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Fading Light & Watching the Light Fade
by gena
Fading Light
Ironically he saw the truth in House's eyes before he heard the words. "You're going blind." He shook his head, not in denial - House was never wrong - but because he could think of nothing else to do. House would not offer false platitudes; there would be no crying or wringing of hands, no sugar coating or pep talks about all the things he could still do. It was the truth and it had to be faced.
"How long?"
House shifted, looking at the file again. "Couple of months, maybe half a year." Wilson sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes in a gesture that had become increasingly frequent. They burned, and he would have liked to drawn the blinds against the summer sun but somehow he felt that would be like giving up. He'd known for a while what was happening, it ran in his family after all, but the headaches and the blurred vision could have been caused by working too hard. It wasn't until House caught him reading with his nose barely an inch from the print that he had admitted there was a problem.
"At least we'll have matching canes," he said with a shrug.
"We can start a gang," House said. "You trip them with yours I beat them with mine and get their wallets."
Wilson grinned. "Could be a problem with the getaway."
House pretended to mull it over. "You're right. Guess we'll have to sell pencils on the street corner."
"I thought I was the one enamored of old movies," Wilson muttered. He put his head back and closed his eyes, sighing loudly. He could hear House fidgeting around on his desk and then the faint squeak of his chair as he stood. A moment past and then came the soft uneven scrap of his shoes over the carpet.
"Ah, Jimmy," House murmured and a brief warmth brushed over his brow. Wilson didn't open his eyes, unable to face whatever it was he might and might not see on House's face. He told himself it was practice, that from now on he would have to start relying on his other senses for clues to the world around him. But how can you trust your ears when everyone lies?
In the weeks that past Wilson struggled to adjust to his future. Cuddy knew, of course, and she helped with the professional side of it. He would remain with oncology, his expertise still available to his staff, but he would no longer see patients. The thought always made him chuckle. He filled his days with paperwork and his evenings with learning Braille, and discussing new technological advances to help him do his job.
A month after the diagnosis he moved back in with House, somewhat surprised when he was led into the single bedroom. He glanced at his friend, but couldn't read the expression on that familiar face, whether because his eyes were worse or because House refused to give anything away he couldn't tell. His days were full, everyone understood and helped him as much as they could but there were times when Wilson found himself unable to comprehend how vast this change was going to be. Some times he would just wander out onto the balcony and stare at the sky, trying hard to remember every shade of blue he saw. He studied the trees, and the grass and people on the sidewalk, burning them into his brain so that when everything was dark he would have those images locked inside him like small treasures. He memorized sunsets and the way shadows fell across the pavement and the colors of jet plumes woven through the clouds.
Nights in House's presence changed little, they talked and laughed and House made fun of everyone who had crossed his path that day but House didn't flick on the TV the moment they got home. There were nights when all he could do was lie on the couch, eye-drops numbing the pain that burrowed deep behind his lids and caused his temples to throb, but those were the nights House would softly play his piano. With his eyes closed, the music took on shimmering form inside his brain, images dancing to the melodies House brought to life. Wilson found himself replaying all the sights he had horded, polishing them with his memory so that they would shine for the rest of his life. House said little on those nights, after the last notes of his music died away he would limp to the couch, shifting Wilson so that he lay with his head in House's lap and the night would pass in silence with only House's fingers moving across his face to mark the hours.
And though he fought against it, there came a day when Wilson knew the next day he would not see the rising sun. House walked beside him, silent as he stood in the pediatric cancer ward, smiling at the children who clustered around them. He'd grown use to the hand which gripped his elbow and while he could distinguish shapes and colors it was only close up that he had any sight left. He knelt to speak with them, trading hugs and kisses and listening as they told him all their hopes for the years to come. He had his own hopes but they were blurred and fading and a few hours later Wilson asked House to take him outside. They made their way to House's `vette, driving to the river to park in the sunshine while birds sang overhead. He had spent months memorizing the world around him, saving every thing he saw with the diligence of a bureaucrat but there was one sight in which he had invested everything he had.
House's face was like the river before them; ever changing and beautiful, filled with a wild fury that could hide placidly or rage unpredictably. There had been days when all he could do was watch the play of light on those familiar features, how the blue of House's eyes could ripple from cornflower to indigo in the span of a heartbeat or how his mouth could twist itself into a dozen different contours with one sarcastic sentence. He'd spent hours just studying the shape of his brows and the curve of his cheek and how the stubble of his beard was darker in the divot over his lip. He'd thought House would grow annoyed with his scrutiny but those bright blue eyes would lock with his and brow would quirk in a fond expression.
