A/N: Yes, a cliffhanger on just the first chapter. :) Verdict has several zinger lines on the way through. However, as said, it isn't a long story (I think, though mental pages always seem shorter than actual ones), and it also moves quickly. You will get that first one answered in, I believe, just two more chapters, as we land very quickly in court. Updates might not be as quick as usual for me; it's a busy musical season now through Easter. But the story itself moves right along. Thanks so much for all the reviews; I'm glad people are still interested in this universe. Enjoy chapter 2, and you will have action very shortly, I promise.
(H/C)
The back yard at the House house was full of activity, most of it named Rachel. She zoomed around the yard like a race car around a track, including the occasional spin-out, only pausing to catch her breath before charging off again. "Look, Dada!"
House and Sandra were in chairs on the back porch while Wilson manned the grill and Cuddy kept up a steady trek back inside for things that might be needed that had been forgotten. She was trying very hard - all of them were, actually - to keep the illusion in front of House of any old routine 4th of July barbecue among friends, pretending the shadow of the trial starting tomorrow did not exist. House was glad to play along, even while part of his mind told him such avoidance was pathetic. Just now, he was sitting down with a cool drink in one hand and Abby in his lap, but nobody looking at him would have considered him relaxed. Abby was obviously reading his mood and had been glued to him today.
"Look!" Rachel galloped another circuit of the yard, her voice chasing her. "Dada, I run!"
"I know," he called out. "I'm watching you, Rachel."
Abby shook her head briskly. "Noisy," she dismissed in one succinct comment.
All of the adults cracked up. "That she is," Sandra agreed. She looked down at the baby in her arms, sleeping soundly in spite of the commotion. Daniel had been discharged from the hospital a week ago, and it still seemed unreal somehow to be holding him at a barbecue, to be doing something so normal rather than visiting him in the hospital. She looked over at Abby, who had had a much longer and more difficult NICU course. "Did it seem unreal to you guys at first when she came home?"
House nodded, one arm tightening around his younger daughter, as Cuddy spoke for both of them. "Yes. Worrying that she might break. Also about immunities, and whether she would have permanent issues or not, mental or physical. We were always watching for any progress and questioning anything behind schedule."
Sandra looked back at her son. "We were lucky there." Daniel had had an isolated though serious genetic defect requiring surgical repair, but immunologically and developmentally, he was a far different case from Abby.
"Does he sleep pretty well?" Cuddy asked. Rachel certainly didn't seem to be bothering him any.
"Yes, so far, but when he wants something, he wants it now."
"He's just saving up strength with the sleeping, getting your guard down," House predicted. "He'll be giving Rachel a run for her money before long."
Wilson grinned, watching Rachel and picturing his own son running circles, healthy and strong. Ready for another reluctant break, Rachel ran toward the back porch.
House's strained lighthearted mood shattered at her impetuous approach. "Rachel, walk!" he said sharply, visions of Jensen's accident suddenly magnified in his mind. Already on edge in general, he easily jumped tracks to the new worry. Puzzled at the uncharacteristically sharp tone from him, she slowed down. "You don't ever run close to the grill. Understand? Never. No matter what. If you tripped right there, you could get hurt."
Rachel walked over to him. "Okay," she said, but her tone was enough indication that she didn't understand.
"I mean it," he insisted. "You could get hurt badly. You do not do that." He could almost see it, her small body hurtling into the grill, charcoal flying, him unable to move quickly enough to save her.
Cuddy put a hand on his shoulder and held it there, her gentle pressure calming him a little, and Abby reached up silently to copy the gesture. "He's right, Rachel. You never run once you get close to the grill." Her more-even tone firmly backed up his message, though. Rachel looked from one to the other of her parents, then, as usual when she felt she was missing something, changed the subject. She looked at House's lap, finding her sister already in possession. Abby shot her a self-satisfied look, and Rachel next turned to Wilson, flipping burgers.
"Wilson, see me run?"
"Kind of hard not to," he said. He picked her up with his free hand. "Yes, I saw you run. They're right, though. Look at these burgers. If you tripped and fell into the grill, you'd have grill marks burned across you, just like these." Rachel looked impressed at the visual. House flinched, even imagining the sizzle, and Cuddy spoke up firmly.
