A/N: Here ends Process of Elimination. I hope you've enjoyed this story. This last chapter is one of my favorites in it. Next up is a family one-shot piece taking place on fic Saturday (which is three days hence in the fic week). After that will come Pain. It might be a few weeks until the one-shot, but it will come.

Thanks for reading.

(H/C)

House looked at his father blankly for a moment, his tired mind trying to deny what his eyes were telling it.

Thomas didn't belong here yet. He hadn't been invited into the world labeled work and shouldn't have decided to appear in it prematurely any more than Timothy Thornton's old wristwatch should have. The reinforced bulkheads between the tidy compartments of this new phase of life were breaking down.

The ball was still in House's hands, and he hurled it toward Thomas without thinking. A split second later, with it still in mid air, he realized how pointless that action was. He had witnessed first hand the old man's reaction time. Sure enough, Thomas caught the hard throw easily even though one hand was holding his sketchpad. He tossed the ball neatly back to his son with perfect aim and a lot less viciousness. "May I come in, Greg?" he repeated.

"What are you doing here?" House demanded.

"I came to give you a ride home."

Annoyance surged up, and House was glad of it. The adrenaline helped focus him. "Lisa. She sicked you on me and told you to come down here."

"No, she didn't. I had called her to see if she needed me for dinner tonight, and she mentioned that you were staying late to talk with your patient about 6:00 and would be home after that in time to see the girls. She did not ask me to come down here, and she wasn't even thinking it. In fact, she asked me to come to your house and keep her and the girls company while we were waiting for you. I could tell she was really worried about you, so I told her I was busy. That's all. I never mentioned my plans, and she didn't ask."

House gave him a skeptical look. "Yeah, right. You passed up an evening with the grandkids to come check on me?"

"Yes."

That was so straightforward that it jolted him. "She knew what you were going to do," he insisted.

"She probably did. But she did not ask me to. She was just venting." Thomas looked around the empty office. "If it makes any difference to you, she also mentioned - again, venting - that you had sent your entire team home early but wouldn't leave yourself, so I knew I wouldn't run into them."

"Would you have come anyway?" House challenged.

Thomas gave him a smile, scoring the point. "Yes. I would have tried to be discreet, but I would have come to check anyway, once I heard her."

House shook his head. "We've talked about this before. Lisa is a worrier who blows things out of proportion, and I am perfectly fine to drive home. So get lost." Abruptly, his own words from the conversation with the Cuddys replayed in his mind. He'd leave if I asked him to. He amended his statement before he took time even to think about it. "Go home, old man. Or go to mine, which is where she asked you to be. I'll meet you all there."

Thomas was still standing in the doorway, but his smile faded. He looked perfectly serious now. "Greg, I've been at the hospital for over an hour, and since arriving, I've been within ten feet of you several different times. You were too tired to notice."

"No, I was thinking," House countered. The old man must have walked by in the hall behind him a few times when he was facing the balcony. "I get lost thinking about things. Ask anybody in the hospital. Besides, you were deliberately trying not to be noticed, which isn't fair. You were a professional at that."

"Yes, I was," Thomas replied. "And I was also trying to hide the fact that I'd hurt my foot back in Lexington, and you spotted that in two seconds. You're a professional at noticing things yourself, Greg. The two of us head to head is a fair contest."

"You must have been behind me," House said. "Some fair contest. I was looking out onto the balcony."

"A few times, yes. But when your cell phone went off at 6:00, I used the stairs full speed to get to the ICU floor, and I was sitting in that little waiting alcove just outside the door to the unit when you got off the elevator. I had picked up a magazine, but I was hardly hiding behind it. You walked right past me, facing me, Greg. Almost fifteen minutes later, you came back out and walked straight by me again, and then you met your patient's family, and the three of you had a conversation just a little farther along the hall. You were close enough that I heard every word. For instance, I know now that your patient's name is Lawrence."

House stared at him, then replayed that walk. He didn't even remember the waiting alcove, full or empty. He had walked straight past his father? Even if Thomas had had a magazine, to go within that few feet of him and not notice was inexcusable. He couldn't be that tired, could he? The exhaustion pressed back in as the adrenaline of annoyance trickled out, and his shoulders slumped.

For the first time, he lost the defensive, closed posture, and after a moment, Thomas left the doorway and walked into the office. "I know Lisa is a worrier, Greg. I thought talking to her that she had a good point, given how tired you looked last night and another chopped-up night and stressful day on top of it. But I did give you the chance to prove that she was overreacting."

