A/N: I have given Thomas my own "someday" car. The reason I want one, though, much like the reason he's glad to see his tonight, has zero to do with status, appearances, or any kind of public "statement." I once took a carpooled trip of several hours in one, and it was the only car I've ridden in over the decades since messing up my knee in sixth grade which did not make my knee ramp up the ache some through transmitted engine vibration and road motion. I actually asked the model, the only time in my life I've ever done that, and the owner, possessor of a bad back, agreed with me. With a ride like that, I'd want one even if it looked hideous.

It does set up a fun exchange between Thomas and House eventually, though. :) Better times are coming, but we have to get through the valley first.

Send reviews, folks. This weekend was a rough one (although nobody and nothing else I know has died).

(H/C)

It was raining when Thomas Thornton landed in St. Louis, a cold spitting rain that couldn't decide whether it wanted to freeze or not. How perfectly appropriate, he thought. He had managed to get a ticket on the final flight of the evening, but first class was sold out, and he had to go into the economy seats, something he hated. He was too tall to fit comfortably. He'd spent the whole flight, like he had spent the evening at the airport, torn between anger at Blythe, anger at John, and anger at himself. What had she said in that letter? Whatever it was, Thomas had been trapped from the moment of Greg's request. Putting up any argument would just focus all of Greg's fear and anger at the situation and the past onto him personally. The fragile bridge they were constructing would not be able to take that.

But Thomas knew better than any of them that Greg could not handle reading all of those letters at one gulp. He had read them himself. At the time all those years ago, there truly had been nothing that seemed off about them, especially backed up with the foundation of the two years in which he had seen every day how John adored his son, how much he anticipated his birth, how proud he was after Greg's arrival. Yes, they mentioned Greg being in trouble now and then, disagreements with John, that he was strong willed. But Tim had had his moments growing up, too. As for the rare visible injuries Thomas had noticed himself a few times on his intermittent visits, when he had asked, those were excused by clumsiness by Greg as well as his parents. But again, Tim and also Thomas himself had grown in awkward phases and had occasionally hurt themselves. Thomas hadn't really found his full physical coordination until his late teens. He had read the letters, accepted the fiction, and never guessed at the hideous truth beneath.

But reading the letters in full hindsight since the trial had been a different story. Trying to fill in gaps was enough to give Thomas himself nightmares. Greg, with the full back story to plug in and with the first-hand memories of it, would be hit far harder. It would be too much for him emotionally. Thomas could only hope that Lisa and Jensen and the others could reach through the stubbornness and that Greg would be a little easier to deal with and more ready to listen once he himself was off the scene.

By the time he landed, Thomas was tied into knots inside and out, felt like an accordion, and his foot was absolutely throbbing. With nobody around who cared enough to worry about him, he didn't bother trying to hide the limp now as he walked through the rain to pick up his own car in long-term parking where he'd left it last Thursday morning. He unlocked it and settled into the seat with a sigh of relief, stretching his long legs out and leaning his head back for a minute, and he thought that airlines could take some lessons in seat construction here. He turned the key with a pathetic eagerness to have at least one thing this evening run smoothly. The car didn't disappoint him.

Ember and the BMW were Thomas' two main toys. He and Emily had picked this one out together four years ago after their first one had hit fifteen years old. The cars had never been a rolling price tag to them, an advertisement to the world; they simply loved the pleasure of driving in them together. This second one hadn't seen nearly the high mileage of the first one, though, as the long road trips they had both loved taking in their retirement quickly distilled down to doctor's appointments during her illness. This one, still very low miles and in excellent shape, seemed to be in large part waiting for a future that wasn't realized yet. But Emily had loved it, had gotten some brief pleasure out of it at times during her decline, even if the long trips weren't possible anymore, and that made it even more special to him.

Thomas switched on the heater to thaw himself a little and pulled out his cell phone, hoping that maybe something had changed. He would be glad to get back out of the car this minute, turn around, and walk straight back into the airport to try to find a faster return, even if in multiple stages. One message, and he cued it up eagerly while at the same time steeling himself against disappointment. If Greg were going to listen easily to reason tonight, the call would have come much earlier, before Thomas had even made it off the ground in Lexington.

"Thomas, it's Lisa. Give me a call when you can."

Her tone gave the message already. Nothing had changed. But she was thinking of him, wanted to talk to him even without something to report, and that knowledge warmed him up even faster than the car's impressive heating system.

