Sleeping Man I, II, and III

by Maineac

Part I: Outside

Characters: House, Wilson, Cuddy, plus occasional OC. Chase, Cameron, Foreman have small parts here, larger ones in Part II: Inside.

Pairings: A little House/Cuddy (as per canon) and House/Wilson strong friendship (slash only if you wear goggles). A tiny bit of Cuddy/Wilson. Spoilers: None

Rating: Gen (with R for language)

Timeline: Early fall of Season Three, somewhere around the time of Cane and Able, Lines in the Sand.

Summary: When House goes missing, Wilson, Cuddy and his team have to solve their toughest puzzle ever: where is he? And House has to solve his toughest puzzle ever: who is he? Disclaimer: Characters belong to David Shore. Word Count: Part I: 35,000 Part II: 25,000 Total: 60,000

Originally posted at LiveJournal here: http://maineac.livejournal.com/8929.html#cutid1 * * * *

Ch. 1

Wednesday 1. "Come on, buddy. Wake up. "

The policeman nudged the still form with a foot. A whiskey bottle resting on his chest fell to the ground with an unmistakably empty sound. "No sleeping in the park, pal." The sleeping man groaned and tried to roll onto his other side. The policeman ran his flashlight over the length of him. Disheveled, unshaven, his clothes dirty and torn, smelling faintly of whiskey, his fly half unzipped. The cop sighed. He was so close to the end of his shift. It was tempting just to let the poor slob sleep it off under the bushes. But duty called.

Wednesday 2. "What time is it?" asked Lenny as yet another car pulled out of the rest stop and passed by without a second glance. He gave the car a finger as it pulled back into traffic.

"Seven thirty," said his companion. "We're never going to fucking get there at this rate." So near and yet so far. They were just across the river, maybe five miles from South Boston. "If we're not there by eight, the whole deal's off. Ten grand,down the toilet." So much for their plan of instant riches.

"And it's getting dark. Once it's dark we're screwed--no one will stop for us. " He turned to his companion. "Put the fucking bottle away," he growled. Nobody's gonna stop if they see you fucking drinking fucking whiskey." Lenny ignored him, took another long swig at the bottle and wiped his chin on the sleeve of his army fatigue jacket.

"Got a plan," said Lenny, stumbling a bit as he returned the bottle to his jacket pocket.

"This better be better than your last plan."

"Shut up. Listen. Next car that comes in here, we...borrow it."

"Steal a car? Now you are nuts. Cops'll be on us in no time.."

"Nah, we'll just jack something long enough to get us to Richie's place. Ditch it before the cops find us. A free ride, y'see? And whaddya know? Look here--here comes our ride, right now. Sweet."

"A motorcycle? You stupid fucker. You don't even know how to ride a bike."

"Shut up," said Lenny, and pulled his buddy back out of sight to watch as the Honda pulled into the rest area. The driver killed the ignition, and the two hitchhikers moved behind a tree as the man sat for a moment, massaging his right leg and seeming to gather his strength. "Come on, you fucker,"muttered Lenny. "Go take a piss. You know you want to. And leave the key." As he said it, the man removed his helmet, lifted his right leg slowly over the bike, stood for a moment leaning on the handlebars, and then -limping heavily, his right hand pressed hard against his leg--moved off toward nearby bushes that grew between the gravel rest area and the banks of the Charles River.

"Just our luck, he took the key."

"Never mind," smirked Lenny. "The guy's a cripple. How hard can this be? Taking candy from a baby. Come on."

The two crept up behind the unsuspecting man, the sound of the traffic on Memorial Drive hiding the noise of their approach. Just as the biker was wrapping up business, Lenny pulled the whiskey bottle out of his pocket and swung it in a quick, hard arc that connected with the right side of the guy's skull. No dramatic shattering of glass, like in the movies, just a solid thud, and the man slumped straight to the ground--a marionette with his strings cut.

"Shit, you killed him, you moron."

"Naw," said Lenny, who had turned the man over and was going through his pockets. `He's still breathing. Aha!" He smiled and held up a set of keys.

"Let's get out of here," said his friend, panic starting to set in.

"Just a aminute," said Lenny, continuing his pat down. "What's this?" He dug around a pocket and then held up a bottle of pills, squinting at it in the fading light. "Vicodin! Oh, yeah!"

"Come on--enough. Let's get out of here." His friend glanced anxiously around, but Lenny pulled the man onto his stomach and checked his back pockets.

"Ka-ching!" exclaimed Lenny, holding up a wallet.

"You take his credit cards, we're in big trouble. This is bad enough."

"Relax," he said. "I'm not that stupid. Now help me move him."

The two grasped the man by the wrists--he was heavier than he looked--and dragged him across the mud and gravel until he was lying beneath the bushes. He looked quite peaceful, curled up on his side. Pausing a moment to uncap the whiskey, Lenny drained most of the bottle, and then, with an evil grin, poured the last few drops onto the chest of the sleeping man. He wrapped the man's arm around the empty bottle. "Sweet dreams, and thanks for the ride," he said, almost fondly.

