A/N: Here's a short bite written down while work is low today because of the holiday.

I'm not sure if there will be more updates until next week. Will just have to see how it goes. I lost a good friend this weekend whom I'd known over 20 years, and his life celebration service (he had said many times nobody was to ever call his a funeral) will be on Saturday. Between that Saturday and usual rounds Sunday, that pretty well absorbs next weekend. But even more, the next couple of Housecentric chapters are very intense and difficult ones in the first place. I'm not sure if I'll feel like getting into them this week. Maybe it will be totally different, as the circs certainly are from the real life one, but will just have to see. This is the second personal funeral I've had since starting this story, first my relative in November, then this one. I just think there's a chance that this week might not be exactly the time that I would feel like working through writing these particular tough upcoming chapters. Thomas in this scene has at least a sort of peace, at least with Blythe, even if longing regarding his son. There's nothing at all peaceful with House about what we're right on top of with this story, and they would have been hard chapters to write down at the best of times. Mom is also having some issues at the moment, which I hope will get better with some med adjustment, but that could also intervene in the next few days.

So anyway, you might get the rest of the week off from this story, and if so, I'll return the week after. Real life, when the two collide, trumps fanfic.

Thanks for all the reviews.

(H/C)

Thomas deliberately got to the funeral home early, not just for the reasons he'd given Greg but also to have privacy for his own goodbye. The funeral itself started at 10:30, but the obituary had announced viewing of the body for the hour preceding that. Thomas got there at 9:10 and was the first guest. The funeral home staff was around at this point, but they knew him from the other day and stayed discreetly out of the way.

He entered the big room, feeling the emptiness of it settle over him. A room with a dead body feels so much more powerfully vacant than one simply unoccupied. Blythe was at the front of the room laid out in her casket, and he walked slowly but without hesitation down the aisle and stood there looking at her. She looked at peace. The staff had done a wonderful job arranging and presenting her, and while she had had cancer, according to Lisa, even already metastatic and probably beyond treatment, it had not yet ravaged her body and wasted her away. Disease had been creeping up softly behind her, not yet leaping to the vicious attack. She might have been asleep except for that resounding air of finality that stated, like a bell tolling, that she was not, that the eyes would never again open.

Emily had been much more of a challenge, only a whisper of herself at the end, and while the funeral home had done their best with her, there had been a noticeable difference between Emily in the casket and herself a few years earlier. Thomas closed his eyes for a moment, letting himself pass through the shadows of those years and out into the bright sunlight of good memories on the other side. He was glad Blythe had been spared that. So many loose ends, no doubt, but from her point of view, dying in your sleep wasn't a bad way to go. Perhaps even better for Greg this way, too; he would have been obsessed with the cancer, would have flung himself futilely against it, determined to win at any cost, to find the right answer that must be out there somewhere, as Thomas himself had. Probably even worse than Thomas himself had, since Greg was a doctor. For him, it would have been professional as well as personal failure.

Flowers filled the front of the room already, many flowers, and a florist deliveryman entered at that moment with another arrangement in each hand. He slipped up unobtrusively, leaving Thomas alone, and then disappeared to his truck again. Several more trips, and then he left.

The others would be arriving soon. Thomas looked at Blythe, remembering the times he had seen her over the years, remembering that one night long ago when she had been almost drunk on tenderness, seizing what he had realized later that she had never experienced elsewhere. He was glad that at least once, she had known it. He wished again that he had truly worked out what was going on with John. He would have gotten Greg out of there whatever it took, of course, but also Blythe, too, if he could have managed it. She should have known life out from under John's thumb. She simply had lacked the strength and insight to claim that right for herself. That didn't excuse nor remove her failure to protect her son, but he still ultimately felt sorry for her.

She had known freedom at the end. He was grateful for that, for those few golden years of happiness among her flowers. He was glad too that she had had a few years of honesty with Greg, even if too late.

She lay there, at peace. He leaned over and kissed her softly on the forehead. He never could have truly loved her, but he would never regret what they had had together. "Thank you for our son," he said softly.

