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The Economics of Truth: The Costs of a Stagnant System
by Tron
The Economics of Truth:
The Costs of a Stagnant System
The problem with introducing a new variable into a stagnant system is that the variable invariably changes the equation. The integers A + B no longer simply equals C. The equation becomes (A*X) +B=C. Where once emotionally damaged but intelligent diagnostician plus masochistic, brown-eyed oncologist equals really fucked up friendship, now we have emotionally damaged but intelligent diagnostician times crush plus masochistic, brown-eyed oncologist equals really fucked up friendship.
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House sat in his darkened office, his mind whirring like a UNIVAC computer from the sixties with the punch tape continually winding and rewinding as he charted the courses of diseases in his mind. There was something that he knew he was missing, something that differentiated Forman from the cop, but searching for it was like knowing the purpose of what you wanted to find but not knowing it's name. His hands, itching for movement while his brain ran laps, had picked up his cane and the oversized red and plum tennis ball and was attempting to catch the ball in the crook of the dark varnished wood.
The light from the hall that was shining on his little endeavor, darkened in one patch as a figure moved to stand in his doorway. House could tell it was Wilson, even without his heart involuntarily attempting a breakout through his throat and mouth, simply from the dark suit he could see out of the edge of his eye. All of his little able-bodied minions would have been wearing scrubs or lab coats even at this time of night.
House promptly dropped the ball and fought a blush as he looked up.
"How is he?" the oncologist asked, sounding tired but sympathetic.
"Still dying," House replied roughly, his throat constricting hard after he finished the sentence. He swallowed hard and picked up the ball with his cane, using this dribbling technique that he'd seen basketball players use.
Ever since he and Wilson had that argument a couple of weeks ago, House couldn't get the thought of what the other man might look like underneath that suit out of his head. If only Wilson hadn't made that joke about desperation, hadn't given House those images of what a desperate Wilson might do (preferably on his knees), then House wouldn't be feeling this way.
He might be able to think if he didn't feel this way.
The only good thing was that, because he had a case, Wilson had stopped asking House to explain himself. But only for the moment.
"Well, you've almost mastered another skill, though," Wilson said dryly, sighing dramatically. House knew the other man wasn't trying to be disparaging of House's activities; he recognized the oncologist's patented gentle teasing, having become closely acquainted with it. "That's good."
House was saved the trouble of trying to think up something witty by the heavy footsteps of his two healthy fellows. Chase in his lime green scrubs and sweaty blond hair strode into the room, followed by Cameron in her lab coat and dark clothing. She stayed in the doorway, hands on hips, while Chase delivered the news that House had been waiting to hear.
"We have Foreman's biopsy results," he said, tone bleak and un-encouraging. "Non-specific signs of inflammation."
House tossed his ball into his left hand, eyes dropping from Chase to the floor and back again as his brain filed away that piece of data. "That it?" he asked.
"I also swabbed for staph," Chase answered like he was a poor actor reading cue cards in an infomercial. House could tell from his tone, that he wouldn't like the young intensivist's news. "Negative. He's not even a carrier."
Yup, didn't like that.
"Well," House sighed, thumping the foot of his cane against the carpeted floor. "At least Foreman was wrong, too."
"Yeah," Wilson agreed, his tone still tired and gently mocking. "There is that."
Both Chase and Cameron had rolled their eyes at House's little proclamation, even though they'd probably been expecting it. The Aussie closed his eyes wearily and rolled his head back as House's immunologist gave him a reproachful glare that House took pleasure in ignoring. House looked around the office, anywhere but where Wilson was standing with his briefcase, overcoat and soft dark eyes drilling into House's sunken cheek.
"Can I go to Joe's apartment now?" Cameron asked, sounding bored and weary.
"No," House growled, standing and moving over to his desk to shuffle some files. "Go back to the lab and start retesting all of the samples that Foreman collected."
"For what?" Asked Chase. And the Ozzie wondered why House called him stupid. The young man had a rather annoying tendency to ask obvious questions, but he did have nice hair.
"Everything," House told them, a slightly perverse little smile quirking his lips. "Bacteria, toxins, fungus, anything that likes to feast on brain."
"But that's thousands of..." Started Chase, eyes round and incredulous.
"Better hurry," House smirked at the young man before turning to his immunologist. "Cameron, suit up. You're gonna monitor Foreman. He's on to hand contracture. He'll be on to Anton's blindness soon. Run hourly checks, because when he does go blind he won't be able to tell us. We'll use the data to construct a timeline so we can see how far behind Joe he is."
There was a pause while the two doctors considered the logic of House's plan. Cameron didn't seem sold on the idea of not going back to Joe's apartment and Chase looked daunted by the Herculean task assigned to him, but House was unwilling to put another of his team at risk. Not only would he loose another worker and another brain to bounce ideas off of, but this time it would be his fault.
House could still feel Wilson's eyes on him and it made him feel like he was about to jump out of his skin.
"Why are you still here?" House asked, turning his irritation from being scrutinized so closely onto his two reluctant minions. They both looked to the floor, considering the question before both deciding silently, that it would simply be a better answer to leave and do as they were commanded. Wilson turned his head to watch them go and House took the opportunity to turn to the window so that he didn't have to look the younger man in the eye.
"You're being cautious," Wilson said slowly, his voice low enough that the register sent tiny little chills up House's spine. He hunched over, trying to ignore the breathless fluttering in his chest. "You're being common."
House said nothing, hoping the other man would just go away. Wilson only got annoyed at the silence.
"When you don't give a crap..." he started, tone a touch more harsh, but House interrupted him.
"How many of your guys have caught cancer from one of your patients?" he shot back, turning to glare at the younger man. "Let me know when that happens, then we can have this conversation."
House turned away again, back to the window in a clear sign of dismissal. But Wilson seemed to be dying to get the last word.
"Just another case, huh?" he asked, a soft apologetic chuckle lurking somewhere behind the question mark.
"I'll bet you can even have unprotected sex with your cancer patients without catching a damn thing," House growled, Wilson's words forcing him to turn back around and confront the man antagonizing him. So he attacked back using Wilson's cancer chick. He might not be so touchy, if it hadn't been Foreman in the isolation unit and Wilson here prodding his motives with a verbal stick. But things were the way there were. "Boy, I wish I had your job."
