Wilson was caught up in an odd mixture of reassurance, worry, and disbelief as he drove home. He was reassured that House hadn't in fact faltered that badly, that the best working example of a relationship Wilson had close to him hadn't gone crashing off the rails as he had feared. It was also reassuring that Jensen's predictions so far were correct, that this would be simple to sort out with House and only require a brief stop and that asking directly was the key to fixing what was only a misunderstanding. That gave Wilson some hope for the coming conversation with Sandra, which the psychiatrist had said would be harder, but he'd also predicted that Sandra would believe him. The worry still gnawed at Wilson, but the reassurance was appreciated. So far, this wasn't quite hell day yet.

Then there was the amazed disbelief. The idea that two people could actually joke about cheating, that their security and confidence in each other's fidelity was that unshakable. Not only that, but Jensen also had never faltered in his opinion even while admitting that he didn't know the full explanation. He had even bet a year's worth of sessions, risking thousands of dollars loss against no possible financial return to himself if he won, just to try to push Wilson into talking openly to House. To believe that strongly in a relationship, and no, it wasn't a perfect relationship by any means.

Hell, they were only three months out themselves from their own major crisis with Cuddy flipping into a micromanaging bitch in response to her encounter with the gunman and pushing House to the limit before she accepted her own need for therapy. Wilson and Sandra had never quite gotten the full story on that showdown, he was sure, but House had told them he had talked to Cuddy and finally gotten her to see her need for therapy. Wilson and Sandra had been ready to stage an intervention the next day to try to help their friends, so House had had to convince them the need wasn't there any longer. Wilson knew that Cuddy had been seeing a psychiatrist herself since. He even had worked out when; the fact that she always left early on Fridays now was glaringly obvious compared to her previous full-value-from-every-minute work days. She and House were apparently having parallel sessions on Friday afternoons with their respective shrinks.

With all that recent history where their relationship had been strained as Wilson had never seen it before, they remained rock solid enough that they could joke about the subject of cheating together.

He hoped that his family could have that kind of confidence in him someday.

Sandra. He hadn't realized fully until Jensen's office today how much she had been trying to talk about their relationship lately. Every time, he had dodged, afraid to do or say the wrong thing. He had concluded three months ago that leaving was no longer an option, even if he had been responsible for risking his son's life. He had no choice but to come back and face it, not with them at stake. But he was still afraid since that she might leave him if he made some undefined mistake, so rather than holding an escape plan in reserve for the worst case scenario as he had during her pregnancy, he had simply settled on not talking about serious things at all lately. The psychiatrist's words from earlier echoed again.

"What is the wrong thing, Sandra?"

"Cheating again."

"Has there ever been anything else that was even implied that it would be a line he couldn't cross?"

"No."

He sighed as he parked the car. Jensen had said she would believe him if he was open and honest, that communication was the key. Abruptly, as he got out, Wilson remembered House offering to come along and give supporting testimony. That thought brought reassurance back into the whirlwind and slowed the revolutions a little.

Sandra was waiting for him, as was a smell from the kitchen that reminded him that he hadn't eaten yet. Nor had she, most likely; she said she had been cooking when he'd called on the edge of Princeton a while ago. Truly studying her tonight, he was struck by how utterly weary she looked. She'd lost a few pounds, too.

"Hi." She met him with a kiss as he came in the door. "Did your conversation with House settle whatever you needed to?" She broke off under his fixed gaze. "What?"

"You look exhausted." He saved himself from saying awful in time.

"I am," she admitted. "Last night was all chopped up with Daniel." She dodged out herself there; he knew now it was more than Daniel wearing her down recently. He was beginning to suspect that the same was true for him.

"House helped, yes, but let's eat first." He saw her shoulders sink slightly and wondered if she had a similar pit in her stomach to his own. But they did need to eat, both of them. Borrowing Jensen's five seconds of reassurance for a test drive, he continued. "We will talk tonight. And I haven't done anything awful, I promise. It's okay." She relaxed some, visibly unknotting a few turns. "We do need to eat, though. You look like you've lost weight; that's what I was noticing just now when I came in. Let's eat first, then talk."

