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Wounds Unhealed
by Mer
House was in the middle of a differential with his fellows when he saw Wilson walk past with a woman. General frailness; translucent skin; short, spiky, post-chemo hair: a patient and not one who was going to last much longer. House's perimeter alarms went off. When Wilson stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm and leaned in to say something, House forgot all about his patient. He was through the conference room door before any of his hired hands could protest.
"Wilson!" he shouted, letting his cane lever him quickly down the hallway. He could tell by the set of Wilson's shoulders that he was steeling himself for the encounter. "I just got an email — well, actually about a dozen of them — about a great pill that will solve that problem you were telling me about." He shifted to face Wilson's patient and plastered on his most innocent expression. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt."
"House," Wilson hissed, startling House. Normally Wilson brushed off even House's most obnoxious moments with a long-suffering sigh, but this time Wilson looked as though he were torn between wanting to strangle House and wishing he could disappear.
"Wilson," House hissed back, curious to see how far he could push Wilson before he burst a blood vessel.
But Wilson took a step back and a deep breath and managed a smile for his patient. "Jenny, this is a friend of mine, Dr. Gregory House. House, this is Jenny Ostler — sorry, Howard."
House had already seen the ring, loose and precarious, on her left hand. This was a new patient, though, so Wilson must have a history with her. He wondered if he were about to get a glimpse of that mysterious entity known as Pre-House Wilson. "Childhood sweethearts," he guessed, waiting for Wilson to stammer an explanation or the woman to politely correct him.
But they just exchanged a long look that House couldn't even begin to interpret. "Not exactly," Jenny said, "though I'm flattered that you think James and I are the same age."
House didn't tell her that dying was a great distorter of age. "Wilson, you dog," he proclaimed. "Sniffing around older women when you were just a baby?"
But Wilson wasn't playing. "Don't," he said. "Just don't."
"Jimmy and Jenny," House pressed. "That's sweet enough to put someone in a diabetic coma." He waited. There it was. Wilson's wrist twitched involuntarily, as if he dreaming of hitting House. If he pushed a little harder, Wilson might even raise his voice.
But Wilson's childhood cancer chick just smiled. "I guess you don't really miss Mike at all," she said to Wilson. This time Wilson's whole body twitched.
Bells were ringing again, but this time they were accompanied by whistles and horns and flashing neon lights. This was the kind of jackpot he'd been waiting for since Wilson's family had stopped answering his questions. He wondered how he would be able to cut her away from Wilson.
"Don't you have a patient?" Wilson asked, his voice just a little too even.
Wilson was about two minutes away from snapping, House judged, as he glanced back at his office. Chase was standing in the doorway, and when he saw House looking, he gestured impatiently for him to return. "The kids can handle it on their own. It's not often I get to meet one of your friends."
"There's a reason for that," Wilson retorted. His voice was rising and his hands were already on his hips. Two minutes might have been a generous estimation. But then Wilson's pager beeped. "Patient emergency," he said once he'd read the message. "I'll have to take a rain check on that cup of coffee," he told Jenny. He took her hand and squeezed it lightly, then glanced at House. "I'd like to show your file to House, if you don't mind. He's the best doctor in the hospital."
"Country," House retorted.
"City," Wilson countered.
"Eastern Seaboard." When there was no counter-offer, House raised an eyebrow. "You must really want me to look at that file. Normally he won't go higher than state," he explained. "I'll take a history over coffee. That is, if you're interested in a second opinion."
"Third," she replied softly. "And I trust James. If he wants you to look at the file, it's fine with me."
Wilson glanced nervously between them. "I've really got to go. Don't hound her, House."
House tried to look insulted, but he knew Wilson wasn't buying it. He decided to ease off on the reins before Wilson bolted and took his new source of information with him. "Go deal with your patient. I'll take care of your friend."
"What about your patient?" Wilson asked, jerking his head towards Chase.
