Foreman found Cameron in the lab with Chase. They were both just finishing, Cameron had the Lupus test and Chase just dropped off the blood samples for Georgia.

"Finished?" Foreman asked Cameron.

"Yep, and it's not Lupus," Cameron answered relieved.

"Thank you for small mercies!" Foreman sighed. "Do you want to take the results to House? He's with his mother still."

"Don't you want to do it yourself?" Cameron asked.

"I don't think I can take more of him right now," Foreman confessed.

"What? Did he make snide comments to you about your diagnostic abilities?" Chase asked. "Or was he just unusually heavy with his racist comments and sarcasm?"

"He is not racist," Cameron admonished earning dumbfounded looks from her colloquies. "He hates everybody, regardless of race."

"That may be, but it sure sounds racist to me," Foreman pointed out. "Though it's not that this time. He just creeps me out. I don't know who he is anymore."

"He is worried about his mother," Cameron repeated her earlier comment. "Of course he is more subdued. This cannot be easy for him."

"But he thanked me," Foreman finally revealed. "He never thanks me. Hell, he never thanks anyone! It's just not like him, and I don't know how to deal with this pod person."

"He thanked you?" Chase asked. "You? House? House thanked you? He never does that!"

"He does, too," Cameron insisted. "He has thanked me!"

"You're different," Foreman dismissed. "Even House is not completely immune to your niceness. You're all sugar and spice; even he is bound to thank you once in a while. But this is me! He never thanks me – or Chase – for anything. Ever."

"Not even in our dreams," Chase confirmed. "If he did that, I'm not surprised that you need time to recover. Come on Cameron, I need to take Georgia back to her room, you can accompany us. Mrs. House is just next door."

----------------

House saw them coming and stepped into the corridor to meet them. He nodded to Chase and Cameron and then turned to Georgia.

"You look a little tired," he said. "Are you up to greeting my Mother briefly, or would you rather go to your own room right away?"

"I do feel tired, but not too much," Georgia admitted. "It's just this pneumonia sapping my strength, but I'm quite up to being introduced to your Mother."

"Good, wheel her in Chase." House instructed. He performed the introductions and then retired to his corner. Cameron tried to follow him with the test results, but again he stopped her.

"It's so nice to meet you, Mrs. House," Georgia said. "You son has been so wonderful to me!"

"Call me Blythe," Blythe asked. "He has talked about you, though not nearly enough."

"He is a bit secretive, isn't he," Georgia agreed. "But that's ok with me. I'm of the generation where some reserve was considered a good thing. You didn't hang out all your problems and feelings on national television, as they all seem to want to do now. Dignity was the thing. Mind you, I don't have a lot of dignity left now, but your son has been very good about it. He wrote me a note I can show people if need be. You cannot believe the things you can get away with if you have a doctor's note saying you are batty!"

"I'm sure my son did not write a note saying you are batty!" Blythe disagreed.

"Well, not in those words, he didn't," Georgia said. "But that is the idea. It can be quite fun, especially when I explain to them how I got this way. For some reason the younger generation just cannot understand that we, too, had sex. That it's not their invention! Imagine that!"

"What," House exclaimed from the sidelines. "Are you telling me we didn't invent sex? And here I was thinking I was quite inventive."

"Naughty boy," Georgia shook her finger at him. "I'm sure you are quite sufficiently inventive given the chance, but that is not what I'm talking about." She turned to Blythe: "You see I have brain damage that I got from syphilis. I had thought it was over with the treatment I got about 60 years ago, but it came back. Your son treated it, but the damage was done, and now I'm doomed to be happy for the rest of my life. That's almost enough to make me recommend syphilis to anyone! Only I'm not sure you can guarantee where the damage occurs, so I think I better not."

"No, you better not," House agreed. "And I think I better take you to your bed, before you corrupt my mother." House took the handles of the chair. "You look like you could use a nap, and your son is coming back later, so you need to look fresh and rested or he will start snarling at me again."

"Oh, we cannot have that!" Georgia agreed. "It was nice meeting you Blythe. Please feel free to drop by, if you want to. I'm just next door." And then House wheeled her out.

Chase and Cameron had been looking on with fascination, but once House and Georgina were out, Blythe House turned to them.

"I believe you have some test results for me?" She asked. "Is it wolf?"

"I'm sorry?" Cameron didn't quite understand the question.

"Lupus. Is it Lupus?" Blythe clarified.

"No, I'm happy to say it is not Lupus," Cameron answered immediately.

"But you still don't know what it is?"

"I'm afraid not," Cameron had to concede. "But we will find out what is wrong with you, I promise."

"And I will hold you to that promise," House said from the door way having returned.

"We had the results from the Lupus test," Chase told him. "It's not Lupus."

"I figured as much," House said. "Had it been Lupus Cameron would have looked a lot grimmer than she did when you arrived. But that still leaves the field wide open."

"We will keep testing," Cameron promised.

"And at least we have ruled out Lupus and lung cancer," Chase tried to sound optimistic.

"Small mercies," House shrugged. "But I suppose I'll take any that come along. But you two must have work to do?"

"Yes, we do, come along Cameron," Chase agreed and took his leave dragging Cameron along.

