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Things To Do In Princeton When You're Dead
by Teyla
AN: Beta'ed by TLI and wihluta.
He'd taken the knife.
After House had been carried off to the ER and all the commotion had died down, it had still been lying on the floor of House's office, right next to the shelf where House kept his books on nephroma. Wilson shook his head. How could a guy who had a whole shelf filled with books on one single medical condition - and who had actually read every single one of them cover to cover, more than could be said of Wilson and his books on lymphoma - how could a guy like that be dumb enough to go and stick a knife in a wall socket?
Wilson sighed and slipped the knife into his pocket before he got up to go and check on House.
-###-
"I love you."
Wilson raised an eyebrow and scribbled an order for some extra Perocet. He had to try three times before he got the dosage right, and shook his head a little to clear it. Body mass times recommended dosage. Not too hard to remember. Concentrate.
He was preoccupied for the rest of the day. On his way home, he almost ran a red light. He hit the brakes, cursing under his breath, and raised an apologetic hand at the angry driver of the car behind him.
When he finally arrived at his hotel room, the first thing he did was pour himself a drink. It was the first one he'd had in a while. He dropped his briefcase on the desk and shed his jacket and tie before he kicked off his shoes and got comfortable in front of the TV.
It took him a while to realize that he'd forgotten to turn it on.
He just couldn't stop thinking about this. The skittish look in House's eyes - yes, House had been skittish, evasive, and that in itself was something entirely new - and the undertone in his voice when he'd answered Wilson's question.
Had he seen anything?
Eosinophilic pneumonia.
What did you see?
Nothing.
Wilson was a doctor, had been one for quite a while. Being a doctor wasn't as good as being a cop, but he still knew when someone was lying. With his patients, he always knew. With most other people, too. With House, though, he was never sure whether the man was telling the truth but making it look like a lie to mess with Wilson's head, or if he'd actually caught Dr. Sociopath lying.
What if it hadn't been fake this time?
Wilson reached into his pocket and took out the knife, turning it in his hands. There were knives that had a certain grace - big Bowie knives that harked to fictional heroes like Allan Quatermain or Robinson Crusoe, or thin, graceful swords that would have fit better with Captain Nemo or Arsne Lupin - but this wasn't one of them. A simple, blunt opening mechanism, a short blade, scorched from the knife's recent encounters with electricity, the handle chipped in several places.
No matter what it looked like, though, it still had the capacity to kill. In more than one way.
Wilson snapped it shut and got to his feet. He slipped the knife back into his pocket and grabbed his jacket. Taking a last look around, he took his key card from the desk and left the room, leaving it in silence.
-###-
There were many people who claimed they hated hospitals, but House wasn't one of them. He'd be lying if he denied that there were many things he liked about PPTH. His office, Wilson's office, the roof, the cafeteria, the MRI room. He didn't like the clinic and the ER, but that was more a matter of their association with boring, repetitive work.
But there were parts of every hospital that House hated, and those were the waiting areas. In every hospital, they looked the same, smelled the same and had the same tense-yet-bored atmosphere to them that made House want to twirl his cane around and around even though it made the burned skin of his hand protest violently.
Princeton General really had their discreet-yet-tacky-wallhangings-and-snow-slush-colored-plastic-chairs waiting area combination down pat.
House heard steps in the hallway outside the swing door he'd been watching and leaned back. "Three," he muttered. "Two, one, and - action!"
The door swung open, granting entrance to one skinny, dark haired ER doc in his late twenties. Reading tiny script got harder every day, but on a distance, House's eyes worked just fine, and he had no trouble picking up on the dark areas under the doctor's eyes and the slightly shell-shocked expression still lingering on his face.
Oh yeah. Having a patient electrocute himself in front of your eyes without warning did wonders for your complexion.
The ER doc spotted him and changed his course. "Are you Dr. House?"
House shifted and laid his cane across his knees. "The one and only," he said.
The ER doc nodded. "Good, good. I'm Dr. Finnigan. We spoke on the phone."
"Indeed we did." House looked up at the doctor expectantly, but the man stayed quiet. House sighed. "Are you really going to make me ask? I mean, I know he's not here to hear me say it, but it's still a matter of if not pride, then at least style."
Finnigan stared at him in confusion, and House rolled his eyes. "How's Dr. Wilson?"
"Oh!" Finnigan blinked. Apparently someone had just slapped him out of his coma. "Sorry, of course. Well, due to the shock to his nervous system, his heart stopped beating and we had to shock him. We managed to resuscitate him successfully. Physically, he suffered no damage aside from some rather severe burns to his left hand. We are, however, obliged to keep him here for at least twenty-four hours."
