A/N: Sorry for the very long delay. Life has a lot going on right now, and Mom is going through an extremely difficult patch at the moment with her delusions. The facility and I have been adjusting some things to try to keep her manageable, but it's a challenge. When I'm not dealing with her and work, I have to always keep putting in regular time on the mowing this time of year, as my grass could star in a Hitchcock movie. Fic unfortunately must take a back seat to real life.

Down to fiction, however, here is an update. Written down quickly, so forgive any trips. Also, I have a new idea for a story. Not in the series this time, just a separate one or at most two-chapter bite. Will see how and where it decides to be born. As for the series, we have a friendly, fluffy, light one-shot following Process, then the next long one, Pain, after that, which has difficulties for our characters again. I have little glimmerings of ideas beyond that, but they haven't coalesced yet, and I can't make them. Will just have to wait and see what happens.

It is now Tuesday afternoon, fic time. The story ends Wednesday night, but there are several chapters left.

(H/C)

House slipped Kutner's key into the lock. It turned smoothly, and the apartment door opened. He entered as quickly as he could, wanting to get the door shut before anybody else happened to come into the hall and spot him. This time, he was here alone, and he didn't want to talk to anyone at the moment, not even for a brief explanation.

The conversation with Kutner's parents had gone pretty well according to his imagined mental script. In other words, it had been awful. They wanted to know if their son would be all right, and they wanted a timetable, and the answer to all of that at the moment was a gigantic medical question mark. The disease had clearly progressed to encephalopathy. The treatment would help, and he did seem to be stabilizing. He might wake up in several hours or more likely tomorrow and be fine. Or he might have gaping mental holes you could drive a truck through. Or he might have physical CNS problems, the connection between the brain and the body impacted. Or any combination of the above, which might be temporary or permanent.

Hollingwood had helped some, adding a bit of sympathy to House's facts but at least not too much to negate them. Templeton had even tried. Ramirez again had hung back slightly. She definitely did not like talking to families in emotionally charged medical conversation. That was something she was going to have to get over as a doctor. House wondered again what past event parent issues reminded her of. The kid was talented as a doctor even if raw, and he liked the way her mind seemed to work, but she had to overcome her tendency to drive while looking in the rearview mirror now and then.

Then, with the family conference over, Foreman's "vacation" announced, and the egglings sent to research malaria all afternoon in hopes of anything new in treatment methods, House had checked Kutner over quickly himself again and then retreated to a corner of the lab. He insulted both of the techs working nearest him until they walked off, giving him the privacy he had wanted.

Kutner's test tube contained exactly what it appeared to: Dirt. House had tested it for several chemicals or reactions, all negative, and he had looked at a few different slides. The only thing that struck him was that this contained extremely regular, rounded particles. It wasn't beach sand, but he thought that it had been well washed by water over a minimum of months, if not years. A soil specimen from a river bed.

Kutner's parents had been cremated and their ashes dumped into a California river. Kutner had been only six then. Had he revisited the river last week, as Thornton had suggested? House pictured him standing there looking at the water, then kneeling in the shallows and using either a stick or his pocket knife to collect a sample of the river bed. It was the closest he would ever be able to come to having a small portion of their ashes. He would have let it dry thoroughly in the hotel room for better long-term preservation (having your sentimental memorial of your murdered parents slowly mold or turn to bacterial goo was not quite the psychological statement House thought he had been trying for), and then he had filled this test tube. House had been very careful to use the minimum he had to for sampling, and at the end, he packed all that was left back into the test tube and carefully restoppered it. The tube was still almost full.

House walked across to the DVD shelves and withdrew It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World once more. He opened the case and returned the test tube. Now to find that fire safe.

He limped slowly around Kutner's apartment, soaking up the atmosphere and details, checking those against his earlier thoughts. He stopped once again at the double picture frame containing Kutner with both his birth parents and his adoptive parents. For a long moment, he stood there studying it. Finally, he turned away.

They had searched in all the blatantly obvious places this morning, though House had let Templeton skimp a little at the end. He'd been timing the potential fellow on how long it took him to think of malaria once the passport was found, and with that answer in hand, he was ready to let them cut the search short and head back to PPTH. He also wanted to preserve Kutner's privacy, at least until it was relevant to expose the contents of the safe. He'd already lost so much privacy by his illness. Everybody now knew about his parents.