House looked back. "It's autoimmune," he shouted. "Start doing the tests to narrow it down." He nodded with satisfaction when Chase disappeared back into the office. "That will keep them busy for at least an hour."
Wilson lingered, though he was clearly worried about the page. "Is it really autoimmune?" he asked sceptically. He shook his head. "Why am I asking? Maybe it actually is lupus this time."
House rolled his eyes. It was never lupus. "Get out of here before your patient dies." He glanced briefly at Jenny, almost regretting the choice of words. "I'll get Jenny Ostler-Howard all caught up on what you've been doing since grade school."
"I really wish you wouldn't," Wilson replied, but he smiled and touched Jenny briefly on the shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow. Call me if you need anything before then."
They watched him jog away, his lab coat drifting behind him like a cape. Then House punched the down button for the elevator and glanced sideways his companion. She wrapped her arms around her body, either from cold or discomfort. House didn't say anything and she relaxed.
"Don't tell Wilson," House said, as he bought both their coffees. "Wouldn't want him to think I carry cash." They found a booth in the corner, where they could have at least the illusion of privacy. He watched her stir a packet of sugar substitute and two creamers of milk into her cup. "So you knew the older brother," he started, testing the waters.
"We were in the same class at school," Jenny replied, just as cautiously. "We grew up in the same neighbourhood."
That made her three or four years older than Wilson. He wondered just how well they had known each other. Most girls he had known in high school didn't pay much attention to gawky younger brothers. He eased away from the subject of Wilson's missing brother. He had learned that the subject was better approached obliquely. No one wanted to talk about Michael Wilson. "Was Wilson as annoying then as he is now?"
But she didn't take the bait. "Why don't you ask what you really want to know?" She looked levelly at him, and House noticed her eyes were almost exactly the same shade as his in this light.
"I want to know what you mean to him and what you meant to his brother."
"You'll have to ask James the first question, and I doubt Mike cared about the answer to the second." Her gaze faltered. "But I can tell you what James means to me." She looked down at her coffee and stirred it until it was an even beige mixture. "He was the younger brother of the first boy I fell in love with. And when Mike broke my heart, James was the only one who understood." She smiled bitterly. "All my friends thought I was an idiot for getting involved with Mike Wilson. He was handsome, charming and didn't give a damn about anyone except himself. But I loved him. And so did James."
House thought that Wilson had probably loved her as well. She had that mixture of strength and vulnerability that Wilson was completely unable to resist. He wondered if she was the one who had first imprinted that on Wilson's heart. "What did he do? Hold your hand while you cried? Tell you everything would be all right? Listen to all your girlish hopes, dreams and aspirations?"
Jenny's hands clenched around the coffee cup and House knew he was lucky she hadn't thrown it in his face. "Don't mock him," she said quietly, but with an edge that was impossible to ignore. "He was a sweet boy, who tried to make up for the pain his brother caused." She gave him an assessing look. "How many times has he had to do that for you?"
"We're not talking about me," House retorted.
"That must be a change for you," Jenny replied, but with a softening smile.
House couldn't help smiling back. She wasn't a beautiful woman — illness and pain had destroyed whatever beauty she might once have had — but he could still see the vestiges of a pretty girl. "He was a good friend to you."
"He was," Jenny acknowledged. "He knew how to listen."
No one knew that better than House. Wilson might protest being dragged out of meetings, dinners, and dates at House's whim, but he always listened. Sometimes House worried that he listened too well. "He still does. It's a great way to get women into bed." He watched her reaction carefully, and wasn't surprised to see faint colour rise in her pale cheeks.
She tilted her chin up defiantly. "That sounds like jealousy to me."
"I wasn't the one lusting after a child, Mrs. Robinson," House retorted, wondering how far he could push her. For a moment he thought he'd found her limit, but then she laughed. It was a nice sound. The coughing that followed wasn't.
"James warned me about you," she said when she caught her breath. "When he heard you coming, he said not to believe anything you said about him. He said you automatically assume he's sleeping with any woman that talks to him. Why is that?"
