A/N: Here's another brief update. Sorry for the shortness, but that's what you get at the moment. Next update when I have time will include Jensen, Wilson, and more adventures from the house sorting, including finding one thing that House definitely had not expected. Thanks for reading and reviewing.

(H/C)

After Thornton left, House limped slowly over to the far wall, now blank. He stood there looking at it for a moment with Cuddy watching him closely; his eyes were fixed on the bare wall itself, not on the stacks of removed pictures.

Just then Rachel scampered back down the hall, promptly taking a head count. "Thomas?" she called, looking around.

"He'll be back in a little while," Cuddy told her. "He went to find lunch."

"Yay!" She ran a circle, then headed for the bag of toys in the kitchen, and within seconds, they heard the whinnies and snorts of her stuffed horse.

House looked away from the depersonalized wall. "I still think we might have to put that thing to sleep one of these days," he grumbled.

Marina smiled. "She was trying so hard to stay quiet earlier while you were still playing. She said the horse was taking a nap." She walked over for a closer survey of the current picture Cuddy was holding, one of House at roughly age 10, lost in thought, analyzing something off at an angle to the camera. The differential expression was in place even that young, but on very close observation, there was also a tautness there concealed desperately beneath the surface, and the eyes were too old for the rest of the thin face. Marina's expression softened in wistful regret looking at it.

House sighed. "One comment about my ears sticking out like Jeep fenders or me being cute, and you'll be wearing that picture around your neck."

Abby, in Marina's arms, was studying the picture herself, looking from it to him for comparison. Rachel galloped back into the room with the stuffed Ember and ran up to him. "Ember says hi! Say hi, Daddy."

He turned away instead, pointedly ignoring Marina's and Cuddy's smiles. "What do you want for lunch, Rachel?"

"Pizza!" It was her favorite, though Cuddy didn't let her have it too often. "You tell Thomas?"

Cuddy pulled out her cell phone, yielding the battle for healthier options for today. "I'll pass the order along."

"I wanna talk." Rachel reached for the phone.

House tensed up even more and grabbed her hand. "Let Mama tell him, Rachel. Why don't you and I see if there's anything already here to go with it? Grandma liked ice cream."

Rachel paused for a vote between Thomas and ice cream, and Cuddy gave her a light boost toward the kitchen. "Go ahead and help him check out the freezer, Rachel. But ice cream is for dessert, not first." Rachel went on into the kitchen, hand in hand with her father, and Cuddy and Marina looked at each other, no smiles now but a mutual progress assessment.

Abby looked from one face to the other, then squirmed. "Down," she insisted. "I help." Marina put her down, and Abby headed after her father with an intensity matched by the Greg in the picture, only without the sadness behind those eyes.

"She's going to work things out before too long," Marina said very softly.

Cuddy nodded and looked after her husband with her own gnawing worry. "So much has happened in just one week. All this at once is pushing him."

"You'd better call before Thomas gets something else," Marina prompted, and Cuddy snapped back to action and dialed.

"Lisa, I'm fine, I promise." Thomas didn't even waste time on a hello before diving into reassurance.

She smiled, feeling a little better suddenly. "I'm glad to hear it, but I still reserve the right to check up on you. Right now, though, I have a lunch request from Rachel. Did you buy anything yet?"

"Not yet. I had just spotted a UPS Store and pulled in. We're going to need boxes."

"Yes. Thank you, Thomas. I'll pay you back."

He dug in unexpectedly, and she realized from the slight edge on his tone that he had been thinking of his own regrets over the past as he drove. "No. Let me pay for it. I contributed to this mess; it's only right that I pitch in toward trying to sort it out."

"Thomas . . ." she started.

"Besides, family doesn't keep running balance sheets on each other. What does Rachel want for lunch?"

"Pizza. She loves pizza. Only nothing with big meat pieces, at least for the girls, and don't get extra crispy or thick crust. I have to dissect it a little for them, especially Abby."

"Easily dissectable pizza, check. Any other preferences among the group?"

"Wilson likes all flavors. Greg and Jensen like meat lover's, and I'll take mine as veggie. Marina likes about any kind, too."

"I can handle that. Okay, pizza coming up before long. What about drinks? Coke? Juice? I had something special in mind for Greg already as thanks, but what do the girls like?"

