your thoughts and concentrate on your mission.

Wilson is sitting at his desk, and there's a patient seated across from him. Normally a patient would not be any obstacle, and you'd just barge in and start talking. However, as much as you hate to admit it, you're going to him for advice, and pissing him off is probably not going to get you much. You linger outside for a few minutes to see if the patient is going to leave, but it's cold and your fingers start to go numb, so you limp back into your office and slump down onto your chair. You'll check again in fifteen minutes.

You're back on the balcony in ten.

This time Wilson is alone. You sit on the wall that separates your balconies and then swing your legs over, helping the damaged one along with your hand. The leaves are just as plentiful on his side of the wall, and you kick at them as you move towards the door. A quick rap with your cane against the door gets his attention, and he doesn't even roll his eyes as he comes to unlock it.

"Lovely day for a stroll," he quips as you follow him inside and sit in the chair that was previously occupied by his patient.

"Yeah, lovely."

"I'm going to guess that you're not here for a consult, so what is it? Allison's okay, isn't she?"

"She's fine," you tell him. "How much do you love your kids?"

He stares at you for a second, looking as though he's sure he's misheard you.

"What?"

"And Sarah. What about her?"

"House, what the hell is going on?"

"Nothing, just taking a poll," you say as you drum your fingers along the handle of your cane.

"Yeah, right," Wilson replies with a snort and an exasperated look.

"What about before the little ankle-biters were born?" you ask, avoiding his gaze by rearranging the pens and pencils in his desk organizer.

He squints his eyes and then widens them as if some epiphany has come to him.

"Oooooh," he says, and then continues on in his most understanding and comforting voice, "House, it's perfectly normal for fathers to feel a lack of connection with their baby before it's born. I'd think that would go double for you, since you've always made the point that until it starts breathing on its own, a baby is just a lump of cells."

"That's not the problem," you tell him with a grunt. "I wish it was."

He leans back in his chair, looking confused again.

"Well, then what is it? Obviously you've got something on your mind."

"I don't know why you'd say that," you say, regaining some of your cocky attitude.

Wilson just sighs and shakes his head. "House, just spit it out."

"I'm getting attached to the little spawn," you grudgingly tell him.

Wilson smiles, the smile of the ignorant and says, "Well that's great!"

"No it's not great," you interrupt him before he can launch into his 'you're going to be a great father' speech. "Did you miss what happened last week? Did you forget that she's already had one miscarriage and is at risk for half a dozen complications? I don't want to be attached to the kid until after it's born. I need to be able to make decisions about her without thinking twice. Now all I can think is that if something happens I'm going to be a shitty father for choosing her life over the kid's, and I'm going to be a shitty husband for even considering anything else."

You've grown restless while talking and are pacing the office, stabbing your cane into the rug with each step. When Wilson doesn't say anything, you look over at him and see him staring at you with sympathy in his eyes. Great, just what you didn't want.

"You can't beat yourself up like this, Greg," he says, using your first name which makes you twitch.

"I'm not looking for sympathy, I'm looking for --" Shit. You don't know what you're looking for. Maybe it is sympathy. Maybe you just want someone to tell you that you're not the only person who's felt torn apart over something that is supposed to be joyous. "Half the time I can't get the stupid grin off my face, and the other half I'm resenting the kid for holding Allison's body hostage," you mutter as you drop back into your chair.

"I'm going to guess she doesn't feel that way."

"I wouldn't know," you tell him.

"Well, talking to her would probably be a good idea. If anything does happen, the two of you need to be on the same page."

"And what if we aren't?" you say, reaching the crux of the matter. "What if she says she wants the baby saved at all cost?" You look at him darkly, daring him to give you an easy answer, but he can't.

"I think you need to at least talk about it."

Hoisting yourself to your feet, you feel you've aged just having this conversation. You turn and head out the door without saying anything else.

"House," Wilson calls when your hand is on the doorknob.

"Yeah?"

"For what it's worth, you're going to be a great father, whether you believe it or not. You wouldn't be having these thoughts if you weren't."

The temptation is to throw back a snide remark, or say nothing at all, but almost unbidden, the word 'thanks' passes through your lips and then you open the door and head back to your office.

Although you keep telling yourself that you should talk to Allison, the weekend rolls around and you still haven't had a conversation more serious than what to eat for dinner and when your mother should arrive for Thanksgiving. You have an excuse to avoid her on Saturday morning, because Wilson has invited you to go with him to a Giants game at the Meadowlands, and you need to pick him up by ten to get there and find parking before the noon kickoff.

It's after six by the time you get home, but you told Allison not to hold dinner so you aren't surprised to find the kitchen dark. You are surprised when you find her.

She's in the nursery, which isn't unexpected. She has a paint roller in her hand and splatters of green in her hair, which is. You'd told her to call someone to come in and do the painting. Instead it appears she's spent the afternoon doing the job herself, including standing on a ladder that's set up in the corner.

"What the hell are you doing?" are the first words out of your mouth.

Almost immediately, you realize they aren't wise words, but they were the first ones that sprang to your mind.

"I'm conducting the Philharmonic," she says dryly, blowing a strand of hair off of her forehead.

You swear under your breath and she puts one hand on her hip and shakes her head.

"What's the problem?"

"Nothing," you spit out. "Nothing. You want to climb ladders less than two weeks after landing in the ER, feel free."

When you turn and stomp away, you can feel her eyes on you.

You're sitting on the couch with a glass of scotch in your hand and the bottle on the table next to you when Allison walks into the room. She sits down on the far end of the couch, with one leg curled beneath her. You know she sits that way so that she'll be able to more easily push herself up. She looks from you to the bottle and back again before speaking.

"I'd grab a glass, but since you freaked out over me lifting a paint roller, I'd hate to see what you'd do if I started drinking."

Your brows lower and you let out an "Oh, very funny," with a tone and expression that says it absolutely is not.

