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Happy Diversions
by Aurelia Priscus
So this was Christmas Eve at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. It had been a long time coming; if the festive (and admittedly tacky) decorations adorning the Clinic and--to be fair--most of the hospital were any indication, it had been Christmas Eve for little under a month. House had been surprisingly good-natured about the entire thing--well, in his way, anyway. He never did deliver on that threat to torch anything festive and/or cheerful that came within fifty yards of his office door (which was probably just as well, because strict adherence to that promise would have had him do in roughly three-quarters of the staff), but little investigation had been necessary to determine the culprit when the majestic singing Santa Claus that had been such a--distinguished--feature in the Clinic waiting room disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Dr. Lisa Cuddy, who (so far as Dr. Wilson had been able to discern) had bought the regrettable item in the first place, had walked into House's office to find its decapitated head impaled on a message spike. From what he'd heard, she hadn't seen the humor in it.
"You know what her problem is?" House had commented later (after some of the shouting had subsided). "She doesn't have any fun."
Wilson was not entirely sure that was the reason she had been upset, but in all honesty he was not about to argue the point. The destruction of another person's personal property was inherently wrong. Given that, the thing was... annoying. Wilson had never considered himself a violent man. There were moments, as there are in the life of any normal, well-adjusted person, that he wanted nothing more than to punch his fist through a wall and scream, but for the most part he liked people the way they were--that is, alive and (usually) unbloodied. After all, avoiding physical altercations on general principle was easier on his clothes. Even then, he doubted he could have lasted another week in that thing's presence had House not so imaginatively dealt with the problem, and if the grumblings from Chase had been any indication he hadn't been alone.
It probably wasn't surprising that the break room adjacent to House's office had been declared a "Christmas-free zone." Sure, there were poinsettias here and there and someone had left a bowl of candy canes in the middle of the table, but otherwise it was little less than a sanctuary. Wilson had learned to appreciate the Christmas season (in fact, he'd brought cupcakes for the impromptu Christmas party that had been held earlier that afternoon), but the peace was nice. He seemed to be spending more and more time there, any way.
Wilson leaned back in his chair and tried in vain to focus on his book. There was some damage that could not be undone.
"Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say on a bright Hawaiian Christmas day..."
He stopped, his attention caught by a familiar shadow in the corner of his eye. Dr. House was standing shakily in the doorway, and he was carrying coffee. His expression was inexplicable, as usual. "Were you singing?"
"Sue me, there are only so many songs about dreidels that I know," Wilson replied wryly. Seeing that House was struggling--two cups rather than one can complicate the use of a cane--Wilson automatically rose to his feet and, setting his book aside, moved to relieve him of his burden. "I swear it's infectious," he continued. "You're the infectious disease guy, you think of something."
"Unfortunately, the cure for the common Christmas carol continues to elude me. I've recommended having all the carriers put down, but there's been some resistance to the idea. Can't imagine why."
"You know, I have no idea." Wilson set the coffees next to the cupcakes on the table and returned to his seat. The book remained conspicuously closed on the table. House was generally more interesting than reading. "Thanks, that was uncommonly nice of you. Woman at the cafeteria paying you to go away again?"
"Oh ye of little faith."
"You know, coming from you that's actually kind of funny."
"I try. Who said it was for you, anyway?" House sat beside him and grabbed the nearest of the two steaming beverages. Cracking open the lid, he surveyed its contents and, apparently satisfied, raised the drink to his lips. Catching Wilson's pointed expression, he paused. "I've had an epiphany," he explained.
"Oh?" Wilson didn't bother to mask the skepticism in his voice. "Nuns rubbing off on you, are they?"
"You could say that. Somewhere in between the charting and the dying nuns, I realized that, hey, life is short. It bothered me that there were addictions I wasn't actively pursuing. Wait--does the dispensary still stock heroine?"
Wilson laughed. "Well, it's good to see you're expanding your horizons. I'm sure Cuddy will be pleased."
"You know, for some reason I doubt that," House replied, scratching at the corner of his mouth with a long, thin finger. "Fine, if you're going to be unnecessarily annoying you can have--" He hopped the lid of the other coffee. "--This one. Yuppie mochaccino crap, lifeblood of champions. I had them put sprinkles on it and everything."
He accepted the coffee gratefully. "You're sweet," Wilson grinned. "A bastard, yes, but sweet."
"Yummy," House replied.
That wasn't quite the response that Wilson had expected. He looked up in time to see House brushing the crumbs from his whiskers. There was a conspicuous cupcake-shaped hole in the remaining pile, and he was eyeing the survivors greedily. "Help yourself," Wilson offered half-heartedly as House began to root through the remaining cupcakes in search of larger samples--presumably for later consumption. "You're just in this thing for the food, aren't you?"
"And the presents--" House looked at him. "You mean you're just working this out now?"
"So sorry," Wilson said, leaning back in his chair. "For a minute there I thought this holiday had some sort of religious significance."
"Except that I don't care." House paused thoughtfully. "Is that wrong?"