He turned away, again, pounding the foot of his cane on the glass tabletop. Wilson was silent behind him and House could almost feel the false smile on the other man's face. His heart felt heavy as lead. He didn't like snipping at Wilson like that, but his presence really wasn't helping. Everything felt raw and naked around James Wilson, like he'd woken up in one of those dreams where you're at work without a stitch on. He felt exposed, like every single nerve, even the one shooting pain up from his leg to his brain, was quivering. Or like his body was an empty shell filled with helium and lead weights at the bottom that were keeping his feet on the floor.
House heard the young head of oncology pivot on the carpeting and slowly leave the office, a slight sigh escaping his lips as he disappeared to his cold and lonely flat.
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The problem with X in this equation is that X is an unknown quantity, a variable with infinite possibilities. It changes where the integers stay the same. A crush can fluctuate due to outside circumstances that are beyond the scope of the original system. Feelings will wax and wane something someone said or because of events in the world at large.
These extenuating circumstances also change the equation: (A*X)+B=C where X is directly proportional to +/-Y, where +/-Y equals the intensity of emotion brought on by an outside experience, whether that emotion be negative or positive.
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House had put Steve McQueen in his very own rat-sized isolation room and set up a camera so that he could watch his pet from his office. It was similar to those web-cam porn videos that you could find on the Internet, but Steve wasn't doing anything nearly as interesting as baring skin. Although, if the rat were to start baring skin, House probably would have been doing something more interesting than just sitting and watching. Like, perhaps, trying to figure out why Steve was going bald.
Steve, however, ran on his plastic wheel a bit before stopping to take a drink. The door to House's office opened and Wilson's aura penetrated the fug of House's boredom with a quick stutter step of the diagnostician's pulse.
"How's Foreman?" asked the brown-eyed oncologist cautiously as he approached where House was attempting his hand at bored nonchalance. He peered over House's shoulder and blinked. "You're accessing a web-cam?"
"Cuddy's shower," he told Wilson absently, figuring it was a neutral him-thing to say. "Are you a fan of the Brazilian? I..." he started to say as Wilson began to lean closer in to watch what he was watching. Wilson's nearness sent a jolt to his brain and suddenly his tongue stopped working. He stumbled over his thought and shook his head nervously, but Wilson didn't seem to notice.
"Is that your kitchen?" he asked in disbelief.
"Well, obviously I couldn't bring him here," House replied, waving vaguely at Steve drinking water. House wondered how the other man could possibly fail to hear his heart beat. The steady, but rapid thump was loud and almost seemed to echo in the glass-walled office. "He's been exposed to whatever Foreman's got."
"You infected Steve?" Wilson exclaimed, his mouth imitating a guppy fish for a few moments. House suddenly noticed just how white Wilson's teeth were and swallowed hard, before looking quickly back at the screen. "Why didn't you just by a rat from the pet store?"
"Because," he said as if this twisted piece of logic made any sense what so ever. "I needed one with a clean medical history... Who knows what kind of antibiotics they gave those rats."
There was a slight pause in the conversation as House tried not to look at the man who was standing inches away from him and Wilson tried to condense House's plan to a few easily ridiculed sentences. House could feel the heat radiating off the oncologist, but it only made him feel more agitated and on edge. He gritted his teeth and tried not to think about it, but that whole 'not thinking about it' thing wasn't working so well, not when every other thought was about how Wilson should stop sucking up House's time with conversations that did not end with the oncologist agreeing to suck on things further south.
"So this is your plan?" the younger man asked finally, scoffing and shaking his head in rueful admiration. "Just sit here and watch your rat all day?"
"It shouldn't take long," House shrugged, fighting the urge to take his fist from where he had it propping up his cheek and fiddle with something nervously. That would look far too obvious. It might catch attention. "I've got the AC blasting; I've soaked the floor of his cage. As soon as he gets sick, I do an autopsy."
"As soon as he's dead," Wilson corrected, one eyebrow raised.
"Right after he gets sick, there's a good chance he'll get hit in the head with a..." House paused to discover the most suspicious and delicate way of putting how he'd murder his rat. He considered briefly, in some obscure back corner of his mind, how the other man might feel about him murdering a helpless animal in the name of science. Or, more specifically, a helpless animal that Wilson had bought high-end rat chow for when he'd been living with House. "...cane-shaped object."
"Normally, you'd just use your patients as lab rats," Wilson sighed. "It's a... nice change." Clearly, the oncologist would put Foreman's life above that of a rat he'd lived with for about a month.
Wilson pulled up a chair and joined House's Steve watching. The two men sat shoulder to shoulder in silence before House felt the need to say something. There was an unbearable heaviness in the atmosphere that only needless chatter could dissipate.
"The first symptom is euphoria," he told the oncologist.
"How do you know if a rat's euphoric?" came the reply.
"He doesn't usually climb on his water bottle like that, does he?" House asked the other man hopefully. House glanced at the other man as Wilson frowned at Steve on the screen. The frown pouted the younger man's full lips, which were already slightly wet from a previous licking, and the over all affect was very... kiss-able. House looked back at the rat as quickly as possible, before Wilson notice him staring.
When he realized that his clinic hours were upon him, House all but ran with his laptop down to the clinic.
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House was standing at the door to the morgue, looking through the small, reinforced window at the guard Cuddy had assigned to watch the laughing cop's body. The man was sitting there, flipping idly through a stack of magazines that looked like they'd been filched from the clinic waiting room. House sighed. He was the only one not allowed in the morgue... well, him or any other members of his team. Which, of course, meant that he couldn't just walk in and claim he had the right to do the brain biopsy on laughing Joe. The guard would never believe him.
House decided that it was sick and wrong that his answer was lying under a white winding sheet and he wasn't allowed anywhere near it.
"Steve's still acting normal," Wilson said from somewhere to House's left. House started slightly before, his heart leaping abnormally and his stomach dropping to the ground, before he turned and looked at the younger man for a brief moment. Wilson looked the same as he had that morning, only a bit more tired and a bit more concerned. There were slight bags under his eyes that House was pretty sure hadn't been there before, but would never comment on aloud. The diagnostician turned back to glare at the grey uniformed guard. "No sign of contractures."
"They've got the cop's body in a locked, air tight bag," he replied, nodding pointedly inside the room, trying not to think of the expression on the face of the man behind him.
"And a guard on the door?" Wilson laughed softly. "Those feds are seriously paranoid."
Of course, not looking at Wilson only meant that now House had an image of Wilson lying naked on House's sheets and saying random things about guards. The sounds of the younger man's voice slid down House's spine like a drop of golden oil. House pushed the feeling away, like a child pushing his friend as they fought, and tried his best to focus on the room he was staring at and the problem that was killing one of his doctors.