He didn't look at House while they sat by the river, just watched the light begin to fade as the last day he would see ended. When he could make out only faint shapes, Wilson asked House to take them home. He didn't close his eyes as they sped along the highway, and the streetlights became buttery streams that followed beside them all the way to Baker Street. The shifting pattern of neon and florescent created a magical world that he didn't want to give up. Wilson could feel the tears on his cheek when the wind died and House pulled the car to a stop outside his place. He got out of the car, standing there and wishing the sky had been clear because he would have liked to see the stars once more. But House had his arm and they were inside before he really realized it. He shook his head when House offered food and instead he led House to the bedroom, settling them on the mattress, lying face to face.
"I want you to be the last thing I see," Wilson whispered. He reached out to lay his hand on House's cheek and smiled when House covered it with his own. They never spoke about what they felt for each other; somehow words had never been important when it came to that. They could argue for hours, talk about everything under the sun but the feelings they possessed for each other were the one thing that defied their skill to analyze. House turned his head and his warm lips pressed a kiss into Wilson's palm. Wilson saw the glimmer of tears on his friend's cheeks. "No," he said softly, "don't."
"Okay, Jimmy," House nodded, finding a smile for him.
The light was fading and he had to move closer still to make out the startling blue of those eyes. He saw love there, sparkling and irreverent and bright and as he watched it grew brighter. He traced House's face, running his thumbs over the arched brows, capturing every line with his fingers, burning the image before him into his brain. He didn't want the night to end, he didn't want to close his eyes and lose the sight of House's smile, of his frowns, of his mobile features twisting this way and that. He didn't want to forget how House looked, and he knew he would. Someday he would no longer remember, there would come a day when he couldn't bring the image back, there would be a faceless void inside his heart and Wilson didn't know if he could stand that. He pressed his lips to House's suspending the hour, chasing away the future as well as the past. They existed only in that moment and it seemed to stretch away into eternity.
"I love you," he whispered and as his words faded they began to take the light with them. It was as if a thick fog drew close around them, tendrils creeping over the bed, over their entwined bodies until only the blue of House's eyes remained. Wilson stared into them, seeing all the things he had never heard. Pain burned across his eyes, making them water and sting and though he tried not to, he had to blink it away. When he opened his eyes there was nothing left to see. The world had gone black and he was lost in it, fear surging in the wild beating of his heart but then House's arms closed around him, pulling him into a tight embrace. The world had been lost to his sight, and he needed something he could hold onto in the darkness and though House might not be too steady on his feet his heart was the steadiest of all.
Watching the Light Fade
He knew how ironic it was that Wilson saw it in his eyes before he said the words. He could see a flare of panic quickly covered by a resolve to hear him out. It made his chest ache but he took a deep breath and said, "You're going blind." Wilson shook his head, and looked down at his hands before squaring his shoulders.
"How long?"
House didn't need to look at the file, he'd memorized its contents, but he flicked his gaze to the scans it held anyway. There was no mistake, not one goddamn thing to make him doubt his conclusion. "Couple of months," he said knowing it was the truth but unable to stop himself from adding, "maybe half a year." He could only watch as Wilson sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. He'd seen that gesture far too often in the last few months. Wilson had always had migraines but those too had increased, and when he found his friend bent over a report, his nose so close to the print he looked as if he were trying to dig his way through it House realized something was very wrong. He'd thought he would have to hound Wilson for the truth but it had been surprisingly easy - one word. Genetic. Leave it to Wilson to do things right.
"At least we'll have matching canes," Wilson said, shrugging.
House felt his lips curl, the smile as involuntary as the beating of his heart. "We'll start a gang," he said, "You trip them with yours and I'll beat them with mine and get their wallets."
A grin spread across Wilson's face, erasing some of the lines which had gathered there like carrion birds awaiting a last breath. "Could be a problem with the getaway," he pointed out.
House screwed up his face in thought, "You're right. Guess we'll have to sell pencils on the street corner." There was no way he'd let Wilson face this alone.
"I thought I was the one enamored of old movies," Wilson muttered. He put his head back, eyes closed and sighed loudly. House let his smile fade, sitting for a long moment to just study Wilson. He looked tired, his skin pale and stretched tight over his cheekbones giving him a fragile air that had never been there before. Wilson shouldn't look like that, House knew. He got to his feet and moved towards his friend, some vague idea that he could do something half formed in his brain. He didn't know what that something could be, how did you comfort someone whose body had been programmed from birth to break down at this point? There was nothing he could do, there was no treatment, no cure, no magic spell that would stop it. For the first time in his life House experienced the helplessness Wilson must experience every day and it left him feeling as if he'd been punched. He stood beside Wilson for a long moment, staring down at his face and then he reached out to brush the back of his hand over Wilson's brow, wishing he could ease the pain he saw etched there. "Ah, Jimmy," he whispered. He'd done his job, and he'd told Wilson what to expect so why did he feel as if he had failed?