The old man took an interested turn of the office, studying the knickknacks, the Eames chair, and finally coming to a halt on the other side of the desk, his free hand resting on the back of a visitor chair. He did not sit down. "Come on, Greg. Let's go home."

The sketch pad was readily apparent against the back of the chair, nearly directly in front of House's eyes, and he looked at it curiously. Thomas picked it up and flipped it open. "I drew that caricature of your in-laws, the moment when they met me."

House couldn't resist reaching out. Thomas had drawn the Cuddys with wickedly accurate exaggeration. The shocked and disapproving faces were priceless, and furthermore, Thomas had drawn them in formal, banquet-level formal, attire. House laughed. "They were not dressed like that," he said. Not Friday night, at least. Even their version of relaxing clothes beat that. "I'll admit they usually act like they are."

Again, the mental thread of something more there tugged at him, and he tried to follow it briefly. "We talked to them today, and they were different. Still pissed off, but different. How they thought of you, I mean. And last night, something odd there once you arrived." He tried to track it out and read feedback, but he felt like his mind was in slow motion.

"You are a professional, Greg. Even when you're dead tired." Thomas shuddered a little suddenly, as if a cold wind had blown through the office. "I might have had a private conversation with them myself yesterday, but Lisa doesn't need to know."

House grinned. He still remembered the old man laying into the defense attorney. "Different tactics than with Stephenson, I assume."

"Yes. I just told them the truth. A little more background information, though focusing on me, not on you. They do mean well, Greg. To the best of their ability, they love Lisa. You, too."

"Didn't happen to record it, did you?" House asked.

"No. Don't tell Lisa."

"She'd just worry about it," House agreed. He looked at the door. "You've really been here that long?"

"Yes."

"But you waited. Once you decided that I didn't notice you, so I failed your test, why not just walk in and suggest going home earlier?"

"Whatever you wanted to stay late for to discuss with your patient, Greg, it was obviously worth running yourself into the ground to you. I have no reason to question that. You have all the information there, and I don't. I just didn't want you driving home, but I wasn't trying to stop you from anything you needed to do."

House drummed his fingers on the desk, thinking. He was exhausted, but this was annoying, too. He hated the thought that he'd been undergoing a test the last full hour and hadn't even been warned of the fact. He wasn't used to feeling like the puppet on the string. "Bet you enjoyed that," he said, the ire reawakening. "Sneaking around, staying on the edges, and watching me miss it."

The open anger in Thomas' reply drew House up with a jerk. The old man was usually so patient with him, just accepting pokes as they came. "Damn it, Greg, do you think this is a game? Just an extended chess match?" Thomas shook his head. "This is not a game to me. None of it, not you, not Lisa, not the girls. As for tonight, do you have any idea what it's like to get a call that someone you love has just been killed in an accident?"

House was staring at him. He'd rarely seen the old man this worked up, just little flashes of emotion now and then, but not like this. "Well, I do," Thomas continued. "If there's ever been an expert in hearing that people you love have died, I'm it. First, there's the shock. Then the slow realization, the whole world shattering. Realizing that you truly won't see them again. Nothing will bring them back, nothing. They were right there in your life, just earlier that day even, everything as usual, and then it was gone. Forever. And you never even had any kind of warning, no chance to say goodbye. It's over."

Thomas took a moment to steady his voice. "It's bad enough to get through when there's nothing you can blame yourself for. I had no role with the plane, or with the car crash that killed Tim. I can't imagine how I'd cope if I really might have been able to change it. For instance, if I thought that Tim was worn out and might be unsafe to drive that night, and I'd let him go anyway. That didn't happen then. It was just an accident. But it damn sure isn't going to happen tonight. It's never going to happen again when I have a fair shot in advance at stopping it. And Lisa. Think of Lisa. Can you imagine how she'd feel getting that call? She has a guilt complex anyway. If anything happened, she'd never forgive herself for leaving the hospital tonight and letting you stay behind when she knew how tired you were."

Thomas finally ran down. He was breathing rather heavily. After a moment, House shook his head. "Old man, if you ever had gone to college, you should have majored in drama. All right, since you're going to make a federal case out of it. You can give me a ride home. Happy now?"

Thomas let out a shuddering sigh. "Thank you, Greg." He was obviously trying to get a grip on his emotions again. "Besides, you haven't had a chance yet to ride in my car. You'll like it."

That's right, he hadn't. LIfe had been too busy with other things so far. "Bet you won't let me drive."