"He hasn't gotten up to pee in hours," House said quietly, in a measured tone that immediately sounded both calculating and suspicious. "He's due."
"You haven't sprinkled senokot granules in his donut?" the younger man asked incredulously, as if he'd been expecting House to do so and was shocked that he hadn't already. "His bowels would open up like the Red Sea."
"He wouldn't eat the donut," House grumbled, still watching the guard inside. The man was reading a new periodical. It looked like last month's 'People' magazine. There was an embarrassed silence from behind him, which quickly changed into a worried one.
"Have you seriously been down here for hours?" Wilson asked, voice low and apprehensive.
"No," House replied quickly and a touch defensively, suddenly feeling like a five-year-old who'd been caught drawing on the walls after being told not to. Okay, he hadn't been watching for hours, but he had been watching for long enough that Wilson's concern was probably well founded. "I had to pee a couple times..."
He heard the roll of Wilson's eyes rather than saw them. "You've gotta stop blaming Cuddy for this."
"Given that it is her fault," House said acidly. "It seems appropriate."
"That part is her fault," Wilson admitted, referring to the fact that Cuddy probably should have taken a little risk and let House do his biopsy instead of posting a guard on the dead cop's body and waiting for the CDC. "The part where somebody wasted his time in the basement plotting the overthrow of a government agency, that one's on you."
'His' being Foreman, House supposed.
"The only thing I can do is think," House grimaced, deciding that Wilson's presence, though slightly entertaining, was rapidly becoming an unbearable annoyance. Between the nagging and the anxious feeling that House got whenever he found himself in Wilson's company, the other man was making it hard to concentrate on the matter at hand. "You can pretty much do that anywhere... As long as no one's bugging me."
That was a pretty clear statement that House did not want or need Wilson wringing his hands over House's shoulder, so the younger man sighed and left. House continued to watch the guard, waiting for that hateful wriggling feeling in his stomach to go away so that he could resume thinking about his little medical mystery.
House avoided Wilson as much as he could for the next two weeks with varying levels of success.
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At some point, however, the equation A+B=C stops working due to the stresses brought on by X and Y. C no longer works, at least by itself, as a solution and D must be added into the mix or the equation dissolves.
This illustrates a basic tenant of life: things change.
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House met Wilson serendipitously at the front doors to the hospital and smiled apologetically, if a little nervously at the younger man. He was sorry for how he'd been behaving towards the oncologist for the past two weeks while his Neurologist had been sick and then recovering from the parasites he'd caught. He'd been avoiding Wilson, again, even after he'd promised that he wouldn't.
It was just hard to do your job when the man you started having fantasies about was standing at your elbow.
House limped along side his friend into the building, quietly gathering up the courage to make his proposition.
"Tonight, 'L Word' marathon," he offered with a hopeful glance in Wilson's direction and an internal wince at how junior High that sounded. He might as well have said: 'Hey babe. You. Me. Movies. Saturday.' It was lame and pithy.
Wilson just blinked at him.
"You watch 'the L Word'?" the younger man said in surprise.
"On mute," House explained with a slight blush.
"I'll pass," Wilson replied with a smirk threatening to break his composure, but a tiny note of wistfulness in his expression made House relax slightly with relief. At least the other man sounded sort of regretful for standing his friend up. That was something, right? He glanced questioningly at Wilson, who rolled his brown eyes and explained.
"Dinner with Cuddy," he sighed.
"Still sucking up so she'll fund your play space for the chemo kids?" House teased with a small smirk as they reached the elevators. House pushed the up arrow button with the foot of his cane. "They really ought to save their energy for other things, like crying."
It was funny, but banter actually had started to become easier after that first flush of recognition when the immediate images of how he'd moaned his best friend's name as he'd cum the night before, faded away.
"She's the suck-up," Wilson told him with the air of someone imparting a juicy piece of gossip as he moved into the opening elevator. House, shocked, frowned for a minute before following the younger man into the elevator to do more questioning.
"She asked you?" House asked, swallowing the unfounded dread of the thought of Wilson dating again. Especially dating Cuddy. Please let it not be a date. Please!
"She's smart," Wilson sighed, pressing the button for the floor where his and House's offices were. "She knows if she buys me enough alcohol my defenses might just be weakened."
'Crap,' House thought, suddenly understanding how Wilson's first two wives must have felt when they'd found out the ever sincere oncologist couldn't keep his cock zipped up in his trousers. This felt even worse than when Wilson'd left him for Cancer Chick, before House had admitted the attraction to himself. Before House had become emotionally invested.
"It doesn't make sense," House pouted, frowning as the door closed and the elevator began its ascent. He felt this overwhelming feeling of irrational possessiveness and decided then and there that he would find out the real reason for Wilson's date with Cuddy, sabotaging it if necessary. "Unless she's run out of batteries."
"Hey, I'm recently single," Wilson shrugged. "She's single."
The elevator stopped and the doors opened. The pair stepped out into the hall and House scowled. Wilson seemed far too happy about this. House would have to perform first aid using only his scathing wit before he had enough tools to go after the underlying cause to Wilson's horrifying condition.
Dating Cuddy? Ugh!
"You're too nice for her to like you," House complained. "She's not needy enough for you to like her. She's got an agenda, just not one that includes an appearance by little jimmy."
House stopped at the doors to the Diagnostic's lounge, images of what 'little jimmy' might look like running free and unhindered crashed like a monster pile-up on the freeway of his mind, and he swallowed. Smirking at Wilson, who had stopped by the door to his office, House made another sarcastic comment before he gave himself away.
"I'll poll my peeps," he grinned and hurried into the lounge. "How many of you think that Cuddy asked..." He stopped. The only person in the lounge was Cameron. House frowned. "Or, rather peep..."
Apparently his impromptu poll would have to wait... They had a case.
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House decided, after sending his two available underlings, the girl and the mental deficient, were off doing his evil bidding in trying to diagnose an unusual seizure, it was time to do a little snooping regarding Wilson's date with Cuddy. Ignoring the feeling that he was still acting like a jealous lover, House let himself into Cuddy's office with the 'spare' key he made and locked it behind him. Looking around he wondered what to do next, before wondering which chair would give him the proper dramatic moment that all stilted lovers and evil villains deserved at least once in their life.
He chose a chair, tan and floral, and sat to wait for the entrance of Doctor Cuddy.