She shrugs and tells you it was the best she could come up with on short notice. Then she asks if you're going to tell her what's been bothering you.

You take another drink and stare at the light dancing gently through the liquid in the cut-glass tumbler.

"I'll save you over her," you say after a pause that is much too long.

The pause before she responds is much shorter.

"I know that."

She's looking at you with a perfectly calm, serious, honest look on her face and you think you've misheard her, but you know you haven't.

"What?" you say anyway, just to fill the air before you can think of anything more intelligent to say.

"You expected me to fight you."

"The thought had occurred to me."

You're confused and you hope your face doesn't show how much.

Her lips twitch slightly, as if she's rehearsing the words she's about to say, or maybe just organizing them in her mouth. She looks you straight in the eye when she begins to speak.

"I can accept that if something horrible happens and you can only save one of us, you'll save me. I can accept that because I also know that you won't make that decision unless you absolutely have to. I can accept that because I know that if there is no way to save me, then you will let me go and you will save our daughter. You won't ever forgive yourself, but you'll be a wonderful father."

The rest of your drink burns its way down your throat.

"You know all that, eh?"

"Yes," she says with a tone and expression that makes it impossible for you to question it.

She watches you with eyes that seem to see through all of your recently and carefully constructed walls. You feel them crumbling and don't do anything to stop it besides filling your glass again.

"How good a father can I be if I would sacrifice my own kid's life?" you mutter and with that one sentence all of your insecurities come to the surface. Your dread at the idea that you could be anything like your father. Your regrets about your age and your leg. Your worry that maybe it isn't possible for you to feel deeply for any other human being.

"Don't be stupid," Allison says, harshly enough to completely grab your attention from the demons that are pulling at it.

She grabs the glass from your hand and thumps it down onto the table, sloshing your good scotch over the rim.

"Maybe you're trying to keep yourself from feeling too much. I know. I did the same thing. I didn't want to get hurt again, so I tried so hard not to think about her being a real baby. I tried to think like you always have in the past, imagining a blob of tissue instead of tiny hands and feet. But I've felt her kick now. I've felt her get the hiccups and roll over and move when I sing to her. I couldn't let myself miss out on those joys… not even if everything ends heartache again, and I'm not going to let you miss out anymore either. Right now she's just a possibility to you, but you'll see. When you hold her in your arms, you may still doubt that you'll be a good father, but you won't doubt that you love her."

When you look up at her you see that she has tears standing in her eyes and you know it isn't just the pregnancy hormones making her weepy, because you feel the need to clear your own throat, and your hand reflexively moves to reach out and rest on her knee.

"Wilson should have told you all of this already," she gripes, breaking the emotional mood. "Instead he leaves me to pick up the pieces."

Your lips twitch and then you're almost smiling as you ask her why she's so sure you've talked to Wilson about anything. You're a little surprised she isn't upset that you'd go to him first, but she tells you that she always expects you to talk to him. You've known him a lot longer than you've known her. You remember again why you married her.

She inches closer to you on the couch and pulls your hand from her knee to her belly. The baby is kicking.

"I don't think she likes it when we fight," Allison says.

"That wasn't a fight, it was a discussion," you reply. You lean in slightly and speak in an authoritative voice. "Settle down in there. You're turning your mother's insides to mush."

It's the first time you've done anything like that and you expect to feel foolish or stupid, but you don't. Allison laughs, and you press your hand harder to feel the gentle movement against your fingers. You leave your hand there for a very long time because Allison is right, and you're not going to waste any more opportunities. They may not come again.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Thank you all so much for continuing to read and respond to this story. It really means a lot to me. Ironically, as I write about Cameron and House navigating pregnancy, Mr.EA and I are struggling with infertility. I just underwent a procedure last weekend and we're hoping that it's the lucky one, so all good thoughts are most welcome!

**IX.**

Thanksgiving comes, and with it another visit from your mother. She's so ecstatic about the baby, and has brought bags of tiny baby clothes and brightly colored toys. You roll your eyes at the cuteness overload and think that maybe it's time to hunt around for that clown onesie again.

Allison loves having your mother around, and the morning after Thanksgiving, she tells you that she thinks you should ask her to move closer. Two or three visits during the year are not going to be enough. She says that your daughter is only going to have one grandparent she can count on and she wants them to have as much time together as possible. You tell her that most women despise their mothers-in-law, but she shoots back that she is not most women.

Saturday morning, Allison goes to a prenatal yoga class, and that leaves you and your mother alone together. You don't hate that as much as you used to. In fact you enjoy it. She's a smart, interesting woman. You don't blame her for your childhood. She was a product of her times, and defying her husband wasn't something good wives did. There is something deep inside you that tells you she would have fought for you if your father had been truly abusive. Maybe you just need to believe that, but you don't question it.

In the middle of a cutthroat game of gin, you tell her that Allison wouldn't mind if she moved closer to Princeton. When you reach for your next card, she covers your hand with hers, fingers slim and cool, veins just becoming prominent on the back of her hand. You look at her and she smiles at you and says that the old house is too big and she's been getting tired of New York.

Later, when you're in the kitchen getting coffee, she walks in behind you and leans against the counter.

"You're happy now, Greg, aren't you?"

A little shrug isn't enough for her you know, and so you reply with, "Yeah, Mom, I'm happy."

"I've been hoping for that for you for a very long time," she says, and then touches your arm as she walks back into the living room.

When Allison arrives home from her class, your mother is sitting on the sofa reading the paper. She calls Allison over to look at an advertisement for a house in the area, and a second later the two of them are actually squealing. You don't think you've ever heard Allison squeal before - well, not _that_ kind of squeal anyway. It feels good to have made the two women in your life happy on the same day. Then it occurs to you that very soon there will be a third. A lazy sort of grin spreads across your face and you turn away from the excited chatter and head to your study to watch some football.