Turning away, he started looking at the tags on the flowers. So many. Blythe would have true mourners today. John's funeral had had the stiff air of a military company presented for inspection. Even without knowing the truth, the atmosphere at John's funeral had struck Thomas at the time, and Emily also had remarked on it later. It had been artificial somehow.

John's funeral. There was something there that Wilson felt guilty about, felt guilty about after the fact. Wilson had not struck him as feeling guilty at all that day, not during the service, but the other night in the car on the way from the airport, there had been unmistakable, powerful guilt. Not just having missed the truth like everyone else but something in particular about the funeral. Thomas wondered briefly about it, then made himself let it go. He had too many of his own regrets to force others into parading theirs.

The first of Blythe's friends arrived, and he dropped smoothly into his assignment for the next hour. He needed to watch the interactions, follow the subtext, all the while without drawing attention, and make sure the word had gotten around to everyone to edit themselves strictly once Greg was here. He was pretty sure it had, would have left it there and trusted his instincts had this been a simple mission, but for his son, he needed to be absolutely certain.

Patsy, the neighbor, arrived fairly early, and she spotted him quickly. "Thomas," she said, coming up to him, "have you heard anything from Greg? Nobody's come by the house all weekend. I'm just hoping he made it."

"He's here. Actually, he happened to reserve rooms at the same hotel I'm staying at, and I bumped into them last night in the lobby."

She relaxed. "Good. Blythe actually held up John's funeral for him, and she was so worried that he wasn't going to get here in time. I guess he didn't want to stay in Blythe's house."

"Would you in his shoes?" Thomas asked.

She thought about it, then shook her head vigorously. "No, of course not. You're right. He lived there. Actually, if I were Greg, I'd get rid of the place as quickly as I could. I understand that; I was just hoping he hadn't been delayed traveling from Princeton."

"He's here along with his wife. They brought the girls, too."

She lit up like a Christmas tree. "Oh, good! So nice to have young life at a funeral along with death. None of us here have ever actually seen them. Just pictures. I'm looking forward to that. So you met them already?"

He nodded, suddenly struck by the fact that he was ahead of Blythe's friends again. The knowledge flooded through him like sunlight, warming him, taking away a little bit of the sting of exclusion from Thursday's lunch at the senior center. They still might all know more details and stories, but he at least had seen his granddaughters in person before half of the rest of Lexington had.

Patsy moved away and stood looking at Blythe, taking her own farewell, and he left her alone, granting her privacy for a moment. He finished his slow-motion flower inspection, all the while watching the people out of the corners of his eye, sizing them up, reading the crowd with the natural observation he'd worked so hard to hone years ago in the Marines. They knew, even the ones he hadn't met yet. The word was safely passed around. The flow to the casket increased, and around them all, the stories and memories began to be shared. Good times, recent times. Nobody else wanted to focus on the past any more than he did. He slowly drifted down one side of the room, detached from the group, finally claiming a place along the wall near the back. He listened to the stories and watched and remembered.

At 10:15, they arrived. Jensen the psychiatrist was first in, then Marina, laden with a bag of things for the girls. Wilson, immaculately clad in what looked like a funeral-specific suit. Rachel was walking this time, but Lisa had her captured firmly by the hand, holding on tightly as if she had had plenty of nightmares, if not a few actualities, of losing Rachel in a crowd. Lisa's other hand was on her husband's arm. Greg looked frighteningly pale and strained, and his eyes were on his feet, already avoiding the casket at the front before there was actually any chance of seeing it. He was holding Abby in his left arm, and she was wrapped firmly around him, looking at his face, not the group.

He paused in the open door, and Thomas saw him steel himself. For a few brief seconds, the eyes were searching until they found him. Just as quickly, Greg looked away, but he wasn't scanning the crowd after that. Lisa waited at his side, not pushing, holding Rachel back and waiting as the other three adults paused as somewhat of a shield in front of them. The people hadn't spotted them yet. Finally, as if all three legs were wooden, Greg entered the big room.