Foreman sucked in a breath. It shuddered in his throat more than it should, but he caught his breath and held it, forcing it out slow and smooth. He was in control. He wasn't going to lose it in the middle of a fucking restaurant. No point in getting emotional about it. The diagnosis was a medical fact; the symptoms were completely transparent. He was a neurologist, he knew exactly what the progression could look like, what his mom had already lost and what she was likely to lose. She'd been on warfarin since they'd found out about the TIAs, and his dad made sure she exercised at least a little every day, to keep her cardiovascular health as high as possible. There were therapies that were meant to slow any signs of degeneration, enrichment strategies, but they didn't make it so that his mom knew who he was when he saw her.

He stared sharply at Amber when she cut herself off. He hadn't told her for the sympathy. What the hell was he becoming in her eyes? Not himself. Not even a doctor with a bad track record of employment. Every tidbit he shared diluted how she saw him, it had to. He was the guy with the sick mom and the fucked up brother. God, he wouldn't be surprised if Amber saw them when she looked at him, instead of the man he tried to be. Too late. Too fucking late to take it back, like always. There must have been something different he could have said, but no, he'd been stung by Shanelle's wry, pointed observation that he didn't share and he'd wanted to prove that he could. And all he'd proved was how much it hurt when he did.

Unmoving, he let Amber slide closer to him, biting the inside of his cheek and scowling into his soup. Her arm around him and her cheek against his were warm, and he was used to relaxing against her. This time he didn't know if he could. Of course he missed her. And every other obvious cliché about having a dying family member. He held himself back from snapping out something like that. Not Amber's fault that he'd sprung this on her. He had only himself to blame for that. All he could do now was not answer. Amber had already said she knew he missed her. What else was there to say?

"I never told anyone," he muttered. Girlfriends, he meant, although the same was true of anyone else. House had his own ways of figuring it out, and Foreman suspected of using his name to get access to medical records after Foreman had been sick. Clare had left for her own life in San Francisco before his mom had started showing symptoms; even she hadn't known. Amber really was the first. Foreman snorted lightly as he realized it, and finally he sighed and let some of the tension go. His head felt heavy as he let it rest against hers. "I wanted you to know."