3. forget your troubles

House wakes up in the morning with a foot lodged in his armpit.

It would be a confusing situation for anyone, except that he has more than enough prior experience telling him exactly what is going on: Rachel is in bed with them again.

It happens at regular intervals to the point that he's almost grown used to spending the night with two other people - and not in the fun way. The truth is, he wouldn't even mind if she just climbed in quietly on Cuddy's side, went straight to sleep, and stayed that way. But sharing a bed with a toddler, House has come to understand, is in no way an orderly or peaceful affair.

Oh, the kid always starts out cuddled up all sweet and innocent with her mother, but it never lasts. She squirms and fidgets, babbles to herself, moves around, burrows in between him and Cuddy, gets all up in his personal space without a care in the world while sending elbows, knees and feet flying out at random into the soft tissue of anyone within range. And just generally disrupts any hope he has of getting a decent night's sleep.

And Cuddy - the only one who can make the executive decision necessary to tote the kid back to her own room - tends to just put up with it. That is, when she doesn't sleep right through the entire ordeal.

On this morning when the alarm goes off he and Cuddy are pushed right to opposite sides of the mattress while Rachel sleeps between them. Horizontally. Her face is smushed against Cuddy's stomach and her feet are digging into House's ribs. She's currently taking up a good two thirds of the bed - an impressive feat for someone who barely reaches his knees.

This is not a good start to the day. Cuddy, however, is all smiles after turning off the alarm.

"Well, good morning, baby."

Unfortunately, she is not speaking to him.

He lies there blinking slowly, wanting to roll over and go right back to sleep, while beside him Cuddy indulges in a sleepy cuddling session with Rachel. He tries not to be bitter that it's been several days now since she treatedhim to a grown-up-style cuddling session first thing in the morning.

Rachel starts giggling as her mother drops kisses all over her face, and then the squirming starts back up as he had known it would. The little feet kick and flex as she wriggles in delight like an over-excited puppy, and after she gets in a good jab at his spleen, House finally grabs the offending extremities and firmly aims them away from him down the bed.

"Sure it's okay for you," he says as he meets Cuddy's eye. "You got the cute end."

She laughs softly. "Okay, come on sweetie, time to get up." When she sits up Rachel latches on, trying to pull her back down.

"No, mama sleep now."

"Mama's getting up, you're still sleepy?" Rachel nods. "Okay, then let's take you back to your bed. Come on, I'll carry you."

"No, wanna stay here with you."

"Shh, Rachel it's too early for arguing. If you want to go back to sleep, then I will take you to your bed."

"No. Wanna stay."

"Just leave her here," he grumbles. The whining is worse than being stuck here with the wriggling menace.

"Do you want to stay with House?" Cuddy asks, and Rachel gives him a considering look. He's the clear second choice here, but apparently realising her mother isn't going to be persuaded to stick around no matter the amount of whining, she nods.

Cuddy looks to him and he makes a face, burrowing his head into the pillow. "Go do your damn yoga."

"Damn yoga," Rachel echoes his words, having officially switched allegiances.

Cuddy looks askance at her and draws in a breath to protest the language but he cuts her off. "It's too early for arguing," he reminds her.

He knows he sounds testy, but what does she expect at 6.00am?

Apparently, not much. She holds up her hands in defeat. "Okay, I guess everyone's grouchy this morning except me. I will leave you to it." She kisses Rachel on the head and then leans over to do the same for him. At the last moment she detours from his forehead and drops a quick, teasing kiss on his lips instead.

His mood lifts a little because he's easy like that. She quietly grabs her workout clothes and ducks out of the room. He hears the bathroom door close down the hall. He exchanges a look with Rachel. "Well thank god she's gone, now we can finally get some sleep around here."

"Yeah," she nods emphatically, as if the little turncoat wasn't just clinging to Cuddy like a creeping fungus.

But if she's in such an agreeable mood, he tries pulling the covers up to his chin and closing his eyes tight in the hopes she'll match him in this, too.