"And we're outta here," Lenny's friend declared, tugging him back onto the gravel parking area. He snatched the wallet from Lenny's hand just as he was rifling through it, pocketed the cash and, before Lenny could object, tossed the wallet into a nearby trash can. "Come on," he shouted.

Moments later the Honda sprang into life and the two stuttered jerkily off to their rendezvous on the other side of the river. The sun dipped behind the Boston skyline. A chill settled over the city. The sleeping man stirred, then rolled over and fell back asleep. ***

Ch. 2

Wednesday 3. The policeman lowered himself, grunting, to a squatting position, and poked the man in the side with his flashlight.

"Get moving, mister," he repeated. "Don't make me take you in." He flashed the light straight into the man's face. This got a reaction, a grimace, and a hiss of pain. The sleeping man rolled onto one elbow, rubbing the back of his head with his other hand.

"Fug off," he slurred, trying to brush the flashlight out of his face. "Go `way."

The policeman kept his flashlight mercilessly trained on his eyes. "Come on, you--"

Without warning the man vomited. Half of it went down his front the other half splattered over the cop's well shined shoes.

"Son of a ---!" the cop shouted, stumbling backwards. . Disgusted, he called for his partner. "Gimme a hand, Ransom. Got to take this guy in. He's drunk." The two of them hauled the man to his feet, where he swayed drunkenly. "What's your name?" they demanded.

The man opened his mouth to answer, but then stopped. He shook his head slowly, as if to clear it, and a confused look crossed his features. At last he shrugged.

The cop sighed. He'd seen it all before. "Do you know where you are? What day it is?" The drunkard blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes.

"Park?" he mumbled.

"Where do you live? Got any ID on you?"

Once again, the man appeared about to speak, but this time it turned into retching. Both cops backed off, still holding him by the elbows. They patted him down. Nothing. No wallet. The first policeman was having trouble hiding his disgust.

"He's completely wasted. Some days," he muttered to his partner, "I wonder if I'm a law enforcement officer or a damn social worker. Let's go," he told the vagrant in a loud cheerful voice. "We're taking you to the municipal hotel, otherwise known as the drunk tank. You can sleep it off there. At least," he added, not unkindly, "you won't get rained on." * * *

Wednesday 4. The important thing was written on a piece of paper, folded many times like origami and stuffed deep down into a faraway pocket, an inner jacket pocket no one knew about. But now a dog was nosing him in his side as he tried to sleep, a dog with a hard sharp snout and fetid breath. It was after something, that piece of paper no doubt. But it was a secret and the dog had no right to it. He swatted at the dog, but the nose only prodded harder. The dog was trying to talk to him, but its words made no sense. "Fuck off," he mumbled at last. "Go away." Even in his dream his words sounded twisted, muffled.

"Now, now," said the dog. "That's no way to address an officer of the law. Come on. Get moving, mister. Don't make me take you in."

Bright light penetrated his eyelids and shot splinters of pain through his head. Squeezing his eyes shut, he sucked in a breath and propped himself carefully on an elbow. The back of his head hurt--his whole head hurt--a pain that alternated between deep and throbbing, and knife sharp. Cotton wool and glass shards. "Cut it out," he told the dog. There was a lump above his ear . He tried opening his eyes. Black shiny shoes. Not shoes, boots. Blue uniform pant cuffs. The smell of grass, mud, whiskey. A bottle of Jim Beam. The boots and bottle suddenly shivered and divided into two. Two of everything The light in his eyes again, and the glass shards shifted. His stomach recoiled and before he knew what had happened hot bile and vomit rose in his throat and spilled out his mouth. He couldn't stop it and felt vaguely ashamed.

The dog growled something. The shoes disappeared, came back. More of them this time. Hands grabbed at his armpits. He tried to focus on them, but everything was in doubles. Two faces, no, four faces. The world spun. Christ he was really really drunk. He couldn't make the spinning stop, he couldn't make the world come into focus.

"What's your name?" asked one of the faces. Cops. They were cops. Shit.

He tried to come up with it, he really did, because he sensed that maybe then they would leave him alone. But it was lost, somewhere in the cotton wool, or maybe written on that piece of paper somewhere. He shrugged.

"Do you know where you are? What day it is?"

Where was he? No idea. Outdoors. He would have shaken his head but moving it at all brought on more dizziness, more nausea, so he settled on shrugging. "A park?' he guessed.

He was walking, being dragged really. Christ, what was wrong with his leg? He nearly fell, bringing the whole lot of them down. They cursed again. Plastic cuffs like garbage bag ties around his wrists. A car door slamming beside him. Someone buckling him in like a child.

"Don't you fucking puke on my nice clean squad card," said the one with the bad breath. "Or I will bust you from here to next Sunday, so help me God." But when the car started moving he did puke again, and again until nothing was left in his stomach but his head was full to bursting, about to split open ear to ear. He puked right in the middle of their argument about the Yankees and the Red Sox and forced them to pull over the car and make sure he wasn't aspirating on his own vomit.