There isn't much time for house-hunting before your mother leaves on Sunday, but you put her in touch with your real estate agent (she'll probably like the cheerfulness) and Allison promises to drive around to any possible winners and take pictures. As the two of you watch her drive away, Allison leans against you and you wrap an arm around her shoulder. It's an action that once seemed foreign and has become instinct.

"Happy?" you ask her, thinking of your mother's question and knowing what the answer will be, yet still wanting to hear it.

"Ecstatic," she replies, and kisses you hotly on the mouth to prove it.

There's definitely something to be said for pregnancy hormones, and you spend the rest of the afternoon enjoying the benefits.

Unfortunately the next day is Monday and it signals the start of a very long week.

A patient came in over the weekend and you pushed him off onto your fellows after telling them what the diagnosis was, but apparently your diagnosis was wrong. Now the guy's in a semi-catatonic state, and, just to make things worse, his teenage son is now exhibiting symptoms. Your fellows are all good doctors, maybe even as good as your original team was, but you can't help wishing that your wife was still sitting around the table. You haven't felt that way in a long time and it irritates you and sets the tone for the rest of the week.

By Wednesday, you haven't slept more than twelve hours in your bed, although you've had several uncomfortable naps on the chair in your office. Your patients are doing better, but Cuddy has already assigned you a new one. By Friday you're still working on little sleep and too much caffeine, and when you wake up your leg seizes in an agonizing cramp before you even swing it over the side of the bed.

You massage it with the knuckles of your right hand and hear rustling beside you as Allison rolls over and props herself up on her elbow. Great. Because you love it when she sees you in all your crippled glory.

"Okay?" she asks, her shorthanded way of voicing concern without making it too personal with such words as "Are you all right?" or "How can I help?" which only serve to make your inadequacies more obvious.

"Could use some coffee," you mutter, which is your way of deflecting all attention from the actual problem which is currently throbbing beneath your hand.

She doesn't question you, just gets out of bed and pads towards the kitchen in her robe and thick-soled slippers. Alone, you flop onto your back and keep your hand clutching your thigh. The thought of a toddler running through the house and flinging herself onto you flits through your mind and makes you involuntarily flinch. For the first time, you wonder if you're too old for all of this.

The smell of coffee drifts through the air and you lurch out of bed and head for the bathroom. When you're done in the shower, there's a mug waiting on the counter for you and a heart drawn on the foggy mirror. She can be a real sap sometimes. While you brush your teeth, you stare at the slowly fading image and feel some of your anxiety melting away.

It's Allison's last day at work and the two of you drive in together. Her due date is still two months away, but with the scares she's already had; it wasn't too hard to convince her to take an early maternity leave. She tells you on the drive in that it will give her more time to look for a house for your mother. That doesn't sound like 'taking it easy' to you, but you're moods been improving since your shower, and so you're not in the mood to argue and spoil it so soon.

No, the time for that comes about five hours later when Wilson stops by your office with some books. Lamaze, Hypnobirthing, Bradley Method, the covers are all pastel shades with happy babies and relaxed looking mothers smiling blankly out at you.

"What are these?"

"Sarah told me to bring them in for Allison. She ended up doing hypnobirthing, but she read all of them. You two should start looking for a class."

"A class?"

Wilson looks at you like you've grown a second head. "Haven't the two of you talked about this stuff at all?"

"It's birth. What is there to talk about? Women have been doing it for… hmm, lemme check… yep, for forever."

In truth you hadn't given it much thought. You figured she'd go in, get a nice epidural, scream and swear and push out the kid. In your mind, the idea of un-medicated birth is akin to giving up Vicodin in favor of sweet tarts.

"Well, Allison and Sarah were talking on the phone last night, and apparently she's decided to take slightly more interest in the details."

"Great," you mumble, dropping the books onto your desk.

"Hey, it's not so bad," Wilson tries to commiserate, but you give him an evil glare as he begins to ramble about the sense of togetherness that a birthing class can give.

What you're imagining is the sense of irritation you'll feel in a room full of people young enough that you could have delivered half of them. Wilson leaves you to your thoughts, but you don't have long to dwell, because within minutes, a light knock on the doorframe gets your attention. Glancing up from your fascinating desktop, you see your wife standing in front of you, smiling.

"I thought we could have lunch. You know, give Wilson's wallet a break before you start hitting him up for money every day," she says with a grin.

You grunt a reply and stand up, pushing the birthing books across the desk to her.

"Wilson brought those for you," you say, and then continue with, "so, when should I expect to give up hours of my life to have people mutter about me being a dirty old man?"

She looks startled for a moment, but then shakes her head and just looks at you with a half-amused, half-annoyed look on her face.

"First, I have no intention of putting myself through hours of birthing class, much less, you. I can read these books and watch the DVDs that come with them. Second, do you still really think that's what people are saying about us?"

"If the limp fits," you grumble.

"Your limp is nothing. You get around better than half the perfectly fit men in this hospital."

"Yeah, well I still look like I'm robbing the cradle."

At that, she actually laughs.

"Have you looked at me lately? Really looked at me? Because sometimes I think you just see me through time travel glasses or something, and although it's flattering, it's a little annoying at times like these."

Now you're getting pissed at the fact that she's not taking you seriously.

"What am I supposed to be seeing?" you ask. "Because what I see is a woman who could probably have hooked up with half the doctors in this hospital."

She rolls her eyes and points at her hair.

See that? That's grey," she says, directing your attention to a few bits of silver threaded through her brunette hair. Hmm. You hadn't noticed them before. "See that?" she points to the corners of her eyes. "Those are worry lines." Yeah, you see them now. You probably gave them to her. "See those?" she points to the corners of her mouth. "Those are laugh lines." You are smug enough to think that at least if you're responsible for the other wrinkles, these are probably your fault as well.

"Yeah, so?" you say, unwilling to give in.

