A/N: Sorry for the delay, but my musical schedule has kicked back into full gear after having two of the groups on summer break, and a hectic week plus a hectic weekend just left no time to spare for writing. Hope this chapter makes up for it with House family interactions. This is part B of the chapter, and part C up next time will have a little more House family and, for the Wilson fans, Wilson finally getting his moment. After we complete C of the current probably 3-part chapter, two chapters will remain in the story. Following those, there will probably be the one-shot that I said is flexible in setting and could sneak in anywhere. The next full-length story is complex and still has a lot of baking time, so there will most likely be a gap.
Thanks for all the reviews, and I hope you enjoy the final parts of this story as much as the rest of it. And thanks to some of the folks on my dorm floor freshman year in college, who taught me long ago how a pizza fulfills all food groups.
(H/C)
House was awake by the time Cuddy entered their bedroom, his tense features making her wonder whether he was simply battling the pain or running a full differential dissecting whatever partial snippets of conversation he had overheard between her and Thomas and Rachel from the next room. Abby was waking up right then, so a moment of true discussion about Thomas, softly giving her husband the rest of the incomplete scene, was impossible. Cuddy knew he would want to know details; whether he liked the facts or not, he always needed to know them.
She settled for physical care instead, offering him the pills and the glass of water. He rolled his eyes at the water but didn't protest, and she tried to help support him gently with one hand behind his head as he fought the balancing act between raising up enough to swallow without hitting the angle of elevation at which his ribs gave their worst stab. Together they succeeded, but the physical reality was bad enough at the moment even so. Abby was sitting up and staring with wide eyes by the end.
"You okay?" she asked.
House let his head fall back into the pillow, trying to stay still and give the pills a little time to work. "I will be," he told her, but the sweat standing out on his forehead didn't add much reassurance.
Abby touched his face tentatively, just with the tip of a finger, then switched to her mother for a second opinion. "Is Daddy okay?" she asked.
Cuddy had to smile. Mostly there was legitimate concern, and that was stronger, but there also was a layer of analysis buried at the bottom of it. More and more as she grew, Abby obviously was starting to dissect things, to diagnose the layers of her world. Even without the fact that she had her father's eyes and hair, she was undeniably his daughter. "He will be, Abby," she said. "That's the truth. It's going to take a while, and he's going to have to heal. Like when you've been sick, and you don't just all at once completely feel better. But with a little bit of time, he's going to be fine. He's just hurt right now, but it won't stay like this."
Abby considered this reply, looking from her mother back to her father, then nodded, relaxing. She reached across him to Belle, who had stood up and was in the middle of an impossibly long feline stretch. "You be nice, Belle," she said. "Be soft with Daddy." Belle gave her a jaw-splitting yawn, then turned her back to the girl and sat back down, grooming a spot on her shoulder needlessly.
House chuckled, then winced. "These two girls of ours are going to be trying to administrate the whole house in a few years."
Cuddy laughed with him but couldn't help shifting into future strategizing. "I just hope they do all right when they start school. We need to check out preschools this summer." They had been talking about enrolling Rachel in the fall in a preschool to expose her to a little more socialization and structure before kindergarten. She would be four at the end of this year.
Abby stretched herself, doing an admirable imitation of Belle, then slipped off Cuddy's side of the bed. "I need to go potty," she said, heading for the door.
Cuddy fielded her, figuring that Thomas might well be heading for the big bathroom once he managed to get moving. "Here, Abby. Let's use ours. I'll help you."
Abby changed course to the other room but also tossed her head a little. "Don't need help," she insisted. House watched them with a smile that was unwitnessed and thus let itself show fully as the two went into the bathroom and closed the door. Leaning back, he wished that the painkillers would hurry up, and he also wished that he knew what had happened in the next room. He had heard Rachel's voice a few times at sharper moments, and he had heard Cuddy's amusement and the fond note in her voice. The exact words hadn't been clear, only an intermittent one successfully rounding the corners into the next room, but the tone had carried its own message.
Family. He treasured his girls beyond anything, even beyond work, which was once all he'd thought he would ever have. But if he brought the old man into the family, how would it change things? This was all so new to him, something to be savored. He didn't want it to change. Would sharing his daughters mean less for him?
