Afternoon plodded with weighted shoes toward evening. It was still not even 12 hours since he had found Blythe, yet the day seemed to have lasted an eternity to House.

The girls had taken quite a while to get calmed down. They seemed better finally, though still a bit subdued. A parent in another room, such as the bathroom for a minute or two, was apparently all right, but they watched them carefully any time they went near the front door. Cuddy was obviously muttering self-imprecations silently for the way she had explained death to them that morning, but she had at least tried, House remembered. He himself had completely passed the buck. Jensen was always telling him kids were resilient; hopefully reassurance would soak in fairly quickly. Blythe's absence itself didn't seem to bother them much, and when Sandra stood up just now to announce that she had to go get Daniel, as their nanny needed to leave, the girls gave only a passing look at her heading for the door. Sandra was consigned willingly to whatever lurked out there that made older people occasionally disappear. They were completely zeroed in on their parents right now.

"I'll come back," Sandra promised, addressing not just the girls but all of them. She wasn't sure how stable the situation was here yet.

Wilson looked at his watch. "Why don't you bring a pizza with you while you're at it?"

"Good idea," Cuddy said. Rachel perked up at the mention of pizza, but her usual enthusiastic vote and excited galloping circle were missing. She was on the couch, in her father's lap, holding the stuffed horse but not making it do anything at the moment. Cuddy, next to him on the couch, had Abby, and the girls had switched off once or twice so far, trying to keep in touch with both of them.

House's cell phone rang, and he pulled it out and checked the screen. "ME's office," he announced, and Sandra, the nurse, couldn't help pausing in her exit, one hand on the door. House let it ring another two times, both wanting the answer and not wanting it. Then, mentally calling himself a coward, he stabbed the button. "House."

"Dr. House, this is Dr. Richards." It was the ME himself this time, not just someone on his staff. "I've just completed the autopsy on your mother. She died of a heart attack."

House closed his eyes momentarily. Stress definitely could have played a role there. "There wasn't any history," he objected, desperately trying to fall back on Jensen's information.

"It must have been no known history. She had a significant lesion in the LAD. The report mentioned she had been trying out your hot tub; that probably started things, and she just went on to bed hoping she'd feel better after a night's sleep."

"Yeah." Nobody had mentioned to the officials this morning that they had been running a psychiatric gauntlet for the last two days and had nearly had a full-scale family fight last night.

"There were some very interesting findings besides that, though."

House sat up a little straighter, diverted momentarily from guilt. "What?"

"She had metastatic cancer."

"She had what?" His mind took off at full speed, checking off symptoms. "Her weight looked about the same as last time I saw her several months ago. She didn't mention any symptoms at all." On the other hand, she also hadn't mentioned any last night, choosing to go to bed when she started feeling unwell instead of disturbing them.

"The abdomen was extensively seeded when I opened it. I spent a little time looking for a primary, and I believe it probably was the appendix. That was the largest focus I saw. No spread to the liver yet. But it was all through the peritoneal cavity, multiple tumors, even though still small ones, to the point it would have been very difficult to resect all of them. Widely metastatic. She died of a heart attack, but it's my professional opinion that she would have died within the next year anyway. I couldn't justify any more time on the public budget, since I've got the answer to her death. But just in case you want to do more testing, I did take several samples before closing. Do whatever you want with them, but it can't be through this office."

House almost felt dizzy, now trying to fit in missed symptoms for not only CAD but also abdominal cancer. Appendiceal cancer could be notoriously silent, though, and often metastasized before it was caught. Possibly Blythe hadn't yet started symptoms, though probably would have soon, and there might have been nothing on the surface that he had failed to observe there. She had to have been having cardiac symptoms, though, at least at the point she left that light on and went on to bed. Damn it, why hadn't she called them? They had been right down the hall. She possibly could have been saved then. Still with cancer, though. But cancer was treatable. Sometimes. He looked at Wilson. "Yes," he said, "I do want them. Send them over to PPTH. I'll take it from there."