"And I have clinic duty," House told his mother. "I better go before Cuddy comes in screeching at me and disturbing your peace. I'll see you later."

"Fine. I may go and visit Georgia after she has had her nap," Blythe said. "And before that, I just might have a nap myself."

----------

Blythe did have a nap after which she went to see Georgia. She liked the feisty old lady, and not only because she liked her son. It was apparent that Georgia was well aware of her situation, not batty at all, and was making the most of it. Good for her!

When Blythe got into Georgia's room Georgia's son was with her, but just about to leave for the night. They greeted civilly and the son positioned a chair next to his mother's bed for Blythe.

"Polite young man, your son is," Blythe commented.

"I did my best," Georgia acknowledged. "He is a bit dull, like his father was, but that is not a bad quality in a man. The exciting ones tend to make very bad husbands."

"I think I know what you mean," Blythe agreed smilingly. "My husband was a marine pilot till he retired, and though that may seem like an exciting profession, he himself is not a terribly exciting man. But he suits me just fine."

"Oh yes, military has often given an exciting appearance to many an ordinary man. That's how I fell in love with mine: he was in uniform," Georgia remembered. "He looked so dashing! He was my first love. Nothing like these feelings I have for your son, you understand. This is just mad infatuation, due to my brain damage. But then I was young and fell for the first time. I was lucky that he felt the same way about me, too, and that he was good husband material. So many of my friends didn't fare as well. War time, you know. So many hasty marriages that were repented at leisure! But I married my man, and he was my first love and last love. In fact he was quite a number of the in between loves as well."

"That sounds almost like he wasn't your only love?" Blythe inquired.

"Oh no. Human beings don't function that way. We fall in and out of love, but if we are lucky we fall in love with the same person often enough to have a long and happy marriage. I was lucky that way," Georgia explained. "Though it was not all my doing. There was a man..."

"Of course there was," Blythe agreed.

"In fact, your son reminds me of him," Georgia told Blythe. "Joseph had that same look in his eyes, the look of someone who has seen more than the rest of us. And he, too, had a bum leg. He was my husband's best friend, and I would have left everything for him, including my honour and my principles, had he allowed it. But he wouldn't. So I loved him as much as he allowed and he remained best friends with me and my husband – till the end."

"The end?" Blythe asked softly, sensing sadness in Georgia.

"Yes. Joseph was an Englishman, and after the war he came to Princeton to teach. He was an archaeologist. My husband told me that Joseph had saved his life during the war, but that was all they would say. I knew they had met later again, in hospital due to their wounds, but they would not talk about that either. And Joseph would never explain what he had done during the war, though I got the impression he had been in military intelligence. Spying, you know. Not a desk job. I don't know what happened to him and I don't think my husband knew either, but somehow Joseph ended up getting his leg smashed up. It never healed properly so he was in constant pain. Those days, we only had morphine, of course, not all these wonderful new medications that won't make you an addict as easily. Also there was much less tolerance for pain sufferers then. There was some stupid idea going on about the ennobling aspect of pain, like suffering was somehow a character building exorcise! Humbug! There is nothing ennobling about pain. It's just pain. Anyway, Joseph had a hard time of it, and in the end he took matters into his own hands. When he couldn't get enough morphine from his doctors, he started to use opium. Naturally we worried, but what could we do? We saw his pain, and knew he needed something to get through each day, but we also saw what the drug did to him. Talk about the devil and the deep blue sea! He stayed with us for ten years. Struggling, but he stayed. But when the pain got too much, when he knew that either the pain or the drugs he needed to control the pain were going to rob him of his ability to think, he killed himself. He overdosed on purpose. I cannot say I blame him. I could not see what else there was for him, but I missed him so much, as did my husband. He left us a note saying that we should not blame ourselves or feel responsible. Without us, he would have done it sooner. So he said. I'm not sure I believed it, but it was nice of him to say so. He also left a personal note for me. In it he just wrote: Remember: When you are old and grey... That was the closest he ever came to telling me he loved me. And even then he would not tell me what kind of love he felt."

"When you are old and grey..." Blythe repeated. "That's Yeats, isn't it?"

Before Georgia could answer her, House spoke from the doorway, where he had stood for a while leaning on his cane: "When you are old and grey and full of sleep / And nodding by the fire, take down this book / And slowly read, and dream of the soft look / Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; / How many loved your moments of glad grace / And loved your beauty with love false or true / But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you / And loved the sorrows of your changing face; / And bending down beside the glowing bars / Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled / And paced upon the mountains overhead / And hid his face amid a crowd of stars."

"Yes, William Butler Yeats. I got his collected poems as a gift from Joseph, one Christmas." Georgia said.

"I think you know full well how much he loved you. And what kind of love it was." House said.

"Maybe," Georgia acknowledged. "But it didn't change anything, did it?"

"I don't know. It may have changed everything," House mused. "But I'm no expert on love," he then scoffed. "But I think you two ladies have had quite enough time to gossip. You need your rest! I came to take my mother to her room."

"Perhaps you are right. We can go on gossiping tomorrow!" Blythe agreed. "Good night, Georgia. It has been a pleasure getting to know you."

"Likewise," Georgia said. "We will meet tomorrow!"