A/N: Here's the rest of the family evening for you with plenty of moments for the girls. Two more chapters after this, and then we get to a Jensen session, and that chapter is where the plot starts to thicken. Thanks for the reviews.
(H/C)
By the time he limped to the living room, House was the last one out the front door, of course. He absorbed the scene as he watched his family greet the old man. Rachel was the fastest and first there, nearly running into him in her enthusiasm. "Grandpa Thomas! You're here!"
He picked her up for a hug, though his eyes had already absorbed the whole group, including his son in the rear, just leaving the porch, and his smile was evenly distributed to all of them. "Yes, I'm here."
"And you'll live close now?" she verified yet again, as if the answer might have changed.
"Yes. I get my own house tomorrow, but I'll live close now, and I'm sure I'll come by to visit regularly."
House was sure of that, too. Of course, it would also work the other way. Trust the old man to buy a house that had a small back yard with one of those play structures in it, a few tunnels and a slide.
Cuddy had rounded the car by now, holding Abby's hand, and she studied Thomas with concern as he greeted Rachel. "You look tired, Thomas," she said.
"Long day and a long trip. I'm fine." He gave her a hug, strong even though one-armed as he still had Rachel. Then he looked down at his younger granddaughter, who was hanging back just slightly next to her mother's leg. "Hi, Abby."
"Hi, Grandpa Thomas." She looked at him. "I know who you are," she said proudly.
"You sure do." He knelt, accomplishing it easily even with Rachel, to get on eye level with her. "You worked it out. I'll have to remember that; I can't expect to hide things from you." She finally came forward, though without the impetuous vivacity of her sister. He gave her a hug but didn't insist on prolonging it, letting go after a few seconds as she reached up to trace the fresh scar across his temple. "It's still there, but it's getting better. It will take it a while to fade." Abby nodded, leaning in for a closer inspection.
House came up to join the group, and Thomas set Rachel on her feet and stood up, facing his son. "Hello, Greg."
"Hi." House limped right on past him for a slow circle of the BMW. "Nice wheels."
Cuddy rolled her eyes. "Come on, Thomas. Let's get inside. We should be ready to eat soon. I'm sure you're hungry."
"Pizza!" Rachel suggested.
Abby jumped in even before Cuddy could, correcting her. "No pizza. Turkey. Marina cooked it." The bird had been roasting most of the afternoon.
Thomas was touched at the thought. "Thanksgiving in May?"
"Yes," Cuddy said firmly. "Not quite the full production, but close enough, just needs the final few pieces finished to go with it. I thought the occasion called for it. And we'll eat as a family around the table, not in the living room from a box." She gave him another hug. "Welcome to Princeton."
"I'm glad to be here." He gave another stretch. "It was a long drive, but the ending is definitely worth it." He turned to the back of his car and hit the button to pop the trunk. "Come here, Rachel, and I'll show you something while I'm getting my suitcase. Most of this stuff can just stay in the car; it goes to the house tomorrow, but I need the suitcase, and you might be interested in one other thing." Rachel trotted alongside him to the trunk, with Abby and House, both curious, closely following, too. He extracted the suitcase, setting it down, and then fished a little further among the tight but efficient load, coming up with Ember's bridle. "This is Ember's bridle," he said, offering it to Rachel.
Rachel stared at it in awe. This was a good partial substitute while the actual horse wasn't here yet. She took it tentatively, touching the leather, then the bit. Cuddy concealed a cringe and hoped that the bit had at least been rinsed off since it was in Ember's mouth. Rachel would definitely be washing her hands thoroughly before dinner tonight. "It goes on her head?"
"Right." In fingering it, she wound up with it upside down, and Thomas carefully straightened it out. "The bit is in her mouth; that's the metal part. This piece goes up over her ears on top of her head, and these two straps buckle around her head to help hold it on. Then these are the reins. They go back along her neck to my hands, and I use them to help tell her where to go. Here." He placed her hands on the reins just below the bit, then took the other end himself, giving them a twitch. Rachel's eyes widened as she felt the clear signal transmitted.