House found himself struggling to maintain his professional detachment in the weeks which followed. It would do no good to cry about the fact his best friend was going blind. It was going to happen, they both knew it and that couldn't be changed. Cuddy didn't seem to feel the same way, her face reflected a heartbreak House found ridiculous since she wasn't the one losing her sight. He called her on it, sneering at her until Wilson intervened with a quiet sigh, squeezing the bridge of his nose in the familiar gesture of an impending headache. She turned away, shoulders squaring and when she turned back to them purposed a new working arrangement for Wilson, relinquish Head of Oncology for a new position as Head of Oncology Research. House congratulated himself on undermining another hypocritical encounter but as they left her office he caught sight of Wilson's expression in the window glass, and the look of uncertainty and apprehension there stirred the same within him.
Four weeks after the diagnosis, House asked Wilson to move back in with him. He'd thought about it from the first, wondering how Wilson would deal with everything on his own but he didn't want Wilson to doubt himself, to feel dependant when he didn't have to. In the end he'd waited as long as he could but watching Wilson's movements became more halting, his silences longer, his expression more lost, had been worse than waking crippled. Like everything else in their lives they didn't talk about it, House just arranged for movers to clear Wilson's small apartment and what didn't fit in the townhouse was put into storage. Wilson didn't protest, or raise any objections when it became apparent House planned on making the move permanent. Even when House opened the door that night and led Wilson into the bedroom, Wilson didn't say anything. He merely looked at House with those deep eyes, eyes that seemed to be growing softer and more unfocused as the weeks past. House could barely resist the urge to go to him then and the thought that some quality that made this man the one person he had ever truly cared for was disappearing struck him so hard that it was all he could do to keep the pain off his face. He didn't want Jimmy to go, he didn't want to lose any part of him for fear it would change what they had.
But he had seen that part of his friend, the sure, confident and practical side of Wilson that had always been his rock, already eroding. There were times when Wilson abandoned his routine and House would stumble upon him motionless on the balcony between their offices. House would bite his lip to keep from speaking, standing silently by as Wilson stared up at the sky. He knew what was going through Wilson's mind, he could see the longing in those dark eyes as they swept the sky, the grounds, the buildings around them. The look of fierce concentration hardened his boyish features, transforming them into something achingly strong. House would stand there, afraid to move lest he break Wilson's concentration, and he would will the sunset to be more beautiful than ever before, and the trees to rise majestically and the grass to ripple like velvet just for him. If he could have switched places with Wilson he would have but all he could do was watch as the world slipped out of Wilson's grasp and with the tang of blood in his mouth, he would back away, giving Wilson this gift, the chance to store inside the world he was losing.
House strove to keep things as normal as he could and though the nights they shared at home did not change in timbre or tone they changed in intensity. House no longer snapped on the TV when he was bored, preferring instead to sit with Wilson, catching the resolute edge of his gaze and holding it tightly. They talked and laughed, and he embellished his stories until they sat propped breathless against each other, wiping tears from their cheeks like magic tricks. But when Wilson's features were pinched and drawn, House would insist on playing doctor, administering eye-drops, watching them spread across the brown surface like rain over parched ground, and bring Wilson a double edged measure of relief. He could see the anger then, the stiff set to those wide shoulders as he was robbed of sight even for those precious few moments while the drops soothed the burning pain and House would seat himself at his piano, hoping to mete out another form of pain relief. He had studied technique for years, mastering it at a young age, but the passion of music had never had to be taught, it had grown inside him from the womb. Music had always been his first love, freeing the trapped demons inside him with the beauty of angels.
He would play for hours, choosing melodies carefully, picking soaring runs of music, blending the notes until they became a river of sound, cascading over the two of them with a soothing caress. It was only when the last of the notes died away that House moved from the keyboard and then he would shift Wilson's recumbent form and slide beneath his shoulders. There, with only the night as witness, House would close his eyes and imagine himself in Wilson's place. His fingers would move across Wilson's face reading the curves and planes in a sensual kind of Braille that etched those features onto his heart and as they burned their way inside the crushing weight of grief would bear down on House, a sorrow so great he could feel it pressing against his ribs, bending his backbone, and crushing his heart. He and Wilson had never needed anything as trivial as words to converse; they could communicate with a single glance, conveying whole reams of information in a split second gaze. They would not share that ever again. There would be no more telling looks, or silent reproach or unspoken jokes, and House had to tip his head back, and will his hands to remain steady and gentle even when he felt like pounding his fists into the walls. His disquiet sometimes disturbed Wilson's rest because his friend knew his moods too well but House would shush Wilson's murmured protests and lead the other man to bed where sleep came only when they were tangled together; waking up face to face as if somehow that unity would stave off the future.
