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Closed in Glass
by Meridian
She couldn't remember why there were fireworks going off in the middle of the city. Probably a celebration of sorts, but there hadn't been much to celebrate recently, and the effort was lost of Thirteen as she watched a brilliant display of red light fade into darkness only to be replaced by blinding yellow.
The roof of Princeton-Plainsboro wasn't her normal haunting ground. It was too far removed from humanity; too cold and dark and unfeeling, and she'd tried to distance herself from that before, insulating herself against the inevitable. Now she could barely remember why she had. One test, one seemingly innocent results letter had let the coldness in and take hold of her heart and squeeze what little hope she'd had left out. All it left was a shell.
The quiet clunk of the heavy door closing cut through the relative quiet and drew her gaze away from the brightness lighting up the night sky. She couldn't bring herself to be surprised to see Wilson standing there.
He looked tired. The kind of tired that penetrated deep below the surface and looked like was standing only through sheer force of will. Amber's death had shaken him deeply, and as much as she couldn't stand the woman, she wouldn't wish death on anyone. She certainly wouldn't wish the pain of losing someone on anyone. Least of all Wilson.
She turned away from him, not sure whether being caught up in someone else's pain is worse than the superficial joy the city was inflicting on its citizens.
Wilson joined her, leaning against the cement railing, staring out at the lights. He was every bit removed from the event as she was, and she tried to bury her own pain, her own selfishness, to offer words of comfort, but they all turned to ash in her mouth, and all she could do was swallow uncomfortably.
"It doesn't seem fair."
His voice was a whisper, lost in the loud crackling of the fireworks.
She can't help but laugh; it's a cold laugh, devoid of humour. "Life isn't fair," she tells him, her voice hard.
He looks at her, catching her eye, and it's like he sees her clearly for the first time. She's not just the candidate House liked because she posed a mystery for him to unravel; she's not just a screw-up who's had to live with her mistakes. She's every inch as broken as he is, but she doesn't have anyone to blame for her problems.
Her enemy is her body; his enemy is his memory.
Overhead the lights in the night sky flared.
She couldn't remember who'd suggested drinks. The cold air had eventually won out and forced her inside, and Wilson had followed. One, or both, of them had led the way to the parking lot, but it was her car that they left in. Rumour around the hospital was that Wilson hadn't been driving to work since Amber's death, that he hadn't even been in his car since then. For whatever reason, they ended up back at her apartment and the bottle of scotch she kept in the mostly-empty liquor cabinet.
She knew the layout of her apartment well enough to be able to stumble around it in the dark if she had to. It wasn't cluttered with furniture - only what she needed - and personal items were kept to a minimum, except for her certificates framed on one wall in her study. She liked the order; it had been her way to keep herself sane.
Now she wanted nothing more than to throw things in a fit of blind rage that would achieve nothing more than to make her feel better. But with Wilson there it was unlikely to happen.
Instead she'd get drunk and pass out.
She didn't factor in Wilson getting drunk and changing her rules.
Except they hadn't set any rules when they'd started this.
They were two broken toys in a box that didn't make sense anymore. The walls closed in around them and left them little room to move except towards the next drink and each other.
She couldn't remember who initiated the first kiss, and realised that was the common trend for the evening. Neither pulled away and it wasn't sexual attraction that moved them along, but the desperate need for something - anything - that made them feel alive.
They lost their shirts and shoes before they reached her bedroom, and his pants and her skirt before they hit the bed. The bottle of scotch Wilson had in his hand hit the floor and spilled out onto the carpet, and she didn't care.
He was warm and she was reckless.
She was soft and he was desperate to forget.
She wanted to believe that it wasn't something small, something to be forgotten in the morning. She needed it to be real.
Neither one was gentle; neither would have accepted it.
It was wrong and absurd and somewhere in the back of her mind warning bells were going off inside her head, but she pushed back against them until they were silenced, wanting nothing more than to feel warm skin against hers.
Recklessly she dug her fingers into his back and ignored the growl that rose up in his throat. They'd leave a mark, but she wouldn't walk away from the night unscathed. His mouth had trailed the length of her body.
Time stopped, and all they had was each other.
The silver light of the moon shone in through a gap in the curtains, hitting her face and waking her from a dreamless sleep. The digital clock on her bedside table read two twenty-two am. She shivered in the cool air, reaching out for the sheet.
Her hand connected with flesh, and through a groggy haze she realised Wilson was still there.
She tried to force her mind to wake up, but the scotch had a lingering affect, and she could only pull herself up on her elbows and stare.
Wilson's chest rose and fell, and in his sleep he looked peaceful - so unlike the man she'd encountered the night before. Watching him she couldn't tell that his heart had been broken, that he'd started to lose faith in everything he believed in.
She wished she could give him back that piece, but she didn't have even enough for herself, let alone anyone else.
Pulling the sheet up around her she'd never felt more alone.
Tomorrow, in the light of day, they would both still be broken.
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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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