"Wow."
"Let me see." Abby crowded in, and Rachel snapped at her.
"No!"
"She can look at it, too," Thomas said.
House gently pulled Rachel back. "You know you're supposed to take turns, Rachel."
Thomas placed Abby's smaller hands and demonstrated the rein action from a distance of a few feet, and unlike her sister, she tried to interpret the motion, not just feel it. "What does it say?"
"That one would tell her to turn to that side. The other side - " he gave another subtle squeeze - "says to go that way. Both of them together like this tell her to stop." Plus leg aids, in fact legs as much as hands, but he didn't want to dump too much on them at one.
Cuddy had been enjoying the moment, always loving watching him with the girls, but he did look tired, and the remainder of dinner was waiting to be finished. "That's neat, Thomas, but we need to get inside."
"Can I look at it?" Rachel asked, reaching over to claim the bridle again.
"You can look at it tonight if you want, but Abby can, too. Be careful not to trip on it. It can get a little long; don't let it drag on the ground. Tomorrow, I'll take it with me. Ember needs it." He handed it to them, the head piece to Rachel and the reins to Abby, and they walked together back up the sidewalk, joined by the leather lines.
House chuckled as he perfectly read Cuddy's expression. "Don't worry, Lisa. They'll wash their hands before we eat."
"I did wipe the bit off after my last ride," Thomas reassured her, but he couldn't resist adding a moment later, "but a few germs are good for them."
Cuddy sighed as she started for the house herself, leaving father and son to come in behind her.
The turkey dinner turned out quite well, even capturing Belle's attention away from the bridle. She had given it a thorough sniff test, fascinated, as soon as it came in and had glared at Thomas when he told her firmly not to chase it. His eyes kept heading back over to check on it to make sure - handling by grandkids was one thing; teeth and claw marks in the leather were another. But once the turkey came out of the oven, Belle was firmly diverted. The family ate at the big table, Thomas and House dropping tidbits for the cat now and then, Rachel trying to but being so much less subtle about it that her mother always caught her in time. Abby watched from the sidelines, taking it all in.
"Are they bad?" she asked her mother finally. "They do it."
Rachel nodded vigorously. "No fair," she protested. "Daddy and Grandpa Thomas get to feed Belle."
Cuddy did her best to explain. "Belle would have gotten a few nibbles afterwards on her plate. She doesn't need to get dropped pieces off the floor. And yes, Abby, they're bad, but I can still make Rachel quit it. They're too old by now for me to stop them from doing it."
"Yep, we're incorrigible," House said with his mouth full. He swallowed and then pinched off another tiny tidbit from his plate and threw it. Belle fielded it neatly in mid air. "And Lisa, that's not eating off the floor. That one never hit the floor."
"What's corr-gable?" Rachel asked.
"That means your mother gives up," House told her. Thomas chuckled.
"I wanna be corr-gable," Rachel said promptly. "Then can I feed Belle?"
Cuddy rolled her eyes. "All right, you two, enough. Belle, go chase the bridle or something." Belle didn't budge, of course. She knew a loaded table when she smelled one. "We're almost ready for pumpkin pie."
"Yay!" Always distractible, Rachel turned her attention to looking for a pie. "Where?"
"In the kitchen. I'll get it." Cuddy firmly picked up the turkey platter and took it with her, tucking it back in the oven for later dissection into leftovers before she started getting the pie.
"Mama?" Abby asked.
"What is it, Abby?" Cuddy called back from the kitchen.
"Why -" Abby stopped to frame her question more precisely, and Cuddy came back to the edge of the big dining room table, steeling herself. She was familiar with Abby's questions by now. "They don't listen," Abby said finally.
"That's right. They don't listen. Which doesn't mean that you two shouldn't listen."
"But you like it," Abby finished. "You like them not to listen. Why?"