Sleep tugs at him soon enough. Before succumbing he opens an eye to peer suspiciously at the small form in bed beside him, unable to trust the sudden peace that has fallen over the room. But for once he and Rachel seem to be of a mind; she might actually have beaten him to the punch. A perverse part of him - the part that really just can't resist making things more difficult for himself - wants to poke her and check that she's not faking it.

He's too tired to play the masochist for now, though, and closes his eyes and quickly dozes off. Only to jolt awake again what feels like just a few minutes later with the eerie feeling he's being watched. A glance at his watch on the nightstand tells him it has actually been an entire twenty-five minutes. He looks back over his shoulder and confirms his other suspicion.

Rachel is now perched on her knees hovering over him, and she greets him with a grin once she realises she has his attention.

"What?" he demands, and then decides instantly he doesn't care. "Go back to sleep."

"I have to potty."

"Then go."

"The floor's cold on my feet." She holds out her arms in a wordless command to be picked up and carried.

"Too bad." He does pick her up, but only to heave her over his body and deposit her on the cold, unforgiving floorboards beside the bed.

He doesn't think he sets her down roughly, he certainly doesn't intend to - and maybe she just isn't expecting to be moved so quickly - either way, as soon as he lets her go her legs give out and she sits down hard on her ass. She stares up at him with wide eyes, seeming more startled than hurt. He watches her warily for a few seconds but she doesn't start to cry, just gives him a reproachful look, small forehead crinkling as she frowns at him.

He quashes the faint stirring of guilt. She's fine. Besides, he's well accustomed to displeasing Cuddy women; distraction and/or avoidance is key.

"Don't you have to pee? Go on, better hurry, or it'll get stuck up there."

She jumps up and scampers off and he only wishes the more senior Cuddys he knows were that gullible.

His sigh fills the silence once she's gone. Heaviness drags at his eyelids once more but now that he has the bed to himself his mind suddenly proves itself to be the biggest obstacle keeping him from another few hours sleep.

There's an image in his head he can't seem to dispel:

Another morning just like this, only three has somehow become four. There's another small, dark-haired child tucked under the covers beside Rachel, kicking and whining, disturbing his sleep, hogging the covers and Cuddy's attention.

"We're going to need a bigger bed," he mutters, rolls over, and tries to put it all out of his mind for now.

Around 11.00am House goes to see Cuddy in her office. By this time of the morning House has been at work for just over an hour while Cuddy has been in since before 8. He generally likes to keep himself familiarised with her schedule on a day to day basis - a habit he assumes she now finds romantic rather than creepy and invasive like back in the sad old days of non-couple-hood.

The point is, he is able to time his arrival in her office just as she is finishing a trying video conference with people he knows she doesn't like. The theory being she will now be extra glad to see him in comparison. And if she isn't, he has at least not come empty-handed.

"You were up early this morning," he says as he enters, carefully holding both cups in one hand while the other manages both cane and the door. "Thought you could use a pick-me-up."

"Hey." She smiles as she greets him, but then sits back and tries to conceal a look of dismay when she sees the to-go cups he's carrying. "Oh, that's sweet of you but, um, no thanks. Why don't you give it to Wilson instead? He's probably bought you a few thousand cups of coffee over the years, so he might faint from shock but once he comes to he'll really appreciate it."

He comes around the desk and props himself against the edge, looking down at her. "Sorry, I can't give Wilson this coffee. Besides the fact it would set a dangerous precedent in our relationship, this is actually tea. Lemon and ginseng."

"Oh." She finally reaches for the proffered cup. "Mmm, this smells good."

"This doesn't." He waves his own cup, which actually does contain coffee, under her nose and she recoils, turning her face away. "Thought so."

"Ugh." She looks back up at him sheepishly. "I just can't stand it at the moment. You know how many coffee carts there are on campus? How many people walk around with coffee cups and coffee breath like they've been bathing in the stuff? I've never noticed it before, it's disgusting."

"Oh, now don't you listen to the mean lady," he croons to his triple-shot espresso as he gets to his feet, "you're the sweet, heavenly elixir of the gods and everyone knows it. Now you just wait for daddy out here." While he speaks he heads across her office and opens the door. He takes two steps over to Cuddy's assistant's desk and puts the precious coffee cup down while the assistant watches him questioningly. "Do not touch it," he orders, before going back inside and closing the door.

