Digging up the Past

Here we are chapter 3 of All in the Family! Enjoy!

Rachel walked by her sister's locker and shut it. "Hey!" Amber turned to her sister and then went to re-open it. "I wasn't finished getting my stuff out of there!"

"We don't have time for this we've gotta go!" Rachel held the locker door shut.

Amber shoved her sister's arm off the locker. "We have time. If we go tearing out of here then Amy is going to notice something suspicious and ask us what's going on. And you are a terrible liar so she will see through this in a second."

Rachel sighed, crossed her arms, and leaned against the lockers next to Amber's. "I'm just nervous. I can't help thinking that we are doing something illegal. I mean…what if they catch us? What if Uncle Jamey catches us? Or worse yet…"

"Rachel," Amber shut her locker door and turned to her sister. "Stop worrying."

"I just can't help it," Rachel exclaimed. "Just what we need is them discovering us and it blowing up in our faces."

"It won't blow up in our faces unless you keep freaking out! All we are doing is taking files out of their computers. It's not hard I can do it."

Rachel looked at her sister for a couple of minutes and then nodded quietly. They linked arms and slowly walked out of the school.

MD

"Hi Mom," Rachel walked into Cuddy's office and sat down on the couch.

"Hey," Cuddy looked up as her eldest daughter walked in. She put her head in her hands and watched Rachel as she sat down on the couch and leaned back against it.

Rachel said nothing and continued to sit quietly with her eyes shut.

"Are you still mad at me?" Cuddy asked. "I really want to talk about the other night…"

"Not now Mom I'm not really feeling well," Rachel answered with her eyes still shut.

Cuddy got up and walked over to the couch sitting next to her. She put her hand on Rachel's forehead. "You don't feel warm."

"It's a stomach thing I feel….really nauseous…" Rachel made a face and grabbed her stomach. She suddenly jumped up. "I think I'm going to throw up…" She ran from the room with a hand to her mouth.

Cuddy bit her lip and then followed her daughter out of the room. She walked into the bathroom and heard retching sounds and then a toilet flushing. "Rach? Is that you?"

"Yeah Ma," Rachel said quickly. "Will you stay in here with me?"

"Sure sweetie," Cuddy walked up and stood next to the door.

MD

"Got it!" Amber held up a flash drive in Rachel's face, grinning. "I think this is everything we needed."

"You didn't dump everything on there did you?" Rachel asked worried. "I don't want to find out stuff we don't need to know."

"Rachel you REALLY need to relax" Amber grinned. "What do you think, that I turned ten yesterday?"

Rachel opened her mouth "Well technically…"

"Shut up. Look, stuff that had nothing to do with them like patient files and such I didn't touch. I took anything that had Dad's name on it, his department, personal files of Mom's, and her email password."

"Maybe you should become a computer technician" Rachel muttered.

"Ok smartass…"

"Hey! Language!"

"Oh please. Look, we have what we need. We just need to go through it until we find..."

"What? Find what? What are we even looking for? I agreed to this plan of yours because you insisted that once we had this information…"

"Shut up ok just shut up Rachel!" Amber yelled. "All you've been doing all day is worrying and complaining and telling me that my plan is all wrong. If you've got a better one, PLEASE let me know!"

"I think that we need to get stuff off of Dad's computer too," Rachel said suddenly.

"There isn't any more room on this flash drive," Amber whined.

"Yes but they are a fighting couple" Rachel interjected. "It means that there are things they aren't or haven't told each other. What if there is stuff on Dad's computer that we need?"

"Well I can get more of the information…you just have to get Dad out of his office. Which is going to be…"

"Harder, yeah," Rachel sighed. "And you're going to have less time too. We'll need to plan…"

"No. We don't have that kind of time," Amber reiterated. "We have to do it now."

"But what do I do? Ask for math help? Ask him to throw a ball for me?"

"I don't know but you better think of something quickly, I have to go borrow Mom's flash drive," Amber nodded at her sister and walked away.

MD

"Hey Dad!" Rachel strolled into her Dad's office.

"Hi," he mumbled. He was on his computer again.

"I was wondering of you could help me," Rachel asked, coming up to the edge of his desk.

"With what?"

"Well I was in the clinic just messing around and I spilled a bunch of stuff. I told Mom and she said that you had to help me clean it up."

House looked up and frowned. "Are you being serious?"

Rachel bit her lip, just like her mother had done so many times, and looked down. "Mom was really mad."

House looked up at his daughter. "And YOU are lying through your teeth."