More talking, more walking--lurching really--more bright lights and more questions he couldn't answer. The man accepted it all--the bolt of pain in his leg that had caused him to stumble, the complete absence of anything solid to hold onto, except that his head hurt, his stomach too, and he wanted to sleep. To go back down into the well he had been in, a black well of nothingness. At last he was allowed to lie down again. It was just a wooden bench, but it was blissful to lie down and sleep, undisturbed by cops or dogs or dreams or questions. * * *

Ch. 3

Thursday 1. "Jason Javits and John Doe. Let's go."

He was lying on the floor--the concrete floor--of a cell. Cold and gritty against his cheek, damp with drool beneath his chin. On the other side of the room someone was pissing into a toilet. The smell of urine joined the pungent tang of vomit. There was a sharp clang and a harsh grating sound from behind him. A police sargeant had unlocked the door of the cell and was gesturing at the two of them.

"That's you, buddy. John Doe. Let's go."

He sat up stiffly. The world had stopped spinning, and the diplopia had resolved itself into normal vision. But the headache was, if anything, worse. It had been joined by a pain in his right leg that just wouldn't quit. He nodded mutely to the cop at the cell door, and pulled himself slowly to a standing position using the bench above him (at some point in the night he must have rolled off onto the floor). The right leg was not only sore, but was unbelievably unhappy about having any weight put on it. He made his way to the door by holding onto the bars of the cell, while gripping the waist of his pants with his free hand. Someone had divested him of belt and shoes the night before.

"All right, mister," said the sergeant when they reached the front desk. "The officer who brought you in really wanted to book you for public drunkenness and vagrancy." He looked down at the clipboard he was holding. His features softened for a moment. "We'll let you off this time. But next time, do your drinking in private. You got some place to dry out? Some place to go home to?"

Home? What did that mean? A wife and kids? A tidy apartment somewhere? A cat? Neighbors? Friends? A backyard with swingset and gas-fired barbecue? He could summon nothing. The word home was meaningless. "No," he said. And then again. "No." He should feel alarm. Dismay. Something. All he felt was embarrassment. This cop had a home, a wife, a pet dog, he was sure. He had nothing. Nothing but the mother of all hangovers.

The cop handed him a brown bag with his shoes and belt in it, John Doe scrawled in Magic Marker on the side. Then he reached under the desk and produced a thin brochure printed on cheap paper. "Homeless shelter's six blocks down. Check it out."

The man nodded. He wall-crept over to a worn, wooden slat bench, lowered himself slowly onto it, and installed his shoelaces and belt with fumbling uncoordinated hands. He ran a hand over his right thigh, the source of the pain radiating up his torso. The leg felt gouged out, incomplete. He knew he should care about this, or at least wonder at it, but for the moment all he was capable of thinking was, how the hell was he going to walk six blocks, feeling the way he did right now.

"Hey, John Doe," said the cop as he made his way out the door. He remembered that this was his name now, and turned to look at the cop. The cop gave him a not unfriendly smirk.

"You really tied one on last night. You remember your name yet?"

"Yeah," he said slowly, unwilling to admit otherwise. "Yeah. Thanks." * * *

Thursday 2. "Feels like he's been gone a week," said Cuddy, her feet propped up on the coffee table, a relaxed look on her face that made Wilson feel like she was the one on vacation. He dropped the sheaf of grant applications he'd brought for her signature onto her desktop and joined her on the short couch.

"One day. One day and already I feel guilty," he said. "Only House could make you feel guilty for forcing him to be happy."

"I know what you mean," murmured Cuddy happily. "Wonderful feeling, isn't it?"

"By now, he's spread out in the hot tub of some luxurious Boston hotel, emptying the mini-fridge of liquor and ordering up bad movies. Why should I feel guilty about that?" After biking two hundred miles he'd damn well need a hot tub, some part of his brain reminded him. And a massage and a fistful of Vicodin.

"Remember, we're talking about a man who could make you feel guilty for saving his life," sighed Cuddy. "Feeling guilty for forcing him to take a vacation--hey, that's child's play for him."

She--they--had, in fact, forced him to go. Following the minor screw-up that fall caused by letting House feel he had screwed up, missed diagnoses, lost his touch; following the return of pain and the failure of the ketamine treatment, and House's refusal to talk about it, they had conspired one more time to try to do what was right for House. He needed a break, Wilson convinced her. To get away from the hospital, filled as it was with people who couldn't hide their pitying looks when he showed up at work that day, leaning hard on his cane again, the same hospital where only a few days ago he had been taking the stairs two at a time; where people--himself included--noticeably averted their eyes when he started taking Vicodin again, trying hard not to count how often and how many.

And so she had gone to talk to him. Told him that the hospital accountant was getting hard-assed about staff who had backlogs of vacation time. Cuddy needed said staff to wipe their vacation time off the hospital books, where it had to go in the "liability" column of the financial reports.

Hands on her hips, stern administrator voice. "Use it or lose it, House," she told him, and only him. "New hospital policy. You've got, what, six years of vacation time accrued. Take some now, before we close the books at the end of the month--or lose it."

