A/N: Sorry for the cliffhanger last time, but this story is in for a long unsnarling of this mess, and not everything will be fixed even by the end of it. So buckle up for a lengthy ride. Here's the next chapter. From tomorrow on, every single day this week has either a rehearsal or a concert, so don't count on more until after the weekend. Thanks for the reviews.

(H/C)

For Cuddy, that morning was always remembered later as a series of disconnected impressions, jerky, time itself disrupted.

House, desperately trying to give Blythe CPR while demanding that Cuddy call for EMS. Cuddy could see herself that it was no use; Blythe was already stiff, obviously long dead. But her son was frantic, determined to pull her back regardless of medical facts.

The girls. They had been terrified, of course, as the morning erupted around them. They were more frightened for their father than for Blythe, and it was only that that had finally pulled him away from his mother and made him give up.

Wilson. Her second call after 911 had been to Wilson, knowing she needed immediate backup here. He and Sandra had been about to leave for work, their nanny already there with Daniel, and they both came over instead, arriving even before the body had been zipped into the bag and removed. She had never been more grateful to them.

That bathroom light left on. Had Blythe started feeling unwell during her soak and been so focused on getting to bed that she hadn't had energy to spare to turn it off? But there were two doctors just down the hall, only a few feet farther. If she were ill, why on earth hadn't she called them? What if Cuddy had checked on her in the middle of the night instead of just turning the light off? Would help have been possible then? Probably not, but she still wondered.

That last fight. Blythe crying on the couch as Cuddy ripped into her for the past. Had they pushed her into a heart attack or something? But she had seemed fine later, hadn't said anything about feeling off, and it was nearly two hours after that that they had gone to bed early and Blythe had gone for her hot soak.

Cuddy's own thoughts after waking up. She had been lying there thinking about getting rid of Blythe - not fatally, of course, but definitely thinking about it and enjoying the prospect of having her back out of their lives. And the whole while, during those thoughts, Blythe had already been dead.

Anger. Blythe had in her exit proven once again that she had absolutely no sense of timing. Damn it, couldn't she have made it home to her own bed first, far removed from the last few days, and been found by a neighbor?

What had killed her? Had they contributed to it?

And what was going to happen with House now?

(H/C)

The policeman stood in front of the group on the couch, trying inadequately to block the sight as the body bag was carried through the living room and out the front door. He would rather deal with criminals any day than these kind of calls. Right at Christmas, too. Poor family. He remembered seeing House on TV back in the summer, putting that creep Chandler away. "The ME will want an autopsy before he signs the certificate, just because she wasn't local and wasn't under a doctor's treatment here, but that's just standard procedure."

"I want an autopsy anyway," House said. His voice sounded as numb as the rest of him, and Cuddy didn't think it was a result of the Ativan she had made him take earlier, something he had resisted but then agreed to for the girls' sake. He was sitting on the couch with both girls and Belle in his lap. His face was pale, and his eyes looked absolutely haunted. Cuddy was next to him, holding his hand, but she wondered how much he even felt it.

The door shut behind the crew removing Blythe, and the policeman turned toward the door himself. He was done here. The deceased had been in bed, perfectly peaceful, no note, no pills, no obvious wounds, nothing that seemed unnatural. The routine questions had already been asked - when they saw her last, health history (bad car accident two and a half years ago with some residual balance issues but nothing else they knew of), and she had seemed perfectly fine last night when they went to bed, had been going to take a hot soak. She was of the right age for new medical problems, though. Probably had a heart attack or something, brought on by the hot tub. "I'll be leaving now. I'm really sorry, Dr. House."

House flinched, a reaction he hadn't had to that phrase in a while. Cuddy gave him a kiss as the policeman left, as much of one as she could across two girls and a cat, but he didn't respond. She tightened up her grip, and he finally looked over at her.

"I didn't think she was that upset," he said. The expression in his eyes scared her, for him and for all of them.

"Don't jump to conclusions," Wilson advised him. "It's not like it happened in the middle of one of your talks. We don't even know what happened yet. This could have no connection at all to what you'd been doing the last few days."

House looked away. "Still believe in the tooth fairy, too?"

"James is right," Sandra put in. "We ought to wait for more details. You said she seemed okay last night. Things just happen sometimes with people that age."

"Especially when they're stressed," House pointed out.

Cuddy tightened her grip on his hand until she was hurting her own fingers, determined to reach him. "Stop it. We're all just guessing at this point."