Rachel gasped. "I am not!"

House raised his eyebrow and looked over at his daughter. "Well then I'll go ahead and call down to…"

"No!" Rachel shouted as her father reached for the phone. He stared at her again. "She was very angry Dad that's not a good idea."

"Ok Rachel what do you want? For real?" House folded his hands and looked up at her.

Rachel sighed and stared at her feet. "I actually…I wasn't feeling good today and wanted to take a walk and I wanted to know…because of your leg…." Rachel looked up at her father with disguised worry.

House gave her a little smile. "Alright I'll go on a walk with you." He stood up grabbed his cane and limped out of the office with her. As they turned the corner in the hallway, Rachel saw her sister slip into his office from her peripheral line of vision.

MD

"Did you find anything yet?" Amber walked into the room with an apple in her hand. She threw it to her sister who caught it.

"Nope. I'm still not sure exactly what we are looking for though. I've been going through Dad's emails but there's not really anything…wait!"

"What?" Amber fairly leaped across the room. "What is it?"

"Well there appear to be emails between Dad and this P.I….what is a P.I.?"

Amber frowned. "I don't know…google it."

Rachel pulled up the google page. "It says that a P.I. is a….private investigator." She turned to her sister. "We need to find out who this private investigator is. Maybe he can help us."

"He could be a fake," Amber sat down heavily on her sister's bed. "We don't know. And how could he help us with this case?"

"Well he might know more about Mom and Dad. Or he might know who to ask!"

"No way. Private investigators sound fancy enough. Imagine how much they probably cost. He might charge us a thousand dollars just to call him!" Amber exclaimed.

"Well then I think we are left with just trying to find out who Mom and Dad have worked with in the past. That's got to be our best bet. Now…the three people Dad has currently been working with have been here for three years already. Who was here before?"

"Whoever it was may not have been a fan of Dad though. We need to be careful Rach."

"I'm not stupid." Rachel rolled her eyes and pulled up the Diagnostic file. "Ok here we go…"

MD

House and Cuddy sat silently at the dinner table. House was fooling around with the food on his plate and Cuddy was not even trying to eat. She sat with her arms folded resting on the table and she stared at House.

"What?" He grumbled. "You're making me nervous."

"I'm sorry about last night," Cuddy responded quietly. "I am really getting sick of all this fighting. I just want everything to go back to the way that it was. Can you help me do that?"

House looked up at her slowly, and nodded.

Cuddy gave him a little smile. "Good. I…"

"Hey Mom can I borrow your laptop?" Amber came running down the steps and skidded to a halt in front of the table.

"Why don't you use your sisters?"

"Well she's using it right now. Please?"

"Alright. All my files are locked so you can use it. Just be careful with it ok? And don't download any games!" Cuddy shouted at Amber who was already running back up the steps.

Cuddy sighed and looked over at House. "She's a lot more like you than you think you know."

House nodded. "And Rachel is a lot more like you than you think."

Cuddy looked at House and cocked her head. "What do you mean?"

"Well she's really smart but doesn't really know what she wants. She needs someone to love her but doesn't know how to express it."

"Gee I didn't realize that you suddenly were so tuned into other people's feelings," Cuddy replied rather sarcastically.

"I'm just observant," House replied.

Cuddy ran a hand through her hair. "Look, I love Rachel very much and always have. I don't know why you keep telling me that I don't love her enough. Just because you empathize with her doesn't mean that…"

"I don't want to discuss this right now," House said heatedly. He got up and walked into the other room plopping down on the couch. Cuddy sat down next to him. She took his hands in hers. "Why House? Why do you always deflect? WHY?"

House said nothing and stared at the blank television screen. "I'm not deflecting I'm trying to avoid another fight."

Cuddy sighed. "You're right. I shouldn't push you." She sat back against the couch. She turned to look at her aging husband; his hair was entirely gray, his face even more full of wrinkles…and yet there was a youthfulness about him and his blue eyes…they were still so full of electricity. Cuddy leaned into his arm and turned to the television screen which he had switched on.

House instinctively wrapped his arm around her and they sat there for a couple of minutes before Cuddy sighed dramatically.

House said nothing and Cuddy sighed dramatically again. House rolled his eyes. "We are NOT talking about that again."

"About what?" Cuddy sat up straight and looked over at him.

"Nothing," House said without turning his head.

"No really. What?" Cuddy took his face and turned it to face hers.

"I thought you were going to complain about not being married again."