House burst out laughing. Thomas smiled at his youngest granddaughter across the table. "Abby, you're really going to be something in a few years."
"Forget in a few years," Cuddy sighed. "She's starting to give us a run for our money now."
"Run?" Rachel asked. "I want to run."
"No, you want to eat pumpkin pie right now," House reminded her.
Cuddy turned back. "Pie coming right up."
"Why?" Abby insisted.
Cuddy gave it her best shot from the kitchen. "Abby, sometimes when you love somebody, you even like it once in a while when they do things wrong. That does not mean it isn't wrong. Just means that it's them, and they remind you of that while they're doing it."
Abby plugged this in, the wheels turning, as saucers clattered from the kitchen counter. "So you like us doing wrong?" she asked.
Thomas took pity on his daughter-in-law finally. House was still too amused at all of this. "She loves you even when you're doing wrong," he said. "She always loves you. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try not to do wrong."
"Should you try?" she asked.
Thomas smiled. "You're right; we should try to do the right things, too. I'm just tired tonight, and I was enjoying winding her up a little bit. I apologize, Lisa. I'll try to do better."
Abby looked over at her father, waiting. "What?" he demanded under the blue microscope.
"You need to pologize."
He gave in just to change the subject. "All right. I apologize, Lisa."
She returned carrying an impressive construct of pie saucers. "Apology accepted. Now, let's have pie." She distributed them, then settled down to cut off a few bites for Rachel. House was helping Abby.
"Ember will get hungry," Rachel said suddenly, staring at her pie.
"Don't worry about Ember, Rachel. Remember, I pay people to take care of her. She gets fed." Thomas looked at his watch. "In fact, she's probably finishing her dinner just about now, too."
Rachel shook her head, impatient that he didn't see it. "No! On the truck. You said she comes on a truck, but it's a long trip. If she's on the truck, she's gonna get hungry."
"Oh, you mean on her way up here?" Rachel nodded. "They'll take care of her, too, Rachel. It's a special truck. The people on it are used to moving horses around; they do it all the time, all over the country. Even longer trips than this one. They feed them and take care of them and make sure they get enough water. You don't have to worry about Ember. They even drive gently to make sure the horses have a smooth trip. They brag on how much they are not in a hurry."
"But they don't know her," Rachel worried.
"No, they don't know her. But the company hires people who are used to dealing with horses a lot. They'll know how to handle her and what she needs. She'll be fine; you'll see. And she'll have plenty to eat on the trip; she'll probably be munching hay most of the way. But she's not on the truck yet. This is only Monday, so she's still back in the old barn. They'll probably pick her up Thursday morning, and she'll probably get here sometime Saturday."
House was absorbing the details, even while trying to look bored. He could never resist soaking up new information. "I'll bet postage to mail a horse is pretty steep," he commented.
Thomas flinched. "Let's just say I'm glad I don't have to do this regularly. We're not planning to move again. This will be home for both of us." He smiled at his son, one of those open smiles that House had such a hard time knowing how to react to. "I'm delighted to be here, and I'm sure Ember will be, too."
House looked away, staring down at his saucer and then taking his last bite of pumpkin pie.
Rachel, meanwhile, was counting days. "Ember comes Saturday?"
"Yes. Hopefully. Unless their schedule changes."
"Proxmately," Abby suggested, plugging in her new word from earlier in the evening.
Thomas looked impressed. "Right, Abby. She'll be here approximately Saturday. The men with the truck will call me when she's almost here so I'll know to go meet her."
"Can I see her come?" Rachel asked.
He looked at her parents. "We'll see," Cuddy temporized. "That might not be the best day, Rachel. The horse will be all excited. Give her a few days to settle into her new home."
"I wanna see her Saturday," Rachel insisted. "Grandpa Thomas will see her Saturday."
