Disclaimed.

Rawr! I had to go out of town for the weekend, so I'm sorry for the update delay. So I figured I'd churn out a quick chapter for you guys so I don't have to feel guilty anymore. Haha, love you all!

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Licking her thumb, Blythe tried to wipe an imaginary smudge off her son's somber face. He swiveled his head and batted away her aged hands. She smiled and, with a tear in her eye, nodded.

"Fine. You win. Just like you always did when you were little. Almost no one could tell you what to do! So headstrong and smart as a whip. You were quite a handful sometimes!" She chuckled and House a forced grin that all sons and daughters give when they are told how they used to act when they were too little to really remember. That grin parents hardly ever seem to notice. She continued on about bath times and play times and school times and sleep times. House found himself staring longingly out the opened front door, waiting for his companions to hurry up with parking the damn car. Why did they both need to do it anyway? But House knew they were just giving him some quick time alone with Blythe. However, unfiltered Mother is hard for any child to deal with, no matter what age.

"Oh James! There you are! Oh and Dr. Cameron, looking lovely like always! Greg, why don't you show them around a bit? I have so many things to do!" She continued talking mostly to herself as she turned and left the room, presumably to do the many things she felt needed to be done.

"She seems...chipper." Wilson observed.

"Maniacally chipper. Insanely chipper. Disturbingly, revoltingly, terminally chipper." House corrected. He wheeled himself down the hall to his old room. Wilson and Cameron followed closely behind. House sat in the doorway and just looked at the walls.

"Hasn't changed at all. Creepy." Going in he started to rifle through his own drawers. Stealing old t-shirts and little odds and ends. Suddenly, he pulled out a pair of light blue, lacy, very pretty panties. Looking confused he held them up all the way. Letting out a laugh he grinned. Tossing them back in the drawer he turned to his friends. "That...is the very definition of 'a good night.' Mary Jean Henderson. You should have seen them with the matching bra!" Both Wilson and Cameron had the decency to hide their smirks beneath masks of disapproval. Blythe rounded the corner into her son's room. She looked considerably less chipper. House's grin fell as she let out a choked breath.

"It's time to leave Greg...we have to go now. Your cousin Micheal is waiting in the car for us. You know, he is such a nice boy, and a wonderful nurse. I can't understand why he isn't married yet."

"He's gay Mom. Micheal is gay. The man he got a commitment ceremony to seventeen years ago is going with us." House muttered tiredly, as if they had had this conversation a million times before.

"Well yes I know, but he was always so nice when he was a boy. I can't believe he would ever do anything like that. He always seemed so normal." Blythe looked thoughtfully at her son. House just sighed and shaking his head, wheeled towards the door.

"Don't touch my stuff! I'll know if you do! The force is with me." House tossed over his shoulder as he headed out, tapping a Star Wars poster of Princess Leah, not giving Wilson or Cameron a chance to say anything encouraging. He didn't want to be encouraged. He just wanted this damned day over and done with. Wilson stared forlornly at his friend's back. Cameron stood there a moment before shutting her opened mouth. She had definitely wanted to say something encouraging.

Once Micheal's car pulled out of the dusty drive, Wilson and Cameron headed back inside. Shutting the door, Cameron tried to chase away the silence.

"Blythe is...nice."

"She's lost. She has no idea what to do without a man in her life telling her what to do." Wilson walked back towards House's room, this time taking a moment to look at the pictures lined up exactly perfect in matching black frames on the pale yellow wall. Blythe and John's wedding, House as a baby, the family at some foreign beach in an amazing country somewhere far away. Unfortunately, that was probably the only time they ever went to the beach while they lived there. Reaching House's door, he turned on the radio and looked around. Nickelback's "Photograph" finally chased off that damned silence and filled the room with nostalgia.

"Look at this photograph
Every time I do it makes me laugh
How did our eyes get so red
And what the hell is on Joey's head"

Glancing at the pictures on the walls, neither person was very surprised. Band posters, philosophers, sports giants. Classic teenage boy decor. Cameron sat on the edge of his bed.

"I can't see House as a teen. Which is odd. Considering how childish he can be." Wilson chuckled and nodded in agreement with the girl.

"He was completely different yet exactly the same. I didn't know him until college, but even then...hilarious, but not bitter. Always active, jumping, running, he did all the sports and all the music classes he could take. He was a ladies man, but didn't gloat about it. He was just...happy I guess. It's hard to tell, but sometimes Old Greg rears his childish head. He's still in there somewhere." Wilson gave a sad smile and picked up a picture of a young Greg House off the cluttered desk. He had to have been maybe sixteen or seventeen at the time. He was dancing with some model looking girl on the deck of a boat surrounded by people. He was laughing like he would never be given the chance to smile again and you could see the sparkle in his bright blue, happy eyes, even through the grain of the old photograph. The water beneath the yacht was a clear blue, the exact shade of House's eyes on a good day. Must have been in some place like the Bahamas, or somewhere equally envy inducing. To somewhere just looking at an old photograph, his life looked picture perfect. But Wilson knew better.