When she did enter about twenty minutes later, House watched as she went straight to her desk and turned on the desk lamp before taking a box out of a plastic shopping bag. For a moment, House was worried that she might have actually bought a box of condoms and that 'little jimmy' might actually be making an appearance to someone other than him. He had to forcibly squash the rising feeling of anger and panic welling up in his stomach and remind himself that he'd never seen 'little jimmy' even close to standing up before he noticed that the box in Cuddy's hand looked too small to be a condom package.
"You're late," he announced, smirking as he watched her shoulders stiffen in surprise.
"And you are in my locked office," she countered, quickly putting the box away in her purse. House narrowed his eyes as he watched her movements. "Again."
"Whatcha got there?" House asked in a manner so casual that he had to have been waiting to say it for the last hour or so. She turned to face him, scowling. "Special panties for your date with Wilson?"
House hoped he didn't sound jealous as he thought he did.
"It's not a date," she replied tersely, walking over to the coat stand to remove her red suit coat with the big black flower thing on the lapel. She was wearing black underneath. A fitting color for the devil. "And it's none of your business."
"If it's not a date, it is business," House told her smugly. "And if it was business, you wouldn't say it was none of my business."
"What do you want?" Cuddy asked, moving back to her desk and glaring at where House's tan Chucks were propped up on an expensive looking coffee table.
"I want to talk about your date with Wilson," the diagnostician said with a pleasantly concerned frown on his face.
"It's not a date," the Dean of Medicine replied, a slight tremor in her voice undermining her firmness. House wondered briefly how he could turn her lie, which obviously was deeply personal and embarrassing, into something that he could benefit from. Get Cuddy to knock off a few hours of Clinic Duty? Nah. Chase... Definitely Chase.
"This is fun," House smirked. "Spring Chase from NICU and I'll shut up about your date."
Either way he'd get something he wanted, but the likely hood of Cuddy retracting her decision over Chase wasn't likely. Of course that meant that he just gave himself the right to discover exactly why Cuddy was having dinner with her head oncologist, using his preferred method of two parts bullying and one part subterfuge.
"NICU is short staffed," Cuddy said predictably. But there was something in her voice and manner that said that she wasn't telling the truth. More lies. Fascinating... Didn't she realize that lying was the best way to keep House interested?
"Have you suddenly lost the ability to lie?" House asked, a grin threatening to spread across his carefully composed face like a rash. He heaved himself up from his seat. "Nobody's quit the NICU in two years. And, if you're making up reasons, that means there is no reason." House paused as he limped a few steps closer to Cuddy's desk. "Which means he asked for the assignment, didn't he?"
The carefully blank expression on the woman's face was all the confirmation House needed.
"If Chase needs a break from you, he should take it," Cuddy sighed, probably grateful that House was no longer hounding her about her date with Wilson and that she had no reason to lie for House's fellow. She sat down behind her desk, took her purse that contained the box she'd hidden and moved it pointedly away from House before folding her hands and looking at him expectantly.
"Absolutely," House agreed, before limping out of the office. He hadn't gotten what he'd wanted, but it was a good enough distraction from Wilson for the time being. If he turned his attentions to Chase, maybe people wouldn't notice his jealous lover routine over his best friend's date.
House, however, didn't notice the slight frown that crossed Cuddy's face as he let himself out of her office.
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House waited until Cuddy had gone for lunch before slipping into her office and stealing her trash can. He figured she would think that cleaning staff had removed it rather than a jealous doctor, especially since the jealous doctor had pretended to be more interested in Chase being in NICU when he last left her office.
House hobbled, with the trashcan in tow, to the elevators and then up to Wilson's office. The office was dark, but the door was unlocked indicating that the good Jewish oncologist was in. So, House pushed his way through the door, closed it behind him and proceeded to dump the contents of Cuddy's trash heedlessly onto his best friend's desk.
House pointedly ignored the bizarre sensation in his chest that felt like someone had dropped a lead weight on it. House was on a mission.
Wilson sighed in irritation, but looked resigned to House's new fixation, as House started to search through the various scrunched up pieces of paper, bills and boxes. The younger man picked up and glanced at an envelope before blinking at the rest of the pile.
"Cuddy's trash?" he asked, sounding like he already regretted asking.
"Not anymore," House replied flippantly. "I paid good money for it." To be truthful, he hadn't really paid for it, just paid so that the janitor would admit to intending to replace it with a new can if asked. House found the remains of the box he'd seen his boss slip into her purse that morning and grinned as he presented it to Wilson like a child presenting his parent with something he'd made from dried macaroni and glue. "Look at what she bought!"
Wilson, frowning slightly in that oh-so-adorable Wilson-way that made House's heart skip a beat, took the packaging and read the title, "Red clover."
"What is red clover used for, Doctor Wilson?" House asked, smirking triumphantly.
"Also used to treat asthma," Wilson started, listing the uses for the natural drug that came off the top of his head before turning to read the uses listed on the box. "Psoriasis, joint pain..."
House interrupted him, cutting to his point. "She doesn't wheeze, ache or flake." House said, sitting down and fixing Wilson with a pointed stare. "And she didn't ask a pulmonologist or a dermatologist to dinner. She invited an oncologist. It's not a date, it's a consult."
Wilson was starting to look concerned and House wondered whether he should be kicked for being relieved that his boss thought she had cancer instead of her simply being lonely in bed at night. House probably wouldn't have cared who Cuddy dated, unless there was a possibility of humiliating her, but she had picked the man House was starting to think of as 'his'. Wilson was his... and House didn't share so good.
Before Wilson could voice his opinion on House's theory, however, the door to Wilson's office pushed open and Cameron walked into the room looking tired. She'd been working late and very hard ever since Foreman's last brain biopsy, her guilt seemed to be pushing her so hard that the only way she could probably sleep at night was to wear herself out. House briefly mulled over the possibility of saying something to that effect, but decided that it wasn't worth it if his brain-damaged Neurologist wasn't there to make the mocking that much sweeter.
"Mom's MRI was negative for masses, abscesses," she announced to House without preamble. Talking about the woman who'd accidentally drowned her baby because she had a seizure. "There's no sign that she has myelomatous..."
"Fascinating," House interrupted, wanting to get back to what he'd been doing with Wilson. "Call me when we have..." But Cameron clearly wasn't done yet. She interrupted him.
"She has a subarachnoid bleed," she told the two men, her glare at House indicating that she thought he should be taking their case more seriously. House sighed quietly to himself and decided that Cuddy's trash/ cancer/ date with 'his' Wilson would have to wait. He pushed himself up out of the chair and, giving a semi-apologetic glance at Wilson who didn't register it in his concern for House's patient, left with Cameron.