"So? So, you've probably aged better than me over the past five years. No more wrinkles, no more grey hair, you're practically the same man you were when I started working here. I, on the other hand, definitely look older. Chronologically, I may not be catching up with you, but no one seeing us on the street is thinking that you're my father or uncle or a cradle robber. They're thinking we're a cute couple. I know you hate that, but it's true."

It shouldn't surprise you anymore when she cuts down your insecurities like a weed whacker, but it does. You're sent half your morning feeling old and grumpy and now with a few words you're back to feeling like a lucky bastard. She seems to sense the change because she takes a step forward and grins up at you.

"Better now?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, granny," you say, and when she goes to punch you, you grab her wrist and pull her close and kiss her full on the lips. "Let's get lunch, gorgeous," you whisper in her ear. "I'll even pay."

Five hours later, your petty, vain concerns are the furthest things from your mind.

When you and Allison carpool, you are usually the one trying to get her to leave early, or at least right on time. However, today is Friday, her last day, and when four-thirty rolls around and she still hasn't come to tell you she's ready to leave, you're surprised. You have some last -minute test results to review and you assume she's giving one last look over her patient charts before reluctantly passing them on to the doctors who will be filling in for her. It doesn't occur to you to worry until you notice how dark it's gotten outside and see that the time is almost six o'clock.

Tossing on your coat, and grabbing up your bag, you head for the door and then for the elevator. The immunology floor is quiet and your footsteps are the only ones you hear as you approach Allison's office. It's slightly smaller than yours, but there's a small sofa against one wall. That is where you find her, cell phone tossed carelessly to the side, tissues littered around her body, and her hair forming a veil around her lowered face.

"What's wrong?" you say, without preamble.

When she looks up at you, the paleness of her skin and the redness of her eyes tell you that it is something horrible. For a second she looks startled, as if she'd forgotten where she was or what time it is. Then her eyes focus on your face and you think she's about to start crying again. You hate that more than just about anything. Joining her on the sofa, you open your arms and let her curl against our side. With your arms wrapped around her, you again ask her what's wrong. Her voice sounds hoarse and worn out as she tells you that her brother called her. There was a snowstorm out in Wisconsin, and a car accident, and now your wife is an orphan.

It's not the first time that you've told yourself that hating someone who is dead is pointless, but you can't seem to help yourself. At the moment, you hate Allison's parents for dying. Not because you have any sort of attachment to them. You couldn't care less about them except in relationship to how they affect their daughter, and right now their daughter is curled up, attempting to sleep while you nurse a beer out in the living room and make arrangements to fly to Madison.

You hate funerals and you actually thought of trying to discourage her from going, citing the risks of flying so close to her due date. The only reason you stopped yourself is because you know that you will be successful and that eventually she will grow to regret missing her chance to say goodbye. Or some crap like that. There's really no one to say goodbye too, and that's part of the reason why you hate funerals.

The last funeral you attended was your father's and naturally you can't help but make comparisons between your behavior and Allison's. You never cried. Not one tear. You were entirely too wrapped up in anger to be touched by grief. It wasn't until coming home after the funeral that you felt a pang of sadness, and even that was swiftly pushed down. Allison has been crying off and on since you collected her from her office. Not huge sobs, just tears that keep leaking from her eyes and making her reach for the tissues.

Her relationship with her parents was as strained as yours with your father, for very different reasons. Whereas you were able to keep hold of your anger, Allison has obviously turned everything inward, wrapping herself in a shroud of guilt and regret. She hasn't said much about how she's feeling, and that worries you, because she's the one who's supposed to be open with her feelings. You aren't exactly sure how to pry them out of her, but you know that eventually that's what it's going to come down to. This stress isn't good for her or the baby, and now you're back to hating her parents again.

In the morning you wake up with Allison's arm across your chest and her round belly pressing against your hip. You hope she got more sleep than you did. Your wakefulness rouses her and she blinks her eyes open slowly and then looks into your face. Maybe she wants you to tell her that it's all a dream, but you can't do that for her. Sadness casts a shadow over her features again and she rolls over, with effort, and says that she'd better start packing.

Wilson drives the two of you to the airport, pulling you aside at the last minute and telling you to keep an eye on Allison, as if you had any intention of doing anything else. She's been quiet since last night, and she remains that way during the four hour flight to Wisconsin. Your only real conversation is during the layover in Milwaukee and it centers on her describing her extended family members to you so that you'll know them when you see them. You don't pay much attention because you're more interested in what she's not talking about. She hasn't mentioned the baby, or had you feel her kick. It's not like the baby is the only thing you talk about, far from it, but to not say one word about her is more than an accident. It's purposeful avoidance.

When you arrive at the Madison airport at noontime, your rental car is waiting for you, a non-descript sedan that handles like a bus. Allison gives you directions in the same dull tone she's had all day, and you pull up to her childhood home shortly before one in the afternoon.

The house isn't what you were expecting. For some reason you'd pictured a big farmhouse, but the house is a ranch style, faced in stone, straight out of the seventies, and currently surrounded by a foot of snow. There are several cars already in the driveway and you steel yourself for meeting up with in-laws you would have been happy never to meet.

The person who opens the door, however, is one of the few Cameron relatives you have met before. Matthew, Allison's brother, and the only family member besides her parents, who attended your wedding. He looks solemn as he ushers you inside.

"Glad you two could fly out in time for the wake," he says and then as Allison removes her coat, his eyes go wide. "Allie, I had no idea!" he says as he motions to her stomach. "Mom and Dad didn't say a word."

Allison looks distinctly uncomfortable as she murmurs something about not having told them yet.

"Oh, right. Of course not," Matthew says.

The words are inoffensive enough, but the look and tone which accompany them make you want to punch him in the face. The congenial man is gone, replaced by the petulant boy who lauded his golden-child status over his sister and never expected her to do anything about it. Color rises to Allison's cheeks and you figure she's about to try to explain herself to this dick, and you're about to tell her that she doesn't have to explain herself, but then the dick's wife arrives in the doorway and the moment ends.