"What was that?" Rachel asked after a moment.

"What?" Cuddy said, hoping she was wrong.

"The big sack."

Cuddy sighed. "They took Grandma away."

"In a sack?" Abby was still leeched onto her father and looking at him, worried, but Rachel, now that the earlier frantic activity had settled down, was starting to notice more details.

"She was dead, Rachel," House said. He cringed on the word. So short, so final, like a verbal slap. No more chances, no more talks. No more anything.

"What's dead?"

House did respond to that, looking over at Cuddy with an expression of pure helplessness. How did you explain that to a 2- and 3-year-old?

Cuddy was floundering herself, but she dutifully tried. "It means . . . her body stopped working. She's not inside it anymore. Kind of like going to sleep, only she won't ever wake up. We aren't going to see her again."

"Never?"

Cuddy nodded. "Never. Sometimes that just happens with older people." And sometimes with younger ones, too, but she wasn't about to mention that to her daughters. She wished they could be left out of this train wreck totally, but they had already been there at the beginning, had seen House with Blythe. No chance to shield them completely from this day. It was probably better to try to answer a few questions as simply as possible.

Rachel was silent for a few minutes, trying to digest that. "I'm hungry," she said finally.

New guilt surged in for Cuddy. "Breakfast. Damn it, I totally forgot breakfast. We were going to go out to eat."

Wilson and Sandra immediately stood up, glad for a need easily fixed. "We'll make something," Sandra said.

"Daddy said pancakes," Rachel specified.

"Okay, we'll make pancakes. I make good pancakes," Wilson promised her.

Rachel scrambled down and trotted after them, wanting to supervise pancakes first hand. Cuddy looked back at her husband. "Greg, this wasn't your fault."

"Now who's guessing?" he fired back at her. "And you're blaming yourself, too. It sure wasn't yours; I'm the one who had this whole brilliant idea. She was 75, Lisa. I'm a doctor, and I decided it would help things to run a 75-year-old through two days like that." He hadn't even been thinking about her age until this morning, but she was the same age as Thornton. "But I didn't think she was that upset." Last night, when help probably could have made a difference, he had completely missed it.

Abby was looking from one to the other of them, eyes far too old for her face. She spoke up now into the silence. "Go potty."

Cuddy picked her up and stood. "Okay. You're getting to be a big girl now, aren't you?"

They headed for the bathroom, and House stood up and limped quickly over to the desk, taking advantage of the few unsupervised minutes. He fired up the laptop and quickly searched, finding the Mercer County Medical Examiner's office, adding the number into his cell phone. Next bathroom trip he himself made, he would call and ask them to inform him of the time of the autopsy once it was scheduled. The authorities in Princeton knew him well after the Chandler media circus. Hopefully they would do him that favor.

That chore done, he hesitated for a moment, then pulled up email. He sent off a 2-word message to Thornton - Mom's dead - and then closed the computer down. When Cuddy and Abby returned, he was once again sitting on the couch in the same spot with the worried cat back in his lap.

(H/C)

House managed about five bites of their delayed breakfast, and Cuddy only got further than that by trying to play normal in front of the girls. After breakfast, she left Wilson and Sandra monitoring things and went back to their bedroom, pulling out her cell phone, calling Jensen. If House had ever needed him, he needed him now.

The psychiatrist answered on the second ring. "Dr. Cuddy? Is everything all right?"

She dove in full speed. "No, we've got a hell of a mess here. Blythe died late last night."

A few seconds of stunned silence. "But I didn't think she was that upset."

Cuddy closed her eyes and wondered if it would help to scream and pull her hair out. She got mad instead. "Listen, damn it. He needs you right now, and not just so you two can compare who can hit yourself over the head harder. We have to have you on board to get him through this; nobody else can substitute. So whatever you're thinking or feeling yourself, get your act together and talk to him. Can you manage that?"

"Hold on a minute." She heard his quick apology to his family, and then he obviously retreated to a private room somewhere. "What happened?" he asked.

"We don't know yet. She seemed fine last night, but she was already stiff this morning. She had to have died right after she went to bed."

"And everything was peaceful after I left?"

She flinched, remembering her own near blow-up during that last session. "Yes. We went to bed early right after that, and she was going to take a soak in the hot tub. She left the light on when she got out; maybe she was feeling ill then. But if she was, why wouldn't she come get us?"

"Was he the one who found her?"

"Yes. Damn it. Not that this was going to be easy anyway, even without that."