It was funny. Now that he actually wanted to spend time with the oncologist, even if it was for his own nefarious purposes, events were conspiring against him. Before, it seemed like he could never get rid of Wilson. The universe was, apparently, very fond of hypocrisy.
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Cuddy took Wilson to a very nice French restaurant in the downtown area and, apparently, they had reservations. Wilson decided that was a point on the side of 'Date'. Cuddy wouldn't be trying so hard if it were cancer, she'd have just gotten down to brass-tax like she usually did. She'd even dressed up for it in a flirty, non-business related black cocktail dress. Wilson almost felt staid in his blue work suit.
They were seated at a table for two in the middle of the busy restaurant and given their menus. They started talking about work, in the general way people on dates talked about work, over the appetizers and breadsticks and had moved on to Wilson's divorce by the time the salads had come.
"So, is this a separation, or..." Cuddy asked, taking a sip of her Chardonnay.
"Well, lawyers have been hired," Wilson shrugged; spearing a couple of leafs drizzled in a dark vinaigrette, on his fork. "Friends divvied up." He thought briefly about saying that Julie hadn't wanted to keep House, but that thought immediately made him think about the diagnostician's theories as to why Cuddy had invited him on a 'date' in the first place.
House thought cancer... House had actually been happy to discover the red clover box in Cuddy's trash, as if he'd been desperate to discover something that proved that Cuddy didn't want to date Wilson. Of course, that made the oncologist wonder why the older man cared.
House had been acting odd lately. Well, odd for House. It wasn't something concrete that Wilson could pinpoint, the older man just seemed a little more erratic than usual, like something new had been added to the careful equation that was his life and House simply didn't quite know how to deal with it. Maybe this dating thing was part of it?
"Oddly, she didn't fight me for House," Wilson told Cuddy dryly, deciding to go ahead and say his little joke now that the older man had firmly set up shop in Wilson's mind and didn't seem like he was leaving any time soon. Cuddy laughed nervously, but didn't pick up that particular conversational thread.
"At leas there aren't kids involved," she said, a touch wistfully. "You just have each other to deal with."
"If there had been kids," Wilson mused, after swallowing his forkful of salad. "Maybe we would have done more of that."
There was a long pause in the conversation through which Wilson could hear the gentle murmur of conversation from the other tables and the wistful sound of the soft jazz from the piano.
"Do you want kids?" Cuddy asked awkwardly. Wilson looked at her briefly, before frowning at his salad and deciding that he'd better confirm House's theories before they completely ruined his evening. That and it would be nice to have something to shove in the diagnostician's face.
"Listen, is there anything in particular you wanted to..." he started to say, but fumbled over the words. How exactly did you ask someone if them asking you out to a restaurant was just a cover for a consult? "Hospital business..."
"Just catching up," Cuddy smiled, looking slightly panicked before relaxing a little and chuckling. "I mean, you know, it's not like either one of us has anyone to run home to." She looked a little sad at that, but Wilson could understand the sentiments.
"No," he sighed, for some reason thinking of House and his apartment. He decided that he really must be getting lonely if the idea of coming home to find House sprawled out on the sofa watching 'The L Word' actually appealing.
There was another long awkward silence in which they both picked at their salads before Cuddy thought of something to say.
"Does House seem different to you?" she asked suddenly. "Only I caught him snooping through my office this morning and he interrogated me about our dinner. He seemed stuck on it."
"He's just upset that I turned down his offer of an 'L Word' marathon to have dinner with you," Wilson laughed her worry away.
But Cuddy's question only seemed to confirm Wilson's own concerns. House had seemed stuck on it. He'd gone through the woman's trash, confronted and interrogated her even. It was a very House-thing to do, but he did such things to pursue a diagnosis, not over something as trivial as a date.
He'd never cared about anyone Cuddy'd been casually dating before, hadn't desperately tried to find out who she'd been playing tennis with a couple of months ago. Which meant that House didn't really care about Cuddy's half of things; this was about Wilson.
House was stuck on the thought of Wilson dating... More than stuck, House was upset about it, if the agitation he'd displayed since this morning, when Wilson had told the older doctor about his date, was anything to judge by. Now Wilson had to know. Was this a date? And if it was, why did House care so much? Why was House upset?
The oncologist eyed his boss's utensils, wondering if he dared to steal one simply to discover the truth.
------------------------------
As House limped down to his office, he saw someone working in the lab. It was Wilson, back at work after his little tte-^-tte with Cuddy. He hadn't even changed out of his blue and silver tie. Something was up.
House opened the door, heart pounding and hand slipping slightly on the handle of his cane, and approached the bench where the oncologist was working. Wilson looked up and noted that it was House before looking back down at the test tubes in front of him. But not before House noticed an apprehensive glimmer in the other man's brown eye.
Something was up.
"How was dinner?" House asked casually, approaching the bench and stopping at Wilson's side.
"Cuddy did not mention cancer," the oncologist said with a weary sigh.
"She lost he nerve," House said knowingly, wondering if he kept saying it long enough he might actually believe himself.
"It was a date," Wilson replied, searching the older man's face with a glance. House got that unnerving exposed feeling again, like he'd been found out and suddenly the whole world knew his secret but he didn't know they knew.
"What are you doing?" House asked suspiciously, looking at the equipment Wilson was working with. Logically, since Wilson had already shut up his office and left for the day, this wasn't work. But if it wasn't work, what was it? Something to do with Cuddy perhaps?
"PCR test," the oncologist told him.
"You're doing it yourself in the middle of the night?" House queried, knowing he was on to something. Wilson said nothing and House looked down to see what the other man was doing the test on. It wasn't a swab stick. "On a spoon?" he laughed slightly as he picked up the piece of flatware and examined it.
"Cuddy's spoon," House decided, crowing mentally that Wilson had actually taken his idea of Cuddy wanting a consult seriously.
The seeds of doubt had been planed effectively and Wilson would probably never be able to look at his boss without thinking that she could become his next cancer patient. Such pitying thoughts were definitely relationship killers... Except this was Wilson who lived off of neediness. If Cuddy had cancer, she'd become ten times more attractive to the oncologist.
Crap!
"I'm checking her saliva for cancer markers," Wilson sighed.
"Yeah," House said, trying to squash the panic that threatened to seep into his voice. "I do that after all of my dates too... People think you're the nice one," House said bitterly, throwing the spoon back on the workbench and moving to the other side of the table.
