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“Don’t look at me, don’t say a word, don’t ask any questions!” were the first words practically whisper yelled at the fellows as House, with a baby strapped to his chest, walked in.
Foreman immediately snapped his mouth shut because even this was too bizarre not to ask questions but it took Cameron’s a full minute of bug-eyed staring before House rapped his cane on the table to grab her attention.
The baby, baby!!!!!, started to squirm at the sound and Chase watched as Cameron’s eyes only bugged out further when House immediately glared at the table and shushed the upset infant.
They were hallucinating. That was the only logical, reasonable and sensible explanation for what they were seeing. They had stayed too long the previous night, hadn’t had enough sleep and they were hallucinating. It didn’t explain why all of them were seeing the same thing but they had been working under House long enough to know that the medical world held marvels.
“Right, now, in as normal a voice as you imbeciles can manage, update me.”
Silence.
“Hello! Am I speaking to myself here? If that is the case, I’ll just tell Cuddy to fire all your asses,” he covered the baby’s ears here (!!!) “and do the work on my own. Even Hugh here would do better than you morons are doing at this moment!”
Chase mouthed the name Hugh before jumping up and hurrying forward with his tests. He didn’t miss Foreman rolling his eyes at what he probably assumed was ass-kissery but still had to drag his eyes away from the admittedly adorable sight in front of him. Cameron had still not recovered.
It took half-an-hour for the patient to go into cardiac arrest and the room cleared out, House shooing them out when the baby, Hugh, started snuffling into his chest and didn’t seem to want to be soothed by pats.
Chase walked in on House sitting in his chair, feeding the baby as he leaned back, eyes lost in thought. He forced himself to overlook the obvious continuing hallucination and updated House on the patient’s condition before been sent off to do three more tests, two of which he was sure were unnecessary.
An hour later saw the fellows back around the table, the baby strapped back to House and the doctor now humming as he walked around the room, pausing once in a while to throw glares at the team when they said anything particularly outrageous.
This was how Wilson found them, hurrying in as his eyes zeroed in on House and the baby. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I thought it would take less time,-
“It’s fine.”
“-but the patient went into respiratory distress and her parents were frantic-
“It’s fine.”
“-and I just thought if it was Hugh how it would have been for u-
“I said, it’s fine Wilson!”
The shout finally brought Wilson out of his frantic apologies and he took a deep breath. “Was he okay?”
House rolled his eyes. “He’s two months old. The only thing he does is eat, sleep and,” he lifted the infant out of the carrier and lifted him to his nose. House smiled. “And poop just in time for his dad to change him.”
House passed the infant triumphantly over to Wilson, but not before dropping a soft kiss to his head.
Mass hallucination.
Wilson only smiled, squeezed House’s shoulder, grabbed the diaper bag that had appeared sometime between House’s entrance and the patient arresting and walked out, mumbling sweet apologies to the baby.
As soon as the pair were out of earshot, House shouted. “Right! Now where were we?”
The fellows jumped in their seats but finally managed to lift their jaws off the floor and got back to work.
***
10 months later
“And if you had just listened to me instead of scurrying to Cuddy like the little ethical lapdog that you are, the procedure would have been done an hour ago!” House shouted, swinging his cane around, barely missing a chair leg as Cameron looked at him, tears in her eyes, determination on her face.
“House, she did what she thought was right.”
House rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Shut up, Foreman. No one believes you’re actually defending her. I saw how your mouth twisted when we had to postpone the procedure.”
Chase was sitting quietly in his chair, refusing to say a word and be caught in the crossfire.
House let out another yell and stormed out, leaving the fellows staring at each other before Foreman shook his head and sighed. “Things never change around here. It’s like working with a child.”
“But a genius one,” Chase said, finally feeling it safe to speak.
“Still a child,” Foreman said, leaning back in his chair.
“I had to do it,” Cameron said, softly.
“Yeah, you did. As long as the patient’s fine, he’ll get over it,” Chase cajoled, patting her shoulder. Foreman just rolled his eyes again and anyone watching might have wondered if he didn’t get tired of doing that all the time.
They finally got up to go check on their patient, waiting to see if she was out of theatre yet when Wilson came hurrying in, once again looking like he was about to pull his hair out.
This time there was a strapping little toddler clinging to his hip, blue eyes shining with laughter at his father’s run, his brown hair wavy and falling in almost the exact way the oncologist’s did. It was adorable.
The incident ten months ago had been, not quite forgotten, but explained away as Wilson having had a lovechild and House, being the last person available on earth naturally, having been the only one left to babysit in that emergency. It didn’t explain his obvious affection and experience but they knew that if they delved too deep, they would probably go insane.