"Because most of the time it's true. Or it would be if I left him to his charming devices. Wilson attracts women like bees to honey. And because he's such a good listener, they marry him and then break his heart when they realize he's got the attention span of a cocker spaniel." Except Wilson had stayed focused on him for longer than his three marriages combined.
"I see," Jenny said slowly. "You're protecting him. Saving him from himself. Or are you just saving him for yourself?" She smiled and shook her head. "You forget that my parents have known his parents for more than 40 years. You may not know me, but I've heard all about James's great friend, Gregory House. Including how you monopolize his time so that there was never room in his life for a career, a marriage and a best friend. I should be grateful, at least, that you've allowed him a career."
An image of Wilson sealing up his patient files after Tritter had his DEA license suspended flashed before House's eyes. He locked it away with all the other things he didn't allow himself to remember. "Please. Wilson's parents can't bear to think that he's less than perfect, so I'm a convenient excuse for why he can't keep a marriage together. God forbid they should have two messed-up sons."
Again, he thought she would slap him or walk away, but she just shook her head. "The next time you meet someone who's not messed up in one way or another, feel free to introduce me. I'd like to know their secret."
"Brain damage," House said, and they both smiled. He narrowed his eyes when she pressed her hand to her chest.
"Give me the run-down," he ordered. "I'll get the rest from the file."
"Stage four ovarian cancer," she replied without emotion, though her hands clenched around the coffee cup. "It's spread to my lungs."
"Has that been confirmed?" House asked, his mind running through the possibilities. "A non-malignant pleural effusion could be causing the coughing and chest pain. I'll need another CT scan and biopsies." He glanced again at her wedding ring. "Let me guess. You just got married, your clock is ticking, and the eggs are drying up. Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. It's a complication of some forms of fertility medication."
Jenny shook her head. "I've been married nearly 20 years, I have an 18-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter, and my husband had a vasectomy nearly ten years ago. No fertility meds. And James has already arranged for new biopsies, scans and blood work tomorrow."
Of course he had. Wilson was as thorough and obsessive in his field as House was in his. But he was an oncologist, and his obsession focused on cancer. House's obsessions were kaleidoscopic. "It could still be a benign ovarian tumour causing problems. We'll catch whatever your local quack missed."
"My local quack was at Sloan-Kettering," Jenny replied, smiling faintly. "And he was very confident in his diagnosis. He wouldn't have put me through a round of chemo if he wasn't certain."
House had any number of patients who had learned otherwise the hard way. But the odds were against that being the case here. "Then why the second opinion?" House's only problem with Sloan-Kettering was that they'd been too stupid to snatch Wilson up when he finished his oncology fellowship. Which wasn't actually a problem for him at all.
"Because you can't live without hope." The smile faded away. "And because my local quack said James was the best oncologist in New Jersey for palliative care."
That wasn't a message that would give Wilson any peace, no matter how accurate it was. "Eastern Seaboard," he retorted, pleased when she smiled again. "He's always been attracted to hopeless cases." He glanced down at his coffee, wondering why it tasted better when Wilson bought it.
"Including you?" Jenny asked.
He could hear the smile in her voice, so he didn't think it was intended as an insult. In any case, it was true. "Especially me," House replied. "Not to mention three doomed marriages and a loser brother. Cancer is a cakewalk in comparison."
She pushed her coffee aside and tried to smile. It wasn't very convincing, but he gave her half-points for effort. "I wish things had turned out differently for him." She studied him again. "Though maybe he hasn't done so badly. It's worthwhile seeking him half your days / If you find him before the other."
"Kipling knew dick all," House said bluntly. "There isn't a friend in a million like Wilson." He gave her his own assessing look. "English degree or just a lot of time on your hands?"
"Why can't it be both?" The smile faded away altogether. "I tutored Mike in English," Jenny said, her eyes distant with memory. "That's how it started. And ended, really. He needed English to graduate. And when he couldn't use me any more, he dumped me." Her mouth twisted with remembered bitterness. "Three days before senior prom. He took the girl who got him through math." Her expression softened. "James offered to take me. It was impossible, of course. Now I wish I'd said yes."