"Just give me six weeks' vacation from the clinic, and we'll call it quits," House had wheedled. Cuddy didn't buy it and in the end, House had agreed to take a week, or rather six days, off. Wilson had done his bit by finding and making him buy a four-day pass to a fall jazz festival being held in Portland, Maine.

"Go," he urged. "Listen to music. Enjoy the foliage. Ride your bike. Eat bad food. Have fun."

"Have fun," repeated House, sounding like Eyeore, or someone being told to enjoy his colonoscopy. But in the end he had caved.

Perhaps he had caved too easily. Wilson hadn't really believed his friend was going to take the vacation, and his skepticism led him to show up at House's Wednesday, just to be sure. He suspected House might spend the week holed up in his apartment, not answering the phone, or venturing outside. A virtual vacation wasn't going to do him any good. Wilson was there to make sure he kept to his plan.

The plan, since the Indian summer forecast was balmy, was to leave Wednesday, taking it slowly on his bike, giving himself eight hours to make Boston, and the whole next day to make it to Portland.

Wilson had stood around watching him pack. "You're doing this for real," he said, as if trying to convince both of them. House nodded. "Forgetting about work. Leaving your cell phone behind and everything," he said--trying to make it a command and not a question.

"Absolutely," said House, stuffing a bag with an extra pair of jeans, his leather jacket, and very few other items for the trip. "The children don't need me anymore." His voice grew tragic. "It seems like only yesterday they were in diapers." He paused to fill Steve's water bottle, point out to Wilson where the food was kept, and exact a pledge to come over once a day to play special rat pornography for Steve that House claimed to have downloaded onto his laptop.

On the sidewalk, Wilson watched him transfer the backpack into the bike's saddle bags, and then stood there with his hand out as House lifted his leg over the bike. It was a move he'd regret many times in days to come.

"What?" asked House innocently, regarding the outstretched palm.

"Gimme."

"What are you talking about?" The eyebrows were raised in a pantomime of innocence. Wilson didn't buy it, making an impatient gesture, and finally House sighed and dug the cell phone out of his jeans pocket. "I might need this," he whined.

"Who's going to call you? Aside from Chase, Cameron or Foreman?"

"My bookie," House offered. Wilson shook his head. "Publisher's Clearing House?" Wilson made a gimme motion with his fingers. "No, really, I'm expecting an important call from a close personal friend wanting to know if I'm happy with my long-distance provider." Wilson neither smiled nor budged. House made a face but handed over the phone.

"Jeeze," said Wilson. "You haven't even turned it off. " He slipped the phone into his jacket and then stood back and watched as House lowered the visor of his helmet, kicked the bike off its stand and drove off down the street without a backward glance. He experienced a fleeting pang of envy, imagining himself sitting behind House and joining him on the road trip. This he quickly shrugged off as a stupid adolescent fantasy--road trip, for Pete's sake!--and turned his back on him before House was even out of sight.

*******

"You feel guilty," said Cuddy, still with the happy smile on her face as she gazed comfortably at the ceiling of her office, knowing that, even if the phone rang, it wouldn't summon the sense of dread it always did when House was on the rampage; knowing that if the door to her office were to burst open, the worst it could be today was a board member in a rage about some financial issue; "you feel guilty just the way our parents felt guilty when we finally left home and went to college. The moment we were gone, they changed the locks, broke out the champagne. Made love on the living room floor in the middle of the afternoon. And felt guilty about enjoying it."

Wilson raised his eyebrows. "Maybe your parents..."

"Shut up. Yours did too. They just pretended to cry their little Jewish-mother hearts out when you left."

Wilson put his feet up on the coffee table too, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. It was hard to acknowledge, even now, the sense of relief he had had this morning, waking up, knowing he did not have to worry about House: whether the weather--or his leg-- would allow him to get to work okay on his bike or if Wilson might have to call and come up with some excuse for offering a ride; did he have enough Vicodin; had he done something to alienate someone who could make his life miserable; had he flipped off a cop recently; was he covering up problems with his health or his leg...the million little things that House would be furious to know he kept tabs on and worried about.

Wilson conducted an inner scan: blood pressure low, nagging worry bunnies nowhere to be seen, no incipient migraine headache...nothing. He turned to Cuddy.

"It's three o'clock," he said to the Dean of Medicine who was still sporting a blissful expression, eyes shut, on the couch beside him. "Shall we make love on the floor?" * * *

Ch. 4

Thursday 3. The receptionist was eager to take her lunch break, and the man was just as eager to keep sitting on the chair.

It had taken him an hour to walk the six blocks to the shelter, and he simply couldn't face the idea of standing again, much less walking.

What the journey had lacked in length it made up for in anguish. Despite the fact that his stomach was demonstrably empty, it had still insisted on repeatedly trying to turn itself inside out. The pain in his head had been quickly overtaken by the agony in his right leg. He could put almost no weight on it, and that had made walking a challenge, to say the least.