The gossip mill had run for a few days but eventually, with nothing to feed it, the rumour had died out and Hugh had never been mentioned again.
“House? Where’s House?” Wilson demanded, eyes flashing towards the open office door.
“He, uhm, stormed out a while ago,” Cameron said guiltily.
Wilson sighed, kissing the little hand that slapped into his face, demanding his attention. “Dada, dada, cay, cay!”
Wilson looked even more frazzled, setting the boy down on the table and passing him a miniature- Chase’s brain fritzed. He saw Cameron’s eyes widen as she took an instinctive step forward. Wilson had handed the toddler a miniature toy cane and the boy was whopping it against the table, giggling away.
“Look, can one of you just watch over him for a few minutes while I hunt House down? The nanny is sick and we can’t have Hugh getting ill right now. Please.”
Foreman had scurried out of the office the moment the oncologist’s intentions became clear but Cameron was already reaching for the diaper bag and memorising the instructions hurriedly told to her. Chase couldn’t hold back a smile when he handed her a bound little book ‘with all the instructions’ in case she forgot anything. And then the two of them were left with a giggling toddler who whopped Chase on the side with his cane.
Their eyes whipped to each other before almost bursting out laughing. “That was-
“-just like House.”
And they both did start to laugh then.
***
Hugh was not, in actual fact, a violent, ill-mannered fiend. He was cheery and loud and demanding but held out his arms to Chase for ‘uppies’ and immediately snuggled up to his shoulder and Chase had never felt joy and fear like that in his life. Cameron smiled adoringly at them, snapping a picture which Chase only scowled at after seeing how soppy his face looked.
“He’s so adorable!” Chase whisper yelled as Hugh hummed into his shoulder before it turned into a yelp when the toddler sunk his teeth into the muscle. “Kid!” he gasped, pulling him away, eyes wide as Hugh started to laugh in earnest.
Chase shoved him into Cameron’s arms. “He’s a wild beast. House’s influence on him is getting out of hand. We have to warn Wilson.”
“Hooooouuusssseeee,” Hugh imitated before making a grab for Cameron’s pocket. She slapped her hand over it before he could grab a pen and stab her before hurrying to see what toys his father had left in his bag.
And that was how House and Wilson found them, Cameron driving a car over his chubby legs, laughing with him as he giggled away. Chase was following the strict formular instructions, pouring the filtered water in like he was doing a test in the lab.
They both turned on hearing the men come in and watched in adoration as Hugh struggled to stand and started to wobble towards his father, yelling “Papa! Papa!”
The fellows only had a moment to wonder why the kid had gone from Dada to Papa when they saw what was surely another mass hallucination: Wilson taking House’s cane so that the genius could kneel slowly to the ground, wincing at the pain in his leg. The toddler’s unsteady, just-learnt-to-walk steps were slow enough that by the time he’d wobbled to the duo, House was ready to scoop him in, blowing raspberries into his neck much to the delight of the toddler.
Hugh had grabbed onto House’s neck, yelling “Papa!” a bunch of times before turning to point at Chase and Cameron and babble off a long story that no one could understand but had Wilson and House look adoringly at him.
“Papa?” Cameron asked, soft and shocked because someone had to ask what the hell was going on and it sure as well wasn’t going to be him.
He smiled to himself thinking that for once, Foreman minding his own business was going to backfire on him.
House, unsurprisingly, ignored the questioned murmur and passed the bouncing to Wilson before grabbing his cane and standing up. He nodded to his office and started firing questions to Wilson about the nanny and what did she say were her symptoms and was she feeling ill when she had been watching Hugh the previous day.
Chase and Cameron watched the two men walk towards House’s office completely ignoring them even as Hugh waved adorably at them over Wilson’s shoulder.
“I know you don’t like me bringing him into work-
“It’s because this place is a cesspool of bacteria, Wilson.”
“And I didn’t mean to disturb you-
“Shut up, you know it’s not-
“You just seem upset and-
“He’s my son too! You don’t have to keep apologising, you know?”
And that was the last thing they heard before the door slammed shut, cutting off all sound.
Chase turned to stare at Cameron.
“I don’t, I mean, did you hear what I heard?”
Cameron was holding the diaper bag up and they both stared at the embroidery on the bottom, unsure how they had missed it before.
Hugh Wilson-House.
Well then. That explained, nothing actually. It explained nothing.
The only explanation was: a mass hallucination. Just as Chase had thought.