They had always wanted a daughter. Emily had had complications with Tim's birth, and there had never been another child, but in the conversations during her pregnancy, the delicious anticipation together, they had always talked of multiple children and hoped in particular that there would be at least one daughter. Thomas had almost been able to see her in his mind, dark haired like Emily, with the same quiet fire in her soul that could flare out at times when needed and surprise people. People had tended to dismiss Emily in life on first meeting; she was far stronger-minded than she appeared. She just saw no reason to show it most of the time, only digging in on things that truly mattered. On anything except a point of principle, she would compromise to get along, and she had been such an incredible listener that friends would be drawn to her, would grow close to her, and then one day would happen to run up against something that mattered to her and would be stunned at the sudden metamorphosis of someone they had been sure they knew already.

Lisa, the last few days, had been a joy to get to know, an unexpected bonus in this quest to win his son. Just hearing her voice now, even if it clearly had no good news to share, was a lift in this dark night. He started to call back and then, selfishly, put it off a little so he wouldn't have to enter the big house alone. Putting the car into gear, he pulled out of the airport lot and headed for home. The rain was still falling, still trying to make up its mind whether to be sleet or not.

The restless city was still alive around him, but by the time he got out to his own quiet street in the suburbs, the traffic had thinned, and there was only the darkness and the rain. Even his house seemed asleep. He hit the garage door opener and then called Lisa back as he pulled into the driveway. It took her several rings to respond, and her voice was slightly thick as she answered. "Thomas?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you up."

Like much of the population, she sounded guilty to have been caught sleeping. "That's okay. I'm glad you did. You wouldn't believe what I was dreaming about. Are you all right?"

He climbed out of the car and headed for the door into the house. "I'm fine. I'm back in St. Louis, just got home." He unlocked the door and entered, switching on the lights. "Greg hasn't reconsidered yet?"

"No. Jensen spent a long time talking to him, and he's been thinking all evening after that. You can see him doing it. But he hasn't changed his mind so far." She sighed. "He can get so stubborn sometimes. I haven't talked to him yet; we were both too tired. I'll try in the morning. I'm so sorry, Thomas."

Tired, worried, and hurting, he let himself go just a little bit. "Greg isn't the one to blame for all this."

"Neither are you," she fired back immediately.

"Actually, right then, I was thinking of Blythe. I take a good share of it, yes, but she missed more than I did with a lot more opportunity. Then leaving him some letter probably trying to apologize in her awkward way for the whole past and just setting him off worse. Today seemed to be going so well up until then." He opened the refrigerator restlessly, surveyed the offerings, then closed it again and headed for his office, leaving the lights on behind him, something he'd only been doing since his return from Europe in an effort to make the house seem a little less empty. "Then there's John. I swear, Lisa, I never had any idea. I would have killed the bastard." He meant it literally, not just blowing off steam. Yes, he would have killed John and never felt a moment's regret over it.

"So would I," she agreed. "We all missed so much. There was one time Blythe and John were coming up to Princeton and wanted to get together for dinner, and Greg tried every trick he knew to back out. Wilson and I actually conspired to set it up behind his back, and I insisted that he see them. He looked me straight in the eye and told me he hated him. Just the way he said it, I knew that wasn't like anything I've ever heard from him before, not just being pigheaded. And I still didn't see. Are you all right?"

Thomas had just sat down in his desk chair and leaned over to a file cabinet, and she apparently had heard the slight hiss he gave as the angle put extra weight across his bruised toe. "I'm fine, Lisa."

"How's your foot?" she asked suspiciously.

"It's okay. It didn't like the trip much." He tried to stall her with a half admission. "But I got examined today by the best doctor in America, and he assured me it's just bruised, so you don't have to worry."

"He also told you to take it easy. Before he told you to head off on a last-minute plane trip after those letters."

"Remember what all he went through, Lisa. The foot is only bruised. I'll live." Bad choice of words, and he heard it in her tone, which sharpened up immediately.

"You haven't got any choice; you hear me? We have a lot of years left, all of us, and you're definitely not going to have something happen tonight, not right on top of his mother."

"I'm not going to die yet. I can be stubborn myself. Where do you think he got it from?" He was trying to get her to smile, to ease up the worry a little, and after a moment he heard the softening of her tone.

"You're right. He sure didn't get that from Blythe. Or a lot of other qualities, either. You two really are a lot alike."

