A/N: Short update written down late last night. Hopefully more Monday, but I have no more time now. I'm off on Sunday rounds and to Mom. Thanks for the reviews.

(H/C)

Wilson hung up the phone and sat on the edge of the bed, thinking. He had not been prepared for the homesickness. Plenty of times through the years, even when in a steady relationship, he had been away for a few days for conferences and such, and while he had missed his partner, it had never hit him like this. He'd actually started missing Sandra and Daniel even before leaving this morning and had wished briefly he could back out and just stay home.

Home. He was thinking of it as home. In all the years, from wife to house to hotel, he had never really felt that a place or a family was a true home, not like this. But she and Daniel had become home.

There were other things weighing on him at the moment, too, right along with missing his family. Thornton's unintentional stab in the car had been an unwelcome reminder. While he was interested in meeting House's father and planned to mine those encounters for as many details as he could, he also still felt guilty about John's funeral. Plus he was concerned about House as a friend, of course; the diagnostician was clearly shutting down on them and refusing to fully feel Blythe's death. The last two days of lack of interest in treatment of the cancer were as worrying as the obsession that came before. Wilson hoped he and Cuddy and Jensen would be enough to help House through this.

But House had given in on the girls, surprising Wilson. Not that he didn't think it was the right decision. Having been there at their initial freak-out Wednesday afternoon, where everything he and Sandra tried to say or do wasn't enough, he knew bringing the girls along was the right decision. They had been utterly terrified. They needed this trip, or at least didn't need to be left behind. He just hadn't expected House with all his stubborn up to suddenly cave on that.

Concern, guilt, curiosity, and homesickness. An unsettling mixture indeed.

"Talk to you later. I love you. Bye." Jensen, across the room in an armchair, finished his own we've-arrived conversation. Wilson studied him as he stood up, abruptly crystallizing something else that had been nibbling at the background of his thoughts all day. Jensen seemed off somehow himself. The difference was subtle, but the oncologist had known him almost as long as House had, after all.

Well, why not just ask him? Jensen was like House in some ways, but conversation with him was much less like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. "Are you all right?" Wilson asked. "You haven't quite seemed like yourself all day."

Jensen gave him a smile. "I will be. Thanks, James. This whole situation with his mother just hit me hard, but I'm working through it."

"I still don't know any more than the Cliff's Notes version of what happened last week before her death."

"You'll need to find out more details from him, if he chooses to tell you. I can't expand on it." Even troubled, Jensen could still be annoying about confidentiality.

"But you were leading the sessions," Wilson guessed. Jensen sighed and nodded. "Just from what I do know, it was a few hours after the last one before everybody went to bed, though, and she seemed fine."

"Yes, she did. If she was having symptoms at that point, she was deliberately hiding them from us."

"From what House has said, she was deliberately going against her doctor's advice, too."

"Yes. She definitely didn't tell us that." The psychiatrist wandered restlessly across the room. It wasn't a multiroom suite like Cuddy had reserved for herself and House with the girls and Marina, but it was large and comfortable, even with the two beds. "If what I did contributed to her death, which I don't know and which may not be true, it certainly wasn't the only factor. She takes a good share of responsibility herself, and there's no doubt on that part."

Wilson nodded. "I wish House could see it that way."

"Hopefully he will eventually." In his slow circuit of the room, not actually pacing but just in motion, Jensen turned at the bathroom and headed back toward Wilson. "Is everything all right at home, James? You seem a little off yourself."

"They're fine. I just didn't expect to miss them this much. I've been away before, with the others, and I . . . well, I missed the sex, yeah, but having a few days away was an interesting break and change of pace, too. Not like this."

"It's a different world when you finally start to become a family with somebody." He paused and then gave a few more details on the part he could, unspoken salute to Wilson's concern for him. "I'm missing home, too, but I'm also a little worried. You know I had a lot of problems with putting work above them in the past, and I'm just hoping they keep seeing the difference here. It was Melissa who encouraged me to come to the funeral, even before Dr. House asked me. Things have changed, but I still remember what the old times were like. I don't ever want to wind up there again."

"Now if we were actually having a session and I said that, you'd give me some self-awareness spiel and say that the very fact that I was worrying about it and acknowledging my old mistakes showed how much I'd grown since then and was less likely to repeat them."

Jensen smiled again, and Wilson saw the gratitude in the psychiatrist's brown eyes. "I probably would. I'd be right, too. Hard to flip the psychiatry on yourself at times, no matter how well you know it with others."

Wilson sighed. "Speaking of repeating old mistakes, I hope I'm not going to do something stupid here. The last time I was off in a hotel away from her didn't work out that well."

"Are you tempted to go down to the bar and meet other women?"

Wilson actually looked disgusted at the idea. "No! I don't want anybody else. That was stupid, and besides that, it was wrong."

"So plug in what you just said to me. I think you're safe enough this week, James. Of course, if you do happen to start wanting a drink or worse, which I don't think you will, try to find some company instead of taking off on your own. There are plenty of your people around."

"Right. There's even Thornton, if I got desperate." He paused at Jensen's expression. The other man looked like he was trying not to laugh. "So I'm curious! Wouldn't you be? Little dribbles of information crumb by crumb for months, and suddenly, I can actually talk to him."

"I know you're curious. And yes, I would be, too. But two things, James."

"Yes, damn it, I realize this whole trip is very tough on House and isn't just a chance for me to ask questions. I'll keep that in mind."

"That was the first thing," Jensen admitted. He waited.

"All right, I'll ask, since you're going to go all House on me. What's the second thing?"

"He's humoring you. Thornton, I mean. Trust me, James, when it comes to pulling out data, you're in an unequal contest with him, and the fact that he's not ripping your own secrets open already is only because he's being nice. Just remember that in questions. If he wanted to turn the tables on you, he could, easily. He's a professional at it."

Wilson squirmed, suddenly wondering if Thornton really had missed his discomfort in the car when he changed the subject after that painful comment about John's funeral. "What did he do? I thought he was a Marine, right?"

"Ask him if you really want the answer," Jensen said. "Or you could just accept that he is House's father. Without the unfortunate background, but really, they think a lot alike."

Wilson's cell phone rang at that point, and he pulled it out. "Cuddy," he announced. After a brief conversation, he hung up. "They're going downstairs to the dining room later after the girls are asleep, probably after 7:00. The girls are wired, but I doubt they'll be able to stay awake too long past bedtime. Too much in today. Of course, she didn't mention anything about Thornton. You think he'll be there?"

"He'll probably have the door of the dining room staked out for us until a long way past 7:00. I'm sure he'll be joining us."

"So House is choosing to have dinner with him, even after snapping at him at the airport." Wilson smiled. "He wants this. He'd never admit it, being House, but he really wants to get to know him."

Jensen returned the smile. "Yes. But be careful, James. This is bigger than just curiosity."

"I will. It'd be good for him to have a father figure, and anybody could improve on John. It would especially be good now that his mother's gone. Thornton's all the blood relative he has left." Wilson's thoughts abruptly returned to the funeral tomorrow. Guilt and concern both pushed back in. "I hope the funeral goes all right tomorrow."

Jensen looked equally worried. "So do I."