Footsteps were heard, slow, pained footsteps, and then the main bathroom door shut, and in the next moment, Rachel stuck her dark curls around the corner of the open bedroom door, seeing if he was awake. "Daddy!" She trotted over with vigor, and Belle stood up again and glared at her, instantly on guard, delivering the same look she gave when Rachel was too abrupt in trying to pet her. Rachel responded automatically to the cue, slowing down and walking as near as she could come to flat-footed to her father's side of the bed. "I made Thomas take a nap!" she announced proudly.
He couldn't help smiling at her obvious sense of accomplishment. "Did he take a good one?"
"Uh huh." She studied him. "Did Abby and Mama make you?"
"Yes, they did. I had a fine nap."
She gave a satisfied toss of her head and immediately changed the subject. "Good. Now we need pizza. Pizza fixes hell day, and you'll be better."
He grinned. "You'll have to talk to your mother about that, but I'll vote for pizza."
"Thomas, too. We win! Me, you, Thomas. Pizza!"
"Unfortunately, Mama's vote counts for more than one on some subjects, and it pays to give in now and then to keep her happy."
She looked around. "Mama?"
"She took Abby to our bathroom."
Rachel nodded. "I need to go potty, too." She turned toward the bathroom door herself, and House dropped his voice to a whisper.
"Rachel." She turned back promptly, and he beckoned her closer. "Do you like Thomas?"
She nodded vigorously. "Yes."
"Because he has a horse?"
She was starting to look confused, wondering about the intensity in his soft question. "Yes. But he's nice."
The bathroom door opened, and Cuddy and Abby exited. Rachel galloped over, and Cuddy turned back around, closing the door again behind them. Abby walked around the bed to her father. "Do the pills help?" she asked.
He reached out carefully with his right hand to brush her hair. "Yes, the pills help. I will be okay, Abby. It's going to take several days, that's all."
"Sorry you had hell day," she told him, matching the word to a soft kiss of his hand, gentle as a butterfly. In spite of Cuddy's best efforts at editing, the phrase, picked up from her initially, had caught on like wildfire with the girls, and they used it now to refer to any day where things went wrong.
"So am I," he said, but part of his mind couldn't help going back to yesterday. The darkness, the groans of the building, the voice and presence beside him. Oddly, it wouldn't have occurred to him to call it hell day, though it definitely should qualify if any day ever did. In an effort to distract both of them, he changed the subject. "Abby, I brought you presents. You and Rachel both."
She was starting to be reassured enough that her curiosity awoke this time. "Where?" She looked around the bedroom.
"In the living room."
She started that direction, then hesitated and looked back at him. "Come on, Daddy," she said, but she didn't wait, starting off again as soon as she'd given the invitation. A pang went through him as he realized how conditioned she was to the fact that her father didn't like people watching him while he got out of bed.
Thomas exited the main bathroom just as Abby was walking down the hall, and House heard this closer conversation clearly as they avoided colliding. "Hello, Abby."
"Hi." A few pained steps - he hoped the old man's pills were kicking in, too - a silent analysis so obvious that he could almost see his daughter's slight head tilt, and then Abby's inevitable question. "You okay?"
"I'll be fine. It's just cuts and bruises; they'll heal up. Rachel was talking about ordering a pizza earlier. Do you think your mother would let us have a pizza tonight, Abby?"
Her response had House smiling again, because he knew immediately what she meant. "Dunno. Maybe two."
"Two pizzas? I hope so. That would be even better than one."
"No, not . . . diff'rent pizza. Mama and Daddy get two."
Thomas chuckled. "She doesn't like the same kind of pizza he does? Is that it?"
"Yes."
"Which one do you like better, Abby? Your Daddy's or your Mama's?"
She took a moment to consider the question. "Both. Sometimes."
"So it depends on what mood you're in?"
There was silence, a somewhat suspicious silence that time. Then Abby called out to her father instead of answering Thomas. "Come on, Daddy." She trotted on down the hall, and House heard the old man's soft laughter. He pushed himself up quickly to a sitting position, intending to join them without delay, and the stab of his ribs took his breath away. The bathroom door reopened, of course, just as he was sitting slumped on the side of the bed panting slightly and cursing broken ribs.