Starting with the broad semi-circular stairs leading down from the precinct house. There was nothing to hold on to, no railing on either side, and as he had stood looking down to the sidewalk he experienced a moment of agoraphobia, scared that the dizziness and clumsiness would overtake him again and he would end up getting to the bottom of the steps by the simple expedient of falling head over heels. Just the thought of jarring his head that hard made a wave of nausea rise inside him. There was no way his leg was going to go down those steps. And there was no way in hell he was going to sit down and crawl down them. So he just stood there.

Suddenly an arm landed on one shoulder, a hand grasped him by the elbow. "Let me give you a hand," said the voice that belonged to the hand, and before he could react--protest, withdraw, refuse--he was being propelled slowly down the steps, held up by a stranger. No, no stranger. It was his cell mate--what was his name? Jacobs? Javits? He was a short man with a silver beard, distended belly and the bulbous nose that proclaimed chronic alcoholic. Definitely working on a case of cirhhosis of the liver, said the one part of the man's brain not taken up in trying to negotiate the steps. "D'ja lose your crutches last night or something? You were pretty out of it," Javits asked him in a voice that had no business being so cheerful after a night in the drunk tank.

It was a question that fortunately didn't seem to require an answer. Javits kept talking and when they reached the sidewalk he added, "Well, here's my ride home." A silver Ford Escort had pulled up to the curb, driven by an equally silver-haired woman. "You need a ride anywhere?" asked Javits, letting go of the man's elbow. "Where's home?"

"No, I'm good. Got a ride coming," the man muttered, and he watched as Javits gave him a wink and then got into the Escort. He could hear the sounds of arguing, even through the closed window, as the car pulled away from the curb.

Home, for him, was four blocks south and two blocks east. Is that right? He tried to remember what the desk cop had told him, because actually reading the homeless shelter brochure was beyond him at the moment. A lot of things were beyond him at the moment. All he could think about was getting to the shelter. Once there, he was sure he could take stock of his situation, get his brain to start working properly and figure out the answers to all the questions he was keeping at bay with an act of will. One step at a time, he told himself. Right now, find somewhere to lie down. Concentrate on walking. Left foot, then right foot, hand braced against thigh. Find a wall to lean against. Right foot, left foot. Find someplace to lie down. Then think about...all the other stuff.

Six blocks, one block at a time. He set off slowly, clinging to the wall of the brick buildings lining the sidewalk. His gait drew him stares of mid-day shoppers; they made wide detours around him. In the crisp fall air, he left grimy, sweat-fogged handprints on the windows of shops, the cheery bookstores and dry cleaners and banks. The smell of fresh coffee and donuts coming from the opening door of a Dunkin Donuts made him hungry and nauseous at the same time. He swallowed heavily and kept going.

He paused to rest after only a few dozen yards, gazing into the window of a small caf, trying to get a look at his reflection. The man gazing back at him--faint, no more than a ghost-thin reflection--was a complete stranger. He could just make out a long gaunt face, pronounced cheekbones, large deepset eyes--blue? grey?--and the beginnings of a beard. He ran his hand along his chin. Chin hair. He had a good four days' worth of stubble. Had he been like this for four days? The reflection of this stranger was superimposed over the faces of two of the caf's patrons, interrupted while trying to down their cheese quiche. He suddenly realized they had turned their startled faces to stare at him, mere inches away, through the glass. The man turned his back on all three of them--the patrons and the stranger reflected back at him--and sagged against the wall. Moments later, or perhaps ten minutes later--some busybody came out of the caf, a well fed man in tight fitting jeans, and ordered him to move along before he called the police. The man blinked at him. "Go fuck yourself," he said with as much force as he could muster. But he pushed himself off the plate glass window and set off again.

Six blocks. By the time he got to the end of the first block, he was sweating heavily. And now he had to cross the street. He gazed at the expanse of concrete like a man surveying a hundred miles of open desert.

He would have to release the support of the buildings and navigate the busy street with nothing to hold him up. His leg was quaking. The pain in his thigh had magnified by a factor of ten in the time he'd walked less than one block. Still, what choice did he have? He relinquished his hold on the last friendly wall and started into the intersection, buttressing his leg with his hand.

Halfway across, the light changed and the cars, ignoring the man in the crosswalk, accelerated past him on both sides. He staggered and nearly fell. A car screeched to a stop inches from him, the driver swearing loudly at him.

"I'm walking here!" said the man, doing a passable Ratso Rizzo impersonation and leaning heavily on the car's hood to finish making it across the street. He may or may not have dragged the wristband of his watch across the paintwork of the hood as he did so.

"Asshole," yelled the driver again, opening the door of his car to shout over his roof at him, and for moment the man thought he might get out and start a fight. But the cars that were backed up behind the driver began sounding their horns, and he finally shut the door, popped his clutch and took off.

On the other side of the street, a godsend. A bus stop, with a bench. Two women sat, staring straight ahead as he lowered himself to the bench with a grunt and then bent over, clutching his thigh. God that felt good, to sit. He noted dimly that the women stood up and moved away, even though the bus had not come yet. The man gazed down at his clothes. The t-shirt and jeans were still encrusted with vomit, and the shirt sported large dark stains around the neck and armpits. He must stink, he realized, though he couldn't smell anything himself.

