A/N: Sorry for the delay. This has been an incredibly difficult week. Here's a very short update, sorry it's so brief, but please, send reviews.
(H/C)
Thomas felt the dread like a physical blow, actually rocking him back slightly on his heels. All 128 letters. His son couldn't take that, not in one dose, not even in ten doses, and it was obvious that one dose was precisely what he had in mind. "Greg, I don't think. . ." he started, then trailed off as the challenge blazed up in his son's eyes.
"You're afraid of what I'll find out, aren't you?"
Rachel trotted over to them and stopped in between the two men, looking up at one and then the other. "What's wrong?" she asked with all the innocent straightforwardness of age three.
She at least distracted her father for the moment, and he looked down at her as if he had forgotten just while crossing the room to Thomas that she was in it. "Nothing," he replied, and Thomas saw the guilt in his eyes as he lied. Abby walked over and attached firmly to her father's leg, looking up, and her eyes held a concern far beyond her years. Greg sighed. "Girls, why don't you go out in the back yard with Marina to play for a while?"
"No," Abby said, and Thomas couldn't help smiling, even in the tension of the moment.
Greg picked her up and gave her another hug. "It's all right, Abby. I'll be out there in a little while to play with you, okay?"
Marina took her from him and picked up Rachel's hand, and her look at Greg was reproach as much as worry, a silent lecture that Thomas could tell was received loud and clear. Greg looked smaller suddenly as he faced her. "Come on, girls," she said gently.
"No!" Abby struggled for a minute, and Marina hung on and headed through the kitchen, pulling Rachel along, the nanny's soft reassurances audible in her wake.
Greg faced Thomas again. So much anger there, but his father also saw the fear behind it. "I need those letters," he repeated. "So you're afraid to let me see them; that says a lot. Your defense isn't that strong after all, is it?"
"I'm not afraid from my point of view but for you," Thomas clarified. "Please, Greg, think about it for a while."
Lisa closed in firmly. "He's right, Greg." He jerked away sharply from her touch, hurting his leg doing it. These two might have - undoubtedly would have - a debate on this subject later, but Greg obviously wasn't going to listen to anything in front of Thomas, the outsider. Thomas felt the stab of his separate status all over again, the memory of the family lunch retreating. There needed to be a family conversation right now, but it would not, could not include him.
Desperate, he tried for practicality. "I don't have them with me, Greg. They're back in St. Louis."
"Then go back and get them," his son snapped.
Thomas was trapped. Refusing would accomplish nothing except burning the bridge slowly being constructed between them. His only weapon here was time; flying back home, driving to the house, picking up the letters, returning to the airport, and flying back would take most of the night at best. He couldn't drag it out too much, or that would anger Greg more, but he would take as long as he possibly could. It was already late afternoon. "All right, Greg," he said softly. "I'll go get them." With one last desperate look at his son's friends and family, the people he might actually listen to without his father present, Thomas passed this time bomb into their hands and headed for the front door. With concern for his son in the front seat and anger at Blythe in the rear as his only companions, he drove slowly toward the airport.
(H/C)
Jensen came to life. "Come here a minute," he said, softly but firmly, and looked toward Blythe's bedroom.
House tightened up even more. "You can't stop me," he insisted.
"I know that. It's your decision. But it will take several hours for him to get back with the letters." The psychiatrist actually turned away from House and started for the bedroom on his own, every sense alert behind him. Slowly the limping footsteps were heard. House obviously had worked out correctly that he would be facing either Jensen or Cuddy immediately; the psychiatrist was the only possible delay she would accept. Jensen opened the door to Blythe's bedroom and went in, leaving House to enter behind him and shut it.
Back in the living room, Wilson turned to Cuddy, and the anger in his chocolate eyes reminded her of years ago, when he first found out about the abuse and had been so infuriated at Blythe's ignorance that he had taken it on himself to inform her. "Blythe wrote Thornton 128 letters while House was a kid?"
She looked toward the closed door. "129, actually. The only one he's ever seen, he ripped up into confetti."
"What did it say?"
She paced a tight circle. "I didn't see it, Wilson, but I'm sure you can fill in the blanks." She skidded to a halt. "I swear, if she weren't dead, I'd kill her."
Wilson looked ready to join the effort. "So Blythe sent Thornton this constant stream of everything just rosy here while House was growing up, and that's why he thought things were okay?"
She nodded. "He only visited for a few hours every year or two. The letters were his main source. I can't blame him for believing them. I bought the front myself over the years, lock, stock, and barrel. Nice parents, and the only problem was a strong-willed kid who didn't like limits." She barely noticed the remembered weight of her own guilt against the present worry.
"So did I," Wilson replied regretfully. He looked back toward the bedroom himself. "He can't read all that at once. There's no way. He'll hit overload."
"I know." She took another agitated turn of the living room and stopped again at the end of the hall, sending every positive thought she could to Jensen.
The forgotten will was still on the coffee table, unread.