Cuddy sighed again. She knew Rachel would wind up meeting the horse, no doubt visiting regularly, but she wasn't sure the first day straight off the truck was the best time for it when the horse would have been cooped up for a few days. Thomas had made it clear to Rachel that this horse was even bigger than most of them. Cuddy was trying to keep from worrying, but she had a mental image of Rachel somehow escaping her hand, frisking up to an impossibly tall horse on one of her mad dashes, and winding up squashed under a hoof.
House followed the thought, and all the teasing element was out of his eyes as he watched both his daughter, pure eagerness, and his wife, worrying about safety. "Maybe we could all go," he suggested, "and we could stay back a little and just watch with me and your mother holding you girls. You'd see her, but she would get a little time to settle down, too, before we went up closer. Would that work?" He looked from Cuddy to Thomas.
Cuddy relaxed a little and looked at Thomas. "I just don't want her hurt," she said softly.
Thomas nodded. "I understand," he replied. "Ember will be all excited on Saturday, but if you two held onto the girls, they couldn't get into much. I'll be dealing with the horse. I'm not sure how far we can put her off." He looked over at his granddaughters and spoke up. "It's up to your parents, Rachel, but if we all go to the stable Saturday to meet her, you'll have to remember what I said. Remember what I told you about horses?"
Rachel nodded. "They're scaredy cats."
"Right. They look big and tough, but they aren't. They're easy to scare. So you can't yell, and you can't run fast up to them. You'll have to listen to us. Okay?"
She looked uncharacteristically responsible for once. "Okay. I don't wanna scare Ember." She looked over at her mother. "Can we go Saturday, Mama?"
"We'll see," Cuddy repeated.
"Mama!" Rachel gave her best effort at puppy eyes. "Pretty please?"
Cuddy smiled at her. "I'll think about it, okay?" She looked around the table. "Everybody done?" A few minutes later, she was protesting that Thomas didn't have to help her clear the table, while House and the girls went back into the living room and Belle returned to sniffing the bridle.
Much later, after the girls had finally wound down enough to get to sleep, the three adults sat around the living room, Thomas in the recliner, House and Cuddy on the couch. "It's a very good stable," Thomas assured Cuddy. "They're used to dealing with kids, and they have several ponies there, too." He paused. "I'm trying not to push here, but when she is ready to start lessons, I'd be glad to pay for it."
Cuddy sighed. "I know she wants this, and I know I can't bubble wrap her, but part of me just can't help worrying. The only horse I ever got close to as a child stomped on my sister's foot."
"And that made you not like them?" House asked. "Seems like it would add brownie points to me."
She laughed. "It was funny right then, watching her hopping around. But it really bruised her foot up for days, too."
"Any good barn is aware of safety," Thomas assured her. "They do everything they can to make it a good experience. NO!" He popped straight up out of the recliner and retrieved his bridle, and Belle gave him a wounded look. "Back in a minute. Let me tuck this in my suitcase."
Cuddy cringed anew as he headed into the guest room. "In his suitcase?" With his clothes?
"Lisa, he doesn't care." House pulled her closer, his reassuring hug at odds with his sarcastic words. "Are you afraid Rachel will get hurt someday if she gets into horses or afraid of all the germs? Visions of bridles in your house?"
She settled into his strong arms. "A little of both," she admitted, trying to make it a joke as he was, though the image of those huge hooves was much stronger to her than the thought of dirty bits. "I know we can't protect them from everything," she said.
House gave her a quick kiss. "Talk to Patterson," he said softly, right in her ear, as Thomas exited the guest room, and she nodded briefly.
Thomas sat back down and leaned into the back of the recliner, tiredness settling around him like a cloak. His shoulders sagged. "It is good to get here," he said. "I was counting down the miles all afternoon."
"We're glad to have you." Cuddy spoke for both of them, but she knew it applied to her husband, too, even if he wouldn't say it yet. "You do look worn out, though. You need to get to bed before long."
He stretched his legs out. "I am beat. Maybe a shower first, then I probably will turn in early. It will take a little while for us all to adjust and work out the new system, but if I'm too much in the way, let me know."