Jensen sighed. He was trying to wrap his head around things, she could tell, and she suddenly felt guilty for snapping at him a minute ago. He was human, after all, and he had had all of two seconds to adjust to the news. Of course he would be shaken up by it himself and wonder about his role. "I'll talk to him briefly, but he doesn't need a session right now. This is going to be a long-term process."

"I know. I think he's in shock this morning, at least once he gave up trying to revive her, but he's definitely blaming himself."

"What about the girls?"

"They were terrified. More for him, I think. They've never seen him act like that. It was only them being so scared that got him off of her, though. They seem calmer now, but still worried, especially Abby. Rachel had a few questions. I tried to answer them."

"Good. Is anybody else there with you now? You all need a friend with you more than you need a psychiatrist today."

"I called Wilson. He and Sandra came over."

"Excellent. He needs people around right now, and so do you. Don't let him be alone, okay?"

"I won't." She sighed. "What on earth are we going to do?"

"Right now, just be there. He wouldn't listen to much yet, so don't try to debate guilt with him. He's not ready to hear anything else besides what he's telling himself. Long term, we'll have a lot to deal with, but right now, the goal is simply to get through the next few days, one day at a time."

She cringed. "The funeral. We'll have to have a funeral. He couldn't even get into the building at Dr. Hadley's without a panic attack, but he'll probably make himself do it this time, just as punishment or something."

"Probably. Don't argue with him about things, Dr. Cuddy. Just be there. But don't try to take everything on yourself, either. Let your friends help, and take a few minutes for yourself now and then. Hang in there. I'll talk to him briefly, but he wouldn't take a session right now anyway, and besides that. . . I'd be afraid to have one with him immediately. I need a little time to think through things." He sounded guilty himself at the admission, as if he were letting them down.

"I shouldn't have yelled at you earlier. This wasn't your fault."

"Nor yours," he countered. There was a dubious silence on both sides for a moment. "Let me talk to Dr. House."

"All right. Thank you. How's your wife, by the way?"

"We called her doctor this morning for antibiotics. She'll be fine. Just sinusitis."

"Good. I'll go get him now." Cuddy opened the bedroom door and went down the hall. Her husband was back on the couch, holding the girls, still looking like a zombie. Wilson was trying to talk to him. Cuddy handed him her cell phone. "Greg, it's Jensen. Talk to him for a minute, okay?" He hesitated. "Just for a minute. He doesn't want to have a session." Slowly, House took the phone. Wilson and Cuddy each picked up a girl, and House stiffly stood up and limped back to the bedroom.

Cuddy dropped into the couch, and even though she had never been very devout with her religion, she prayed.

(H/C)

House limped into the bedroom and closed the door, then reopened it immediately at the imperative scratch, accompanied by a meow that left no room for discussion. Belle came through, and he closed it again. The white cat was already on the bed by the time he got there to sit down. The bed was still unmade, part of his mind noticed. Cuddy was really upset by this.

He picked up the phone. "So go ahead and give me the shrink spiel. In fact, I can condense your speech for you: It's not your fault. Okay, got that, so why waste more time talking to me?"

Jensen didn't sound quite his usual steady self. "I don't want to have a session with you right now," he repeated. "You aren't in any shape for one, and I'm not sure I am either."

That derailed House's predicted script, at least. "You think it's your fault? Geez, the three of us ought to get together to compare notes. We can take turns not blaming each other and all not believing it."

"Assigning fault isn't going to change anything. Besides, from what I understand, we don't even know what happened yet. I'm assuming there will be an autopsy?"

"Yeah. ME is requiring it, but I'd want one anyway." House defaulted back to the thought foremost in his mind at the moment. "I'm the one who came up with this bright idea in the first place."

Jensen didn't take up the debate. "I wanted you to know something her psychiatrist told me when I was talking to him on the phone. I did ask him, specifically asked him, what kind of shape she was in physically. He said other than stable mild balance issues from her head injury when she was hit by a car, she was okay for her age. He'd asked her himself a few times over the years if she saw a doctor regularly, and she said she did. She'd had mild hypertension for years, controlled on Norvasc. That was it, as far as he knew."

"I didn't know about the hypertension. I saw her chart in the hospital a few years ago, but I was focused on the injuries right then and the surgeries she'd had. Her shrink didn't mention anything cardiac? She was trying out the hot tub last night. If she did have CAD, that would be a mistake. The vasodilation pretty much reproduces exercise."