"You didn't have to do that," Cuddy says.

"You looked like you were about to barf. You've got plenty of barfing to come, no need to tempt your gag reflex for no reason."

"Well, the tea is nice, thank you."

"So. Morning sickness. Looking forward to that, I'll bet."

"Some women don't get any."

"Strong smells are already enough to turn you a fetching shade of green. It'll start up for reals soon enough."

"Maybe."

"Maybe. It's all up in the air, isn't it? Especially since -"

"House."

"Since we don't really know anything right now. Morning sickness is triggered by rising hormone levels, and who can say what your hormones are doing? Not like there's a simple way to find out, say perhaps some kind of test, involving blood, maybe even under the professional supervision of an OBGYN… Or not. Don't know where I come up with these crazy ideas."

She rolls her eyes. "I'm five minutes pregnant, House, you can't even ultrasound this early. I'm going to wait a few weeks and, uh, then we'll see about making an appointment. Okay?"

She wants him to drop it, clearly. She's getting pissier the more often he pushes her about this stuff, but he doesn't really know any other way to handle things. Wilson told him to give her time to adjust but he's not sure he's capable of doing that, not when they don't have all the information. He needs to know.

But for now, right this second, he can drop it, if only so he can reform a better strategy of attack later. He sighs and nods. She apparently accepts this and relaxes, taking a sip of tea.

He glances behind him, out through the glass-panelled doors. "That kid better not be drinking my coffee," he says.

"He's not going to touch anything of yours. You've got him good and scared." This pleases him to hear and she rolls her eyes when she sees him smile, but eventually smiles back. "Listen, I'm sorry about Rachel this morning."

"What about her?"

She reaches up and rubs his arm. "You have enough trouble getting a full night's sleep without her bugging you."

"Oh. It's fine." He shrugs. "If it was every night I'd be lodging a formal protest, but it's only every now and then - it's fine."

"Okay. Anyway I'm really just sorry because I would much rather have skipped yoga and spent the morning in bed with you, instead. Without our little visitor." Her smiles grows, taking on a playful edge.

"Well, much as I enjoyed the company of Little Miss Squirms-a-lot, gotta admit, a private session with Dr Tight-and-hot would have been my first choice, too."

Her nose wrinkles in amusement. Then she stands up, peering cautiously out the doors. "Well you should expect a house-call tonight," she says, and having apparently deemed the coast to be clear she steps between his knees and presses a warm kiss to his lips.

"Is sex all you ever think about?" he complains, squeezing her waist in his hands to hold her right where she is. "Some of us real doctors have work to do around here, you know."

She kisses him again. "Mmm, well I can't help it, just thinking about you actually working is such a turn on. Just imagine," she leans in close to speak his ear, "what depths of carnal depravity I might be driven to if you actually delivered some of your paperwork on time."

He pulls back and wags a finger at her. "See, you almost had me. But now you're going to send me back to my office with an erection and so I'm forced to believe you're nothing but a big tease."

"Damn it. Those billing forms were so close I could taste them."

"Better luck next time."

He leaves her with one last kiss, making it a good one as he slides a hand down to her ass and presses her up against him, ensuring she is made well aware that he was only half-kidding about the erection.

The little tea party in Cuddy's office leaves him with more than a cold cup of coffee and an awkward semi. It also gives him an idea. His mission to make Cuddy handle this pregnancy like the annoyingly idealistic, driven, control-freak of a doctor he knows her to be is about to be put into effect, employing his most diabolical tactic yet.

"I can't have sex with you," he says that night when they're alone together in bed.

She's already down to her panties at this point, straddling his lap. At his unexpected announcement she folds her arms over her chest, obscuring her breasts - and he almost abandons the entire plan based on that alone.

"What? Why not?" she says.

"I don't feel comfortable having sex with you until you've got the all-clear from your OBGYN."

"You're kidding me."

He shrugs. He kind of wishes he was, but he actually isn't.

This will be the fourth night in a row they haven't had sex. They've gone longer, but not all that often. Their sex life is active to say the least - mostly because Cuddy has a high sex drive that he likes to encourage as much as physically possible for a man his age. Even now, after having been together almost a year, they still do it a lot.