"Probably. One of the benefits of not caring is that it doesn't matter."
House smirked. It was good to see the man at least comparatively at ease. "Serves you right for coveting my God-given holiday, anyway," he said, taking another bite. "I don't think the good Saint Cameron does Bar Mitzvahs."
Wilson cleared his throat. "I brought those, actually," he responded to House's increasingly inquisitive stare by shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "Think of them as a goodwill offering for murdering your messiah."
"You baked?" House exclaimed, perhaps with more expressed surprise than he probably would have liked. Cupcake went everywhere. "When did you get to be such a girl?"
"Oh come on," Wilson protested. "It isn't so freakishly unusual." He brushed a couple of unintended projectiles from his otherwise white lab coat with the back of his hand. "Lots of men bake."
House was already on his feet and hobbling determinedly towards the door. He was in the midst of slipping a familiar container of pills from his jacket pocket when Wilson started after him. "And where do you think you're going?" he asked, falling into a familiar pace beside him.
House swallowed the little white pills dry and turned into the hallway. "A fact-finding mission," he said. "You didn't expect a statement like that to go unchallenged, did you? You should know me better than that." He turned the corner again and Wilson quickly recognized the terrain as the well-worn path to the cafeteria.
He shrugged. "I suppose just taking my word for it would be out of the question."
"You know the answer to that one."
Wilson narrowed his eyes. Well, that went without saying. "Everybody lies."
"Correct," he said, conspicuously breezing past Dr. Cameron as she attempted to catch his attention. The other members of the hospital staff appeared too jaded to notice much less care. "I should really start carrying around gold stars. Is it my fault that nobody else deserves them?"
Wilson looked helplessly at her as they past. House had a mission now, and it would take more than a limp, a pretty face and yuletide pleasantries to slow him down. It was these little diversions that kept him sane, or so he said, anyway. "Other than yourself, you mean? Yes, now that you mention it, it is."
It didn't matter, they were already there. Late in the day on Christmas Eve, most of the staff had already gone home. Dr. Foreman and Dr. Chase remained seated at one of the tables, and seemed lost in an animated conversation about religion over coffee and sandwiches. Laughing amongst themselves, the two looked relaxed and comparatively happy for possibly the first time in days. True to form, House paid this no heed. "Do either of you bake?" he interjected, breaking into the middle of their conversation.
"What?!" Foreman asked, irritated by the interruption but too surprised by the line of questioning to do anything concrete about it. Chase just stared.
House rolled his eyes. "Bake. B-A-K-E. Frilly aprons, rolling pins, the whole nine yards."
Foreman laughed. "Wha--No, what kind of a question is that?" The tone in his voice suggested genuine disbelief, and that seemed enough to satisfy House to the point that he turned his probing, inquisitive gaze elsewhere.
Chase shifted guiltily in his seat.
"Well?" House said. "Have something to share with the group?"
The Australian stared at him. Of all the revelations that had come out of this case, this he hadn't expected to be one of them. "Not that it's any of your business, but... I do, sometimes."
"Don't be stupid," House responded dismissively. "You're rich. You hire people to bake for you."
"No, seriously--I do. I mean, not all the time but..." Chase looked helplessly at Wilson, but there was little he could do other than clear his throat meaningfully and glance conspicuously at his watch. He sighed. "If everybody lies and everybody screws up, you might as well make your own banana bread, that's all I'm saying."
"If you want a representative sample," Wilson interrupted, "you'll have to be fast. Everyone else is going home."
Something of a dark cloud settled over the man's features. Under more usual circumstances, there was no place that House would rather be (the fewer people, the better tended to be an accurate rule of thumb in determining his happiness). Wilson suspected, however, that prolonged exposure to traditional holiday programming was beginning to dull the usual pleasure of it. It wasn't as though General Hospital had been released on DVD. House glanced back at Chase and Foreman as both men were now staring at him. "Why are you still here? " He barked. "Go home."
The two doctors--thankfully already finished their coffee--looked at each other in mild exasperation. Wilson watched in mild amusement as, resuming their conversation (though now punctuated with the occasional sharp look in House's direction), the two men cleared their plates and reluctantly left the table. House claimed one of the vacant seats with an air of triumph. "You know," he said. "I didn't think they'd actually leave."
Wilson joined him at the table. "You can be surprisingly persuasive," he shrugged. A quiet silence followed as the remaining people began to trickle out of the cafeteria. One of them muttered "Merry Christmas" in their direction and effectively fled.
After a few minutes, House relented. "You know you're allowed to leave, right?" He raised an eyebrow in his friend's direction, but he stayed put.
"It isn't as though I have anything more enlightening to do." He paused. "Want to go to your place and play Risk?"
House scratched at his chin with his cane. "I'd just reduce you to tears again."
Wilson laughed. "I don't doubt that."
"You seem to have a certain affinity for pain." The sparkle in his eyes was back. He evidently found this entertaining.
Wilson sighed. "Certainly seems that way, huh?"
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of Fox Television, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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