But irony ran back like tiny waves lapping the shore and there came a morning when House could see the truth in Wilson's eyes just as Wilson had seen it in his. Time, tide and genetics waited for no one not even the Great Gregory House and that morning when House awoke it was like the earth had switched places with the sky, the solid brown of his friend's eyes now held cloudy swirls. Wilson's acceptance hung there and when he asked House to take him to see his youngest patients one last time House did so though he loathed sentiment and futility, because he couldn't deny his friend anything. He held Wilson's elbow, steering where once they had sailed side by side and held himself rigid while Wilson, kneeling, surrounded by children whose lives should have been filled with promise, gathered in more memories. Wilson smiled and kissed and hugged them all, listening with rapt attention as they painted a world around him, one he could barely see. House waited, cane still on the tiles, no thump of annoyance, no bouncing distraction because watching Wilson had become an obsession, just as Wilson needing to horde memories so, too, did he. Giggles and squeals heralded a throwaway camera, a nurse snapped photos, catching House and Wilson side by side, Wilson's gaze locked on his friend and on impulse House stole it when they left. He knew Wilson would never see the photo but having it would somehow prove that there had once been someone who could see the real him.
They drove to the river with the top down on the `vette and the afternoon sun shining, it was a last perfect day. House drove fast, gunning the engine so that the wind tore at their hair and made Wilson's laugh seem to play catch up from the back seat. He would have driven forever if he thought they could have outrun the inevitable but Wilson was too practical and he had always been somewhat leashed by his friend's hand. There were very few cars despite its reputation as a popular beauty spot normally dotted with picnickers and strolling lovers. Today, however, it had been left for their exclusive enjoyment. House pulled the sleek car to a halt, pulling on the brake and cutting the engine so that the silence which sprang up around them was only an absence of horsepower. He expected Wilson to get out of the car, pushed along the winding paths by that darkness leaning over his shoulder, but Wilson sat beside him, face tipped to the side, eyes on the river. They didn't speak as the afternoon dwindled to dusk, just sat there with the radio playing every rock ode known to the world and time slipping out of their hands with the last great licks Hendrix had every put down.
Wilson didn't look at him when the streetlights eventually flickered on but when House shoved the car into gear, peeling out of the lot, he thought he could smell the salt of Wilson's tears on the wind. He chose a route that took them through the most garish part of town, a riot of neon and blinking florescent that stained the roadway and created a magical aura around the seedy businesses. It wouldn't count for much in the scheme of things; it wasn't like a day at the Met or a last look at the Sistine Chapel, but House had long since discovered a kind of rare beauty in anything that could survive in the face of adversity. His own street came into view and with it a much longer journey was ending. Wilson got out and stood on the sidewalk, his glance raking the sky before he accepted House's guidance inside. He didn't want food, his impatience causing him to turn the grip House had on his arm until he led. Their footsteps echoed along the hall and into the bedroom, where they settled in what had become their customary manner - face to face.
"I want you to be the last thing I see," Wilson whispered and with those words House felt his heart begin to break. He had never allowed himself to hope; he was a man of science, dedicated to learning and knew the unexplainable was only because they didn't know the answers yet, but at that moment House realized he had hoped for a miracle. The cynic, the pragmatist, the realist - he had still harbored a tiny fragment of wonder - a splinter of childish belief in Happy Endings and Wishes Coming True. Wilson's hand caressed his cheek and he covered it with his own before turning to kiss the warm palm. "No," Wilson said softly, sweeping a thumb over his cheek and discovering tears, "don't."
"Okay, Jimmy," House said, finding a smile. He looked into the dark brown eyes as Wilson traced the lines of his face, remembering all the times he had caught his friend staring at him in these last few months. Of all the things Wilson could take with him into the darkness the thought that he wanted the last of those to be his face made House humble. No one had ever cared about him the way Wilson did. No one had ever stood beside him despite everything, like Wilson. So when Wilson moved closer, his lips finding House's with a sureness that stung, House gave his heart freely. There had always existed a barrier, he had held himself apart, afraid that if anyone really saw him they would turn away, but with this kiss, House revealed everything he had kept hidden.
"I love you," Wilson whispered. House nodded, unable to repeat the words which lodged in his throat and watched as the shadows which had been forming, grew and deepened. He could see Wilson fighting against it, struggling to hold on but there came the moment when he could no longer cling to the light. With one sweep of his long lashes, House saw the flame extinguished, and the darkness win. Wilson stiffened in his arms, fear racing through him as he lost the last shred of his vision. House tightened his embrace, pulling Wilson to his chest, willing his friend to believe in him, to trust in him and when Wilson stilled, his sobs barely louder than his ragged breaths, House began to cry silent tears no one would ever see.
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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 NBC/Universal, 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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