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Someone up at the podium was droning on, spilling perfect lies over a pale corpse.

"John House was a family man. Always doing right by his loving wife and shining example of a son."

House rolled his eyes. Slyly pulling his ear buds under his shirt, he put them in his ears and turned on his Ipod. A few minutes later, as the same liar continued to spew untruths, House's mother tapped him on the hand, looking sternly at his ear buds. He took out one. He tried for his mother's sake to at least attempt to listen to the speakers, but it was too much. Everyone that went up said something about what a great husband and father he was. What a great military man he was. Hell, why don't they take out the death toll on how many Commies or Japs or Nazis he killed. That was after all what they seemed to be celebrating. A God damned abusive murderer. House knew better. He feigned being overtaken with emotion and excused himself to the bathroom.

He sat in his wheelchair, staring into the streaked bathroom mirror. Licking his lips he realized this entire place smelled. Smelled like lies and burning flesh and the pits of God damn Hell coming up to swallow some lost souls into it's depths. The Universe's garbage incinerator. Suddenly feeling ill, he wheeled into the handicapped stall and vomited. He vomited all his locked away feeling and his bitterness. He vomited the lies he had told about the man John House was. He vomited the past and everything it did to him. He vomited away all his inside scars and tears and bad dreams. He vomited up the taste of charred flesh and the image of the perfect military family. He vomited everything he held inside about his father. He vomited his breakfast.

Going back to the sink, he washed out his mouth. He sprayed a bit of air freshener and splashed chilled water over his face and neck. Slowly, House patted his face with a paper towel, and wheeled himself back to the lobby. Turns out he didn't want to watch him burn at all. He just wanted him gone. Just wanted to know he was gone. He sat there until people filed solemnly out of the room where his father was. His mother came up to him. They said nothing, but went out to Micheal's car. The ride back to the house was silent, aside from the high pitched buzz from House's ear buds as he listened to his Ipod. Pulling into the drive and parking, Micheal helped House out of the car and into his chair, looking sympathetically at his leg. Everyone there thought he was in the chair because his leg had gotten so bad. House wondered what the would have said about John if they knew what had really happened.

"You're staying the night, right Greg? I just...I wouldn't feel right today if you didn't...please say you'll stay?" His mother looked so pitiful, he couldn't just say no.

"I'll have to see about Wilson and Cameron's schedules. If they have to leave, so do I."

"Oh no you don't...if they have to leave, Micheal can stay and help me take care of you Darling. It would be so nice to have you back home for a night." She was almost begging. House knew she just didn't want to be alone. He knew he could call up Joy, who was probably already on her way to stay the night anyway. House knew staying there would mean awful memories and nightmares. The return of old feelings brought bile back up into his throat. He forced it back down.

"Sure Mom...just for a night though. I have to go back tomorrow." Blythe lit up and hurried inside. Micheal and his lover helped House get up the steps to the porch and then wheel himself in.

"I always knew you had more balls than me Greg. And I came out to the entire judgemental, hateful, Republican, patriotic, Christian family at Christmas right after Grandma House had her heart attack. You're quite the inspiration man." Micheal clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a smile. House gave his cousin a wry grin and modest chuckle.

"What am I doing that's ballsy? Just staying for a visit." House brushed off the compliment, not wanting to feel good.

"With Bipolar Blythe? Isn't that what you called her when we were kids?"

"Just when I was mad." House bit the regret out of his lips. Wilson and Cameron walked out of his room and met him in the hall. Micheal introduced himself and his partner, Glen, and they all shook hands.

"Micheal, you and Glen should stay for dinner. Maybe even stay the night with Greg and his friends. You two were so close when you were little. Always writing letters back and forth. It would be fun! We're having chicken dumplings and mashed potatoes." Blythe walked as she spoke, tying an apron around her and looking hopefully at her nephew and Glen. Glancing at each other, the couple nodded. Blythe gave a smile and headed back to the kitchen to start dinner. Wilson and Cameron eyed House carefully, wondering what kind of mood he was in. They obviously couldn't talk about it now. The shit would have to wait a few hours to hit the fan.

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Let me clarify, Blythe is not homophobic. She is a victim of her times, and just doesn't really know better.