Of course, everybody had known about his parents anyway. The bare fact, at least. Kutner had never shied from talking about them. So why the hell had he lied to everybody, including his adoptive parents, for the last month at minimum about his plans? Why couldn't he have talked to House?

With a sigh, House went into the bedroom. Templeton had looked under the bed already this morning. House's primary guess was in the closet, though hidden somehow. Templeton had looked in there this morning, too. House now opened the closet door again. It was a pleasantly sloppy closet, clothes (both hung and on the floor) mingling with sci fi relics, an old Nintendo game set, and various other things that reminded House so strongly of Kutner that the thought hurt. If the kid did have long-term cognitive deficits, he might never be this same combination of childhood wonder and medical acuity that he had been.

House pushed the thought firmly away. Bracing himself on the door frame, he used his cane to stir the contents, clearing the floor in pieces and tapping on it. He then tapped up the side walls and across the back. His first thunk on the back wall yielded a definitely changed tone, more hollow. He pushed things out of the way, slowly inserting himself and looking at the edges. There was a full length false back wall of plywood here. Kutner had painted it to match. Nobody at first or even third glance would have ever seen it. House could picture his grin as he spent a few hours on this project, enjoying every minute of it.

Now, then, where was the door? House went back into the living room to retrieve a flashlight he'd spotted from the desk. The bedroom light wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good for detail work in the closet. He finally spotted the cracks, a separate piece in the back wall way at the bottom. Of course. House tried to bend over to it, but the tight quarters were limiting him, and his leg didn't like this. Resigned, he hauled out what hadn't already exited and then lowered himself to the floor inside the closet. No hinges, no latch. There was a very small notch in the closet floor. House inserted a finger under that piece of the false panel and pulled, and slowly, the piece came away.

Here was the small Sentry firesafe, about 12 inches by 8 by 6 deep. It was sitting up on end, taking up as little space as possible. House pulled it out, then shone the flashlight around the rest of this hidden area. He had to back out and reinsert himself full length prone to be able to see clearly all the way up. Nothing. The safe was it.

He wiggled gingerly back out enough to sit up again. His leg snarled at him, and he snarled back in reply. He might go for the Flexeril Cuddy had brought him this morning in a minute, but first things first. He wanted to know what was in the safe.

It opened easily to the key. The inside was even smaller than the outside due to the thickness of the fireproof walls. On top was a disk labeled Pictures. Below that were a few actual print pictures, little notes, another birthday card. A ring, clearly his mother's. House turned it, studying the stone under the flashlight, and wondered when - or if - Kutner would ever meet someone he wanted to give it to. There was also a watch, a man's watch. His father's watch. Kutner himself loved watches with gadgets and functions, but this one, this was private. House felt a wave of empathy so strong that it was almost painful. He looked at his own watch, which right now was the one that Kutner had given him for Christmas, and he thought of his grandfather's watch in the nightstand drawer at home.

Something tickled at the back of his mind, and he sat quietly, letting the idea form. Thoughts could be encouraged but not pushed too hard. What case fact about this routine box of mementos was trying to speak to him?

The one that was out of place. That last birthday card for his sixth birthday, out in the case of Mad World instead of here where it rightfully belonged, where it no doubt had been until recently. In fact, if the test tube was what House thought it was, it ought to have been here, too. He could see keeping the passport in the DVD case, but the others had been stored there temporarily. Kutner had already been starting to feel ill when he got home from his trip last week, whether to rivers in California or wherever. He had taken that last card with him on the trip, and he had tucked it and the dirt sample into the DVD case for the moment when he got home, not feeling like getting on the floor of the closet and opening this secret panel to get to the safe. He had taken some routine OTC meds against what he thought was a bug, and then he had gone to bed.

House shivered, once more thinking of what that weekend of delirium might have been like with the murder of his parents fresh in Kutner's mind. In the next moment, his breath caught sharply as his already offended leg seized the opportunity. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he worked frantically on the half muscle with both hands, slowly coaxing out the spasm. He was sweating before he had it. He fished out his pill bottles, thanking Cuddy silently for the Flexeril, and gulped down a dose, then leaned back against the false wall of the closet, utterly spent.

