A/N: A little more. Sorry this scene is so chopped up, but this last week has been crazy, both with work and with Mom. More soon as I can.
(H/C)
"When Blythe got pregnant," Thomas said, "she and John were so happy. Both of them. They'd been trying for a while. John was telling everybody on the base, just so proud he'd hardly fit in his uniform. He treated her like a treasure that whole nine months."
The Cuddys had looked surprised at first, but by the end of that description, Susan was shaking her head. "He couldn't possibly have done all that to Greg if he'd been proud of him. You're just trying to make excuses for him and for you."
"No." Thomas looked down at Jet, at the cumbersome splint sticking out and the head hidden. "There is no excuse for what happened. Some things are just wrong, no matter where you're coming from, and his abuse of Greg is one of them. Even if he had issues in his past, even though it wasn't his son, that's not an excuse. I'm certainly not making excuses for me. You have no idea how many nights I've stayed awake chewing away at this since I found out last July at the trial. I let my son down. I could have saved him, and I didn't. I would give anything in my power to change that, but I can't. We can't undo the past. But if I had had any idea back then, I would have gotten Greg and Blythe out of there." The sincerity behind that resonated through the room.
"What I am saying," Thomas continued, "is that John changed. He was not a monster walking around with the future easy to read. I truly believe he really was proud of Greg during the pregnancy and after he was born, and I saw the family regularly. Up until I was transferred out right around Greg's first birthday, I saw nothing but love, pride, and happiness, even from him." The Cuddys still weren't quite able to grasp that, he could tell.
"But back to Blythe's pregnancy, think about it. First of all, I didn't know he was my child. Not then. They were the happiest together I had ever seen them. For me to come forward would have been to reveal that Blythe had cheated on him. From happiness and pride to instant marriage problems, all over something that might or might not be the case anyway."
Robert nodded slowly. "I guess I can understand that," he grudgingly admitted. "But there had to be some signs with John."
Thomas didn't dodge the point. "Believe me, I've spent hours dissecting that one, too. In retrospect, yes, he had a temper. But almost anybody does when pushed. There was nothing that made me think at the time he was capable of that, and he wasn't abusive yet. He was looking forward to his child. There was also the fact that he was married, while I wasn't yet. He could give him a home - a happy home, I thought. I couldn't offer that, only create problems in theirs. And Blythe had as much claim on Greg as I did, even if he was mine. She asked me to keep it quiet and say nothing. I decided during that pregnancy, watching them, that whether the child was mine or not, I'd stay in the background and just be a family friend. He would be, as far as anybody knew, their son."
"John obviously worked it out," Robert stated.
Thomas sighed again. "Yes. That's almost certainly the catalyst for his becoming abusive. But I did not know. I was transferred after that first year, and I only visited a handful of times after that for a day or so. I always followed his life, and Blythe sent me a few updates, but she didn't know either."
Their mutual opinion of Blythe's perception couldn't have been clearer. "I would have suspected something," Susan insisted.
"I'm sure I would have myself if I'd had any more contact with him later than I did. If we had just been stationed together any time after it started . . ." Thomas looked down at his hands again. "But what ifs will drive you crazy. It can't be changed now."
At that moment, Jet popped his head out from underneath Thomas' arm. He looked around with wide yellow eyes, Thomas first, watching him for a few seconds, then turning his head to find the Cuddys. His ears went back, and he hissed at them. A second later, rocked by his audacity, he quickly buried his head beneath Thomas' arm again.
Robert couldn't hide a momentary smile. "He has spirit."
"A little damaged but not broken," Thomas agreed. He gave Jet a few strokes.
"Wait a minute," Susan said. "So all Greg's life, you were just acting like a family friend." Thomas nodded. "And you decided that that trial would be the best time to come forward into the picture? When he was already under so much stress there?"
"That was something else where things didn't go as planned. See, I had no idea that Greg knew I was his father. I don't believe Blythe knew herself that he'd worked it out, at least not in his childhood. I thought he really did believe I was a family friend. But the day I read that news story about the trial about to start, I was stunned. Couldn't believe it. That was the first hint of anything wrong that I'd ever seen. On the other hand, you can't believe something just because you read it or hear it in the media. A lot of what is out there is either misinformation or deliberate lies." That at least they agreed with wholeheartedly. "So I decided to go to Princeton for the trial and hear the evidence myself firsthand. I was hoping it was exaggerated in the stories."
"It wasn't," Robert stated.
"No. I was sure of that pretty soon. But I also figured that Greg would be the last witness for the prosecution, the strongest one. I deliberately picked a place in the back corner of the courtroom, and if I thought that the crowds were too small to hide in by the time he was called, I would have left. I never meant to add any stress to him on the stand. I was just listening to evidence."
"Then why did you come forward?" Susan asked.
"Greg spotted me. He reacted so sharply to it while he was testifying that I realized that he did in fact know who I was. At that point, I was trapped. The added stress to him was there already. If I'd turned around and left the courtroom without saying anything, he would have still been mad over it anyway, and it still would have been bothering him the rest of the trial. I decided the easier way for him, even if nothing about the situation would be ideal, was to come forward, apologize for upsetting him, say that I hadn't known, and let him decide where to go from there. His choice." Thomas still remembered walking down that courtroom aisle, against the flow of exiting traffic, approaching the cold fury of Greg's glare waiting for him at the front of the room. He thought it was one of the hardest things he had ever done in his life.
"What did he say?" Robert asked.
"We had a private talk that night, the two of us plus Lisa. That was the first time I'd met her. I hadn't even known he was married, much less about the girls. I offered to simply leave town and not hear the rest of the trial, and he told me to stay and hear it but go into the overflow room where he wouldn't have to look at me while he was testifying. I gave him my contact information, but every step of contact since then has been set by him, all the way. I haven't been pushing my way in."
"Why didn't you know about Lisa if you'd followed his life so closely?" Robert challenged.
Thomas looked away toward Emily's picture on the wall, and the knife of grief twisted in the deep wound, a fresh stab clear to his core. "My wife was ill. She was diagnosed shortly before John's death; his funeral was the only time she ever actually saw Greg in person. Not that we talked to him that day. We were just part of the crowd. But I was so busy with her after that, trying treatments."
He had been trying anything, with growing desperation, the first time in his life that he had had an opportunity to fight against losing someone he loved. Always before, time after time, it had been a bolt from the blue, the verdict swift and final, nothing he could do but deal with it. With Emily, he had had a chance to change it. He still remembered every step of that battle and then of caring for her to the end once he'd had no choice but to admit the war was lost. It was the year-long retreat to Europe afterward where many memories and details became fuzzy for him. "I didn't realize anything had changed with Greg."
"How long were you married?" Susan asked.
"Forty-nine years." That impressed both of them, he could tell.
"Look," Robert said, "we're concerned about Greg here. He's made Lisa happy. He wasn't what we expected, but he's truly made Lisa happy. We've known him for a few years at this point."
"I met him the day he was born," Thomas countered, politely but not retreating from his position. "I stood at the window in the hospital outside the nursery and looked at him sleeping there. Oh, I still didn't know for sure, but right then, it didn't matter. At that moment, he was my son. And I tried to spot features he might share with my family, and I noticed all the ways that he was superior already to any other baby there, and I thought about his future and what it might hold. I stood there as long as I could, until I was afraid somebody would start to wonder if I was a father instead of a family friend. And then before I left, I wished him all the best in life." Thomas blinked back a few tears and took a moment to get a tighter grip on himself. "I made a mistake, and he paid for it. But it was never because I didn't care."