House snorted. "You're putting Jimmy on suicide watch? I can't wait to tell his shrink."
This statement seemed to disconcert Dr. Finnigan somewhat, because he dropped his I'm-discussing-other-people's-private-problems-with-third-parties-but-it's-okay-'cause-I'm-a-doctor expression to stare at House in consternation. "Dr. House, you-"
House smiled and nodded. "Whatever you have to say, I'm not interested, unless if you were about to tell me Wilson's room number."
Consternation disappeared to be replaced by indignation. "Dr. House-"
"Sh! Room number! Or I take the night nurse hostage." Finnigan stared, and House made as if to get up. "I mean it. Ask Wilson. I don't joke about hostage situations."
The ER doc's expression clouded over. "Dr. Wilson is in room 341 B, but I must insist-"
"Brilliant! Finally we understand each other." House got to his feet and turned before Finnigan could get up as well. "If you follow me, I'll beat you with my cane."
Finnigan began to push himself up, and House raised the cane. "I almost never joke about my cane, either."
Finnigan sat back down and House smiled. "Good boy."
The doctor didn't follow him as he headed down the hallway towards the elevators.
-###-
Standing was beginning to get uncomfortable, and House was considering sacrificing some of the dramaturgical effect in exchange for the relief of sitting down in the visitor's chair, when Wilson finally began to stir.
"You're a moron," House said before Wilson's eyes had even fully opened. "What did you go and do that for? You could have just asked me."
It took him a moment, but eventually Wilson's eyes focused on him. Wilson just looked at him for a moment, and then he laughed. It sounded a bit wheezy.
"And you would have told me the truth?"
House looked away and snorted. "I don't lie," he said before he reached for his cane and limped over the visitor's chair. "At least not about important things."
"About this one, you do."
House shook his head and was about to protest when he closed his mouth again and shifted to get more comfortable. "You see anything interesting?" he asked after a short moment.
Wilson didn't answer immediately. "You tell me," he said then.
House shrugged. "I told you what I saw."
"You told me you saw eosinophilic pneumonia."
House leaned his head against the backrest and turned his eyes to the ceiling. "I saw nothing. I told you so."
"What did it look like?"
At Wilson's suddenly quiet tone, House turned his head. Wilson was looking at him, and House found that meeting Wilson's eyes was a lot harder than it should be. "Like nothing. It was nothing. It looked like nothing."
"Wow. That's scientific. You should write a paper."
Why the hell was he the one who felt cornered? House felt himself starting to get angry. Wilson had done the idiotic thing this time. It was only fair that House would get to bitch him out for a change. "What is it with you?" he asked. "Want me to draw you a picture?"
"That would work," Wilson said. "You could also tell me."
House pressed his lips together. "Fuck you, Wilson." This was a lot less interesting than he'd thought it would be. "Either you tell me what you saw, or I'm gone. And you can forget about me bailing you out of here."
The silence that followed went on long enough so that House was considering actually getting up and leaving when Wilson finally did speak. "I saw nothing," he said. "Nothing at all."
House took a deep breath; then he got to his feet and turned to look at Wilson. "You suck," he said. "You suck hard."
Wilson actually had the gall to smile at that. "I know," he said. "But you love me, anyway, right?"
There was nothing House could say to that. So, with a last narrowing of his eyes at still-smiling Wilson, he turned around and left the room.
He was halfway across the parking lot towards his car when he stopped, swore under his breath and turned around to find Dr. Finnigan to see what he could do about getting Wilson out of there.
-###-
This didn't sit well with him, but after half an hour of being berated and insulted by an angry, insane doctor with a cane, Dr. Finnigan decided that he was better off taking the risk of breaking off his patient's suicide watch prematurely than getting on the wrong side of this guy.
Who the hell knew what the man was capable of?
Besides, if the patient - another doctor, as hard as it was to believe - really only wanted to get a glimpse at the afterlife as the crazy cane doctor insisted, then that was pretty loony, but it was also a one-time-only occasion.
It made sense, really, in a twisted kind of way. Why else would a person come to an ER of all places to try and off himself?
So Finnigan signed the papers and saw the guy out. As soon as the two of them were gone - an odd couple if there'd ever been one; crazy old cane person and good-looking young oncologist, bickering like Stan and Ollie - Finnigan went back to where he had been going over patient files when this whole mess had begun. He sat down, reached for his by now cold cup of tea, and only then noticed the knife that was lying on top of the stack of patient files.
He picked it up and turned it in his hands.
Wanted to see the afterlife? That was one hell of a line. He opened the knife and ran his fingers over the scorch marks. They felt smooth under his fingers.
I wonder what he saw.
I wonder if it was worth it.
I wonder...
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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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