"Enough, Wilson. She gets the point."
"Just trying to . . ." He broke off at sharp looks from both Cuddy and Sandra and realized, too late, that painting vivid disaster scenarios in front of House at the moment wasn't the best approach.
Rachel reverted to her former topic, annoyed at all the overtones she sensed she was missing. "Wilson, Dada used to run."
"I know," he said softly with a shadow across his voice.
"You see the movie, too?"
It was Wilson's turn to be confused. "What movie?"
House sighed. "I showed Rachel some old pictures and a movie of a lacrosse game a few weeks ago. She wanted to be like me, and the piano wasn't going as well as she'd like. I really think her talents are different."
Wilson discarded about three comments there and finally just shut his mouth for once without saying anything. House looked from Rachel to Abby, remembering the last few weeks. The glimpse into his past had worked spectacularly well with Rachel, and while she still wanted brief sessions with the piano, a few minutes was enough for her, and her frustration with lack of progress was less. She spent far more time lately running circles and demanding that he watch her do so. Abby, on the other hand, continued to do spectacularly in her early piano lessons, and Cuddy and House carefully continued to keep the girls apart when one was playing. To his relief, neither of his daughters seemed to hold his current disabilities against him.
"Isn't it about time to eat?" Sandra suggested, gently changing the subject.
"Eat!" Rachel approved.
"Just about time," Wilson agreed. The next few minutes were taken up with getting paper plates fixed and also getting a bottle for Daniel, who woke up and demanded attention, inciting another "noisy" from Abby. Finally, the group was relatively settled around the patio table. Conversation during lunch continued to focus on anything other than the trial, but at the end of the meal, Wilson picked up his glass.
"I'd like to propose a toast," he announced, looking with a brief pang at his glass of lemonade. Nothing alcoholic, not even a beer with a meal, period. He and Jensen had agreed that total abstinence was the course for him, but Wilson still missed it at times. At the moment, the company of friends was enough, but making a toast with lemonade just seemed incomplete somehow. Everybody else picked up their glasses and waited expectantly, though. Actually, nobody else was imbibing at this barbecue, either, giving it up on his behalf. Wilson paused for dramatic effect, then continued. "I've been thinking about this day and what it symbolizes."
House groaned. "Seriously? You're risking getting boring, Wilson."
"Freedom," Wilson continued pointedly, drowning him out, "and all that means in our lives. And so, as I said, I'd like to propose a toast." He paused briefly again but not long enough to give time for another Housian cynical remark. "To prison! Rightful home of Patrick and those like him, and may they all have a very long and very unhealthy life there."
House was caught off guard for a moment, then suddenly smiled, reaching out with his glass. Everybody else had waited for him to react first, but they now followed suit, and there was a general murmur around the table. "To prison!"
Wilson let out an internal sigh that that calculated shot had worked to diffuse a little bit of his friend's tension. Sandra gave him a smile, and suddenly, he didn't mind the lemonade as much anymore. The afternoon proceeded without flags or fireworks, but the company of friends was itself some distraction, and at the end of the day, House realized with surprise that this particular year, it had been a holiday that he wouldn't mind repeating next year. Not just the toast to prison, although he wouldn't mind repeating that annually, but the two families sharing the day together. A new tradition.
(H/C)
The week beyond, as holiday-shortened weeks tend to do, was stretched out to an impossible length, seeming far longer than four days. Everybody seemed to be walking on eggshells. Cuddy kept one eye on the morning papers but both eyes on her husband. Abby and Rachel knew something was wrong, could feel the tension, but didn't understand why, of course, though they did their best to show sympathy for whatever was bothering him, as did Belle. House went to PPTH but couldn't settle to cases or research, and the two cases that came up he solved almost immediately without even spinning it out to play with and challenge the team. Everybody was far too understanding of his distraction for his comfort, too, though nobody actually mentioned the reason. He went through the motions at work each day, came home to spend time with his family and then drug himself past all chance of nightmares each night, conducted mental cross-examination on himself as practice in spite of Jensen's advice not to, and basically waited on pins and needles through the whole eternal week and following eternal weekend for the phone to ring.
Early Monday afternoon, it rang.