The wife, Heather, whom you also remember from the wedding, tells you both that Allison's old room is ready for you if you want to freshen up before heading over to the funeral home. Allison thanks her politely, and you glare at her brother before following her down the hallway.

Along the way, you pass family photos hung on the walls. Allison's picture is up there, a smiling toddler, a wide-eyed grade-schooler, a serious teenager. The photos are all professional portraits, and there are plenty of them, the same number as her brother. Only half of his pictures were taken by a professional. The other half were taken by his parents. Mugging to the camera, playing football, at the beach. The difference is subtle, but it's telling.

Allison pushes open a door on the right and you see her taking a deep breath as she steps over the threshold of her old room. It's just a guest-room now, but there are a few signs that it was once occupied by your wife. The tell-tale blue and yellow spines of the complete Nancy Drew series of books spans a shelf above a white desk, and you know that the pink jewelry box on the dresser will open to reveal a twirling ballerina. There's a Wyeth print on one wall, and an O'Keefe on another, and you know that Allison must have picked them out and hung them, so many years ago. There's a smaller version of the Wyeth in your guest bathroom now, and a larger one of the O'Keefe in her office at the hospital.

You're still inspecting the room when you hear Allison's voice and snap to attention.

"I should have told them," she says quietly.

"You can't change the past," you say, realizing that your words are not exactly comforting. "They made their choices, and you made yours. You don't have anything to feel guilty about."

Her nod is half-hearted and then she starts going through her suitcase for a change of clothes.

The wake is about as horrible as you imagined it would be. Dozens of Camerons and their friends, milling around a windowless room with floral arrangements and photos of Glen and Patricia at the front and chairs around the perimeter. Allison stays seated in one of the chairs most of the time, and you remain beside her. It's a struggle to bite back sarcastic retorts when people comment on the baby and how Glen and Patricia would have loved it. With Matthew's two children running around, you seriously doubt that your daughter would have been much more than a blip on their holiday and birthday card radar.

The evening wears on, and you notice an invisible line between Allison and the rest of her family. They come around to speak politely to her, but then they cross back to their own side, circling her brother. It's maddening to you and even more maddening that you can't drag her out and tell the rest of them to hell. When you finally get back to the house and fall into bed, you're strung as tight as a drum and your jaw aches from keeping it clenched shut.

Then Allison curls up facing away from you and you force yourself to unclench. She's the one who matters here, not you.

"You okay?" you ask because it seems like the right thing to do.

"Tired," she says, and she sounds it, voice thin and lacking the spark you've come to expect.

"How's the baby?"

"She's fine," she says, and sniffles.

You ease closer to her, and slide an arm around her waist.

"I'll be the judge of that," you say, pressing your hand against the middle of her belly as if that's the only way you can make sure that everything is well.

A minute later, you feel a ripple of movement and pressure against your fingers.

"See? Fine."

"Yup, just fine," you say, but you don't move your hand, and you don't let your eyes close until Allison's breathing evens out in sleep.

As expected, the funeral is a replay of the wake, only with people sitting in uncomfortable pews instead of uncomfortable straight-backed chairs. You and Allison are in the front row, next to Matthew and his family. Brother and sister have barely spoken since the previous afternoon. Allison's eyes are red and teary, and you she keeps pulling tissues out of her small black pocketbook. When Matthew gives the eulogy, she stares at him with glassy eyes, and you wonder if she's wishing things had been different. You wish things had been different for her, but then she might have ended up a different person and you love the person she is right now. Only you could be thinking selfish thoughts at a funeral.

At the wake, you made it your job to stick close to her, and you intend to do the same at the house after the funeral, but when you leave her in the living room, to get her something to drink, you return to find that she's left the room. Then you're accosted by an aunt and uncle who want to ask about their various ailments. Tact fails you after five minutes, and you snap at them and stomp off in search of your wife. The role reversal is strange to you. This isn't a part you play well, and you have no idea of what your lines are supposed to be.

You find her in her old room, thumbing through one of her Nancy Drew books.

"Good thing you didn't lock yourself in the bathroom," you tell her. "I don't wear barrettes."

Surprisingly, she manages a weak smile before turning back to the book in her hands.

"I should keep these," she says, putting one hand on her stomach. "She might like them someday."

You sit down on the corner of the bed, which puts you in arm's reach of her, and rest your chin on the handle of your cane.

"I suck at this," you say.

"You're here," she says, implying that's enough.

After a minute of silence, you open your mouth to speak again, just to hear something besides your own breathing, but Allison beats you to it.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," she says in a shaky voice. "This isn't what I wanted."

You touch her shoulder and it's enough to make her drop her book and join you on the bed.

"Of course you didn't want this."

"I should have told them about the baby, and then maybe things would have been different," she says hopelessly as she starts to cry and pushes her hands against her eyes.

"No," you say, sternly as you grab her wrists. "It wouldn't have been any different. You're wishing for something that was never going to happen. You didn't tell them because you knew who they were and you knew how they'd react, and you wanted to save yourself the disappointment. There's nothing wrong with that. You can't play this wishing game with yourself. You're trying to convince yourself that if you'd done something differently then they would have changed, but you're wrong. People don't change."

She stares at you and says, "You did," which leaves you speechless for a minute.

Finally you reply with, "I'm the exception to the rule, and I didn't change, I just - relaxed a little bit."

You watch as her face crumples and you would do anything to make her feel better.

"I just wish… I wish they had liked me."

Now you shake your head because her words are ridiculous.

"They loved you. Even if they sucked at showing you that."

She shakes her head and tells you that she knows they loved her, parents are practically required to love their children, but they didn't like her. You think you understand.