Just rest here a few moments, he thought. Catch my breath. It occurred to him that at the rate he was going, it might take him another four days to get to the homeless shelter. He pushed himself to his feet and started off again.

Within a few yards, he ran into his first piece of luck: the corner of this block was a construction site, surrounded by chain link fence, easy to grip as he made his way down the sidewalk. And there, a few feet in front of him, was a barrel of construction debris. Poking out of the barrel was a length of 1x2. The man managed to worm the piece of rough wood out of the barrel, not minding the splinters it drove into his palm. It was exactly long enough to make a suitable walking stick. It wasn't able to take much weight off his leg, like a cane or a crutch, but it helped greatly with his balance. He set off again: left foot, right foot, stick. No need to lean on walls. He would get there. The thought of a soft mattress and a place to lie down kept him going, long after his leg had completely quit on him, long after the pain became unbearable.

*******

"I need a place to stay, just for tonight," he told the middle aged woman at the desk in the front hall of the sad brick building with mustard-colored linoleum floors. "I'm just...passing through." She gave him an appraising look and passed him a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard with the stub of a pencil tucked into it. Not even a cheap ballpoint pen. Just a stub of a pencil, like the kind you get in libraries. She indicated a chair and checked her watch.

"Fill this out," she said. He sat.

Name, said the form. They all wanted to know his name. What was a name, anyway? Just an artificial construct, a meaningless label. Still, he needed one. Everyone seemed to require one. Everyone seemed to have one. Except him.

He tried once again. Closed his eyes and worked hard to summon his name from the fog bank he could feel it lurking behind. It was right there, just out of reach. But he was too tired to force it, too tired to concentrate for more than a few seconds on anything. The fog and fatigue of last night had not lifted in the least this morning. All the concrete details of his life--he must have some concrete details, mustn't he?--were no closer at hand. The harder he peered at them, the more resolutely they receded into the mist.

He would invent something then, invent a temporary identity until he had the strength to come up with his real one. The name is Bond. James Bond. Can't tell you more than that or I'll be forced to kill you. Social security number: 007-00-7007. No. He scratched it all out. Too obvious. Need a better identity. First name: John. Last name: Daniels. Hah.

Address. Well, that was some kind of stupid question for a homeless shelter. Here, he wrote. Date of birth. No idea. Judging from his hands, probably late forties. Forty-eight. He made up a date.

Next of kin/Emergency contact. Just write the first thing that comes into your head. First name: James. Last name: Beam. There you go. Jack Daniels and his good friend, Jim Beam.

He handed back the clipboard and stubby pencil. "Thank you, Mr. ..." she glanced down... "Daniels. If you come back at five we can see about a bed for the night." She must have noticed his stunned look. "We are not open to residents except in the evening. Residents have to fend for themselves during the day." He was still taking this in--the need to stand up, start walking again, no place to lie down--when she hit him again. She'd been scanning the health questions on the form, all of which he had drawn a single bold line through and scrawled "NO" beside. "We can't take you in here if you're sick," she said gently.

"I'm not sick," he protested. "I'm fine."

"You look pretty sick to me," she said. "You'll need to get a clean bill of health from a doctor."

"How--"

"There's a walk-in clinic about ten blocks from here.It's free. Get a doctor to sign this sheet and bring it back with you." She handed him a pink form and rose to leave, gathering her pocket book. "Now if you don't mind, we're closing for lunch. You can leave your things here if you like."

"I don't have any things," he muttered, reaching for his stick. He knocked it to the ground and she must have seen his look of despair as he fumbled for it.

"I...Mr. Daniels, if you want, I can lend you...one of our residents left a pair of crutches here. He...the other night, well...let's just say he won't be needing them again. Would you like to borrow them?" He said nothing, but his look must have conveyed something because she disappeared and when he opened his eyes again a few seconds later, there she was, holding out a pair of battered wooden crutches, each one missing the foam armpit pad, but quite serviceable. They were even the right length for his long frame.

"Thanks," he mumbled, and then left before she could show him the door.

Health clinic, he thought. One more hurdle to leap before he could lie down again. Then through the miasma that was masquerading as his brain, one bright thought emerged. Health clinic. Once they'd given him a clean bill of health, maybe they could give him something for the pain in his leg. The idea was like a beacon in the fog, and he clung to it like a shipwrecked mariner. * * *

Ch. 5

Thursday 4. He surveyed the clinic waiting room with a jaundiced eye. There were a couple of college kids from Fancy U down the street, doubtless hoping that by avoiding student health, their STD results might not get reported to their parents--or the public health authorities. Probably using fake names. There was an unmarried teenage mom with a toddler, and another unmarried pregnant teenager, both of whom reeked of cigarette smoke and all three of whom had coughs to match. An obese middle-aged man in a hooded sweatshirt and running pants he had bought not to run in but because the stretchy waistband wouldn't remind him of how overweight he was every time he downed another Krispy Kreme chocolate-covered myocardial infarction. Plus a homeless guy sitting in a corner in the classic tripod position, struggling to breathe, keeping watch over a plastic bag which doubtless contained all his worldly goods.

