Thornton was there, sitting in the lounge near the entrance to the dining room, reading the morning paper.
An odd feeling ran through House head to toe as his searching eyes spotted the other man. It wasn't relief, nor gladness, he told himself. Definitely not that he wanted to see his father. No, his own feelings weren't relevant or even existent here, but Thornton still hanging around closely made it convenient for experimental purposes. It had occurred to House while he was taking a shower that Marina had a fairly developed BS meter, and he was curious to obtain her opinion of Thornton. That was all. She'd seen him at the airport, but she'd hardly had long enough to judge in those few minutes, and even then, in retrospect, House thought she had been a little suspicious. Let her sniff him out for a little while, and her presence would also keep Thornton from acting like he was part of the family. The girls would hardly be harmed by one breakfast with five adults present on their behalf to monitor things.
Thomas folded the newspaper and stood up casually, though promptly. His eyes rested on Greg for a moment, then quickly moved on, afraid to linger. His son already looked stretched out like a spring about to break. So much pain there, but he thought there had been a sort of unacknowledged welcome in the first expression, too. Thomas wanted nothing more than to help him through this day somehow, but he knew Greg most likely wouldn't allow it. The girls were with them. Lisa had Rachel, and the nanny held Abby. Rachel brightened up instantly as he came forward and she noticed him. "Hi, Thomas!" she called.
He smiled at her as he came up to join them. "Hi, Rachel."
"Morning, Thomas," Lisa said, and there was no mistaking the welcome in her voice, even if it was overlaid by worry.
"Morning, Lisa, Greg, Marina." He looked at Abby, who was looking back at him, curious. Her father's eyes. His father's eyes. "Hi, Abby," he said.
She considered the reply. A thoughtful 2-year-old. He'd pieced together that much from Greg's rare comments about the girls by email or phone, but it came across even more strongly in person. This wasn't a specific reaction to him; this was how she approached the world. "Hi," she said after a moment.
House shifted his weight. "We'd better find a table. A big one, if he's going to insist on joining us." He made it sound like the difference between a party of seven and a party of eight was an enormous one.
Rachel cast her vote firmly. "Let's eat!" She wiggled, wanting down, and her mother held her firmly.
"Not right now, Rachel."
Thomas grinned at her enthusiasm. "I'll see if they've got some high chairs." He took the lead as the group entered the dining room.
By the time they had a large table assigned and were getting the high chairs set up, Jensen and Wilson arrived. Wilson seemed surprised to find the girls there, and his stride caught for a moment as he looked from House to the girls to Thornton. Then he looked at Cuddy and remembered himself. House at least hadn't noticed, even if Cuddy had. House instead was looking at Jensen with unmistakable relief in his eyes, and Wilson wondered again just what had been said between those two last night. Jensen would let it go, of course. Good thing he wasn't waiting for an apology, not from House. Wilson picked up stride again. "Morning, everybody." Remembering the occasion, he didn't call today's good. There was a general murmur of response from all except House.
They wound up sitting with Rachel placed between Wilson and Marina, Abby between Marina and Cuddy, House next to Cuddy, and Jensen on his other side. Thornton again sat between Jensen and Wilson, though this time he didn't stage manage it that way, just letting the others fall in as they wished first. They were tighter for time this morning and ordered first thing, with Rachel picking pancakes and Cuddy adding oatmeal; those two would be easy enough for the girls to eat. House reluctantly ordered pancakes himself. He obviously had zero appetite this morning.
Once the waitress had taken their orders and moved away, House looked at Thornton, and his tone was almost challenging. "So tell us again about some of the good old days when you knew Mom and Dad so well, you being such a good family friend."
Marina wasn't the only one who looked at him oddly there. Both of the girls did, as well. Cuddy captured his hand under the table, stroking his fingers and hoping he wouldn't simply snap with tension during this day before he finally let go and let the grief take over.
Thornton replied smoothly. "I never knew them as well as I thought, either one. But let's not talk about that today." He looked at Wilson. "Do you have a family, Dr. Wilson?"
Wilson stepped up. "I've got a girlfriend and also a young son. He was just born in June." Wilson fished out his cell phone and pulled up a picture, handing it over.
Thomas smiled. "He has your eyes." He carefully didn't look at Abby as he said it.
"Yes, he does."
"What's his name?"
"Daniel Gregory." Thomas looked at his son. "Yes, the Gregory is after House." Wilson felt himself tighten up briefly, as the memory of that still stung. Not of House's success, but of his own failure. "Daniel was born with a serious congenital defect, and House diagnosed it."
"CDH," House put in, unable to resist the medical trivia. He also wanted to see if the acronym stumped Thornton, which it did. They might be equal on languages, but he at least was better at medicine. There was a satisfied note to his voice as he explained. "Congenital diaphragmatic hernia. He had a hole in his diaphragm, so his abdominal organs migrated up to keep his lungs company and weren't giving them room to breathe."
Thornton looked genuinely concerned. "He's all right now, though?"
"He's fine," Wilson assured him, feeling a surge of relief at the fact. "He had to have surgery to reposition everything. He has an impressive scar clear down his abdomen, but he's doing just fine. He would have died if he hadn't been born at a major hospital, though."