"No, no heart disease. He told me that. The thing is, we had no reason medically to expect her to be in critical danger. That's not just an opinion; that much is actual data. Let's wait for more details on what happened, okay?"

"I didn't think she was that upset," House said again.

"I didn't either, Dr. House. But I wanted you to know about the medical information, such as it was. We don't have enough data right now. But call me when you know the results of the autopsy, all right?"

"I will."

"And keep an eye on Dr. Cuddy. This is going to be hard on her, too."

"Yeah." Belle was on his leg, kneading softly. House abruptly realized that he had strained it that morning trying to give Blythe CPR. He hadn't even noticed it giving him hell.

"Keep in touch, Dr. House. We will get into all of this, and we will get through all of this, but not right now, okay? Right now, you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. But your family is with you. So are your friends. I'll let you go now."

House was surprised. "You're not even going to try to sneak a session in the back door?"

"No. This isn't the time. You can call me anytime if you want to talk."

House sighed. "I will."

"Goodbye for now. I'm here, though."

Jensen hung up, and House looked at Belle. Her unblinking eyes were locked onto his. Even the cat looked worried. He scratched her ears. Abruptly, the silence of the room pressed in on him; Belle wasn't purring right now, not even when touched. The image of the other bedroom flashed back into his mind, his mother cold and stiff in the bed, all his efforts to fix what he'd done coming too late. He shivered. Belle stood, jumped down, and walked back to the door, staring at him pointedly. "So you're a shrink now?" he asked her. She reared up, not scratching but resting her feet on the closed door, asking to get out this time, not in. With another sigh, he came to his feet and followed her.

(H/C)

Late that morning, the cell phone rang, and House pulled it out quickly, expecting a call from the medical examiner's office about the time of the autopsy. It was Thornton. House glared at the small screen. Thornton had never called him, never, and now, of course, he had read the email and wanted to play father and pass along routine sympathetic crap in a situation so far from routine that it could never get there even with Mapquest. House stuffed the cell back in his pocket, resisting with difficulty the urge to just turn it off. He didn't want to miss that call from the ME.

Wilson looked at him oddly. "Hadn't you better answer that?" Cuddy and Rachel had just gone back to the bathroom; Wilson and Sandra were his twin babysitters of the moment.

"There's voice mail for a reason," House snarled. It did go to voice mail apparently but started ringing again 30 seconds later. Thornton wasn't going to leave a message; he wanted to talk. House clenched his teeth so tightly that his jaw started hurting. The call went to voice mail the second time and promptly rang again. Abby was looking at her father oddly now, her puzzled eyes totally lost, trying and failing to understand the adults today.

House pulled the cell phone back out. Obviously, Thornton wasn't going to give up. Fine, then. Ripping somebody verbally to shreds would feel good today. He passed Abby off to Wilson as he stood up and answered. "What the hell do you want?"

Thornton's voice was steady, if tense, and he did not start out with routine sympathy. "I have some information you might need, Greg. Also an offer if you're interested."

Not the opening he'd expected. House limped to the front door and went outside, leaving the audience of the living room. The front porch was cold but at least private, and his girls wouldn't have to hear this. He couldn't resist a question before the attack, though. "What information?"

"Do you know what Blythe wanted at her funeral service?"

The funeral. His insides knotted up again more tightly on the thought. "Oh sure, we'd talked about that all the time. Doesn't everybody? It makes such great conversation around the table, especially in front of young kids at Christmas."

Thornton didn't react to his tone. "I do know. Some, anyway. It was a brief conversation, but I remember it."

"When did you just happen to be talking about funerals with her? I thought you guys had John as the third wheel every time you visited after I was born."

"It was after John's funeral. Blythe invited me and Emily to the meal afterwards, and we were talking a little. Lots of people there, and one of them commented what a beautiful service it had been. Somehow, Blythe started talking about what she wanted herself eventually."

House closed his eyes. He didn't want to ask; it would be one more step toward having to make arrangements, a little closer to accepting the finality. Part of him, too, felt guilty that Thornton, a family friend, had known this, while he himself, her son, had not. He stalled. Cuddy would want to know; he knew that she would ultimately be the one putting together the funeral, knew that he would wimp out on that himself even if it was his place. Making himself go would take everything he had. He couldn't also be the one to set it up and discuss all the details with the funeral director and listen to the empty statements of 'comfort.' But Cuddy was feeling guilty, too. He hated dumping this on her, even while knowing he still would.