"Why are you so worried about Cuddy?" Wilson asked, looking at House with narrowed, guarded eyes.
"You go first," House evaded, glaring at his best friend. "You desperately want this to be a date."
"Because the alternative is cancer," Wilson replied, defending himself against House's bitter sarcasm. He handed the tubes one by one to the diagnostician, who put them in the centrifuge and did his best to ignore the tiny sparks of electricity that shot through his nerves with each accidental brush of skin.
"Just admit that you like her," House bitterly mocked the other man. "She's smart, funny, got a zesty bod. I think it's great that you can look beyond the fact that she's the devil."
"I stole a spoon," Wilson replied, fixing the older man with a raised eyebrow. "You stole her garbage."
"She's my boss," House shrugged, as if that gave him every right to invade her privacy. But the excuse sounded hollow and untrue even in House's ears. "If she gets sick, the hospital might replace he. Especially if she dies... I'd have to learn how to manipulate someone new."
"Whoa," Wilson replied dryly in the face of House's callousness. "I think I'm gonna cry."
"Find me when the results come in," House said absently, deciding that now would be a good time to check in with his team and ignoring the fact that he was once again running away because he'd lost control of the conversation.
House felt slightly panicked. What if Wilson did suspect? Would he loose what he wanted to keep anyway?
------------------------------
House was in his office playing with his Yo-yo and thinking about 'Seizure Mamma's' symptoms when Wilson walked in, his lab coat flapping and his right hand clutching a lab report. He held the report out to House, who caught the yo-yo and swallowed hard. There was an intenseness to Wilson's dark brown eyes that made House's breath short and the younger man looked fresh despite the long night. His hair had been recently blow-dried and his clothes changed.
"It was a date," Wilson told House smugly. "Cuddy's negative for all cancer markers." Wilson made a gesture reminiscent of an Umpire announcing that a ballplayer is 'safe' when crossing home plate. House took the report from the other man's hand.
"It was a date," Wilson reaffirmed.
House frowned at the floor and then at the report as Wilson turned to leave, upset that it was a date and slightly relieved that Cuddy didn't have cancer. Because a Cuddy without some reason to be needy was a less attractive partner to Doctor Wilson. But still, a connection between the pair had been attempted, which just made House feel betrayed.
And then Chase marched into his office, interrupting his rapidly darkening thoughts about Wilson and Cuddy with an epiphany on his case.
"The baby's intestine shows slight villous atrophy," Chase said, causing Wilson to stop in his tracks. House's frown got even deeper, but then came the epiphany and he hauled himself up off his desk. The two curious men followed House into the Diagnostic's lounge to hear why House suddenly looked so smug.
"Why would a baby have flattened villi?" Wilson asked, frowning in that pretty way that was pure Wilson.
"He was being treated with polystyrene," House replied, turning to face Wilson and his team. Foreman frowned, trying to figure out how that would be relevant to the case, before rolling his eyes.
"Polystyrene shouldn't," he started, but House interrupted him.
"It didn't," he told them, enjoying the looks of confusion on the faces watching him. Wilson looked especially adorable with that delicate crease down the center of his forehead. "The question is, what do the use in the NICU to bind it together?"
"Wheat gluten," Cameron supplied, still nonplussed as to why that should be relevant.
"It's great stuff," House smirked as he popped the cap off his vicodin bottle and poured a couple of pills into his palm, ignoring the deepening of Wilson's frown as he saw the pills. "Unless your body can't tolerate it."
The four doctors looked between each other, still confused and unsure. But then Chase's expression changed to one of understanding.
"The baby didn't have colic?" he asked, eyes wide in surprise. "He had celiac disease?"
"Just like mom," House sighed. "Celiac can be triggered by all kinds of stress. Bills, childbirth, drunk husband..." Chase sat down, looking bemused. "Every time she had a bowl of pasta or a slice of bread or a slosh of soy sauce, her small intestine became more damaged, less able to absorb the vitamins and minerals into her bloodstream. Her body couldn't absorb enough niacin, caused the pellagra. Couldn't absorb vitamin K, caused the bleeding... And celiac is why the baby's meds didn't work." The realization his Chase like a thunderbolt, the guilt clouding his features evaporating as he realized that the baby's death hadn't been his fault.
"His body just couldn't absorb them," House continued. There was a slight pause as the truth settled in everybody's mind like silt settling at the bottom of a river. "Switch Mom to IV nutrition. It's gluten-free. That'll spruce her villi right up."
"No," Cameron shook her head, still disbelieving. "Celiac causes nutritional deprivation. Our patient has excess calcium."
"Tell them what causes excess calcium with a chaser of bloody vomit," he said, waving at Wilson to enlighten the three younger doctors. Wilson blinked, thinking for a moment before understanding hit him.
"Celiac patients are susceptible to cancer of the stomach lining," the oncologist said slowly, like he was remembering an image from a textbook and was reading a line from that page. He looked up and his eyes met House's. House felt trapped by them, unable to look away. "She has MALT Lymphoma."
"Well, She's your patient, now," House smirked nervously at Wilson before he dragged his eyes away from the oncologist's brown ones. The lab results from Cuddy's spoon quickly caught his attention. He reread the line that had jumped out at him and smirked again before walking towards the door. "And it wasn't a date."
Wilson frowned.
House limped out of the lounge, determined once and for all to find out from the devil herself if it had been an actual date or if his new theory was correct. His team scattered and Wilson disappeared to 'Mom's' hospital room as House called the elevator and pressed the button for the first floor.
He moved into Cuddy's office with the strength and determination of a fast approaching hurricane, determined to get to the bottom of this whole 'date' thing. He glared at her, where she sat next the bookshelf reading what looked like billing files.
"You don't have cancer," he accused her. She blinked.
"You don't have dwarfism," she replied with a small frown.
"You have no proof of that," he stated, making her eye widen in confusion. "I, on the other hand, have this." He showed Cuddy the lab results from her spoon. She read it and quickly became angry.
"You ran a PCR on me without my consent?" she exclaimed.
"Hey, it's good news," House countered, looking down at the billing files and waving in the general direction of the report in her hand.
"Really?" she asked, her tone indicating that he was about to be in a world of hurt and she really didn't buy his sudden concern for her health. "It's just hard to access because of this overwhelming sense of personal violation." She rose from her chair with the lab results and the billing files, and moved to her desk.