Rachel was getting tired of this conversation that she couldn't follow. "Let's eat!" she demanded again.
Thomas looked over at Abby. "And how is Abby doing after her rough start?"
House tensed up. It was Cuddy who answered. "She's doing great. Just a little small, but she's come so far."
Wilson nodded. "She was a lot worse off than Daniel, much more premature. She was in the NICU for months."
Abby was looking from one to the other of them with those eyes. "Who are you?" she asked finally, the first time she had spoken since they had sat down at the table.
"Thomas," Rachel informed her, just as he answered for himself.
"My name is Thomas. I'm an old family friend."
The food arrived at that point, and conversation stilled for a few minutes as the plates were passed around to the appropriate spots. Cuddy and Marina starting cutting off tiny bites of pancakes to alternate with the oatmeal. House stared at his place, feeling the rock in his stomach settle more deeply. He looked over at Marina as the others started eating. Sure enough, she was watching Thornton from the corner of her eye even while feeding both herself and Rachel, and she did look suspicious. He knew it. Nice to find at least one person who agreed with him that this man had an awful lot to prove before he could be trusted.
Rachel finished a bite of pancakes. "Wilson need to teach them," she stated.
Wilson straightened up a little in the warmth of approval and laughed. "But these are pretty good, Rachel." He took a bite himself, theatrically savoring it. "Mmmm. What do you think, House?"
House slowly took a bite. "They're okay."
"Thomas, you like pancakes?" Rachel asked.
He smiled at her. The pure innocence of these two girls, the only ones at the table taking him at face value, was a breath of fresh air. "Yes, I do, Rachel. I take it that's a specialty of yours, Wilson?"
Wilson nodded. So did Rachel, more vigorously. "I have a recipe for macadamia nut pancakes," he explained. "House loves them. I agree, Rachel, these aren't quite as good as mine, but give the hotel a break. They have to feed a lot more people, so they can't give as much specialized individual attention to it."
House rolled his eyes. "Specialized individual attention. What a load of . . . c-r-a-p."
"Don't spell!" Rachel protested, and all of the adults had a smile for that.
"Do you like pancakes, too, Abby?" Thomas asked.
She considered it. "Yes," she said solemnly after a delay.
Cuddy gave her another bite. "She takes longer to warm up to anybody, Thomas. That's just how she is." Rachel was definitely the more sociable one. Cuddy and House had long since decided that her initial slow bonding had been due to her unsettled early start, being handed around among so many people in that place where Cuddy had rescued her. There had been little constancy in those first weeks when the initial bonding for an infant to the parents usually takes place. Now that Rachel was secure in her family, she was much brighter and outgoing.
"It's okay. I know they hadn't ever met me until yesterday. What else do you like, Abby?"
"Music," she answered, a little more quickly that time. She looked over at her father. "You play?"
"No piano here, Abby," House replied. "I'll play for you when we get back home, okay?"
Rachel jumped back in, tired of being on the sidelines. "Thomas, I got a horsey!"
"Really? Did you get it for Christmas?"
"Uh huh. Daddy gave it to me."
Thomas held himself steady, keeping his tone joking, even though that hurt. Greg had said that the gifts would be from Santa Claus, not that he would take credit himself. The first was simply misleading, the second was an outright lie, deliberately negating him. "Where is it? Must be a small horse to be here and me not see it. Is it under the table?" He looked beneath the tablecloth dramatically, and both girls dissolved into giggles. "No, not there. Is it behind your chair?"
Wilson scouted behind it carefully, getting into the spirit. "Nope, no horsey here."
"Silly!" Rachel told him. "It's in the room." She looked at her mother with a cute little pout, having resented not being able to bring it down to breakfast.
"The horse didn't belong at breakfast," Cuddy reiterated firmly.
"Well, mine isn't here, either, so that makes both of us having to be separated for the moment," Thomas said.
Rachel perked up, forgetting her own grudge. "You have a horsey?"
"Yes, I do."
"A real one?" she challenged.
"Very real." Thomas pulled out his cell phone, cued up a picture of himself with Ember, and handed it over to her. "There's a picture of her."
Rachel's eyes widened. "A red horse!"
Curious, Wilson leaned over her high chair to check it out himself. It was a red horse, pretty close, at least, the flaming coat set off even more sharply in the contrast with the black mane and tail. "I didn't know they came in that color," he said.
House stretched a hand out. "Gimme. There's no such thing as a red horse." Cuddy passed the cell phone to him, and he studied it himself. "That's not quite red," he objected finally.
"Very close," Wilson countered. House studied the picture for a long moment, then handed the cell phone to Jensen, who took a good look himself before returning it to Thomas.
"The official term is blood bay," Thomas told them. "It's not as common as plain bay. Most bays look like shades of brown."
Rachel was still trying to grasp the concept of someone who actually had a real, live horse and a red one to boot. "Where is he?"
"She's a girl. She's back where I live in St. Louis."
"Someone comes to feed her? Like Belle?"
House snorted, sounding very much like Rachel's stuffed horse when the correct ear was squeezed. "Horses are a little more complicated, Rachel. And take up a whole lot more room, too. You don't keep them in houses."
