House sighed. Beside him, Thomas looked at his son for a long moment, then turned back to face Stacy.

She hurried up to them. "Greg, I'd like to talk to you."

"This is not a good time," he stated.

"I know if you're busy on a case, I would have to take a number. I understand that. Just sometime today when you can fit it in."

"No, today is out. Period. I'm dealing with several other things already, and you can't just walk in and trump them."

"I'm not asking to trump the current case, Greg, just to be put in line."

Thomas had been following this exchange like an observer at a tennis match, and now he shifted a little, enough to catch his son's attention. He was tempted to go ahead and introduce himself; he was pretty sure he had already identified this woman accurately, even though his limited information on her came through Blythe's letters and conversations years ago on his occasional visits to her and John. Stacy had not been a topic of discussion with his new family. No question that Greg didn't want to talk to her, today, tomorrow, or next year. Thomas' first impulse was to join up in solidarity, making it two against one, but with an effort, he left the decision to his son, just reminding him that he was available.

House considered, then took the offered distraction and passed it along. "Stacy Warner, this is Thomas Thornton." He watched her body language, wanting to catch any reaction to the name. If Stacy had followed the news from the explosion at the racetrack a year ago due to his own involvement, she ought to remember hearing about Thomas. She did, clearly.

"You're the one who was at the racetrack." She eyed him in brief interest, then turned back to her main focus at the moment.

"Yes, I was," Thomas confirmed. He left it there.

House took it further, enjoying the chance to shake her up as much as she had jolted him by her sudden reappearance this morning. "Actually, he's my father."

Being knocked speechless is rare for lawyers, but Stacy literally rocked back on her heels at the weight of those words. She stared at Thomas, then at House, then back at Thomas, then at House, and while her mouth opened, nothing came out for a minute. House stood there, starting to enjoy himself, at least with this part.

"Glad to meet you," Thomas said smoothly, breaking the silence. "But as my son said, things are very busy today. Perhaps some other time?"

"I - he -" Stacy paused and visibly swallowed. "Greg, I would like to talk to you."

"And I said not today. Are you developing hearing difficulties?"

She tightened up. "I knew this would happen. That's why I didn't call first and just came to the hospital. You can't just push me off forever."

"Actually, I could. But like I said, like the old man said, today in particular is not available. My wife had an accident this morning and broke her ankle, and we are going to be dealing with that above all for a few days. You are not on the priority list, not right now."

Stacy stared again. "Cuddy? Is she okay?"

"She will be, but she is first in line at the moment. At any moment, actually. If you insist on talking, you're going to have to wait until this current situation is more stable, and that's going to be several days." House grudgingly tossed her an opening; he knew that she wouldn't just go away now that she had turned back up. Stacy could be as stubborn at digging her heels in as he could. "Once things start to settle down, I'll call you and set up a time at some point at the hospital." He emphasized the final three words.

Stacy studied him, then yielded - temporarily. "Okay, Greg. I'm sorry about Cuddy. Here's my cell phone number." She produced a card. "Do you still have the same cell number you did years ago?"

"No." The one-syllable rested as a rock-solid obstacle in the road of this conversation.

She paused, then nodded. "Give me a call when you get time to." She gave one final, wondering look at Thomas, then turned away.

House watched her clear across the lobby, making sure she was leaving. The doors swished shut behind her, and he sighed again.

"Would you like to talk for a minute before we go get lunch?" Thomas asked. He didn't think his son would be capable of eating at the moment; he was strung as tight as piano wires.

"No!" House snapped. He turned too quickly, and his leg snarled at him. Regaining his balance, he limped on across the lobby toward the cafeteria. Thomas walked alongside him, not commenting on his tone, not showing offense, just being there. The old man had an irritating habit of that. He was one of the hardest people to ruffle that House had ever met.

Aside from his one button issue, that was. Family. The first time House had ever gotten him angry, after months of diligently trying, had been when he had insulted Emily, Thomas' dead wife. Every occasion since then that House had ever seen the old man disturbed - that night at the airport, during Abby's surgery, this morning when he got the call about Cuddy - had involved some perceived risk to his family.

Family.

Which, if House tracked it out further, meant that Thomas didn't consider Stacy a threat. He hadn't been bothered by that whole scene. It wasn't just acting - okay, well part of it, in front of Stacy, was acting for added impact. But deep down, Thomas wasn't bothered by her, although he had to know who she was by now; he wasn't slow on the uptake, far from it, and Blythe would have mentioned her. He trusted his son and the foundation the family had. Which, in an odd way, was reassuring. This was an unexpected obstacle, but it wasn't a major problem. At least that was the old man's reading on things.

House's limp toward the cafeteria had been getting slower and slower, and finally, he swerved, heading for the main elevator. Thomas followed along, not saying anything. They rode up to the fourth floor in silence and entered House's office. The team was absent from the conference room; he knew from the latest call with them a while ago that they had the answer to the case now. They were off treating the patient. House dropped into his Eames chair, and Thomas took one from in front of the desk and turned it around to face him.