Although you think she may be right, "Everyone likes you," you tell her, and are instantly transported years back in time, to a fluorescent-lit hospital hallway with a painfully sincere Cameron, because that's who she was then, not Allison.

"What about you?" Allison asks, and you are snapped back to the present, but the painful sincerity is still written across her features, and you know she's thinking of the same exact moment in time.

"Yes," you tell her, and apparently it's enough, because she falls into your arms and sobs against your shoulder, but somehow you can tell that she's going to be all right now.

At one in the morning, you and Allison stumble in your front door, dragging your book-laden suitcases behind you. She insisted on bringing the books with her instead of having her brother ship them to her. They parted on amiable terms, and he even apologized for being an ass (which you were surprised about) but she still wanted to bring the books.

When she heads to the baby's room instead of your bedroom, you follow her, and when she starts unpacking the books you roll your eyes but do the same. They fill one shelf of the bookcase in the corner and she runs her finger along the spines. Then she clasps her hands over her belly and looks at the framed ultrasound picture on the top shelf.

"I love her so much," she whispers, and you can tell she's tearing up because of something other than grief, and are grateful.

"Yeah, same here," you tell her, and you promise them both that you're going to like her too.


	9. Chapter 9

Yes, here we are, the final part of this story - although there may be an epilogue if anyone is interested in one. It's been wonderful to write this story, despite what's been going on in my own personal life, and I have to say that the support of my readers has been a huge comfort to me.

As far as my own fertility goes, this last cycle was unfortunately another failure, and so now I will be going through IVF. It's been a bumpy road, emotionally, and I'm trying to be positive now without getting my hopes up too much.

Okay, now on to what you came here for!

**X. **

Four weeks before her due date, Allison gets serious about names. She'd been moving the name book around the house for the past six months, but now there were actually post-it notes sticking out from between some pages and a highlighter clipped onto the front cover. While lying in bed one night, the two of you had happened to start discussing naming styles and you were grateful that yours seemed to mesh.

After meeting one too many atrociously named children in the clinic, you each have particular dislikes. Your pet peeve is made up names like the ridiculous Navaeh. Parents' penchant for adding Mac to anything and calling it a name ranks a close second. Apparently those people don't care about the fact that their precious little princess MacKenzie is carrying around a name that means "son of Kenneth". Allison admits that she gets a bit affronted every time a girl with a masculine name is brought into the clinic. As if a woman couldn't possibly be taken seriously unless her name is something like Ryan or Elliot or Jaymes.

Unfortunately, despite being on the same wavelength as far as definite "no's" are concerned, you still haven't picked out a definite winner. She's tossed out names like Eleanor, Ava, Kathleen and Margaret, and while you don't hate any of them, none of them feel quite right.  
After another night of watching television while she periodically blurts out a name, only to have it shot down, Allison gives up in a huff and tosses the book into your lap.

"Okay, you find one you like and then let me know," she tells you.

Your mouth twists into a grimace. This was not on your agenda for the evening.

Reluctantly you open the book, thumb through a few pages and then flip back to the beginning.

"Alice," you say a few minutes later.

"Al—you just picked a name off the first page!" she says indignantly.

"No, I didn't, I like the name Alice."

"Alice? Really?"

"Yeah, really, what's wrong with Alice?"

"Isn't it kind of close to Allison?" she asks with a cocked eyebrow.

"Maybe that's why I like it," you grumble, and Allison looks shyly pleased and a blush touches her cheeks.

"Alice is a nice name," she accedes, but if you get to pick first name, then I get dibs on middle name."

You look at her with suspicion before agreeing.

"Blythe," she says with a determined jut of her chin.

An amused smile curls at the corners of your mouth.

"You realize that the kid is already going to be spoiled silly," you tell her.

She doesn't agree or disagree, she just smiles at you with a hint of the smugness you've grown to accept at times. Then she grabs the baby name book from you and walks across the room to the bookcase and squeeze it in between your battered old college dictionary and a volume of John Donne's poetry. Your daughter has a name.

Three weeks before Allison's due date, two things happen. Your mother closes on a house ten minutes away, and Sarah throws Allison a surprise baby shower. Naturally the shower is not really much of a surprise. You've known about it for weeks, and the information was wheedled out of you when she held your iPod hostage. Apparently your wife doesn't like surprises.

Your mother, of course, is invited to the shower, and you are not. No, you and Wilson are kicked out and told to come back after five with a Christmas tree. Five o'clock is five hours away, and getting a tree will take you approximately fifteen minutes, so the two of you head back to your place to watch football.

Wilson has turned into a total girl over the past five years, and he ends up spending a lot longer than fifteen minutes picking out what he calls the perfect tree. You remind him that he's Jewish and that the tree is not even going to be in his house, but your words fall on deaf ears. It's close to six-thirty by the time you get back to the Wilsons' house with a six foot evergreen strapped to the top of Allison's car.

Allison, Sarah and your mother are in the living room cooing and exclaiming over all of the baby things. It's sickening in a way, but the stuff is pretty cute. Not that you'll ever admit that. Your private cache of baby things has grown to include a number of stuffed toys that are supposed to represent various microbes (you're particularly fond of The Common Cold), a t-shirt featuring a New Orleans jazz club and a onesie with the periodic table across the chest. It's never too early to make the kid a genius, you figure.

"Look at the carseat!" Allison exclaims to you. "It's from Sarah and Jimmy."

It is grey and pink. You glare at Wilson, who holds up his hands.

"Hey, I wanted to go with the orange flames, but you know women."

You roll your eyes.

Wilson helps you take all of the boxes and bags out to the car, and then after Allison has given a round of hugs and kisses to the Wilson family, you head home with her and your mother. The pregnancy hormones are really making Allison a sentimental girly-girl and it's a little bit strange. You hope it will wear off after she pops the kid out.