"Who is Belle?" Thomas asked.
"The cat. She had to stay home."
Thomas grinned, imagining a cat on top of all of that other luggage. "Glad to know there was one thing you all left behind." Wilson snickered, and even House had a faint smile at the quip.
"Who feeds her?" Rachel demanded, still worried about the abandoned real horse.
"I keep her at a stable, Rachel. Lots of people pay the stable manager to keep their horses there, and all the horses get fed every day. It's somebody's job there to take care of them, every day. You don't have to worry about Ember. She'll be a little restless without me, but I've got a friend who will take her out for exercise a few times while I'm gone." The same friend had leased the mare during Thomas' year-long flight through Europe after Emily's death.
Rachel tilted her head, having caught a word she didn't know. "What's ember?"
"That's her name. It's because she's a red horse, actually. An ember is a piece of fire."
Rachel stared at him in pure hero worship. "A real horse," she said almost like a prayer. "You miss her?"
"Of course. Don't you miss Belle?"
"Uh huh. Can I see Ember?"
"She's a long way away, Rachel. I don't live anywhere close to your house."
"Can you move?" She refused to let a petty obstacle like that get in between her and a real horse.
House stepped in there, drawing a firm close to this table conversation before it truly got dangerous. "We need to get ready. Busy day." His mother's funeral. It hit him again, full impact, almost knocking him back against the back of his chair. "Come on. Breakfast is over."
Cuddy looked at her watch. "We really do need to get ready. It will take a while with the girls."
Rachel was suddenly solemn. "We have to say bye to Grandma today."
"I know." Thomas looked around the table. Greg had barely finished half of his plate, but everybody else was done, and he didn't think his son would manage to choke down any more even if they stayed another hour. He stood up. "Greg, may I talk to you alone for a minute?"
House glared at him suspiciously, but there wasn't much he could do against the public request without making Marina and the girls wonder what was really going on. He slowly hauled himself to his feet and followed Thornton to the door of the dining room. He stopped there while he was still able to see Cuddy, having no desire to invite John to this tete-a-tete.
Thornton dropped into Portuguese. "I'll keep my distance at the funeral, Greg. That way nobody will see us side by side for too long and start to wonder. But I will be thinking of you."
House dodged away from both the promise and the reminder of the funeral. "You're making Marina start to wonder now, asking to talk to me privately like this. Great way to keep up the front."
"She worked it out halfway through breakfast," Thornton stated confidently. House looked back at Marina, startled. She was watching them. Damn it. "But none of Blythe's friends who will be at the funeral are suspicious. The only person who wonders if I'm anything except what I say is the funeral director, and that's because I set everything up, but minding his own business is part of his profession. He's had a lot of practice leaving family secrets alone with other people before us, I'm sure. So I'll stay several rows away from you. But one other thing, nobody coming will bring up the past or John. You won't have to answer questions on that. Today is just a goodbye to her alone. Nobody will make it anything more for you."
House looked at him, challenging. "So you established rules and limits on everybody's conversation, and they still aren't suspicious of you at all?"
"All you have to do is identify the ringleaders and drop subtle suggestions to them. They take it from there, and they have the influence to be heard. I'm positive the word has gotten around."
"What if somebody else comes you haven't happened to talk to the last few days?"
"I've been to the senior center and had delegates to carry the word to the flower club, the travel club, and the children's programs and cancer center where she volunteered. Even so, I'm leaving in just a few minutes, and I'll get there very early to watch them come in and watch how the people I've met react to them. If anybody new is there, I'll take care of it." He met his son's eyes. "You can trust me, Greg."
House felt the automatic denial rise up. Damn the man for looking so sincere. "You'd better be telling the truth on that." His tone didn't limit it to the funeral.
Thornton's hand shifted and then fell back, almost as if he wanted to take his arm and then thought better of it. "I'll see you later, Greg." He turned and walked out of the dining room.
House followed him out of sight with his eyes, his back to Cuddy, and only when she spoke up at his elbow, a quick, concerned, "I'm here, Greg," did he realize that John's voice hadn't seized the opportunity when he couldn't see his family. He turned to face Cuddy. Marina, Wilson, and Jensen were getting the girls extricated back at the table.
Cuddy did take his arm, her touch warming the frozen dread a little bit at the edges, but it did not penetrate the hard center. "Come on," she said softly. The others were coming to join them now.
"I like Thomas," Rachel announced as they got in the elevator.
"What did you think of him, Abby?" Wilson asked.
"Don't know," Abby replied after thinking about it for a minute.
House leaned against the wall, aware of Marina's eyes on him. Yes, he conceded, Thornton had called this one right. Marina knew now, and any chance at an objective BS reading from her was lost forever. She, like all of them, would be too caught up in the idea of how nice it would be for the girls to have a grandfather. Especially because they were now missing a grandmother.
Because his mother was. . . was . . .
House reached out and stabbed the button for their floor, even though the elevator was already moving. "These elevators are too slow," he griped. "For what we're paying, they need to upgrade."
Nobody took up the complaint, just watching him with sympathetic eyes instead. That annoyed him even more.