"Okay. I'm signing off on the body now. You can go ahead with arrangements."

Arrangements. He still had to make himself go to the funeral, even if he wasn't planning it. "It will be in Lexington. A man named Thomas Thornton will contact you and make arrangements for shipping her back home. He's handling things."

The ME sounded slightly curious but didn't ask. "I'll make a note of it. I'm sorry, Dr. House."

House flinched and looked at Cuddy. She was watching him closely, trying to read his assorted reactions during this call. "Yeah. Got to go now."

"All right. Goodbye, Dr. House."

Richards hung up, and House slowly punched off. He looked up to find everybody in the room, including Sandra at the door, studying him. "Heart attack," he said softly. Cuddy cringed, and he could almost see her guilt index - and her concern index - take a quantum leap. "But she had metastatic cancer, too."

"Cancer?" Sandra echoed.

Wilson came to attention. "What was the primary? Where had it metastasized to?"

"He thinks probably the appendix, but it had spread to carcinomatosis throughout the abdomen. He took samples, but he can't process them on the taxpayer's dime."

Wilson nodded. "I'll check them out. If it was already that widely spread, though, she might not have . . ."

"Or she might," House insisted. "You can treat cancer. You do it all the time."

Sandra sighed. "I really need to go get Daniel. Back in a little while with pizza." She left the house.

Wilson suddenly remembered another point of House's phone conversation. "Thornton is arranging the funeral?" He knew - well, guessed - it was Thornton who had called earlier, but he had assumed Thornton was only trying to play father. He'd mentally wished the other man luck, in fact, thinking he certainly would need it. House had been more likely just then to fillet him than to accept comfort from that quarter.

House tensed up and passed Rachel off to Cuddy. "I need to go call Jensen," he said. "Promised him the autopsy results ASAP." Thornton was still far from every-day conversation material, not with Wilson nor anybody else, and House simply couldn't handle questions on him today. Wilson suppressed his sigh. He knew more about Thornton than he had a few months ago, but he still wished House would open up to him faster. The more he found out, the more curious he was about the rest of it.

House stood up stiffly, and both girls immediately came alert, watching him with wide eyes. "I'm just going into the bedroom to make a phone call," he told them. "I'll be right there, and I'll come back in a few minutes." They accepted it, but their eyes still followed him to the hall. Belle trotted along after him. They all heard the door shut.

"Thornton is doing the funeral?" Wilson repeated softly.

Cuddy glared at him. "Yes. Period. Don't ask him questions about him on top of everything else right now. Besides that, little ears are listening." As she looked down at Rachel and Abby in her lap, the delayed echo of her childhood hit her. Her mother used to say that in front of her father at times to stop a topic when Cuddy was young.

Her parents. Abruptly, she was seized by concern over their health. She needed to call them, to ask leading questions. They had been here just a week ago for a visit and had both seemed fine other than her father's arthritis, but she ought to make sure. When had their last physicals been? Maybe she ought to have somebody at PPTH review labs and notes. Her first choice would be House, trusted beyond all other doctors, though he needed to get through the immediate several days first. She couldn't dump that on him now. Her parents joined the list of people to notify, but she wanted to talk to Patterson before that, first chance she got. She could feel herself stretched almost too far by everything today. She needed to take Jensen's advice and have a few minutes for herself, and she also wanted Patterson's advice on crisis repairs with the girls. Maybe after the pizza.

The girls were still looking back toward the hall now and then, and Cuddy's attention kept drifting that way herself. "He'll get through this," Wilson reassured her. "He's got you all, and he's got Jensen."

Jensen. Cuddy sighed. She hoped they would be able to be enough for House this time.

(H/C)

"So the sessions probably did push her over the edge," House concluded. "Which were my idea."

