A/N: Sorry for the delays. Most of my writing time Friday and Saturday went to writing up a complete social history of Mom, childhood through the decline, all the highlights I could remember, for a new behavioral health referral. That kind of took it out of me for writing this weekend. She is in a bad spot mentally at the moment. Then I had dentist and then doctor appointments myself killing both Monday and Tuesday afternoons. There are a few things going on physically I've discovered just in the last two weeks, not life threatening at all but late complications of an eye injury 10 years ago, something needing fine tuning right now and monitoring ongoing. Take my - and House's - advice, and hie yourself to a doctor and be honest about symptoms if you have noticed any changes, even if you don't think it matters to anything.

I'll try to get up another chapter on Friday, which I have off from work to rest prior to a long weekend trip as I'm hitting the road Saturday at 3:00 a.m., back Sunday probably the same, with several hundred miles and a whole Saturday of fun in between. That trip will be pure recreation, and I'm looking forward to it. Thanks so much for the couple of people who have PMd today and asked if everything was all right. Warms me to know you care.

About parking at Walmart, actually, I highly recommend the Walmart parking lot as a great place to hang out and kill a few hours. I live 50 miles from the city that most of my musical activities are in, so I occasionally have gaps in between commitments in which I can't just go back home because it's not worth it in drive time and gas. Walmart is perfect. Provided that you always have a book with you, an item which I think goes right up there with jumper cables and first aid kits as part of being prepared, you can tuck into a slot, go in for a Coke or snack to "pay" them for the time, and then settle in to read for a couple of hours. It's an odd type of public privacy. Nobody looks twice at you, and there's enough traffic in and out, at least during daylight hours, that you aren't conspicuous. I am technically a customer if challenged, but I never have been. It might be harder in the wee small hours of the morning with less traffic.

Enjoy 55. Sorry so short but as much as I can fit in today, even though I had intended much more. I wanted to get something out there to reassure folks that the story is fine and not forgotten or stuck. Hopefully more Friday.

(H/C)

Mid afternoon found House and Jensen sitting in the waiting room at Blythe's doctor's office. Dr. Nichols had been in a practice of six internists, and the room was quite busy, phones ringing, patients and family members coming and going, nurses popping out to get the next person in line. House, sitting there restlessly fiddling with the head of his cane, was suddenly hit broadside by a wave of homesickness. Or worksickness, he corrected himself mentally. The medical environment was so familiar to him, but the location was wrong. All at once, he wanted to be back at PPTH working through puzzles that had correct answers and after which he could simply box them up and move on to the next. He hadn't been at work since December 23rd, the day he had left early to pick up Blythe that evening at the airport. It seemed literally, not just technically, a year ago. He shifted in his chair, and Jensen glanced subtly at him, watching him without obviously watching, which was one of the psychiatrist's talents. House turned away, but Jensen didn't ask. This wasn't the time.

Trying to distract himself, House started diagnosing the waiting room mentally. The woman across from him was worrying about something she was doing tonight, and she also was mentally deducting points from the office for being slightly behind. Her pointed looks at her watch clocked in at an average of three per magazine page, and her stiffly disapproving posture never came close to the back of the chair. Medically, she must be here just for a routine visit. Her worry was all schedule related, not test anticipation or reluctance over the appointment itself. She considered being here at all an inconvenience, and she looked healthy, even to House's eyes. The man two chairs down from her was having GI issues, possibly peptic ulcer. He had rubbed the precise location of his stomach a few times when he wasn't aware of it. Reflux, too; House could see his Adam's apple bobbing now and then from here.

Down the row House and Jensen were on sat an older man with CHF. No puzzle there, either. The man next to him was here for test followup. Unlike the first woman, he was specifically worried about the appointment, uneasy, gearing himself up for bad news. He also had recently lost weight, judging from his clothes. House noted his fingers, which were slightly stained and had reached for a no-longer-present pack of cigarettes by reflex a few times so far, not to smoke in here but just to pat it for comfort. Lung cancer, most likely. Like several of them, he had quit as soon as the scare came up. House mentally tagged him as an idiot. It wasn't like after decades of a pack a day that quitting when you got news of a questionable spot on an x-ray was going to just make the cancer reverse itself before the biopsy. It was already there at that point.