He can certainly tell she wants to do it right now and will not take kindly to being refused in such a manner. That's kind of the point.

"What is your problem?" she says.

"You should see a doctor. Gomez does your paps, she'll do. Go see her. Tomorrow. Then, if she gives the all clear, we can resume activities as normal - it's the responsible thing to do."

She drags her hands down her face. "You are killing me with this."

He puts his hands on her, but only to gently but firmly push her off of him. "Good night." He lies down with a great deal of resolution.

"You are not going to sleep right now," she says.

"Well I am not having sex with you," he replies.

"You're right, we're not having sex, we're having an argument. It's gonna be a big one."

He looks over his shoulder at her, sitting there half-naked with murderous eyes. "You know, in your condition, high blood pressure -"

"Shut up!" She shifts to the side of the bed, movements jerky with irritation as she grabs her robe from the end of the bed and shrugs it on. She sits there not looking at him.

He sits up again, because if she wants to fight, then he will fight. He's determined to get her to see reason about this. "You obviously don't want to listen to my opinion. Fine, then go consult a lady doctor about your lady problem. I'm cool with it, why aren't you?"

She rounds on him. "Because I'mnot ready! It could already be over and I'm not ready to deal with that," she chokes out, then takes a breath to calm herself. "Besides, there's no point this early anyway, you know that. If there's something wrong... then there's nothing to be done. You're a big freakin' genius doctor so I know that you do know that."

"You have risk factors. Early monitoring of your hormones makes sense. You're an endocrinologist so you must know that, even if you're not a big freaking genius doctor like some of us in the room."

"God, why are you obsessing about this?"

"Because you're not!"

"I am just trying to maintain a little sanity here. You are making it kinda difficult." She must see some hint of confirmation on his face because she throws up her hands. "Of course that's the plan. Drive me crazy. Sure, why not?"

"Just because you know about it, doesn't mean it won't work."

She holds up a hand. "Ugh. I don't even want to have sex with you anymore." She gets under the covers and flops down on her side, her back to him.

"Great. Me either." He lies down next to her.

She shoots him a look over her shoulder. "Yes you do."

Of course he does. "You can't prove it," he says.

She rolls over, sliding closer. "Pretty sure I could prove it."

"Nice try. Keep your hands to yourself."

"You're going to hold your penis hostage till I make a pointless visit to my gynaecologist."

He decides to throw her a bone. "If you agreed to go right now, I would trust you to keep your word and have as much sex with you as you would like."

She shrugs. "I'll make an appointment."

"You're lying. No deal."

"You're an asshole."

She's seriously pissed at him now. It's the most emotion he's seen from her in days and while he has to swallow the urge to duck for cover he is also encouraged to see it. Cuddy's fury invigorates and motivates her like little else.

If he survives the next five minutes, he thinks things might be looking up.

"I'd like to point out that breaking up with someone for not having sex with you is what a certain high school boyfriend did to a young, innocent Lisa Cuddy and it was not cool at all."

"I am going to sleep," she says through gritted teeth, not at all amused.

He can't help thinking it really is a shame about the sex.

She looks beyond hot right now. Terrifying, but in a really hot way. His balls don't know whether to shrink up into his chest cavity or load up for a twelve-gun salute.

Before he does something stupid like fold completely and jump her, he rolls over and yanks the covers over his head. "Good night!"

She turns off the lamp and yanks the covers towards her side of the bed. He's not sure how long the sheer frustration - sexual and otherwise - keeps her awake, but for him it is a long time before sleep comes.

He goes down on her first thing in the morning.

He doesn't even really mean to, except that she turns to him and kisses him right after the alarm goes off and in the disorientation of 6.00am he's on top of her with his hand down her shorts before he even really registers what's happening.

So he goes down on her. It's a conciliatory gesture of sorts, getting her off - on demand no less - and in a way she can hardly complain about. Oral sex for greater justice.

She does complain, however, when he drags himself out of bed while she's still coming down from her orgasm. He leaves her there, legs still splayed out, her juices coating his chin, and hobbles gingerly into the bathroom for a long, private shower.