"Not tonight. Some other time, okay, but you're responsible for all speeding tickets. By the way, I wanted you to be the first to know. I got a call from St. Louis right before I called Lisa. From my realtor. There's a buyer for the house, at asking price, even."

House tried to sift any regret out of the old man's tone. He couldn't find it. "Can't go back now," he reminded him, pushing a little for a reaction. "Well, you could, but it would be a lot more expensive."

"I don't want to go back," Thomas told him. "Like I said, Greg, this whole thing isn't a game. I'm here now. I do wish I could have brought one piece of the past with me, but I don't regret moving."

"Your one piece of the past might have had a few things to say about that herself. She probably wouldn't be thrilled about uprooting everything."

"No, she'd love this. Getting to know you and Lisa and the girls. She was very interested in you, Greg. We were both proud of all you'd accomplished, even when we didn't know half of it."

"Proud of me? Why would she be proud of some random kid?"

Thomas sighed. "You aren't some random kid, Greg. Emily would have loved moving up here to be near your family." His tone was wistful.

House was bewildered, a state that he hated but one which Thomas was quite talented at tossing him headlong into. Even Emily had been proud of him? He still struggled with grasping the whole idea that the old man himself had, that there had always been love there, even through the mistakes and the distance. Looking at him now, all at once, he was reminded of Kutner's words. I forgave him.

He had no idea how forgiveness might work, even if he decided he wanted to. He didn't even know how to start. Maybe Jensen had the answer. He might ask him at some point.

He was still sitting in the desk chair, and Thomas straightened up on the other side and walked around the desk to face him. "Come on," he invited.

House turned the chair to reach into the floor. His backpack wasn't there. He looked around, trying to remember where it had last been seen in this eternal day. "Lose something?" Thomas asked.

"My backpack." He heaved himself with an effort to his feet, hoping the added elevation would bring it to light.

Thomas was conducting his own survey. "Is that it in the other room?" he asked.

House turned and looked into the conference room. Over near the coffee. "Yeah."

Thomas started off before House had even taken the first step, his long, uncrippled strides making short work of the errand. He picked up the backpack, turned off the coffee pot, started to exit, and froze in mid pivot, his whole body coming to alert attention.

House limped through the door quickly, forgetting about his offended leg. "What's wrong?"

Thomas was staring at the whiteboard, the name written across the top. "Kutner? Your employee, Dr. Kutner? His first name was Lawrence, come to think of it. He was your patient? No wonder this case meant so much to you."

"How the hell do you know Kutner?" House asked. "You've never even met him."

"Actually, I have, Greg. Once. Very briefly."

House had arrived by the whiteboard by this time, and they were face to face. "When?"

"Back last summer, during the trial. I came over here on Saturday, just to walk through your world a little bit."

The hackles rose. "That's trespassing."

"It's public property, Greg. I just wanted to be close to something that was close to you. I didn't enter your office. Just found it and looked at the name for a minute."

"And looked through the glass to soak up all you could that way," House filled in.

Thomas admitted it. "Yes. But I did not come in, Greg. Just watched from the outside. As I turned away and started to leave, Dr. Kutner exited the elevator. He thought I was a sightseer or a family member of a patient. I never gave him my name, definitely didn't say who I was to you, but since he'd obviously met several sightseers so far during the trial already, I picked up that role and asked him what it was like working here. All the information exchange was one way. He only gave me general bits, that you were a great doctor. It was apparent that he thought the world of you."

House was trying to kick his brain back into gear, sorting out this new data. His leg's protests finally soaked through, and he pulled out a chair and sat down. Thomas sat down at the next one. "What is it, Greg?"

Memories flashed across his senses. Kutner's odd expression at points during that conversation tonight. Kutner saying that he had enough to deal with. Not wanting to bother him.

"He knows who you are," he said softly. "All of it. At least enough of it."

"He had no idea." Thomas was firm. "That day, at least. I'm a professional, like we said, and I'd swear he didn't have any kind of bells going off during that conversation. It was only a few minutes, and we never met since."

"He knows," House insisted. "Somehow, he worked it out."

Thomas took his word and started thrashing on the problem himself, and to House's annoyance, he reached what had to be the answer first. "The explosion at the track. I'll bet he saw my picture in the media somewhere and remembered me. Knowing I'd been here at your office, he wouldn't have believed it was just a coincidence that we were together that day. Think about it for a while, and he could have concluded that I'm your father."