"Four years is a big difference when you're 17," House commented.
"Three and a half," Jenny corrected. "But who's counting?" She smiled ruefully. "It was a chasm. James was sweet and kind, but he was still a boy. I thought I was a woman." She raised a hand to her mouth and coughed again. "I wonder sometimes what would have happened if I'd fallen in love with a different Wilson."
"Wilson would have four ex-wives to support," he retorted. "Though if you'd knocked Julie out of the queue, it would have been a blessing." Intellectually, House knew the ex-Mrs. Wilson the Third was as much a victim of the marriage as Wilson. But his half-life for forgiveness was longer than lead.
"Is that the one who cheated on him?"
Apparently Jenny Ostler-Howard had done her research. "Karma's a bitch," he replied bluntly, watching her reaction.
"That's probably one of those things James didn't want you to catch me up on," she replied wryly. "Is that supposed to disillusion me? He's not my husband; he's my doctor, and an old friend. Neither of those things gives me the right to judge him." The reproof was unspoken, but still there.
Not that House had ever been provable. He drained his coffee and leaned back in his chair. "I can get the rest of the information I need from your file." Medically, at least. He doubted he even needed to send the Yancy Street gang off on a fact-finding mission. The tests would tell him everything he needed to know, at least about her.
But she wasn't the one he was interested in. He thought, though, that she'd already told him enough. House was used to identifying pictures from the slightest of sketches. "Unless you have something you want to share with the class?"
"I can't tell you anything you don't already know about James," she said, not even pretending to misunderstand. "And there's nothing else I can tell you about Mike that you need to know. He wasn't bad. He was just a selfish boy who grew up to be an irresponsible man. It's not hard to screw up your life. The real trick is not screwing up." She stood up. "Thanks for the coffee. Tell James I'll see him tomorrow."
House sat in the cafeteria, staring at the two coffee cups, until Chase called to tell him it was lupus.
It wasn't lupus. It was, however, autoimmune, so House still gave himself a gold star. Normally, a successful diagnosis meant he could coast to the end of the week, but he had another patient to diagnose. Wilson's patient. Or whatever she was to Wilson.
He set his team scouring and comparing the Sloan-Kettering test results and the new ones Wilson had ordered. If they could find neurosyphilis when even he'd thought it was brain cancer, surely they could find a less malignant reason for her symptoms. But there was nothing to find. Sometimes cancer really was cancer.
That didn't mean he had to accept it. He spent Thursday shut up in his office reviewing the file, searching for something that had been missed the first, second, or third time around. If anything the news was worse. The cancer hadn't responded to the chemotherapy the way the team at Sloan-Kettering had hoped. The last ultrasound had found grade 1 ascites, and the blood work showed signs of liver function deterioration. She might make her 25-year high school reunion — if it were held early enough in the year — but it was unlikely she'd see her daughter graduate from high school.
He looked out the window, across the balcony to Wilson's office. The light was on, but he knew Wilson was on rounds. House wondered if he could avoid talking to him for another day. Not that there was really anything to talk about. Wilson had read the same test results he had. He'd supervised most of them. He didn't need House telling him what he already knew. But the confirmation would still be a blow. Some days, House hated being the office of last resort.
He looked at the file on his desk and scanned his memory for any clue missed, any path not taken. But there'd been no real puzzle — in the disease, at least. Wilson, on the other hand, was trickier than a Knight's Tour. At least that had a solution. Just as he was about to log onto the Internet and search for a Magic Square to beat easily, Cameron approached the office and knocked on the door.
She walked in without an invitation. "I just saw Wilson heading back from the wards. Are you going to tell him what we found?"
"We didn't find anything," House retorted.
Cameron approached his desk, bestowing upon him her best sympathetic smile. House didn't bother hiding his irritation. The last thing he wanted was Cameron trying to understand his feelings.