If only House were here, thought Wilson, as he sorted through the patient files until he found the one he wanted. He would doubtless have something choice to say to this lot, most of whom were slowly but surely destroying their bodies through their own stupidity. But House wasn't here, and in fact it was House's absence that had caused Wilson to draw extra clinic shifts for the rest of the week. Fate seemed to have landed him with a particularly choice selection of patients this week, but it was a small price to pay, he felt.

"Mr. Petrocelli," he called out, and Homeless Guy stood and followed him into Exam Room 2.

"Now then," said Wilson, as he opened the folder, "what seems to be the problem?" He switched the air conditioning to high, noting the sheen of perspiration that covered his patient, but he did it not so much to cool down the stuffy exam room as to disperse the dense fug that rose from the patient's clothes and body.

"I can't seem," said the patient pausing for a second, "to take a deep...breath."

Judging from the condition of the man's fingernails, hair, and the color of his neck, the patient had probably not bathed in several months, Wilson guessed as he gestured for him to remove his shirt. While the patient was peeling off his top layers Wilson took the opportunity to rub a smear of Vicks Vapo Rub on his own upper lip. It helped disguise the strongest smells, and allowed him to concentrate on the patient. He placed the bell of his stethoscope on the man's thin back.

"Deep breath," he said softly, listening for the tell-tale rales and crackles of pneumonia. "How long have you had this cough?"

"Oh, a coupla days. Week maybe." Or more, thought Wilson. But you were too stubborn to come ask for help. Why? Because it's free? A handout? He sighed and removed the stethoscope.

"I'd like to admit you, run some tests. I'm fairly sure you have pneumonia."

"No, no," said the man. "Can't you just give me a prescription, some pills? I'm okay. I'm fine. I don't need to be in the hospital. Just give me some pills."

Wilson knew it was hopeless to argue, but he did his best. In the end he had to let the man leave with just a sputum sample, a chest x-ray and a prescription for pills he knew he could never afford to fill. Wilson made him wait while he managed to scrounge up antibiotics, all the time cursing a health care system that magnanimously provided free diagnostic services for patients who had no way to treat the diseases they diagnosed. Free mammograms for low-income women? Not a problem. Hey, probably generate a little business for the hospital. But free mastectomies? Free chemo? No way. What the hell was the bloody point? At last he cornered enough Vancomycin samples to cover a full course of treatment. He thrust the packets into the man's cold hands. "Take them all, every last one," he said. "Promise me."

He knew House would have mocked him for trying to save the world one hopeless person at a time, but, he thought as he watched Mr. Petrocelli leave , if he didn't do it, who would?.

Thursday 5.

This time the dog, the same dog, had him by the leg and was gnawing away at it, calmly, patiently, enjoying his meal. The pain was intense, the sight disgusting, but he was helpless to move. Then the dog began shaking him, trying to drag him into the bushes.

"Mr. Daniels?"

He'd been dreaming again, dead asleep in the hard plastic chair of the clinic waiting room. Difficult to believe he could have nodded off when the pain in his leg was like a jackhammer. Calling his name had not woken him, since the name was meaningless to him, so the woman behind the glass window had had to walk out of her safe den and shake him by the shoulder. She'd put on her blue latex gloves before touching him, he noticed as he came back to consciousness. Seeing he was awake, she backed away from him.

"The doctor will see you now."

Damn. He'd fully intended to spend the hours in the waiting room collecting his thoughts, trying to tackle the mystery of what he was doing here, what had happened to him. He'd planned to lock himself in the bathroom, get a good look at himself in a mirror. But as soon as he'd sunk into the chair, he'd been overcome with exhaustion. And now it was too late. He followed the receptionist into a tiny exam room, where a doctor was finishing writing some notes in a file.

"Be right with you," said the doctor without looking up. He checked his watch and kept writing. "Take a seat on the exam table."

The man parked his crutches against the wall and boosted himself onto the table with a twist, using his arms. He was glad to note that while his leg pain had only gotten worse in the last hour, the nap he'd taken had left him feeling more focused, less disoriented. He seemed at last able to marshal his thoughts in some logical order. He sized up the doctor while he waited. Young, black, with a soul patch and shaved head. Probably a few years out of med school. Intern, second year resident. Not happy to be here, judging from the body language. At last he put down the file he was writing in and slid another file across the counter. Glanced at it briefly before looking up.

"Okay, then, Mr. Daniels. What seems to be the problem?"

"Just need a clean bill of health. And maybe something for pain. Like it says in the chart." The last comment was a bit more pointed than it needed to be. But what was the point of filling out those forms if no one read them?

"I see. Looks like you've been having some nausea."

Right. He'd meant to try to clean up in the bathroom. Hadn't had a chance. "It's from the leg pain. Plus I'm a little hung over. I really just need you to sign off on a clean bill of health." He held out the crumpled sheet of paper from the homeless shelter. "And give me something for the pain."

