A/N: Sorry for the delay; work and computers have complicated this week extensively with yet another programming "upgrade," and there hasn't been time for much else. Hopefully you'll get another chapter this weekend - Thornton up next, and I always enjoy writing him - but then I'm traveling for a day or two Sunday through very late Monday and will be offline then. Thanks for the reviews.

(H/C)

House opened his eyes slowly. His first thought on seeing the girls and Cuddy was disappointment that yesterday wasn't just a bad dream; his second was disgust at himself for wishing it were. He knew perfectly well how unfair life could be, and that wasn't apt to change by magical thinking. What he'd done couldn't be denied, only ultimately either avoided or faced. He'd spent nearly three years by now working on facing things with Jensen, but he wasn't sure he could deal with this one.

Cuddy was awake and watching him, both girls still sound asleep. "All quiet last night?" he asked.

She nodded, but her eyes were worried. "They woke up twice. We watched you breathing for a while. Each time they woke up seemed better, though, and they didn't have trouble getting back to sleep. No bad dreams."

"Good." He sensed the subject coming and cut it off at the pass. "Let's not mention anything about the funeral today to them - or to Marina, either. We'll just spend all day following Jensen and Patterson's advice and see how they settle down."

"It's not going to work, Greg. Not in a day or two."

"We'll see," he insisted. Part of him knew she was right, but there was not only Thornton but the funeral waiting in Lexington. He couldn't take them there to see that. "Give it today, Lisa. We'll decide tomorrow."

She looked dubious, but she backed off, granting him a little space - for the moment. She leaned over the girls and kissed him. Belle shifted and gave a mewed complaint, and Abby snapped awake suddenly. House felt a tightness in his chest at the way she looked around quickly for her parents, but she immediately settled back as she saw them. "Morning!" she said.

House reached over, intending to tickle her, but he wound up pulling her tightly to him instead. "Good morning, Abby. Good morning, Rachel." Rachel was stirring by the time he released her sister. She, too, looked quickly for them, then relaxed.

"Good morning, Mama. Good morning, Daddy. Good morning, Belle." She hesitated. "Good morning, Abby."

Cuddy smiled. "Good morning, girls. What do we want for breakfast this morning?"

"Pancakes," Rachel requested. House flinched at the reminder of yesterday, as did Cuddy, but she answered promptly.

"Okay, girls. Mine aren't as good as Wilson's, but we'll have pancakes." She sat up on the edge of the bed and lifted them down one by one with a kiss on the way. "Let's go to the bathroom first, though. See you in a few minutes, Greg."

Left alone, House lay in bed for a moment thinking until Belle walked up his chest and stared at him pointedly. His head quickly started to ache under the golden glare. "All right," he grumbled. "You could just go on with them if you're hungry." He started range of motion exercises on his leg preparatory to getting up, and the white cat moved over to the middle of the bed, still watching him.

(H/C)

He entered the room where she had died. It looked perfect, innocent, the bed made and bedspread pulled up as if it were any routine, impersonal room, but his hand was trembling on the knob as he shut the door. The rest of the world was on the other side for the moment, leaving him in here with the memory of finding her body. He had to locate that medicine bottle and call her doctor for an appointment. Cuddy had offered to do it for him and then to do it with him, and he had finally snapped at her that he didn't need a babysitter. He felt worse when she didn't even get annoyed at his comment, just absorbed it with silent understanding in her eyes. He knew his current solitude would be very limited, though. He refused to admit that deep down, he was glad of that.

Finding the prescription would take more than just one step inside the room, though. He made himself release the knob, leaning only on his cane, and stepped forward on shaky legs. One more stride into the room, the delayed conclusion hit, and he gladly traded memories for anger and was steadied by it. The bed was perfectly made. Blythe's suitcase, which had been open on top of the chest in the corner nearest the bed with the clothes she'd most recently taken off thrown haphazardly into it, was missing, and the purse was no longer beside it, either. This room had Wilson written all over it.

He snatched out his cell phone and punched the number viciously, cutting off the oncologist's answer halfway. "Wilson, what the hell did you do in the guest room?"

"I just straightened things up a little. I thought you might not want to see . . ."

"You could have asked me that. Or even told me yourself later instead of letting me find it."

Wilson sounded guilty. "I meant to mention it, House, but then the girls flipped out. I forgot it in all that. How are they doing?"

"They're a lot better, and don't change the subject. Where's the suitcase? Her purse is gone, too."

"I closed the suitcase up and put it in the closet. Are you . . ." House hung up on him, turning toward the closet. There they were, side by side, and he pulled them out. The suitcase seemed impossibly heavier than it had at the airport last Friday, even with her own gifts to them removed now, and he looked at it, then at the chest and the bed. His leg tightened up in advance at the thought. He would try the purse first.

At that moment, scratching sounded on the door. "Quit it," he growled, but the door opened behind him, then promptly shut again once the cat was through. Belle jumped onto the bed and sat at attention. House slowly put the purse down next to her. He didn't sit on the bed himself, but his fingers hesitated, frozen in mid reach for the zipper. Opening his mother's purse seemed such a violation somehow. She's dead, he reminded himself. She isn't going to care. Still, it was a long minute before he could make himself open it.

He turned the purse upside down, spilling the contents onto the bed. A billfold, a hairbrush, a spiral-bound address book, Blythe's own cell phone, several other pieces of miscellany. No pill bottle.