The food still had to be forced down on both sides, and it didn't help that she wasn't the world's greatest cook. He loved that about her, that she didn't mind the reversal of typical roles and appreciated his meals. Still, she had relaxed a lot from when he had opened the door, now more in anticipation than worry, at least that specific worry. Now that the question had been raised by Jensen, Wilson couldn't pretend any longer that she hadn't guessed the subject that had been on his mind this week. She had accepted the brief reassurance, though. Whatever he was about to tell her, it at least wasn't that, and knowing that much alone was enough to lower her tension. Maybe, he hoped, they could in fact work through anything else.

She finished eating a little after he did, pushed the plate a few token inches away, then looked at him, waiting, but she did not ask, giving him the opportunity first before forcing the issue. Wilson took a deep breath. "I've been worried this week about something that turns out to be nothing at all. Something I overheard Monday."

"What was it?" she prompted when he paused.

"House and Cuddy were out on the balcony, and I . . . well, all right, I was deliberately eavesdropping on them. I heard half of their conversation, totally out of context. They were talking about him having cheated this last weekend."

Sandra was as startled as Jensen had been initially, then equally resolute. "No."

"I know. I finally asked him tonight straight out. Turns out, they were actually talking about the cat."

She tilted her head, looking adorably confused. "He cheated on their cat?"

"Right. He went to Jensen's daughter's birthday party after his session last Friday. Jensen and his wife gave her a kitten, and House apparently had a few turns of kitten sitting while everything was going on. When he got home, Belle was mad at him." Sandra smiled suddenly as she imagined it, the worry of the week releasing in humor, and Wilson couldn't help joining in after a minute. "Really, it was funny. I saw her myself tonight while I was talking to him. She jumped up, but she sniffed him all over before she got in his lap, like she wanted to make sure of the company he'd been keeping. You should have seen her ears. They were like radar."

Sandra shook her head, but the smile of relief was still there. "So all week, you thought he'd cheated on Cuddy? And you didn't just ask him?"

Wilson's amusement at Belle's inspection faded quickly. "No. I was trying to dance around things and get him to come out and talk to me himself. I didn't want to admit I'd been eavesdropping on them."

"So it was just about a cat." She did believe him, and she was relieved, he could tell. But that wasn't everything, and he knew it.

"I lied to you Monday," he admitted. "You tried to find out what was bothering me, but I didn't want you to know I'd been eavesdropping."

"You think direct lying to your partner in a relationship is a better choice than admitting eavesdropping on a conversation?" she challenged, an edge in her voice. She never yelled, but he could always tell when she was getting determined on things. Her chin came up just so.

"No. I'm sorry, Sandra. I . . ." He paused. "I should have told you. I didn't realize you knew what I was thinking about. Even so, I shouldn't have lied to you."

She looked at him for a moment. "I forgive you. But try to remember this next time, okay? I know it's hard for you to talk about things, James, but you have to try sometimes. Lying is never going to improve the situation."

"I know. I'm sorry for worrying you." He was amazed again at how she firmly made her point, then backed down instead of repeating it fifty times to rub his nose in it. Truly, disagreements with her were nothing like with his ex-wives, nor with Amber.

It had never been like this before with anyone else, even if Daniel weren't in the picture. And Daniel was in the picture, unforgettably so, but for herself alone, this relationship at times gave him glimpses of such beautiful if uncharted water. It was that realization even more than Jensen's advice that suddenly made him go on when he could have left it there for tonight with the misunderstanding resolved. "I realized some things today with Jensen. He tried something new, looking at things from somebody else's perspective. I really hadn't quite registered how hard you've been trying to talk about us lately. You always brought it up, and I always dodged."

She waited, listening, letting him have the floor, knowing that he wasn't done yet. "I'm . . . afraid of doing the wrong thing. I've talked about it with Jensen, several times, actually. It goes back to how I define being accepted. Always before in a relationship, they all had some brokenness, some need I needed to fill. Except maybe Amber, and she had a need to make a point to House, which actually I didn't mind helping her with. I kind of enjoyed pitting the two of them against each other in a way. But I'm not used to talking to people. I can lecture them, or try to save them, but I have trouble just talking to them about serious things. You're so well-adjusted compared to the rest of my history, it's unknown territory." He reached out to touch her hand. "But I am trying to work on things. I realized today how much work still needs doing."