House nodded slowly. "However he worked it out, he did." And that was another and possibly the largest reason the kid hadn't wanted to "bother" him a month ago when he had had to go to India. He didn't want to bring up his own past parental trauma when he thought House was right in the middle of taking significant steps on processing his own. "He never said anything. Didn't even ask me questions about it. That explosion was two months ago."

"Greg." Thomas' voice was gentle but contained perhaps the slightest hint of exasperation beneath it. "What do you think people are going to do? The people who really care are going to be happy for you. There will be a few assholes, too, but you can deal with them. What you're worrying about is the people close to you, and they're the ones who will require the least explanation. It won't be an inquisition."

"Tell that to my in-laws."

Thomas chuckled. "Okay, a few of them will be so overwhelmed that they are awkward handling it. But really, I think even that one would have gone a lot better if they hadn't found out on their own."

"Kutner found out on his own."

"And he clearly has enough respect for you to wait. He's giving you all the time you need, Greg. If he hasn't brought it up by now, it's totally in your hands."

"He nearly died," House mused. He looked up at that whiteboard.

"Because I'm your father? How does that tie into malaria, which he apparently got in India?" Thomas was reading the board himself, going on past the name at the top.

"It's . . . complicated. It might not have mattered. But maybe . . ." There were too many lines on this mental flow chart for him to fully follow at the moment. Maybe Kutner still wouldn't have wanted to "bother" him even if the father was out of the bag. Bottom line, going to India without adequate preparation and thought remained Kutner's decision and Kutner's error. But House knew that the differential that his fellow had run on his own a month ago would have been changed, no matter if the final decision was or not. It might have made a difference.

What was he waiting for? He looked at his grandfather's watch.

Thomas followed his look. "Take Lewis, for instance. My best friend. I've known him over twenty years, and he didn't even know you existed. You know what his reaction to everything was that night when I finally told him all of it? He was glad for me. I'm the one who deserves questions, Greg, not you, but from the person closest to me, even I didn't get them. He was just happy. He would like to meet you at some point, I'm sure, but he's not pushing on the timetable there."

House sighed again. He was too tired for this much thought this late tonight. Not that it was really late. He was just worn out. The old man - and Cuddy - were right. He wasn't fit to drive home. Still needed to see his girls tonight, at least for a few minutes.

The idea landed on him full blown. A lab test, an unspoken apology, a reward, a revelation. Call it whatever you would, he knew that Kutner deserved to be the first one to know officially at work. And it wasn't like he could even pretend to keep things under wraps much longer. The Cuddys had proven that this last week.

He pulled out his cell phone. "Quick text to Lisa," he said, "and then we'll make one stop just for a few minutes on our way out of the hospital. Then we'll go home." He didn't want to call her, as the girls would have to get in on the call and delay homecoming even more, but she would be getting worried by now. More worried than she already had been. He put on his reading glasses and typed in the test. We're leaving in a few more minutes. Don't let girls go to bed yet. Home soon. He hoped that we would soak in thoroughly and reassure her.

The reply came in under a minute. Thank you, Greg. Girls wide awake waiting.

House put away his phone and the reading glasses and then stood. "You can pay off your new house after closing," he commented. At least this move wouldn't cost the old man financially as it was in other areas.

Thomas smiled. "I can also pay off the kitten, which is just about more."

"You got yourself into that one," House reminded him. "Can't complain about the bills on him when you authorized them. I looked at the x-rays, by the way. At least the vet wasn't an idiot."

Together, they left the office. Down on the ICU floor, nobody questioned them, though a nurse gave Thomas a curious look as they entered the unit. House's presence was enough of a guest pass.

Kutner was sound asleep. His parents looked up as the two men entered the room. "Dr. House?" Julia stood and looked at Thomas curiously. "I thought you were going home."

"I was. I am. Just want him to meet someone first." She looked at her son with concern. "This will only take a minute, and I think he'll want to." House glanced from her to Richard, but he knew he didn't have a chance of getting them out of the room again right now. To hell with it. He limped up to the bed and put a hand on Kutner's arm, shaking gently. "Kutner. Wake up."

Kutner's eyes opened slowly. He looked even more exhausted than House felt. He focused slowly on House, then beside him. A quick flicker of expression, hidden in the next moment, but House caught it. Kutner did know, but he wasn't going to say so. Maybe later in private if asked, but not in front of his parents. Behind the recognition, there was just gladness. No questions, no demands. Thomas was right.

"Kutner," House said. "I'd like you to meet somebody. This is my father."