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The Last Time
by Evilida
Although this was the fourth time that Dr. James Wilson has been married, this was the first time he has ever had to deal with the intricacies of wedding planning. His first wedding involved hardly any planning at all. He and his first wife had been ridiculously young, had had no money, and had married in defiance of both sets of parents. His second and third weddings had been planned by Mrs. Wilsons number two and number three, and Dr. Wilson's role had been limited to looking good in a tuxedo and saying "I do" at the appropriate moment. However, his fourth and hopefully final bride was just as busy as he was, and she insisted that he do his fair share. That's why he was sitting in the office of Michael Lieberman, wedding photographer. Wilson wasn't sure why his best friend, renowned diagnostician Dr. Gregory House, was sitting beside him.
Without his camera in front of him, Michael Lieberman was painfully shy. Every time Wilson met his eyes, Lieberman would start and blink his eyes, as if by shutting his eyes he could make Wilson disappear. Tactfully, after the first couple of accidental glances, Wilson carefully avoided looking at him, instead leafing through the album of wedding photographs. In contrast, House made a point of staring intently at the unfortunate man, who was now curled up in a corner of his chair as far as he could get from House, face red, staring up at a ceiling tile in the far corner of the room. Wilson was hardly a connoisseur of wedding photography; the portraits Lieberman displayed seemed practically identical to those of the other two photographers he had seen so far. Still Wilson knew he was going to hire Lieberman to make up for subjecting him to House.
As they left the office, House said in a loud carrying voice, "I'm sure I've seen that face before. Wasn't he featured on `America's Most Wanted'?"
Wilson ignored him, not even bothering to roll his eyes.
"I can understand why you went along with Lisa when she was choosing caterers..."
"Free food," House agreed.
"But why are you coming along with me? Even I find these wedding preparations tedious, and I'm the one getting married!"
"I don't have a patient at the moment and General Hospital has a particularly dull storyline at the moment. A long lost identical twin - I have a strange feeling that he's going to turn out to be evil."
Very few of Wilson's relatives were coming to the wedding. Only his parents, his brother, and his sister-in-law had agreed to attend, and Wilson thought the latter two would have declined as well except for the fact that their daughter, Leah, was one of the two flower girls. The other flower girl was Lisa's daughter Emily, nicknamed Screaming Mimi or S.M. for short by House after she had a tantrum in the lobby of the hospital when she was two-and-a-half years old. Gregory House was Wilson's best man, and Lisa's college friend Andrea was going to be the matron of honour.
House had managed to purloin some of the wedding invitations and had sent three of them to his former underlings. Eric Foreman was now a renowned neurologist at Johns Hopkins; Allison Cameron was working at a teaching hospital in New York while raising two sons; and Robert Chase had gone back to Australia to practise there, having decided that since his father had died, there was no longer any particular point to avoiding the land of his birth. Wilson was only a little angry when he found out, since he was drowning in a sea of his fiance`s relatives and could use a few more people on his side. He had thought that there was a slight possibility that of the three, Cameron might come as she lived within a day's drive, and had assumed the other two would decline. To his dismay, all three had accepted. Foreman and Cameron were even bringing their spouses. Dr. Lisa Cuddy, Wilson's fiance, was not particularly pleased that their wedding reception had become a reunion dinner for House's former fellows, but what was done was done. She asked only that all of them be seated together at a table near the kitchen.
Because this was his fourth marriage and he had never been particularly observant anyway, Wilson had been concerned when his fiance insisted on a traditional Jewish ceremony. He was afraid that the rabbi at Lisa's synagogue would refuse to marry them. However, after Wilson agreed to attend religious instruction on how to be a good husband, the rabbi agreed to officiate. Wilson thought the marriage instruction was pretty pointless. He'd been through it three times before and all the counsellors had used pretty much the same script. He thought he could probably teach it himself by this point. He believed that he knew how to be a good husband, if he really wanted to, but he hadn't married the right person or married for the right reason.
He had been too immature to marry the first time. Michelle and he had been college students. Michelle was the daughter of a very wealthy family. Wilson and Michelle had both agreed that they wanted children, but after they married they found that they disagreed on the specifics. Michelle's ideal family was the Waltons - a large family surviving on love and laughter, even if the kids had to wear hand-me-downs and eat beans instead of steak. Wilson was volunteering at a free clinic at this time, partly because this kind of volunteer work was going to look on his resume when he tried to get into medical school and partly because he genuinely enjoyed helping people. Every week, he saw people who were working long hours at minimum wage jobs, without medical insurance. They were worn out and endless grinding stress made them prey to disease. If he'd ever shared Michelle's romantic ideas about poverty, a few shifts at the free clinic taught him differently. Wilson's ideal family was also based on a television model - Bewitched. (He'd had a schoolboy crush on Elizabeth Montgomery.) Darren Stevens would come home from his lucrative job. His wife would have his martini ready, and his two adorable well-behaved children would come downstairs to greet Daddy, before disappearing for the rest of the episode. An equally unrealistic model, he realized later.