Her fingers twitched beneath his. "I know you're trying, James. In some areas, you're making a lot of progress. The drinking, for instance. I am proud of you for that." He knew she was; she had said so several times. "But wanting you to be able to talk to us isn't just about me. You know, several times over the years, Daniel is going to need to talk to his father. There are needs you can meet with him better than anybody else possibly could. But there will be direct conversations, some of them hard ones. You can't just try to avoid them."

He sighed. "I hadn't thought of Daniel in that context. You're right; things will come up with him between father and son. Even more, though, I ought to try harder in that area with you. I'm sorry I haven't lately." He tightened his grip. "But I won't leave again. I promise both of you that. If we can just work through everything else. . ."

"There's only one thing you and I can't work through again." She didn't repeat it. He knew he was on his one second chance with the cheating and knew she still meant it. There was no expiration date for that. "Anything else, James, it's possible for the two of us to work through it as long as we're both trying. You don't have to be afraid."

He leaned over to get a better grip on her hand, but he noticed again suddenly how tired she looked. Emboldened by the success so far at actually trying to communicate tonight, he took the plunge. "About working through things, I've been thinking. This just isn't working out with Daniel with us alternating nights. I worry all the time about what's going on in your room, if everything is alright, and I think you do, too. Neither one of us is getting enough sleep, and it's dragging us down physically." She nodded, accepting that assessment. "So I was wondering if we . . . if we maybe ought to move back into the same bedroom, to be together again, and that way, both of us could be reassured that everything was under control with him."

"Okay," she said simply.

"I don't mean for sex . . . not that I don't want sex, but what I mean is -" He slammed to a stop suddenly. "What did you say?"

"Okay," she repeated. "Let's move back together, then."

He stared. "Just like that? I just had to ask?"

She took a few seconds to think through it in her turn. "It's not quite that simple. It isn't that I had some secret answer I was waiting for you to get while I tried to keep it away from you. I wasn't sure how I'd know, actually. Maybe there were other ways to say it, too. But I think, tonight, it's that I needed to know that you'll try to work things out when it's difficult instead of just dodging. I know that wasn't easy making that suggestion just now. You could have stopped a few minutes ago, and you didn't. I guess I needed to know that Daniel and I are worth pushing out of your comfort zone for. And yes, I know there are two sides to that."

"I already know you're willing to go past your comfort zone." She would have pitched him a year ago if she hadn't. Wilson was still stunned at the simplicity of the answer. Maybe if he'd only said this three months ago (Jensen was right; that first eight months when he'd had the escape plan in the far back corner of his mind if worst came to worst did not count), he could have been sleeping with her. And having sex with her, too. He was startled to realize afresh that it was both that he had missed, not just the physical passion, but the warm presence of each other. "When you said okay, what kind of okay was that? Just to get this clear. Did you mean . . ."

"I meant okay." She smiled at him. "James, do you think I haven't missed it, too? Haven't imagined it? In fact, for me, it's going to get even better. I . . . not to take this the wrong way, but I don't think you were 100% there a year ago, and it was already good. Yes, I've missed it. But it did get in the way of us getting to know each other. We moved too fast."

"I know. And you're right; I wasn't 100% into it. Probably thought I was, but I would have been thinking about the process, techniques, effects, setting up how you should feel and enjoying making you feel that way as a sign of how good I was. It wasn't really making love, just sex. But you're wrong on one thing."

She tilted her head. "Probably more than one, but what one in particular?"

"You said for you, it would be better now. But I get something I never had before, too. Never, not with anyone, none of the previous ones, not even a year ago with you."

"What's that?" she asked.

"I get to sleep with - in every sense, not just sex - the mother of my child."

Her hand tightened in his. It was then, of course, that the child in question woke up and inserted himself into the conversation. They broke apart, laughing, and went in together to tend to him.

Later on, settling down against her, feeling a sweet peace in this moment that was so unfamiliar and precious that it almost overwhelmed him, running one hand along her hair as if unable to believe he had the right, Wilson said softly, "I love you."

Sandra didn't reply, and he looked more closely at her. She was already sound asleep. Just then, his cell phone chirped, and he reached over to the night stand to pick it up. It was a text from House. Hell day?

Wilson quickly typed out a response. No. Good night, House.

The reply came quickly. :)

Smiling himself, Wilson put the cell phone up and joined Sandra in the best night's sleep he'd had in months, even if punctuated by parental duties.