Thanks for the reviews! Yes, lots of angst ahead. Cuddy angst, too. Sword still hanging overhead at the moment.

(H/C)

House was on the floor of the living room, doubled over Rachel's little piano. He felt like Schroeder on Peanuts. Slowly, deliberately, one painstaking note at a time, he ran the simple melody again, the opening phrase of one of her Disney movie songs, just a few measures. Only one finger at a time, no chords, just a straight-line melody. Nothing could be easier. "Like this. Come on, now. Your turn."

Rachel had been watching his fingers intently. She reached out now and tried to reproduce the melody, getting the first three notes, then missing. "No!" she shouted in frustration, hitting the piano. It gave a protesting clang.

House caught her hands. "It's okay, Rachel. Everybody makes mistakes at first. Everybody starts off slowly."

Rachel looked back at the gleaming baby grand, reigning over the living room. "Want to play!" she protested.

"You want to play it on mine instead? Okay."

Rachel shook her head. "Want to play. Like you."

House sighed. Introducing Rachel to baby piano lessons had seemed a good idea a few months ago. The trouble was, she had far too good an example as her picture of what piano music should sound like. Naturally impetuous and impatient anyway, she sometimes seemed to think she should be able to simply skip all intervening steps and emerge as a fully matured talent. "Rachel, nobody starts out playing like I do. I didn't start out there."

She stuck out her lip in a pout and looked away. Cuddy, watching them, fought back her own sigh. She had wondered if Rachel's second birthday was too young to start this, but she had already been fiercely applying the brakes to her husband for a whole year before that. If he'd had his way, Rachel would have received the piano on her first birthday. Too late to possibly take it back or simply stuff it in the closet for another year or two, so she tried presenting the other thought that had slowly been coalescing lately. "Greg, maybe you aren't the best one to be giving her lessons."

He immediately read that the wrong way, of course, with that absurd sensitivity of men, and looked away. He had been a model of patience with Rachel, trying different strategies, never demanding too much. "Not because of you," Cuddy clarified. "You're doing great. I just wonder if it might be less frustrating for her to learn from someone else. With you, she's comparing all the time. Maybe she needs a different teacher."

"NO!" Rachel snapped. "Want to play with Dada." She immediately reached back out to try the melody of a few minutes ago, missed the note, and stood up, giving the piano a kick.

House closed his eyes briefly, then opened them to find Cuddy's sympathetic look on him. "This might have been a mistake," he admitted grudgingly. Cuddy refrained from saying I told you so. Unfortunately, he heard her. "Oh, go ahead and say it. We both know you're thinking it anyway."

She sighed out loud that time. Yes, she loved her family, but some Saturday mornings were more exasperating than others. "I loved the fact that you wanted to share this with her, Greg. I just thought it might be too soon."

"Great, so let's return it. Or put it in a storage area until she's five. I'm sure she'd never notice or object to that."

Rachel meanwhile had trotted over to the grand, looking up at the keyboard as if wondering if it held the secret that her miniature version did not. "Play, Dada," she demanded.

"You want to try it over there? Okay." Cuddy smiled again, realizing the statement that letting Rachel play his piano was for him. Not that Rachel ever did except under direct supervision. There were strict rules attached to his prized instrument; he couldn't help it. He started the laborious process of getting himself up off the floor, and while Cuddy discreetly did not watch (except by peripheral vision), both of his daughters immediately did. He gritted his teeth, watching them study each move as he hauled himself to his feet with all the grace of a 99-year-old.

Rachel lost interest in the piano and trotted back over to him. "Okay, Dada?"

"I'm fine," he said, forcing himself not to snap at her. He looked at Abby, who had been in the floor with Belle watching the piano lesson. She didn't say anything, unlike her sister, but her eyes were locked onto him, and they, too, were full of silent analysis, trying to come to her own pain scale. House quickly scrambled for another subject. "Come on, Rachel. You want to play the big piano?"

She was still watching him too closely. "No. Take a bath?" she suggested. It was a suggestion for him - Rachel would never volunteer on her part to take a bath. But she had realized over the last few months that the hot tub made his leg feel better.

Cuddy quickly looked around for any change of subject, trying to rescue her husband. The pain was slightly worse than usual today but not up to a level where immediate supplemental measures were needed. Rachel was just still getting her pain-o-meter calibrated.

Before she could change the subject, Abby changed it herself. She stood up, using the couch to help achieve her feet, then walked the few feet to Rachel's piano, sat down at it, and reached out. She flawlessly reproduced the simple, brief fragment of melody House had been trying to teach Rachel. It was the first time she had ever touched the keyboard.

House stared. Cuddy stared. Rachel, concern forgotten, surged forward. "No, Abby! That's MINE!" She pushed her sister down, away from the instrument, wrestling her into the floor, and right then, the phone rang.