"Deal with it on your own time," House advised. She glared at him. "Bad news: estrogen is too high." That was the tiny tidbit on her report that had caught his interest and had confirmed that it hadn't been a date. The dean of medicine had an agenda, House was sure. Cuddy moved behind her desk and put the files down.
"No matter haw many people you tell otherwise," she growled. "I am and have always been a woman. Estrogen is normal."
"Not this much," House countered, leaning against the table she'd recently vacated. "Not for, at least, another week." She looked at him in confusion, so he clarified. "That's when you ovulate."
Her eyes glittered dangerously. "You monitor my periods? Based on... when I get bitchy or..."
"Once a month, when you leave the kid's cancer ward," House explained gleefully. "Your eyes glisten. And about three weeks later, you break your ban on sugar and chow down a bucket of frozen yogurt in the cafeteria. Sprinkles included. Based on the last yogurt sighting, you've got another week before you ovulate... You're on fertility meds. With red clover as an herbal booster."
House narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her. Cuddy had been auditioning Wilson as a potential sperm donor! He decided then and there that Cuddy couldn't have any of Wilson's sperm to create evil mini-Cuddy clones with. It was a fate worse than death to be the father of Cuddy's spawn and it would mean that House hadn't a chance in hell of ever getting what he wanted.
"And dinner with Wilson was an audition." He finished his thought process with a mocking jab at Cuddy while rising up and moving towards her desk to look her in the eye. "Its too bad he didn't land the gig. He would have had fun."
"I was considering a donation," she ground out, glaring at him but not denying House's theory. "Not a party."
Well, at least little Jimmy wouldn't have made an appearance in Cuddy's bedroom.
"So, when's out dinner?" House grinned, knowing that at this point he had to say something lecherous before she suspected that he was trying to keep the oncologist out of her nicely manicured claws. He made air-quotes around the word 'dinner'. Cuddy didn't answer and House was about to say something further when he heard a familiar voice out in the hall. He turned to look and there was Wilson.
"Oh, he's gonna be so disappointed," House taunted her. She rolled her eyes.
"Right," she said, looking miserable. "You two are gonna have a lot of fun with this."
House was about to give a reply of some type, but Wilson actually came through the door and interrupted.
"Your patient wont let me touch her," he complained. House sighed and followed Wilson out of the door to try and badger some sense into the dying woman.
----------------------------------
House met Wilson at his office when it was time to clock off, feeling better than he had in weeks. Wilson looked contemplative, shooting House little looks when he thought House wouldn't notice. They walked silently to the elevators together and rode down together. When they reached the first floor, the doors opened to reveal the devil herself in a nice white suite that clashed with her evil persona.
Cuddy shot House a wary and vaguely unnerved look that made Wilson blanch visibly.
"Hi," House gave her a small uncomfortable smile and the two men made room so she could pass them and enter the lift. Wilson said a perfunctory goodnight and House imitated him guiltily. The pair left the elevator and Wilson waited for the doors to close before he said what was on his mind.
"Did you tell Cuddy we tested her for cancer?" he asked, sounding worried.
"Yeah."
"And?" Wilson prompted as they walked towards the Hospital's front doors.
"It wasn't a date," House replied, shrugging. Wilson was still looking at him and House was about to tell the other man what he'd discovered, but then decided that it was in his best interests not to. After all, Wilson might actually be into the idea of having kids with Cuddy and then where would House be? Wilson would have to spend less time with him and more time with the children. So, House lied. "Turned out she had some skin lesions. Guess there was no genetic predisposition."
Wilson didn't look convinced, but the oncologist said nothing.
"You TiVo 'The L Word'?" He asked after a few silent moments. House smirked in triumph.
House? One. Cuddy and her possible evil progeny? Zero.
Tonight was going to be a fantastic night.
-----------------------------
"Are you going to tell me?" Wilson asked, returning from House's kitchen with a beer for both of them. Wilson's tie had been loosened, his suit jacket lost, and House only wished that he could have seen more exposed than just that little patch of skin just below Wilson's Adam's apple.
House looked up at the other man from his position on the couch and reached for his beer, taking a swig before he answered.
"Still waiting for you to get desperate," he smirked, turning resolutely back to the TV. He didn't think he could look at Wilson with out blushing. "I'm curious to see what a desperate Wilson might be reduced to."
Wilson sighed and sat next to House a touch closer than usual. House shifted a little, but kept his eyes firmly planted on the screen. Dana was currently trying to find out if Lara, the sous chef at the local country club was interested in her. House hoped that if he concentrated on the gay women parading around on the TV, maybe Wilson would get the hint and drop the conversation.
"Does this thing you won't tell me about have anything to do with why you've been obsessed with my date with Cuddy?" Wilson asked, knuckles white on the brown neck of his glass beer bottle.
"Not a date," House reaffirmed as the episode ended and the credits began to roll. House picked up the remote and fast-forwarded the recording to the next episode's opening credits.
"I see you aren't denying the obsession part," the oncologist observed dryly. "Or my idea that this has to do with whatever little secret you don't think you can tell me."
"Are you denying me the pleasure of harassing my boss?" House countered sourly. "Or are you just angry because it wasn't a date?"
"I really don't care whether it was or wasn't a date, anymore, House," Wilson sighed in exasperation, setting his beer down and turning on the couch so that he faced the older man, his right knee firmly nudging House's left thigh. The thigh in question immediately flexed and House felt like the entire universe had been narrowed down to two points of contact: Wilson's knee touching his leg and Wilson's brown eyes boring into the side of his head. "I am far more interested in why the idea of Cuddy taking me on a date upsets you so much."
"That's rather vain of you," House drawled, glancing at Wilson anxiously out of the corner of his eye. "I know you're pretty, Jimmy, but that doesn't mean the entire world revolves around you. What gave you the insane notion that I would be?"
"All the facts fit," Wilson shrugged; turning one of House's most oft spoke phrases against him. "It's logical... It's not about torturing Cuddy. If it were you wouldn't be lying to me about why she took me to dinner in the first place. You would have shared, so that we could mock her together. Not only that, but you were adamant that it wasn't a date. You went out of your way to prove she wasn't just trying to get into my pants, to get me to stop thinking about it as a date. I spent the entire dinner worrying whether she had cancer and whether you were right."
"So, I was messing with your head too," House interrupted coldly, refusing to look Jimmy Wilson in the eye. House could feel the spot on his face where Wilson was staring, like the other doctor had laser beam vision like Superman and was trying to burn a hole through his cheek. "Since when was this news to you?"