He picked up the address book and flipped through it, startled at how many contacts there were. This one wasn't more than a few years old, probably bought shortly after John's funeral, he decided. If it didn't postdate his funeral, it definitely had hit a growth spurt after that. John wouldn't have approved of this many contacts. There were lots of people in Lexington, apparently friends, most filed confusingly by first names. He himself was under G. Thornton appeared in T, not that it mattered with him. House turned back to D and found no less than three listings for Doctor. One of them was her psychiatrist, the other two mysteries. If he didn't find the Norvasc in the suitcase to narrow it down, he'd try both numbers to get her primary, going for the one with the newer pen first. He patted through the purse, making sure he hadn't missed a compartment, but he found only keys in a side zipper. Nothing else.

Back to the suitcase. He hauled it across the room, then braced himself and swung it up to the top of the chest with a defiant heave that produced a grunt of protest. Belle left her sniff search of the purse and jumped over to the suitcase, concerned, and he pushed her aside and opened it. In the very front corner, propped up by folded clothes but visible once you looked closely, were three bottles. He pulled them out in turn. Norvasc. Ibuprofen. Pepto-Bismol. His hand shook on the last, and the anger flared up again. Damn it, why hadn't she said something? Didn't she know how dangerously deceptive GI symptoms could be? You didn't just keep pouring down Pepto when pain continued. On the other hand, she wasn't a doctor. He was the doctor. He should have noticed, should have questioned her. When was the last time he had asked about her health, anyway?

Of course, her own doctor should have gone over all of that. The name on the Norvasc bottle matched up with one of the two mystery doctors in Blythe's address book. House pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

"Good morning, doctors' office." The receptionist sounded entirely too bright and cheerful.

"This is Dr. Gregory House, Blythe House's son. She is - was a patient of yours." House could feel his breathing picking up a little. His stomach was starting to hurt. "I want to talk to Dr. Nichols."

The receptionist caught the change of tense. "She was . . . did something happen to her?"

"Yes, damn it, something happened to her. No thanks to your incompetent staff, she had a heart attack Tuesday night and died." His legs suddenly felt wobbly at the final word, and he sat down on the bed. Belle climbed into his lap.

"I am so sorry to hear that, Dr. House. But Dr. Nichols isn't in the office today; he's on vacation."

"Glad he's enjoying Christmas with his family anyway. When is he due back? When did he see her last?"

She dodged. "I'm going to have our office manager call you back right away, Dr. House. It will only be a minute, and you can talk to her."

"Just transfer me, damn it."

"I'm sorry," she said again, like fingernails on a blackboard, "but we need to verify your identity before discussing any aspects of her care. We will call you back promptly on the emergency contact number in her file."

Logically, he couldn't argue with that, even though he wanted to. "Fine. Verify away." He hung up and waited.

It was indeed only about a minute before his cell phone rang. "Dr. House, this is Teresa Carruthers, the office manager. You have my deepest sympathy."

"Yeah, yeah, skip the sympathetic crap. When does Dr. Nichols return?"

"Not until next week, Dr. House. His first day back is Wednesday, January 4th."

"Fine. I want an appointment with him on the 4th, and I will want to see her entire file, too."

Her voice was professionally soothing, obviously used to having the difficult bucks passed to her and practiced at being unruffled by them. It pissed him off. "Of course, Dr. House. His morning is quite fully scheduled that day, but he has an opening at 3:00 p.m."

"I'll take it. I want to find out what the hell you all have been doing down there."

Again, she didn't rise to the bait. "I'm sure he'll be glad to go over everything with you."

"Too bad he didn't go over everything with her before. When was her last appointment?"

"He saw her just a few weeks ago, December 5th. According to the note, he did recommend further testing then, but she put it off until January."

House closed his eyes, his anger flipping back to Blythe. He was suddenly aware of his leg hurting, too, in spite of his feline heating pad. "I want to know exactly what he told her that appointment," he insisted.

"You'll have to get that from him, Dr. House. I can tell you from the office note that she was complaining of fatigue and vague abdominal pain, and he recommended a full workup including EKG and abdominal ultrasound, but she wanted to do it after Christmas. I'm sure he'll remember more details." There was a finality in her voice, though a polite one. Her non-MD'd self wasn't going to go into things in greater depth than that with him.

Tiredness pushed in at him, and his tone was abruptly softer as he replied. "All right. I'll be there on the 4th. So that wasn't a complete physical a few weeks ago?"

"No. She hadn't had a full physical in a year and a half and was overdue, but she scheduled that one just as a regular appointment. He did want to add quite a bit of testing and do a full workup promptly, but she refused for now."

He sighed. "Have you ever heard of a Dr. Warren?" It was the other unaccounted-for name in her address book.

"Dr. Henry Warren? He was in private practice as an internist and retired two years ago. We took over several of his patients, including her."

"So you have her full records from that practice, too?"

"Yes, we do."

He looked at the bottle of Norvasc still in his hand, then at the Pepto-Bismol on the chest. "I want a copy of the full record. Have that already made on the 4th when I get there."

"No problem, Dr. House. Of course, we will need to see your ID before handing them over."

"I understand." Privacy laws had teeth in them these days.

"And again, you have my sympathy." This one was avoiding "I'm sorry," he realized. She had picked up on that much at some point from the media about the trial.

"Yeah," he said awkwardly. He hung up. "Damn it, Mom, why?" Belle pushed in closer. His whole body was starting to tremble slightly now.

There was a knock on the door. He didn't reply, and it opened after a moment. A brief sound bite swept in of Marina and the girls playing, life trying to crowd out the death, and then the door shut again, sealing it out for the moment. His eyes hadn't left the bottle of Norvasc. He waited for questions, but they never came. Instead, Cuddy just sat down on the bed next to him, and he leaned willingly into her, trembling, steadying himself in her, but still, he didn't cry.