Cuddy took a 1-second time-out prior to diving into the fray. "Get that, Greg," she urged.

He felt the deep ache in his thigh give an extra throb as he limped to the phone, leaving her to physically break up the fight in the floor, something else that she could no doubt do better than he could. The girls didn't often get into it, but every once in a while, Rachel would hit a frustration point and take it out on her sister. Another half of his mind was in furious analysis, though. Abby, sitting there quietly, always watching. Watching Rachel's lessons. Immediately applying them, not only with the correct notes but even with some beginner-level feeling and interpretation behind it, the first time she had ever approached the keyboard. Even while he knew she had been trying to distract him, realizing that he was getting upset even if not fully understanding why, he marveled. Maybe he had been focusing musically on the wrong daughter. Maybe it was the younger one who had the true talent.

And how on earth would he ever be able to explore that possibility without frustrating Rachel even more?

He reached the main cordless phone and picked it up, glancing at caller ID. Mark Jensen. "Hello."

"Dr. House? This is Mark Jensen." The voice was similar to Jensen's, though nowhere near the resemblance physically. Both in physical appearance and in mannerisms, the two brothers were as close as any set of twins House had ever seen. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Only a minor fight between my girls, and that's about settled." Cuddy was firmly enforcing peace, well in control of the situation.

Mark laughed. "I know how that goes. I have two myself. Son and a daughter." He dove into the enforced subject, getting the unpleasant obligation over with. "I'm supposed to make an appointment with you."

"Which you think is a total waste of time," House stated.

"Yes, I do, to be honest. Michael is just overreacting."

"Ah, so there is something there for him to be overreacting to?"

Silence for a few seconds. "No. There's nothing wrong. He's just imagining things."

That few seconds told House more than all the words had so far. Yes, there was something there, although he wasn't sure that Mark was even admitting it to himself yet. "I'm in Princeton, you know."

"Yes, I know. That will be a full day off work with the driving, but Melissa volunteered to take my kids and Cathy out for a day of fun distractions, whichever day it is. So I wouldn't have to worry about dealing with them. Yesterday was the last day of school before summer."

So Melissa had joined the conspiracy. Jensen probably had asked her for a favor - non score-card variety - as well. "And your wife is out of town, right?"

"Just left this morning." Mark sighed. "We might as well get this over with. I've got something at work that would be hard to get away from on Monday. What does your schedule look like for Tuesday?"

"My schedule is fine, but if you're driving to Princeton on Tuesday, give extra traffic and hassle time. The president is going to honor us with his presence. He's speaking at the University."

"You're not going to go hear him?"

House snorted. "Yeah, right. I already know that everybody lies. Learned that a long time ago. I don't need to go hear some politician to see a championship specimen in action." Mark laughed again. House rolled his eyes, thinking of the flurry of presidential preparation activity, a flurry that had peripherally involved Cuddy, which was the only reason he knew as many details as he did. PPTH was designated hospital for this visit. Wherever the president travels, the nearest major hospital is always known, its administration put on standby in advance, and all routes to it from the various presidential locations confirmed, just in case of any illness or injury.

"Well, I'm more interested in getting Michael off my back than hearing the president myself, so Tuesday would work for me. What about 11:00?"

"That would be fine. I'm on the 4th floor of the hospital, not far out of the elevator."

"Thank you, Dr. House. I'll see you then." Mark hung up, and House turned to face his family. Rachel was sitting on the couch, perfectly and uncharacteristically still, obviously in time out, and Cuddy stood firmly in front of her, one eye on her watch, the other on her husband. Abby was in the floor, eying the mini piano but not touching it, apparently having been told that she needed permission first.

"Mark Jensen," House said.

"Do you think there is anything really wrong with him, Greg?"

"Haven't even seen him yet. But there's something there. I could tell in his tone. Don't think he's even admitting it to himself at this point."

"Well, I'm glad you're going to see him then. Plus, it will be interesting for you."

House grinned, looking forward again to a little comparison and contrast. "Yes, it will. Trust Jensen to ask for an interesting favor."

"Between Mark and the president, Tuesday should be quite a day. Even if the president won't actually be at PPTH, just on the campus in general." She looked at her watch again. "Okay, Rachel. You can get up now."

"Want to play the piano some more, Rachel?" House asked.

She shook her head vigorously. "Movie!" Off she galloped to the nursery and the girls' private DVD shelf, totally distracted from the piano and the fight, now on another track entirely. Cuddy watched her and smiled.

House went over and picked up Abby. He walked to the baby grand, sat down, and applied the soft pedal. "Abby, real quick, before we get into watching a movie, would you play that song for me again?"

Immediately, not thrown at all by the full-sized keyboard, she reached out and reproduced the short opening phrase perfectly.

House and Cuddy looked at each other, pride mixed with wonder mixed with recognition of future difficulties ahead.