He wondered how long Blythe's cancer had been there. Signet ring cell was aggressive, often silent early, and fast. Probably not too long, but if she had been up to date on her routine checkups, they might have caught subtle signs earlier.

Another couple entered the office and checked in, the woman lagging a little, the man literally urging her forward with his hand on her arm. Wife and husband, and though the appointment was for her, he had made it or had at least coerced it. "This is ridiculous, Russell," she protested as they sat down near House and Jensen after leaving the receptionist's desk. "I'm fine. The reason I'm tired is that we had so much to do the last month with getting ready for all the family visiting for Christmas."

House came to attention, looking at her keenly as her husband hovered even while sitting down, his body tilted toward her chair as if he were ready to physically protect her from whatever unknown enemy, though the droop of his shoulders proclaimed that he knew how powerless he was in that battle. "Margie, just tell the doctor about it. Tell him about anything. Please. I know there's more to it than you're admitting."

Her hand fluttered as if trying to push his concern away. "You're just imagining things, dear."

House leaned across Jensen, looking at her keenly - so keenly that she and her husband both felt the blue lasers and turned. His eyes swept her head to toe like a human MRI machine. "What about exercise intolerance? Do you have to stop in the middle of things?"

The woman stared at him. "Who are you?" she asked, slightly defensively. House, clad today in a Rolling Stones sweat shirt as well as tennis shoes and jeans and with the cane alongside, looked far more like a patient than any sort of expert.

Russell, on the other hand, grasped eagerly for any backup. "She has had to stop in the middle of things the last few weeks. She tried to make it look like just talking with family for a minute, but she . . ."

"We had a house full of company. Of course I kept stopping in the middle of things to . . ."

House pulled out his wallet and offered a card across the gap to the couple. "I'm Dr. Gregory House, Department of Diagnostic Medicine, Princeton, New Jersey."

"Dr. Gregory House," Russell repeated thoughtfully. "Where have I heard that name before?"

"Probably on the news. Last summer, trial of Patrick Chandler for child abuse," House snapped impatiently. Several heads in addition to those two jerked up around the waiting room, but House didn't notice. "I do know what I'm talking about medically. You could be in danger of dying. Don't let the next family get-together be at your funeral." She stared at him, shocked.

The receptionist had come out from behind her desk. "Dr. House, why don't you come on back? I just called the nurse, and we'll let you wait in Dr. Nichols' office for . . ."

"Not until I say this," he insisted. He turned to the husband. "Some of her symptoms lately include fatigue, slight shortness of breath, and tension through the neck and shoulders. I don't think she's sleeping as well, either. She could be in danger of a heart attack. She needs a full workup immediately, including EKG and cardiac studies. Don't let her dodge out of this. You need to get moving on this today. There are other possibilities, but rule out cardiac first."

"Dr. House?" The nurse called from the door. House didn't even look up, and she walked over. "Dr. House, Dr. Nichols is almost ready to see you."

House ignored her. "Read my lips: You could die," he said. Margie looked from his blazing, intense sincerity to the card and back up, shaken. "Tell the doctor the truth."

"Dr. House." The nurse touched him on the arm, and he shook her off. She appealed to Jensen by look, but Jensen hadn't budged from his seat nor made any move at any point to intervene.

"I . . . it doesn't seem like much," Margie protested, but the protest had a lot less starch than it had a few minutes ago.

"You are not a doctor. News flash: Someone who went through medical school might actually know more about how your body works than you do."

"Thank you," Russell put in. "I've been trying to tell her that."

Dr. Nichols himself appeared at the doorway. "Dr. House? I'm sorry for the delay. Come on back."

House looked from the woman to her husband, her shaken and him grateful, and finally broke the gaze and stood. Abruptly, he realized that they had an audience, every head in the waiting room turned their direction. He flinched, then straightened as Jensen stood up beside him. "Remember that, all of you. You are not doctors. Tell the truth and stop being idiots; it makes it so much easier for us to treat you." He turned away, and as he passed the man awaiting test results, he added softly, "And you should have quit 30 years ago."

Dr. Nichols, House, and Jensen disappeared through the door into the warren of offices and exam rooms. The receptionist gave a quick, slightly embarrassed apology and then returned to her desk, but it was a few minutes before the low hum of waiting room conversation restarted and other heads bent once more to their magazines.