Thornton continued after a moment. "That brings me to the offer. If it would help you at all, Greg, I would be willing to make the funeral arrangements and set up Blythe's service."

House opened his eyes again, stunned. The sunlight glittering off the snow was bright, almost painful. Cars passed by. Life was moving on around the house, unaware. "Why would you want to do that?" he asked, and there was no harshness now in his voice, only bewilderment.

"To try to help you. I'm also assuming that I could be missing some relevant background here, since I missed just about everything else. I don't know if John ever used funerals against you, and I'm not asking for details, Greg; that doesn't matter at the moment. But even if nothing else is involved, she was your mother, and I know this is very hard on you. If you need to do it yourself, I understand and I'll pass along what I know about her wishes. But if it would be easier at all to have me deal with things, the offer is there."

"If you're just trying to earn points off of this," House started, suddenly suspicious.

Thornton interrupted him. "Greg, the last funeral I set up was Emily's. The one before that was a double for my son and daughter-in-law. I would never use that process to try to score personally. There are too many memories there."

House took a few minutes, thinking about it. He was still suspicious, but this would spare Cuddy that chore, at least. "Okay," he yielded finally. "She mentioned yesterday that there was a prepaid deal already in Lexington; John bought a double package for them when he was about to die. But I'd be suspicious of any arrangements about the service on file for her. They're not necessarily her wishes. He probably was the one to set that up at the same time he was planning his service."

"John prearranged his service? So it was his idea to ask you for a eulogy?" The cold fury in Thornton's voice startled House.

"Yes."

Silence for a moment. He could hear Thornton breathing. Then his father obviously wrenched his thoughts back onto the task at hand. "I'll talk to the funeral home. They might need to call you for authorization, but beyond that, I'll deal with it."

"Just give her what she wanted, or make it up if you need more space. You knew her after all, in the Biblical sense, even." House abruptly had a thought. "One exception. I am not giving a eulogy. I don't even want to know if she wanted that from me. I . . ." There was a lump in his throat suddenly. He knew he was being a coward, but damn it, that was too much. He couldn't stand up there in front of all of them playing standard son plus fighting John's funeral predictions that he would screw everything up at any funeral for all of them. He had already screwed it up, had practically driven her to the grave himself. She could at least have a competent funeral. "I can't."

"All right." House had never noticed how soothing Thornton's voice could be at times. "When did she die?"

He closed his eyes again. "Last night. In her sleep, but pretty early. They're doing an autopsy. Did she ever mention health problems to you?"

"No."

"Are you . . ." House started to ask suddenly, then broke off, wishing he could call the words back.

Thornton finished the thought. "I haven't got any chronic conditions except mild arthritis from an old service injury. Nothing except ibuprofen now and then. Overall, my ancestors were a pretty long-lived and healthy bunch, aside from planes, cars, and war."

"Nothing much we can do about those."

"One of them can be struck off the list, anyway. Even if we do add another war, I have no intention of signing up again."

"The family history is relevant to me medically, you know," House backtracked, not wanting it to sound like he was worried about Thornton personally.

"There are a few relatives who had colon cancer, but I don't. I've been screened."

Thinking of ancestors - and progeny - brought another point to mind for House, and the razor edge jumped back into his voice. "I'm not bringing the girls with me. They don't need to see something horrible like a funeral as young as they are. So this isn't your ticket to meet them; if that's what you're after, get lost."

"It's not my ticket to anything, Greg," Thornton repeated. "I'm not expecting it to be. I'm just trying to help."

House suddenly couldn't take this conversation any longer. He didn't understand it, and none of his test shots were finding targets. "I'm expecting a call from the ME's office about the autopsy."

"I'll let you go then. Goodbye, Greg."

He hit off and then stood there, totally puzzled now on top of the guilt and turmoil. What the hell was the man doing? Whatever his motives, better putting Thornton through it than Cuddy, though. He did apparently have relevant information, and if the process reminded him of his wife, that was no more than he deserved.

A minute after he had put the phone away, the door opened behind him, and Cuddy came out. She had his coat and put it on him; he hadn't even been aware he was shivering until then. They stood together in the cold, frosty air. "Thornton offered to arrange the funeral," he said finally. "He knows her wishes."

He felt Cuddy's surge of relief. She had been dreading that task herself. She didn't ask for more details of the call, though. Her arm was around him tightly, and between her and the coat, the shivering eventually almost stopped. "Let's go inside, Greg," she said finally. "It's cold out here." He turned around, not resisting, and they went back into the house.