After a couple of months, Wilson realized that Michelle and he should never have married. He wanted to end the marriage; she insisted that they could work together and save it. Finally, Wilson had had an affair just to make Michelle hate him, so she would agree to a divorce. Michelle had been very angry at the time, but they'd met again a year later and she had forgiven him. She'd found a new boyfriend who believed in the same things she did, and both she and Wilson agreed that their early marriage had been a disaster.
Wilson's second and third marriages were, in retrospect, practically identical. In both cases, he met a woman who had needed him, and who appreciated everything that he did for her. Wilson was unused to gratitude, since his family and friends accepted all that he did for them as a matter of course. He had thought that his desire to protect was love and was dismayed when the feelings he felt disappeared after his wife had regained her confidence and no longer needed his reassurance. Both of these marriages had dwindled away - the infidelity that marked the end seemed to be merely a confirmation that the marriage was over rather than a betrayal.
His relationship with Lisa Cuddy was a break from the pattern. Lisa Cuddy was a strong independent woman - his boss in fact. He had gone on an awkward date with at one point, but it had been a disaster. Wilson was still skittish after his third divorce and Cuddy could not help but be aware of Wilson's exaggerated reputation as the hospital Lothario. They had agreed that romance was not going to happen, and had become good workmates. Sometimes he and Cuddy would work together in opposition to House, more often he and House conspired against Cuddy, but nonetheless the three managed to work fairly well together. Then Dr. Cuddy became pregnant. James Wilson still didn't know who the father of Cuddy's baby was; he supposed she had conceived by artificial insemination. (House claimed he knew and said he would tell Wilson if he took his clinic hours for a month, but Wilson declined the offer.) The pregnancy was tough on Cuddy emotionally, and she began to drop in on Wilson, because being with him always calmed her down. Wilson assumed that once she had the baby and things in her life became more orderly, she would withdraw from him and he from her.
Emily Cuddy was a perfectly healthy baby. She slept through the night almost from birth, and seemed naturally sweet-natured. (The tantrum in the hospital lobby was very uncharacteristic of her.) Dr. Cuddy found a loving, reliable nanny and came back to work. Everything seemed perfect in her life and her stress level was the lowest it had been in years, but she still dropped into James Wilson's office almost every day. There she often ran into House, who made no secret of resenting her presence.
Lisa Cuddy was not the only one who had noticed that House seemed determine to sabotage his best friend's relationships with women. Some claimed it was jealousy - that House was so used to having Wilson drop everything and come to House's side whenever he wanted him, that he could not abide the notion of having to share him with someone with a superior claim to his time and attention. Others said that it was protectiveness - James Wilson's previous relationships with women had been such failures that House felt obliged to stop him before he hurt himself again. Lisa Cuddy was inclined toward the former theory.
If it came down to it, Cuddy was prepared to fight House for Wilson. She knew that Wilson had chosen House over his wives in his previous two marriages, and before their relationship became serious, she had to know whether she or House would come first if they became a couple. Perhaps House was afraid of what Wilson's answer would be this time, because he backed off. He allowed Cuddy and Wilson to spend time together without interference and with only a bare minimum of snide remarks, as long as Wilson continued to eat lunch with House and come over to his place to watch movies or television once or twice a week. Pleased with this result, Lisa Cuddy did not realize that her question had not really been answered.
When Allison Cameron had worked at PPTH, she had always been a bit jealous of Lisa Cuddy. Not only was the older woman beautiful, not only had she reached the top of her profession at a young age, but she was also a potential rival for the affections of Gregory House. Cameron was now a married woman and could look back on her feelings for her former boss with amusement. She had found true love with the man at her side, Dr. Armand Boucher. Armand was a tall, thin man with blue eyes, about twenty years older than Cameron. He had severe asthma, so Allison had to be solicitous about his health.
Eric Foreman and his wife sat next to Armand. Foreman's wife was Korean-American. Her parents had come to America with nothing and had worked ridiculously long hours running a tiny corner store. Lydia, an engineer, shared their work ethic. Both she and Foreman had thought the wedding a good social networking opportunity, but were disappointed by the modest turnout. Why hadn't Cuddy invited more of the wealthy donors she was always trying to impress?
Robert Chase sat beside Lydia. He had been scheduled to attend a conference in New York and had decided to extend his stay a few days to attend the wedding. Now, seeing Allison again, he wondered why he had bothered. She paid no attention to him. Allison glanced briefly at Cuddy and Wilson and then she turned, as he knew she would, to stare at House.
The ceremony was ending. James Wilson took Lisa Cuddy into his arms and kissed her. "This time," he promised silently," it will last forever. This time I will hold on. I won't let her slip away. This time I will make it work." He released her and looked up, smiling in relief. He turned the assembled crowd and then at his best man. House was smiling but the smile had not warmed his startlingly blue eyes. His expression was impenetrable. Nervously, Wilson grabbed his wife's hand and clutched her to his side. "This is the last time," he said aloud.
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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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