"Greg? Are you okay?" Cuddy hurried over with Rachel a concerned shadow.
"Fine. I'll be fine, remember?" He tilted his head toward their daughter, and Cuddy immediately remembered the audience and dropped back into reassurance.
"Of course you will. It's just going to take some time. But meanwhile, move a little more slowly, okay?"
"Not like I've got a choice," he snapped, but then he reached out to Rachel. "It's all right, Rachel. So, guess what? Tonight just got even better. If your mother agrees, we'll get to have a double header, complete with alliteration."
Rachel looked totally confused. "Litereration?"
"That means things that go together. Pizza and presents!"
Cuddy sighed. "Greg, you need good, nutritious food to heal," she started, but Rachel had already keyed in on the second word now as she hadn't when he first came in.
"Presents! Yay!" She twirled a quick circle.
"And pizza, hopefully. Which is quite nutritious. Tomato is a vegetable, cheese is dairy and calcium to help bones heal, meat is even more protein, which also helps muscles and tissue recuperate, and the crust is grain. In fact, with a bit of pineapple on top, a pizza can meet all food groups! How healthy can you get?"
His blue eyes were sparkling, and Cuddy knew she was losing the battle. "Maybe. We'll talk about it. But we do have to eat other things this week, too."
Rachel stopped her victory lap long enough to ask, "Where are the presents?"
"In the living room," House directed. She galloped out the bedroom door, and House and Cuddy were left looking at each other silently.
"What. . ." he started, then stopped the question partway as if afraid to admit it mattered to him.
"They were just talking after she woke up about how all injuries heal. He was reassuring her, and it worked. He's good with kids, Greg." She leaned over for as deep a kiss as they could manage considering his ribs at the moment. "I was scared to death yesterday," she said as they parted.
He stiffly slid his right arm around her, holding her while still bracing his side with his left. "I'll be okay, Lisa. We'll both be okay." She buried her face against him.
Rachel spoke up from the doorway. "Mama! Daddy! Thomas has the presents and is making us wait! Come on!"
Laughing, they split from the fears of yesterday back into the family of the moment. "All right, Rachel. We're coming. Why don't I order the pizza, and then we'll get presents in a few minutes. We'll see you in the living room, Greg."
Cuddy and Rachel left, giving him privacy. Mostly privacy. The white cat was still there, looking analytical and concerned herself. "Sacks," House offered. "There are sacks in the living room. I brought them just for a cat present." She didn't budge. With a stifled groan, he heaved himself to his feet, gave himself a minute to define and adjust to the new shape of the pain, then hobbled toward the bathroom, leaning heavily on the quad cane. Belle was a white shadow, two feet behind, scampering forward through the door at the last moment to supervise as he tried to close it in her face. "I can do this alone, you know. I have for years." She gave him a look of unshakeable confidence in the necessity of her presence.
It was only as he was washing his hands that another point of contrast with the past hit him. He had automatically fit the pain of the broken ribs, familiar pain, to the old framework, remembering how to best move to accommodate it. He hadn't remembered point by point until now how in his childhood, there had been no professional bandages, just his own efforts with Ace wraps, no painkillers beyond the carefully smuggled and inadequate OTC meds hidden in his own private medicine chest from which he attempted to doctor himself, and there had been no concerned eyes or questions of "you okay?" No commiseration over hell day, and he'd had hell days to make yesterday look like a picnic. No, back then, there had only been solitude and fear of the consequences if he failed to suffer alone and let the truth slip, revealing it to others. Now, even with the similar pain, he had concern and love and pizza. He didn't have to hide his injury. He could openly heal, surrounded by family.
His ribs stabbed him again as he leaned forward to shut off the faucet, but suddenly, the pain seemed a little less. Not at all like the previous times, now that he thought about it. As he and Belle headed slowly for the living room, House thought that he didn't need a physical present tonight himself. In this life with his family, he had already been given a priceless one.
Still, it would be fun, icing on the cake, to explore that little electronic racing game.