"We tried," she said. "I'm sure that's worth something to him."
"A try is only worth something in rugby," House retorted. He'd let some of his frustration slip into his voice, which was like pheromones where Cameron was concerned.
"We knew it was cancer. Wilson knew it was cancer. Even the patient knew it was cancer," she mused. "The only real mystery about this case was why you took it. You wouldn't even do a differential on Cindy Kramer..."
"Are you still sulking about that?" House interrupted. "I promise that when your next 'best friend forever' comes in with a clear case of small cell lung cancer, I'll give her all the attention she deserves."
But Cameron was undeterred. "We spent the last day diagnosing a patient that had already been diagnosed. I'm just wondering why," she said softly. "Because Wilson asked?"
Was she just figuring that out now? He had sold himself back into the bondage of clinic duty for one of Wilson's patients. At least one third of their cases came from Wilson, who obviously kept spies in the ER and clinic to search out unusual symptoms. If he started turning down Wilson's requests for consults, he could take Fridays off or fire an irritating immunologist. He stared impassively at Cameron until she shifted uncomfortably.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said with faux sincerity. "I thought that was a rhetorical question. Unless you have any other blindingly obvious observations to make, you can go start on the mail. Who knows, you might find the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
She shook her head and pulled open the door to the hallway, just as Wilson walked up. He started to smile and greet her, but she just pushed past him and stormed away.
"Who's going to open my mail?" House shouted after her, leaning back in his chair, flush with a feeling of accomplishment. It faded as he watched Wilson pull a chair up to his desk and drop wearily into it.
"Hey," Wilson said.
"Hey." House wondered if monosyllabic small talk could postpone the conversation indefinitely. "Long day," he ventured.
Wilson nodded. "You've been quiet," he observed. "Cuddy says she's had a complaint deficit for you today."
"I guess that means I can go wild tomorrow," House replied. "Want to help me crazy glue the elevator doors shut?"
"It's a tempting offer," Wilson said dryly, "but I'll have to pass. Give me a call, though, if you manage to get the Beetle on the roof." He slumped lower in the chair, staring at the file on House's desk. "You've had a chance to look at it, then."
House nodded and picked the file up, offering it to Wilson. He didn't say anything, just shook his head slightly. He couldn't find the words to shatter Wilson's last hope, but knew that his silence would say enough.
Wilson took the file from him and read House's scrawled assessment. "She's dying," he said.
House nodded. "You knew that before you gave me the file."
Wilson couldn't meet his eyes. "Yeah. But I thought... I hoped you'd see something I didn't see."
"I'm not a miracle worker." But he would trade all his past successes to find a different diagnosis for Wilson now. Meigs syndrome, OHSS. Spectacular incompetence at Sloan-Kettering. Anything but end-stage ovarian cancer.
Wilson pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and took a deep breath. "Thank you for trying," he said finally. When he took his hands away, he looked weary beyond his years.
Despite evidence to the contrary, House had never enjoyed seeing Wilson suffer. "There's a reason why doctors don't treat their loved ones," he said, almost kindly.
"And yet you continue to come to me for your prescriptions," Wilson retorted. He rubbed his hand over his eyes again. "I'm not in love with her. I don't know if I ever really was."
"What is she to you, then?" He hadn't got an answer from Jenny. He didn't think he'd get one from Wilson either, but he had to ask.
Wilson shrugged his shoulders. "She's one of those beliefs I've never managed to live up to." He looked down at the file, staring at the death sentence he'd help write. "And now I never will." When he looked up again, his eyes were dry, but they were so dark with loss and pain that it was like looking into a black hole that had trapped even the hope of light.
House looked away. He never knew what to do when Wilson was in pain. All he had to offer was beer and a place on his couch, and he didn't think that would be enough this time. "I don't think you ever had anything to live up to. You were exactly what she needed you to be."
Wilson flinched involuntarily. "She told you what he did?"