"If the sessions made the difference, all four of us contributed to that," Jensen countered. "Everybody made mistakes there in retrospect, including her. But the hot tub is the most proximal cause. She seemed fine in between stopping the sessions and then."

"Seemed fine," House threw back at him. "Obviously, she wasn't. Then there's the cancer, too. What kind of a moron is her doctor back in Lexington?" His name would be on the prescription bottle of Norvasc. House had to look for that. He'd call up the man and light into him on all the multiple ways he had failed his patient. No, actually, House wanted to see the full chart, too. He'd make an appointment in Lexington and do the honors in person.

Jensen sighed softly. "How's Dr. Cuddy?" he asked.

"Feeling guilty, of course."

"Keep an eye on her," Jensen advised again. "She'll need you in this." And giving House more motive to stay plugged into his people right now instead of withdrawing couldn't hurt. "What about the girls?"

"We've got a new problem there. Earlier, I left to go see the autopsy, and Lisa . . ."

Jensen interrupted him, horrified. "You went to watch the autopsy?"

"Didn't get to see it. Lisa wouldn't let me." The surge of relief coming out of the phone was almost visible. "But the girls woke up and found us both gone. They panicked. Apparently thought we were dead."

"Not surprising," Jensen said. "They're trying to make sense of things themselves, and even Abby doesn't have anything close to an adult's understanding to bring to the situation."

"Lisa's beating herself up over that, too. She was trying to explain death this morning, and she said it was like going to sleep and not waking up and then that it happened to older people sometimes and they would never see them again. So now they're afraid to go to sleep or to let us leave."

"Make sure she calls Dr. Patterson tonight, okay? She needs to talk herself."

"Yeah." House looked down at Belle, who was watching him unblinkingly. "What about the girls?"

"Reassurance. They need to know you're here and okay, but they should settle down pretty quickly with that. They'll be fine, Dr. House. But for right now, don't ever leave unexpectedly while they're asleep again. Tell them where you are and when you'll return."

House squirmed on the bed, suddenly thinking of the funeral. That wouldn't be for a few days, though. Kids bounced back, like Jensen said. That reminded him of something else the psychiatrist didn't know. "Thornton called."

"He called?" Jensen knew that he never had.

"Yes. He offered to set up the funeral. He said they had a conversation once, and he knows what she wants." Guilt pressed in again that House himself hadn't, and his tone was annoyed as he went on. "What the hell is he trying to do?"

"He's trying to help, Dr. House."

"But why? What does he get out of it?"

"Nothing. He's just trying to help. He doesn't have an ulterior motive."

"Bull. He's after something."

"Are you going to take him up on the offer?"

House sighed. "Might as well. It's either him or Lisa, and she's having a hard enough time. I'd just wimp out myself." Just a coward, as John had always told him. A coward who had, in the end, failed to protect her. Jensen heard the thought but didn't counter it. House wasn't ready to hear.

There was a knock on the bedroom door right then. "Greg? Pizza's here, and the girls want to share it." Cuddy sounded too bright, trying to hide the worry.

"In a minute," he called. "Got to go. Sandra brought pizza." He had never felt less hungry in his life.

"One thing, Dr. House." Jensen paused to collect House's full attention. "Take the dose on the sleeping pill all the way back up tonight."

House's jaw tightened up. "I don't . . ."

"You won't just be punishing yourself," Jensen told him. "You would be punishing Dr. Cuddy, as well, and she doesn't need that added."

There was a moment's stubborn silence. "I have to go," House repeated.

Jensen left the topic. Hopefully House would consider it. "Goodbye, then. For now. Stay in touch, Dr. House, with me and with everybody else."

"I am," House snapped. "Unless I'm imagining this whole conversation. Maybe it's a shared hallucination; are you hearing voices, too?" Jensen didn't reply. House's voice was softer when he spoke again. "Talk to you later." He hit off and looked at Belle. "Pizza," he announced. She knew the word, but she was still watching him closely as they left the bedroom and didn't scamper on ahead.