Thomas couldn't help pushing in quickly with a disclaimer. "I was very careful in those visits when Greg was a kid. I was playing a role there, not showing any similarities that I knew about. John didn't get to see me like you all have the last few days, and he had only known me at work mainly during that assignment together. I didn't hang around their house a lot at that time after that one night, because I didn't want Blythe to give it away. Not that it made a bit of difference in the end, since he already knew about Greg all those years, but I was always trying to be careful." Three, Greg had said. It started at three. Thomas, gone after his first birthday, hadn't returned for the first visit until Greg had just turned four. Whatever John's realization had been based on, it hadn't been clues from Thomas' presence in a visit. Maybe the physical similarities and facial structure, though that was elusive, not as strong as between Greg and his grandfather.

"Thomas?"

He jumped, coming back to the present. "I'm still here. Sorry, I must have zoned out for a minute."

"Greg does that, too." He heard the fondness in her voice and again was warmed by it. "I was just asking, how bad are those letters?"

He looked at the bottom drawer of the file cabinet, standing open now, with the cardboard box there. 128 letters, neatly filed by date. "At the time, there wasn't anything that made me wonder. Filling in the blanks in retrospect, they're awful. He cannot deal with this, not all at once. But there was nothing else I could do once he asked."

"I know. I'll try to talk to him in the morning." Her voice shifted a little as she apparently looked at her watch or the clock. "Speaking of which, you need to get what sleep you can. I'm sure you've got to be back at the airport early."

"Yes. I'll be landing at 6:47, Lexington time." 5:47, St. Louis time, and taking off well before that, of course. He looked at his own watch. Four hours in bed would be pushing it to the limit, what with security and getting to the airport. He felt exhausted but also nowhere close to sleepy. Just battered.

"Try to get some sleep before then. I'll do my best with Greg in the morning. He is thinking about this. He trusts Jensen a lot by now, and Jensen really had a lot to say to him, judging from time."

But he doesn't trust me. Not yet. Thomas couldn't blame his son, though. He hadn't done much to earn it. Recent efforts were still outweighed by childhood errors, which made perfect sense. Thinking of children, he couldn't help asking. "Did the girls ask where I went?"

"Yes, they did, both of them, Rachel a few times. We told them you'd be back. They're worried tonight, too, watching Greg." She sighed again. "I'm going to let you go now, but go to bed, Thomas. Don't stay up chewing on this. You were already tired anyway."

"I will," he promised. "I'll see you in the morning, Lisa." He didn't wish her good night, thinking her chances of that were about equivalent to his.

She clearly shared the sentiment. "See you then. Bye, Thomas. Take care."

She hung up, and he sat there for a few more minutes, looking at that box. In the top drawer of the file cabinet, with records and such, his own will resided, filed neatly under W. He had revised his will last summer upon returning from Princeton. Prior to that, it had still left everything to Emily, and if anything had happened to him in his year-long journey around Europe to get his head on straight, the legal consequences would have been a headache. She had had no direct family left, either. But after the trial, Thomas had gone to his lawyer and revised the document, which now was equally straightforward with only a change of name. Without stating relationship, he left everything aside from Ember "to Dr. Gregory House of Princeton, New Jersey, in tribute to his brave stand against child abuse." The mare alone went to a friend at the stable.

But he really had no intentions of that will being needed yet. Too many unfinished ends to his life. He had to do a better job than this before he checked out. He stood up with a wince and picked up the box of letters. Resisting the urge to drive out to the stables in the middle of the night and talk to Ember (how pathetic could he get?), he left the office and put the box on the kitchen counter near the garage door.

Debating between taking a shower tonight and one in four hours, he chose the latter to possibly help him wake up, assuming he got to sleep at all, and he slowly turned out the downstairs lights and headed for the staircase. Upstairs, he went into their bedroom. He could never think of it as just his, not even now. Here they had lived and loved and slept together for decades. Here she had died. Blythe had changed out of John's bedroom, but Thomas hadn't left his and Emily's. His memories of her were too precious.

Tonight, though, he missed her even more. They had had a rule that if something was truly bothering one of them, they couldn't go to sleep until they had at least talked a little, laying the issue out. Not that everything could be solved in one night, whether between them or involving others, but they never went to sleep until they honestly could together with no invisible wall in the bed between them. It had resulted in a few sleepless nights along the way during arguments and such, but it had also set a lifelong habit that was hard to break. He undressed, climbed into bed, and set the clock, then lay there alone, wishing he could have her advice just one more time. He closed his eyes. "Emily," he said softly, but he couldn't tell her good night. Not tonight. "Emily," he repeated after a minute, "if you have any pull at all up there, put in a good word for me, okay?" Sleep was a long time coming, but when it did claim him, he dreamed of talking to her.