House nodded. There was no need to ask who "he" was. Wilson almost never mentioned his older brother by name, but he always spoke of him with the same mixture of longing and despair. "She said you were the only one who understood."
For a moment House thought Wilson might find some measure of peace in that, but then Wilson shook his head and looked away. "I never wanted to be like him, never wanted to hurt someone, the way he hurt Jenny." He stood up abruptly and jammed his hands deep in his pockets, pacing restlessly in front of House's desk. "He told me once that pain didn't hurt any less if it were unintentional. I've spent the last twenty years proving him right."
House knew better than anyone how even Wilson's best intentions could wound. But he also knew that no matter where that road led, it was one he was willing to follow. "That doesn't mean you're like him."
"Three failed marriages," Wilson retorted. "An affair with a dying patient. I use people the way he did, only I tell myself it's for their own good, as if that makes it all right."
House had a low tolerance for listening to Wilson whine, and he'd just reached his limit. "That's right. You're a cheating bastard, who just happens to be on friendly terms with all three of his ex-wives. You're a self-righteous prig who thinks he knows what's best for everybody, but has absolutely no sense of self-preservation. You're annoying, manipulative, deceitful, and you're nothing like your brother."
But Wilson wasn't listening. "At least he had the guts to say screw it and try something else."
"Right. Because destroying your family, running away from your problems, and generally acting like an asshole is such a noble path to take." House knew he was treading on dangerous ground, but Wilson was too consumed by self-pity to draw any parallels. "I don't know what you think she expects of you; I don't even know what you expect of yourself. But whatever those beliefs are that you fail to live up to, at least you have them and you try." He hoped Cameron wasn't listening at the door.
"There is no try. Do or do not," Wilson intoned.
House rolled his eyes. "When did you start mistaking movie quotes for wisdom?"
"When did you start making a distinction?" Wilson countered.
House was feeling indulgent, so he let that one go. "She knows she's dying. She came to you because she believes you can help her die with as much dignity and as little pain as possible."
"I thought you didn't believe that it was possible to die with dignity."
There were days when House thought Wilson was some kind of perverse Boswell, capturing his bon mots not for posterity, but for ammunition. "I don't," he replied. "But she does. You were exactly what she needed you to be 25 years ago. You have the chance to be that for her again."
He watched the words sink in, watched Wilson's disjointed pacing slow and then stop. He waited for Wilson to realise what was being asked of him. It didn't take long.
"I don't think I can watch her die," Wilson said, the weight of it cracking his voice.
House decided not to point out that it would be the nurses, for the most part, who would actually watch her die. House barely made the effort to see his patients when they were alive, much less when they were dying, choosing to wait for the news of his failure from a distance. He glanced down at his locked desk drawer. There were some patients that he saw long after their deaths.
But Wilson was different. He gave his patients anything they needed when they were alive, but was able to move on when they were gone. He was just stupid enough to put himself through a protracted deathbed vigil, hovering on the periphery of grief, offering comfort where he could and finding none for himself.
"It's not in you to do anything else," House said, wishing it weren't true.
That Wilson seemed to accept, nodding almost ruefully. He sat down again and flipped through the file. "I should get back to my office. Map out a treatment plan. I've been having some luck with a new combination of drugs. And I found a couple of clinical trials that might be suitable for her." But he didn't move. "I wish..." He sighed and waved the rest of his words away. "I should get back."
House nodded, but they sat together in silence for a few minutes longer, until Wilson finally pushed himself out of the chair and left without a word.
It was late, or at least late enough for House to justify leaving. But the light was on in Wilson's office, and House thought he would stay a little longer, until it was turned off. He grabbed a journal from the pile of mail Cameron refused to sort, but then put it aside.
He thought about the two brothers, Michael and James, and wondered how different they really were. One took and wounded, while the other one gave and healed. But they both left when there was nothing more to give or take.
A twinge in his thigh reminded him that some wounds never heal. For a moment, he was glad.
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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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