The following day is spent putting up the tree and going over a moving check-list with your mother. She won't be moving down until the end of January but she's going to sell some of her furniture and wants to make sure you take anything you want. Before you can even say that you don't need anything, Allison pipes up requesting your father's old desk and antique globe.

Your mother looks surprised, but you nod your head and she writes it down. You remember now, that during your vacation you told Allison a few childhood stories, including one about how you used to sneak into your father's office to sit behind his desk and spin the globe, stopping it with your finger and then running to the atlas to look up whatever country you'd landed on if it was one you hadn't lived in. It is a bittersweet memory. Your father probably would have been happy to know that you were so interested in things like that, but you were too stubborn to tell him, and he was too stubborn to offer to share them with you without being asked. You think that Alice will like the globe.

Two weeks before Allison's due date, Christmas arrives right on schedule.

Despite being hugely pregnant, Allison has decorated the house beautifully. It looks like something from one of her Martha Stewart magazines. You started off the month griping about all of the decorations, but that sent Allison hurrying to the bathroom, and you knew she was going there to cry where you wouldn't see. The feeling of guilt from that incident kept you from making any more negative comments. In a moment of weakness, you even brought home three decorative stockings from a cutesy gift-store near the hospital. When you look at them now, you realize that they are a completely different style - more country kitsch, and less elegant - than everything else, but Allison beamed when you gave them to her and she hung them proudly from the mantle.

The two of you spend Christmas morning in bed with coffee and toast. You figure you've got years ahead of you to get up at the crack of dawn and rush to the tree. Allison does waddle out to the living room and bring back your stocking. You can feel an orange shoved into the toe and when you unwrap the rest you find CDs, an iTunes giftcard, and a silver picture frame with a copy of the ultrasound picture.

"You can put her first real picture in there," she tells you. "I was going to get you one that said 'Daddy's Girl' around the edge but I figured this one had a better chance of actually making it to your desk."

She's right about that.

"I didn't do the stocking thing," you say.

"That's okay," she replies with a smile that lets you know you really are off the hook.

Then she pats your hand and says, "I don't expect you to go from Grinch to Santa just because I've got a bun in the oven."

Little things like that are what give you some relief from the thought that she's secretly imagining you turning into Ward Cleaver or Bill Cosby. Homer Simpson is closer to likely.  
Still, a little bit of Allison's sentimentality must be rubbing off on you because you rummage around in your nightstand drawer, pull out a small box and toss it towards her.

"Forgot to wrap that one," you say.

She looks at you with a mixture of skepticism and pleased surprise. Inside the box is a gold necklace with a simple garnet pendant. It came from the same gift store as the stockings.

"Garnet's going to be the kid's birthstone," you explain. "They had a bunch with cheesy mother and child symbols, but I couldn't make myself buy them."

"It's perfect," she whispers.

Okay, so maybe you're slightly above Homer.

Your new bathroom features a walk-in shower big enough for two, for which your leg is eternally grateful. Allison went through a brief period of self-consciousness around the time it started looking like she was smuggling a beach ball under her clothing, but she is past that now and back to showering with you in the mornings.

Most of her extra weight is still in her belly, but her chest has also filled out, and her hips are slightly rounder. She made a vague comment a month ago about hoping her body recovered after pregnancy, which told you she'd probably been obsessing over it for days. You were able to reassure her that you'd find her attractive even with slightly more curves. Your exact words, were nearer to "I'll still want to jump you even if you keep the boobs and hips," but they seemed to do the trick. Now she leans against you as you wrap your arms around her and rub a washcloth over the taut skin of her stomach. You are warm and comfortable and content and you haven't even gotten to the presents under the tree.

On the week before Allison's due date, she goes into labor.

You are at work and have just finished a diagnostic session and sent Mason off to run a CAT scan on your patient when you get the call.

You are not expecting it. You don't know why, but you had it in your head that she'd have false labor a few times and then go into full-blown labor sometime after her due date. The idea of her going early had not occurred to you. In fact, you make the mistake of asking if she's sure it's not Braxton-Hicks contractions. You have to hold the phone away from her ear when she shouts that she's been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for weeks and knows the difference between that and real labor and by the way, she's went to medical school too, in case you forgot.

Then she lets out a horrible groan and you clutch the phone tighter and call her name.

Sarah is the one who answers. They'd been out at lunch when Allison started having contractions and now they're at your house because Allison insisted on getting her things. She's had a bag packed for weeks because, unlike you, she considered all possibilities.

You ask how far apart the contractions are and are told that they're almost fifteen minutes apart, but strong. You want to call an ambulance to pick them up, but realize that makes you sound like a frantic husband, so you just tell Sarah to hurry the hell up and get to the hospital. She'll probably forgive the swearing.

By the time they arrive, you've been pacing around the lobby for fifteen minutes and have called Wilson to make him pace with you. When the sliding doors open to admit your wife, you're beside her before they have a chance to close. Sarah is on her other side, holding her bag, and you yell at a passing nurse and tell her to bring a damn wheelchair.

"I don't need a wheelchair," Allison protests, but she is pale and lets herself be situated in the chair without a fight.

Sarah hands you Allison's bag and says that she'll come up to see you both when you're settled in a room. Wilson is grinning from ear to ear, and says he'll stop by too. Apparently you're the only one who doesn't think this is a party. You roll your eyes before rolling Allison towards the elevators.

You already stopped by admitting to get her checked in, so the nurses on the OB floor are ready for you when you arrive. They chat to Allison and try to make small-talk with you. You are definitely not in the mood for small-talk as textbooks-worth of birth complications flash through your mind.

Soon, Allison is in bed in one of the relatively luxurious birthing rooms. It looks more than a bed and breakfast than a hospital room, with a folk-painted armoire holding the television, a cozy rocking chair in the corner, and a daybed covered in a quilt off to one side, presumably for father-to-be. You remain standing, and tap your cane against the floor.

"You know, it could be a while," Allison tells you. "You may want to get comfortable."