"You're not going to be in the way," Cuddy fired back hotly. "Even when you have your own place after tomorrow, you're always welcome here, Thomas."
He smiled at her. "I'm glad to hear it, but I won't be living here. You all need some privacy as a family, too." He was watching his son.
House shifted. Consideration, something else that could still catch him off guard from anything resembling a father. "No point in buying yourself a house if you don't live there. Just remember, if you don't show up pretty regularly, she would have to send out a search party."
Thomas wound through the subliminal layers of that carefully, coming to the unspoken invitation beneath. He stood. "Well, I hate to cut this evening short, but we have others." We have others. What a marvelous new world, his for the exploring with his new family.
Cuddy agreed. "We'll have plenty of others, but right now, you look exhausted. Two nights sleeping here will do you a lot of good before you move in on Wednesday."
Thomas paused in mid stride and shook his head. "One night sleeping here. I'm spending tomorrow night at the house."
"No." Cuddy's tone was definite. "The closing may be tomorrow, but it's empty, Thomas. All your furniture doesn't get here until Wednesday morning."
"But the place is mine as of tomorrow, and I have a sleeping bag in the trunk. I want to spend the first official night there."
"A sleeping bag?" Cuddy stood up to argue better, not that it brought their eyes anywhere close to level. He was annoyingly tall, a complaint she'd often had mentally against his son during arguments. "That's ridiculous, Thomas. We have a perfectly good guest bed right here, and you don't need to be spending the night in a sleeping bag on the floor. You're welcome here."
House had been watching Thomas' expression intently, and he realized that a different motive was involved. "Whatever you're trying to recapture, old man, it won't be the same."
Cuddy looked back sharply at her husband, then at Thomas with new understanding. "Did you spend the first night in your old house like that with Emily and Tim?"
Thomas was looking stubborn. "I appreciate the invitation, Lisa, but I'm staying there tomorrow night. That's not open for debate."
She studied him. He looked exactly like his son when he was totally locked into something, and she knew how hard it could be to get House's teeth out of an idea he'd taken hold of. It was the first time Thomas had really drawn a line with her, and over such a ridiculous point, the whole idea of someone 75 sleeping in a sleeping bag in an empty house with nothing but memories for company, but she knew he wasn't going to give in. "At least eat over here with us first," she offered.
He accepted the compromise. "All right. Let me guess, turkey leftovers?"
"Meow!" Belle jumped up onto the couch, knowing the word turkey. House reached over and scratched her ears, and Thomas chuckled and reached out to do the same.
"Good night, Lisa. Good night, Greg. Good night, Belle." He headed toward the guest room, and a minute later, they heard him cross to the bathroom and turn on the shower.
House was still petting the cat. "Sit down and stop worrying, Lisa. One night on the floor in a sleeping bag might give him some stiff points, but it's not like he'll be out in the wilderness surrounded by grizzlies and cougars. It's his choice to make."
She sat down beside him. "The whole idea is crazy. So you think he did that back in the 1970s with the other house?"
"Definitely. It was probably an adventure for them, everybody there without furniture yet, camping out in their new place. He wants to hold some kind of mental tribute. Which I agree is crazy; they're all dead, and he wasn't 75 then. But whether it makes sense or not, he isn't going to change his mind. Might as well accept it." His arm tightened around her shoulders. "Which, of course, you won't be able to do. You'll be worrying all night tomorrow night."
Still rattled, she couldn't resist pushing him just a little. "And you aren't going to worry about him even a little bit over there with just a sleeping bag?"
He came up stiffly to his feet, rapidly changing the subject. "Of course not. Is there any more of that pumpkin pie?" He was halfway to the kitchen by the time he finished the question.
Cuddy, left on the couch, looked at Belle. "They're incorrigible," she repeated, and Belle meowed in reply, then, hearing the refrigerator, scampered off quickly in case there might be supplemental turkey.