"Seriously?" she calls after him. He doesn't respond.

It's later, at work, that the argument picks up again. Or so he thinks. She comes to his office and sits across the desk from him and the heat in her gaze has him mentally girding his loins.

He's not sure which of them is more surprised when she suddenly grins and shakes her head.

Then she rolls her eyes. She's trying to be mad at him, he can tell, but she's not managing it.

"You're an idiot," she says after abandoning her internal struggle. "How long do you honestly think you can go without sex?"

"Longer than you."

Her eyebrows go up in disbelief. "How was your shower this morning?"

"Quick."

"You were in there almost thirty minutes."

"I actually showered twice."

She laughs and he joins her, ducking his head as he huffs in amusement.

"All right, I'll go see my lady doctor." He perks right up at the realisation that she is caving to his demands, but she holds up a hand, looking serious. All of a sudden the light mood is gone. "I'm only doing this because… the longer we play these games, the more you'll care about the outcome. I'm worried that you're… you're already getting so involved. And you're dragging me along with you." She shakes her head. "I'll do this and you'll back off, right?"

"Today? See her this afternoon. It's Friday, you'll have to wait till next week otherwise."

"Fine. Fine, I will talk to Andy, ask if she has time to see me today."

"Pretty sure she will, boss."

Immediately suspicious, she points a warning finger. "Leave her alone."

"Sure, but if she happens to be hanging out in the cafeteria or something while you're worrying yourself sick about miscarrying instead of, I don't know, maybe skipping lunch this one time to do her boss a favour - and if I happen to see her totally by chance while out and about, I'm just saying, that seems like fate wants me to -"

"Do not strong-arm my gynaecologist, House. That whole department hates you enough."

"Let's be honest, all of the departments kind of hate me. Surgical kind of wins the sweepstakes by sheer numbers, but yeah, they all pretty much hate the House."

She sighs and plays along as they drift away from the subject at hand. "Not all of them. For some reason ortho has nothing but nice things to say about you. I've never understood why."

"Because broken bones are the mud pies of the medical playground," he says. She looks perplexed and he happily elaborates. "My department's over here doing backflips on the monkey bars - hell we're building our own monkey bars superior to all the other kids' monkey bars - meanwhile those ortho guys are sitting on their asses in the dirt, drooling on themselves. They're idiots, which wouldn't be relevant, most doctors are idiots, but unlike almost all the other idiots in this hospital, I've never shown up the ortho guys for being idiots. Because my patients have actual serious problems that no one is ever going to mistake for something that can be fixed with wet plaster. The mud pie slingers and the monkey bar all-stars don't mix. That's why they don't hate me," he concludes. He pauses for effect before adding, "That, and a certain long-standing Orthopaedics attending has a thing for me."

She blinks at that. "You mean... Dr Foss? Huh."

"Jealous?"

"No. You think every woman you meet has a thing for you. Doesn't make it true."

"It was true in at least one recent case I can think of."

She shrugs. "Broken clock is right twice a day."

While she's still smirking at her own quip, he abandons their conversational detour altogether.

"Thank you. You know, for doing what any rational woman would do in your situation without having to be blackmailed into it." He pauses and then adds, "My penis also thanks you."

"Your penis better start thinking about how to make last night up to me."

"It has pretty much thought of nothing else all morning."

"Even before I let the terrorists win?"

"Either way. Always. That's all it ever thinks about. We are talking about my penis here."

"Yep, we are still talking about it. And now I am going."

"When you see your pal Dr Gomez, make sure you explain to her how extremely virile and energetic I am in the sack. Spare no detail. She should have all the information when making a call about our sexual activity. I'm talking frequency, duration, circumference, proportion - hey, no need to talk me up, we both know the real deal is impressive enough!"

She's already out the door. He smiles watching her go.

That night, after Cuddy has consulted with an actual registered OBGYN they go right back to not talking about it.

It's Friday night, Rachel is with Arlene, and instead of talking about anything remotely important they have noisy sex on the couch and then eat take-out, naked, while watching an R-rated movie filled with gratuitous violence because the only child present is the one currently gestating. And these days they have to get their kicks while they can.