His cell phone rang, Cuddy's ring tone. House carefully collected himself and answered cheerfully. "Hello, Lisa. So you can fit a quickie into your afternoon schedule after all?" His hand without the phone returned to massaging his leg lightly, pleading with it. Not now.

"Very funny. Where are you, Greg? I just went up to Diagnostics."

"Wrong guess."

"I noticed that."

He gave up. He cut her a lot more slack on keeping track of him these days. Should have thought of sending her a quick text with some excuse before he left just in case she tried to find him. She had had a pretty full afternoon schedule, though. He thought he was clear. "I wanted one last look around Kutner's apartment, just to make sure we didn't miss anything." This safe was his and Kutner's secret. He'd give the kid that much privacy.

Her tone softened up. "How did the talk with his parents go?"

He tensed a little, and his leg objected. He gave it an apologetic pat and resumed his soft massage. "About like I expected," he admitted. "Did you want something? I mean, if passionate sex on your desk in the middle of the workday is out, did you have a reason for going to Diagnostics? Or did you just want to see me?" He was still amazed that she did just want to see him, that she enjoyed his company, even more that she worried about potentially losing it to some random act of life.

"Both," she admitted. "There was a reason, but yes, I wanted to see you. I'd just had a hell of a meeting myself, and I wanted to remind myself of better things. You're a wonderful distraction."

He grinned. "If you are interested in passionate sex on the desk, I can come back."

"Not that much of a distraction, Greg. Now tonight, after the girls are asleep. . . only not on the desk." She paused, and the silence lengthened for a moment. "Aren't you going to ask what my other reason was for hunting you down? Are you all right?"

"Fine." He rubbed his leg. "What was your other reason?"

"I wanted to tell you that I invited Thomas to dinner tonight."

"Going to worry over him tonight now that you know? His parents died decades ago, Lisa. He's over it."

"You know better. Anyway, he'll be a nice buffer with my parents."

His tiredness pushed back in at the thought of her parents. Oddly, the thought of the old man's company hadn't made him feel as wrung out. "Guess they'll have to be there, too. What are we going to do about them, Lisa? They can't stay in town indefinitely."

"We'll talk about it later, but not tonight. Tonight, let's just have a family evening, or try to. Thomas will help out, and it will be a good distraction for him. Are you sure you're okay, Greg? You sound tired."

"I . . . am," he admitted softly. "I'm about done at Kutner's apartment. Maybe I'll just send the egglings a text and go on home from here."

"Good idea. The girls will be glad to see you. I've got one more conference, and then I'll leave myself." Looking at his watch, he was surprised to discover that it was almost 4:00. "I've got to go and get ready for this meeting, Greg. See you at home. I love you."

"Love you, too." He hung up and sat there in the closet thinking for a few minutes. So the old man was coming tonight. He was afraid to admit that he was actually looking forward to it. He wanted to see him himself and take a reading on their relationship after his screw up this morning, to see if there was really wasn't anything changed, any new grudge being held.

He wondered what Thornton had done today. He'd said he would take a ride and spend time with his kitten, but there probably had been some sort of memorial pause or ritual along the way, too.

House started repacking Kutner's fire safe. Thinking of the crippled kitten, he wondered again if this was some kind of do-over in Thornton's eyes, a live example to try to demonstrate to his son the twin points that he could have rescued him if he'd known and that legs didn't matter. He sorted through that, testing the psychological fit, but in the end, he still wasn't satisfied with the conclusion. If Jet was an intentional set-up, then the old man would have to have either hurt him himself or at least been a conspirator in it, and somehow, House couldn't see him doing that.

House closed the safe and locked it, then tucked it back into the wall. He replaced the piece of panel, admiring again how tightly and well it fitted. Now, he had to get up. He shifted over to use the door frame for leverage and heaved himself up. His leg grumbled but held. Very gingerly, House pushed the floor contents back into the closet with his cane. In the end, he was satisfied with the appearance. Kutner might notice differences, but nobody else would if anybody else happened along.

He limped into the living room, replaced the safe key in Mad World alongside the test tube and the old birthday card, and then pulled out his cell phone. He sent a text to each of the egglings: Leaving for the day. Tomorrow morning, FDR again, unless anybody finds something more interesting. H.

Then, tired but upright and still functioning, he left the apartment and went home.