"Juice is fine for them, Thomas, and yes, Coke will do for the rest of us." She noted that he hadn't suggested beer and realized that he probably had picked up on Wilson's abstinence by now and didn't want to call more public attention to it. "Thanks for what?"

She heard his smile and could picture it lighting up his whole face much as his son's rare smile did. "He gave me the piano."

She closed her eyes briefly, savoring the progress along with him. "I'm glad, Thomas. I'd better go now. See you in a little while."

"All right. And this deliveryman already got his tip. You're a good hugger, Lisa."

She felt her eyes welling up again and retreated into light lecturing, fighting to keep her composure. "You, on the other hand, are out of practice. Your friends back in St. Louis have been falling down on the job."

He sighed. "I know I am. But it's not their fault." All at once, she was struck again by his stark aloneness. Everything that had happened in the last six months was a forbidden topic for him; nobody in his usual circles would have any idea. He had talked about his son with Emily, he said, but Emily was gone now, unable to be his confidante in the latest and by far the hardest chapter. Cuddy didn't reply, and he continued quickly as if shaking himself out of memories. "I'll be back soon. Bye, Lisa." He hung up.

Cuddy hit end, blinking back the tears. Just then, part of her longed to smack her husband upside his stubborn head, while the other part wanted to embrace him even more fiercely than she had Thomas, to hold him tight and never let go. Death might have ripped Blythe away, but it couldn't have either of these two, not yet, not for a long time. They had to not only work things out all the way but to enjoy it for years and years of true family. Abruptly, there were arms around her, real arms, and she returned the hug before backing away with a smile. "Thank you, Marina. We'd better see what he's doing before they all eat ice cream now." Marina released her, and the two women walked into the kitchen.

House had finished his survey of the refrigerator, which was just inside the door between the kitchen and the living room, and he was now moving along the row of cabinets next to it, opening each for a quick inventory. Rachel and Abby, framing him like bookends on the floor, were both sucking on suspiciously chocolated fingers, and he had just removed one of his own from his mouth.

"Greg!" she protested. "I said that ice cream would be for dessert."

"No bowl, so it doesn't count," he insisted.

She gave up for the moment. Thomas probably would be a while, at least half an hour. She opened the fridge herself to start her own list and looked at the shelves in surprise.

"There's really not a lot here," House said, suddenly serious again. "Basic baking stuff and some cans, but even in the cabinets, there's not much. Either she let the supplies run down before the trip deliberately or she didn't eat at home that often."

She walked over to his side. "She had a lot of friends to eat out with. She had found a whole social circle here."

"Yeah." He hit the end of the room and turned the corner in his inspection. The cabinets from there on held dishes.

"I'd probably better be setting the table," Cuddy commented.

He rolled his eyes. "Lisa, you don't have to set the table for pizza." For the first time, he looked over at the table in the other end of the room as he said it - and froze.

The table. This one had been bought when he was 10, a heavy wooden one that Blythe had liked. Solid, she had called it. A family table, like the one her parents had had. Only the family that ate around this table had been the one of his youth. Deception, aloneness, and fear gripped him as the years melted away. For a moment, he could almost see John sitting on the other side of it again, acting the role perfectly and all the while his eyes full of private plans and private amusements. The taste of pepper was right on House's tongue.

"Greg?" Her hands - no, their hands - on him. House blinked and snapped back to the present. Cuddy had both hands on his right arm, and both of his girls had attached to his good leg, looking up at him with worry.

He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. "Let's eat in the living room instead."

She looked guilty. "Of course." It hadn't occurred to her that it would be the same table, and she didn't know why it hadn't. It looked decades old. "I'm sorry."

A little shaky but steadying now, he moved in, claiming the required kiss, and both girls pressed in, too. A whinny came from somewhere near his left knee as the stuffed horse was squeezed in the family pile, and they broke apart, laughing. Rachel gave him an impish grin, leaving him to wonder if that whinny had been intentional or not. "Ember says hi."

He looked down at her, his daughter, his family, the warm present, and that time, he answered. "Hi, Ember." He turned his back resolutely on the table. "Come on. Soon as . . . he gets back, we'll have pizza in the living room."

"Yay!" Rachel raced into the living room accompanied by hoofbeats, and he followed, Cuddy's hand reassuringly on his back all the way.