Cuddy grabbed the remote out of his other hand and switched the television off. "I was merely trying to get your attention. You never pay attention to me. But hey if you wanted to jump straight to that…"

"Just settle down ok? I don't feel like dealing with your PMS delusions right now!"

Cuddy gasped. "How did you…how did you know..?"

"It doesn't matter. Can we just drop it?"

"You were the one that brought it up!" Cuddy fairly shrieked.

"I thought that it was what you were going to bring up!" House cried. "You are always so weird about it…"

"I am? I am always so weird about it? We've been together for almost eleven years and we aren't married! I've always wondered why. Why. What is so hard about that?"

"Marriage makes everything complicated! Living together is easier it makes things LESS complicated," House tried to explain.

"Oh really. Like breaking up?" Cuddy stood up and put her hands on her hips.

"That's not what I meant and you know it," House replied.

"Well what do you mean? I never know anymore. You claim to love me but you have a funny way of showing it."

"Last time I checked I didn't need to tell you I loved you every five minutes if we are together."

"Last time I checked that's what couples DID" Cuddy said and then she stopped because angry tears had come to her eyes. "I need to know that I'm loved House! I need to know that you appreciate me."

"When have I ever said that I didn't? You seemed to have forgotten that you are with ME. Not some perfect guy with a white picket fence and two point five kids. You chose to spend your life with an old crippled man and if you can't see through my exterior than obviously I can't see through yours!"

"Here we go again! Your pity party!" Cuddy threw her hands up in the air. "You know I've had it with that? Just because you have trouble walking doesn't excuse you from helping me or going to attend games and cheer meets!"

"And just because you gave birth to one daughter doesn't excuse you from not loving the other!"

Cuddy stopped. "Here we go again, you still think that! You think that I love Rachel less. Well it's not true."

"Yes it is. Wanna know why Rachel has trouble in school? Why she and Amber fight? Because Amber is favored and you know it."

"No I do NOT know it and it's NOT true" Cuddy said dangerously. "What you are accusing me of is terrible and unwarranted."

"But it's true."

"No. You just think that because you see a troubled Rachel and think that she's you incarnate. You think that she's the little you alone and abused by her parent who isn't her "real" parent. You see someone who is looked down on by other people and picked on like you were when you were young."

"And you see the perfect model child that you were and want your kids to be. But Rachel didn't pass the test. So you ditched her and moved onto the other daughter, the real one, the one that you love more."

Cuddy's tears actually started this time. "Screw you." She turned on her heel and marched out of the door slamming it behind her. House threw his cane against the wall, hard, and it snapped in half. He angrily brushed away tears that had started to form in his eyes and sat back down on the couch, heavily.

MD

Rachel and Amber, intent on their work, had turned the radio on and heard nothing of their parents fight or their mom's flight.

Amber yawned. "I'm going to go to bed. I'm exhausted."

"We still have time!" Rachel protested. "I don't know why it's so hard to sort through all of this stuff…"

"That's because we don't know what we are doing! Look it can wait until tomorrow can you just…"

"Hush. I found something. Look. It's an email between Mom and a woman named Allison Cameron dated about two years ago. Now look, if I enter her name into the search bar under Dad's files…" Rachel rolled her chair over to Amber's and typed it in. "Her name comes up about a hundred times. One of them…under the Diagnostic department."

Amber walked over and clicked on the file. Cameron's resume pulled up. "It says here that she worked under Dad about ten years ago."

"Yup. Which means that she had to have known Mom and Dad before they got together." Rachel finished. "We should call her."

"Yes but this file is old. What if the number is?"

"There's one listed on the email she sent Mom. Let's try it." Rachel pulled out her cell phone.

"Are you crazy? Amber grabbed her arm. "What do we say?"

"The truth." Rachel hit the call button and waited as the phone rang a couple of times. It went to voicemail. "Hi you've reached Allison, Robert, Jessica, Danny, and Rowan. We can't come to the phone right now. Please leave us a message and we will get back to you as soon as we can!"

Rachel quickly hung up. "That was definitely Allison Cameron."

"Yes but look…" Amber pulled up the search box and typed in Allison Cameron Robert.

"Robert Chase." Rachel looked at her sister. "Two of his team members got married."

"I think that we should pay them a little visit after school tomorrow don't you?" Amber asked her sister.

Hope you liked the new chapter. I fortunately get to keep Cameron and Chase together because my fanfic was written before they split up! *grins* The next chapter should be up within the next few days. As usual let me know what you think!