"You want your music on?" you ask, and she looks at you with surprise.

You fish around in her bag and pull out a CD she burned.

"What, you think I haven't been paying attention?" you ask, as you put the disk into the player beside the television and try to look offended.

You've given her every reason to think that, of course, but you secretly stashed her hypno-birthing DVD into your bag one morning and watched it on your computer at work. You can't say you think it'll work better than an epidural, but at least it doesn't sound as off the wall as some birthing methods. After all, she could have opted for a water birth.

"Thanks," is all she says before her face contorts into a grimace and her fist crumples the nice smooth blanket over her lap.

"Still fifteen minutes apart?"

"Feels closer to ten," she replies. "I thought first babies were supposed to take longer to arrive."

Those words seem to jinx her, because the contractions stay steady at ten minutes apart for the next two hours, and she remains only two centimeters dilated. Her doctor comes and goes, giving a quick look, a pat on the leg and some cheerful, placating words. It's all you can do not to verbally attack her and the only reason you restrain yourself is because Allison warned you to be nice.

Allison starts trying to convince you to let her go home and labor there, but you refuse. You are taking no chances, not with her life and not with the baby's. She argues with you, but then a particularly strong contraction steals her breath and then she tells you to turn off the music and turn on a movie.

Another six hours and Allison has progressed to active labor. She's five centimeters dilated and her contractions are five minutes apart and lasting almost a minute each. Sarah and Wilson have both been by to visit but left after only a few minutes. They went home after you promised to call as soon as the baby arrives. You've called your mother and she told you she'll drive down first thing in the morning. She thinks the baby won't be coming for a while, but when you look at Allison, you hope she's wrong. It's only been eight hours but she's starting to tire.

"You know, I could fix you up with some good drugs," you tell her.

She looks at you with mild annoyance. You've already been down this road once already.

"No epidural. I'm fine."

You roll your eyes and pop a Vicodin. At least one of you can be relatively comfortable.

A few minutes later, she decides that she needs to walk, and you limp along beside her, up and down the hallway, feeling completely ineffective. When the contractions start getting stronger, she says she wants to take a hot shower, and you just follow her into the bathroom, biting your tongue to keep from mentioning an epidural again.

When a contraction hits in the shower, and she lets out a short, pained gasp of breath before grabbing the handrail, you feel even more helpless. You hate this feeling, and you realize that a large part of the reason why you keep pushing her to medicate, is selfishness. You can't stand seeing her in pain. All of your medical knowledge, the fact that billions of women have given birth before her, the fact that her body knows what it's doing… all of those things mean nothing now as she reaches out and squeezes your hand for support.

"I'm right here," you reassure her, and that seems to be enough.

You help her back to bed just as a nurse comes in to check on her.

"Looks like you're in transition," the nurse says, sunny disposition firmly in place.

"No kidding," you snap. "She just had two contractions in three minutes."

The nurse glares at you before saying a few more positive things to Allison.

"You're supposed to be nice, remember?" Allison says after the nurse has left.

"Sorry, I have a hard time being nice to idiots," you tell her.

She doesn't have time for a sarcastic comeback, because another contraction hits and takes all of her concentration.

For almost an hour, you watch as contraction after contraction saps Allison's strength. She asks for ice chips and a cold cloth but then gets chilled and asks for a heated blanket. The nurses become a constant presence, but you ignore them. Allison's music is on again and you try to remember everything from that DVD and say comforting things about what her body is doing, but you feel like a complete fake.

That's when Allison looks up at you and tells you that she's scared. It's like your nightmare is coming to life, but after one horrified moment, you take control of yourself and silently swear that you are going to walk out of the hospital with your wife and your daughter safe beside you.

"You're going to be fine," you say. "You're both going to be fine."

You hold her hand and stare into her weary eyes and will her to believe you and focus on you. Even as another contraction rips through her belly, she keeps her eyes on yours. Neither of you notice that the doctor has arrived until she loudly proclaims that it's time for Allison to start pushing.

Earlier in the pregnancy, Allison made you promise that you would stay by her head during delivery. She didn't want you as her doctor, she wanted you as her husband. At the time, it had been a tough thing to agree to, but now you can't tear yourself from her side.

The doctor and nurses are calling for Allison to push harder, and you support her shoulders and feel like you want to shout right along with her as she works through another contraction.

"She's crowning!" the doctor announces, and then everything goes extremely quickly.

Two more pushes and your daughter is being raised into the air and you are being asked to cut the cord, and then the tiny red, wrinkled, screaming infant is placed on Allison's chest. Allison is crying, and it takes you a minute to realize that she's not the only one. Little Alice squirms in Allison's arms, and you help her push aside her gown so that your daughter can nurse. You hardly notice that the room is still buzzing with activity as Allison delivers the placenta and the nurses clean her up as much as possible. You don't know how much time has passed when the nurse says that it's time to clean the baby up and run the standard battery of tests. Allison doesn't look like she wants to let Alice go, but when you say you'll carry her to the nursery, she smiles a watery smile up at you and agrees.

You expected holding a newborn to feel awkward and uncomfortable, but when you lift Alice into your arms it feels like the most natural thing in the world. She just fits, as if she was uniquely made to nestle in the crook of your arm against your chest, and you know that Allison was right when she said that you would never doubt your ability to love this child. She's less than an hour old and you are already wondering if your love for her will ever stop growing. You've become a stereotypical smitten father, and you don't even care.

When you return to the room with Alice in your arms, but now diapered and swaddled and wearing a tiny knitted hat, Allison is propped against the pillows waiting for you.

"You should sleep," you tell her.

"I don't want to sleep, I want to look at her," she tells you, and you settle Alice into her mother's embrace.

Alice's little eyes open, and mother and child study each other while you look at them both and think about how it has taken you over fifty years to finally have the best day of your life.

Comments and criticism welcome, as always! 


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