Finally, reluctantly, House began. "That was -"

Thomas interrupted him. "I know who she was. Let me try to make this a little easier, Greg. You don't have to start from square one; I've had information on Stacy. Of course, it came mostly from Blythe in her letters, some from conversations when I visited her and John. So it might not be the most observant information, but I'll take the basic facts as accurate. I know you lived together five years, and I know about - when it was she left. You don't need to go into all that."

House flinched at the edited mention of those old infarction days, but the final sentence distracted him again. "No questions?"

"No," Thomas said. "Skip the past history unless you want to share it with me. Nothing there matters anymore."

House digested that for a moment, then gladly jumped forward several years up to this morning. Well, up to two months ago. "Back at Christmas, I sent her a Christmas card. It just had three words. 'I forgive you.' I - I realized that I needed to do that." This was touchy ground again, and it wasn't because of Stacy. He had sent Thomas a card with the same message, encoded. The old man had never specifically brought that up in conversation, and House had been glad of it. He hadn't wanted to have deep, meaningful, extended conversations about it. He had simply wanted to say the minimum, get it said, and move on. In fact, forgiving Thomas had been the main thing, more of an issue even than Stacy and his leg, but he had realized that to hold onto one large grudge while finally releasing the other would be incomplete. Those cards hadn't been an assignment from Jensen; it had been his own decision.

Thomas nodded, filling in the blanks. He didn't, to House's relief, try to prolong discussion into either his son's leg and forgiving Stacy or into forgiving himself.

"I sent it from the hospital. Full medical title. It - it wasn't personal. I mean, it was personal, but - it - I wasn't trying to start anything. I was trying to end something. I hoped she'd never reply, and up until this morning, she hadn't."

Thomas spoke up there. "So if that was Christmas, and she turned up this morning, she's had two months to digest things herself. What do you think she wants?"

House sighed. He was tempted to say that was obvious, but the trouble was, it wasn't. "She knows I'm with Lisa now."

"You made that clear enough in the lobby, too. She couldn't have missed the road closed sign."

"Hopefully not. But she still wanted to talk, even after I said that. So it's -" He broke off. No, he could handle it if Stacy wanted to try to start something up again. Just toss a bucket of water over the embers she'd kept alive. "Last time I saw her, which was before Lisa, I told her absolutely that we were not going to get back into a relationship. That door's already closed. She might wish she could reopen it at times, but I don't think she really thinks she could." The trouble was, what he was afraid Stacy wanted to do was exactly what the old man wasn't doing in this conversation. What he thought Stacy wanted was to revisit and dissect history. Now that she knew about John from the media on the trial, and now that she thought maybe the anger against her was out of the way and no longer preventing an open conversation, she wanted to talk about his past and why all this had never come up in five years of living together. House would have rather walked to California on his cane than had that conversation. But she wasn't likely to go away.

He realized that the silence was extending, and he looked up at Thomas. The old man was sitting there, looking sympathetic. "What do you think?" House asked.

Thomas followed him easily, realizing that he wasn't asking his opinion of Stacy's motives, just where he would go from here. "You've already told her the most important thing. She can take a number. There are other issues going on at the moment, and they get priority. Your family always gets priority. I really thought you handled it well, Greg."

"But she isn't going to give up."

"Not likely." Thomas shook his head. "Hopefully she's stalled for a few days, though, since she knows about Lisa's ankle. That a legitimate crisis to be coping with. It also gives you several days to prepare. By the way, does Lisa know about the Christmas card?"

And that was another issue. "No. I wasn't exactly trying to hide it from her, I just -" Actually, Stacy had been peripheral again in that analysis. He had wanted to avoid discussing the message to Thomas, wanted to keep that decision private at first. Of course, Cuddy probably had put that together by now anyway just watching them, and House would have told her eventually. He just had wanted to get used to this big deal himself for a while without everyone else making a big deal out of it. But Cuddy knew about his resentment over his leg. He could hardly have told her that he had forgiven Stacy without raising the larger issue of him forgiving Thomas. "I'll have to tell her about it now."

"Yes. Maybe not today with her all stressed and on meds, but definitely before you talk to Stacy."

"Yeah." He hoped that wouldn't be an issue. Keeping the cards to himself had made sense at the time.

"She trusts you, Greg. It will be all right."

House looked at his watch, hitting his limit with this conversation. "We'd better go get lunch before she wakes up and wonders where we are."

"All right." Thomas came easily to his feet and waited for his son's more laborious ascent. They exited the office together. On the journey, Thomas started talking about Ember and Rachel's lessons and events at the stable, and by the time they got up to the line in the cafeteria, House realized to his surprise that he was actually starting to get hungry.