"House," the younger man said flatly. "You could care less about Cuddy dating; you have cared less about Cuddy dating. However, you have, in the last few weeks, been snarling at every single woman you catch flirting with me. It's like I've got a ten-foot woman-repelling force field surrounding me where ever I go!"
"So, what's your diagnosis, doctor?" House growled, lips twisting into a distorted, feral grin that promised pain in someone's near future. Wilson had seen it enough not to be put off by its appearance. "Am I gonna live?"
"Yeah, but you probably wont be able to live with yourself," Wilson sighed.
There was a long, expectant pause.
'This isn't gonna end well,' House thought, swallowing the lump lodged in his throat. 'He'd gonna tell me he knew all along and that he's sorry, but he just doesn't swing that way. We won't be able to look each other in the eye and finally we'll just stop talking if we don't have too.'
House felt like his heart was attempting to batter it's way out through his ribcage, now that the throat escape rout had failed. His skin felt too small, like he was going to burst through it at any minute. He felt like he was itching all over, like his skin was crawling with a thousand invisible spiders all doing the electric slide.
His head slowly turned until his eyes met Wilson's and he gritted his teeth,
"You've got a crush on me," the oncologist said finally.
And there it was, out in the open for all to see. House had never felt more miserable in his entire life, and that included the months after Stacy had left him during rehab, included the times when the pain in his leg had made him want to tear himself to pieces with his bare hands.
He blinked.
"That's it?" he asked, hoar frost from the dead of winter freezing onto the sharp edges of his words. "That is your brilliant conclusion?"
"It certainly explains a lot," Wilson replied evenly.
"You're an idiot," House spat with as much venom he could. "Your evidence has no factual basis. I've got an entire collection of porn on video. I've only ever dated women. Stacy? She had breasts and a vagina. I think that qualifies her as a woman, but maybe I should check my medical encyclopedia just to be certain."
"You pushed Stacy away," Wilson countered. "Twice."
"Yeah," House snarled back. "Because I've just got to be miserable. Remember? Your words!"
"My previous thesis was incorrect due to insufficient data," the oncologist replied smoothly.
"I rent call girls, not call boys!" House growled. Wilson just shrugged.
"It's easier to find female hookers," the younger man said with a small smile. "I blame society."
"I flirt with women!"
"No, you harass women," Wilson told him, now looking strangely smug. "You flirt with men."
"I went on two dates with Cameron," House countered, his anger and his argument becoming weaker with each thrust and parry.
"The first time you were desperate," Wilson grinned. "You would have taken Chase to the monster truck rally if you'd had too, and you think he's a moron. The second time she had to blackmail you. And your reluctance to date such a beautiful woman, who's practically throwing herself at you, only adds to my certainty."
"All you've proven is that you think I'm gay," House replied bitterly, looking away from Wilson's intense stare. "Which is an opinion, not fact. You still haven't given me any definitive proof that I'm head over heels in love with you."
"I think I can find some," Wilson smirked. House could here the smirk in the younger man's tone.
"Really?" House asked sarcastically, looking back at the oncologist.
"Yup."
"Show me," House growled.
Wilson paused for a minute before seeming to surge forwards, lunging out of his sitting position to place his right hand on the back of the couch and his left onto the armrest in front of him with Gregory House trapped in the middle. Kneeling on the couch, practically pressing House against the upholstery, Wilson placed his lips firmly on House's.
House was shocked for a long moment, too stunned to feel or do anything.
Then sensations started to return and he could feel Wilson's rough lips, wet against his own, and Wilson's hot breath against his rough face. The younger man didn't move, letting the pressure of his mouth do all of the talking for him. House felt the hand to his left move off of the back of the couch to firmly cradle the back of his head, finger digging into his salt-and-pepper curls. It wasn't a tender touch, but a commanding one that wouldn't let him move either.
House's own hands curled on the seat of the couch, itching to grab or push away. He hadn't made up his mind about which.
And then Wilson's mouth was slowly moving, coaxing the older man to kiss back as he first bit at House's upper and then lower lip. Wilson's teeth felt hard and smooth nipping at the now swollen flesh of House's lips. House could feel the blood pounding in his head and rushing to where he was still connected to Wilson, it wasn't like a headache but rather the warm kneed of a masseuse's hands working on tense muscles.
It felt too good to be genuine. There was a catch. There had to be a catch.
House finally raised his hands and pushed Wilson roughly back to his side of the couch. The younger man was breathless, amazed in an aroused sort of way, and hurt by House's rejection.
"Out," House whispered, voice coarse with heavy emotion. Wilson just looked at him, perplexed. So, House shouted, sure he could be heard in the next state over. "Get out!"
The oncologist took a brief moment to compose himself, wiping the wet sheen from his mouth and schooling his features, before he rose quickly from the couch and gathered his things from where he'd dropped them. The dark suit jacket was shrugged back on and the leather satchel slung over one shoulder, Wilson opened the front door and paused. He dug into the pocket of his jacket and pulled something from its depths. The object was dropped onto the floor with a metallic clunk.
Wilson left, quietly closing the door behind him.
It was several minutes before House, still in something approaching a catatonic state, moved. He picked up his cane from where it had fallen to the floor, probably knocked over by Wilson's unexpected lunge, and then picked up the remote to absently stop the program still running on the TV.
He slowly picked himself up off the couch, as if he were remembering which each muscle in his body did and how to use them in concert. Then he stood there for a long moment, his shocked brain still not letting him process what had happened. The moment seemed separate, like everything that had happened that led up to this moment where House stood, alone, in his apartment with the lingering sensation of Wilson's lips on his, wasn't real.
House slowly licked his lips, testing to see if the impression of his friend's kiss would fade, but it didn't.
He turned around and looked at the door before noticing the thing that Wilson had dropped on the floor. He limped over to it, the feelings of movement failing to penetrate his mind, and practically fell to the floor just to pick it up.
It was small and shiny, made of a silvery metal. The shape was oblong with a circular bit at one end and jagged edges at the other. The realization of what the object was hit House like a freight train and he closed his eyes, gritting his teeth in pure self-hatred.
It was his house key... The one he'd given Wilson.
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The problem with a stagnant system is that it isn't a realistic model of life. Life fluctuates, shifts and changes with the tides of cause and effect. A chain of events started long ago impact the now in unforeseeable ways, causing one thing to happen instead of something else. We make choices, take actions and say words that cause ripples through our lives and the lives of others whether we realize it or not.
A stagnant system is not a complex system, a web of cause and effect, it is not a living system.
Life is a complex system.
Life is change.
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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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