"Uh huh," murmured the doctor, ignoring the health form. "You want to lie down on the table for me?" The man complied, lifting his right leg up in order to lie flat.

"How bad is the pain?"

"Pretty bad. A seven, I'd say. Maybe eight."

"Really? Want to unbuckle your pants for me?" The man complied, with a sinking heart. He had a sudden realization where this might be going. "I see you're familiar with the pain scale. So, what's the cause of this leg pain?"

Shit. He hadn't had a chance to get a look at his leg. Had no idea what the injury was. The situation was patently ludicrous. If he admitted he didn't know how he'd hurt his leg, or what his name was, the doctor would page the men with the strait jackets in a flash. He paused in removing his jeans, trying to buy time, but the doctor simply tugged them down the rest of the way to his knees. The man propped himself on his elbows and tried to get a look at his thigh. The bloody doctor, however, was in the way.

"It's a--" he tried to remember the feel of the leg, the shape of the pain. It felt like he'd been mauled by a bear, in fact, but that would never pass the straight face test here--"it's from a car accident. Broke my femur."

"How long ago?"

The doctor moved and he caught a sudden glimpse of the thigh. "Christ!" he gasped before he could stop himself. The leg was a mess:, deeply pitted with surgically straight scars running the length of it. It did actually look like he'd been mauled by a bear. What the hell?

"Mr. Daniels? Everything okay?"

"Yeah. Just a, just a cramp."

"When did you say this happened?"

He'd only gotten a quick look, but the scars hadn't seemed pink or red, like a new wound. "A few years ago." A wild guess.

"I see. And it's still causing you pain? Severe pain?"

"Yes."

"Un hunh. Would you sit up, please." The doctor stuck a thermometer in his ear. "Now hold out your hands for me." He did so, and was dismayed to see that his hands were shaking. He busied himself with pulling his jeans back on again while the doctor made some notes in his chart. "You can do up your pants, and get down," the doctor finished. Then he sat down and watched, an expression on his face that did not bode well.

"I'm afraid I can't help you," he said when the man was fully dressed again. "Give this to the receptionist on your way out." He held out the chart.

"You're not going to fill out that health form? Or give me any kind of painkillers?" the man asked, stunned by the doctor's dismissal of him.

"Mr. Daniels," the doctor commenced. "You come in here looking for painkillers for an injury that is at least a three or four years old--"

"Have you never heard of chronic pain?" the man interrupted, unable to believe where the idiot doctor was going with this.

"If the pain was chronic, you'd have a prescription for painkillers, wouldn't you? And you wouldn't need me. Now, as I was saying, you want pain pills for an old, well-healed injury." He actually began ticking symptoms off on his fingers. "You've been vomiting--"

"Like I said, I'm hung over. Pain would also explain the nausea. Hello. "

"--You're sweating, but you have no fever."

"Hot flashes. Male menopause." This was going nowhere fast, but little alarm bells kept going off in his head, and they weren't just because the doctor was a cretin.

"You've got chills"--unfortunately this was true, he'd started trembling with cold a few minutes ago, damn the doctor for being astute enough to notice--"and you have a bad case of the shakes. Classic symptoms of drug withdrawal. I see a lot of that in here, and a lot of drug seeking. So please don't ask me for a clean bill of health. And if you keep insisting on pain pills, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the clinic. By force if necessary. "

"I'm not here under false pretenses."

"Really, Mr. `Daniels'?" said the doctor, opening his file once again, and the man had to give him credit for keeping his cool. "Jack Daniels. Cute. How many more aliases do you have? And let's see if you can remember your social security number?"

Shit. What had he written down? He couldn't remember.

"Date of birth?"

"I, I have memory lapses."

"Uh hunh. Would you like a neurology consult? Or a psych consult? No, I didn't think so. Here"--another sheet of flimsy paper--"Cambridge City Hospital has a rehab center. The receptionist can make an appointment for you. Now if you don't mind, I have other patients--"

"Just a goddam minute, you sanctimonious moron. I'm not an addict. I just need some--"

But the doctor had already pressed a button on the wall. The man reached for his crutches and for a moment entertained a fantasy of braining the idiot in front of him with them. Instead, he turned and stumped for the door. But before he could open it, a uniformed security guard did so for him.

"Come with me please, sir," said the guard, gripping the man firmly by the upper arm. And then there was the humiliation of being escorted--dragged--out through the over-crowded waiting room, humiliated in front of the great unwashed, America's uninsured masses, and thrust out the front door. Told not to come back again or they would call the real police. They had his name and description, the self-important cop told him, and they would circulate it to other clinics in the area.

They had his name, thought the man bitterly, as the door whirred shut behind him. Lucky them. He still had no idea what it was. * * *

Ch. 6

Thursday 6. In the end it wasn't a free clinic or a free rehab center that saved him but an upscale coffee shop that finally provided him what he craved: a bathroom. It was perfect--a single room with a lock. He crutched his way to the bathroom, pausing at a trash can to extract a used paper coffee cup and, ignoring the glances from the staff, the sign that said "Reserved for customer use," he entered the bathroom and locked the door behind him.

Once he had relieved himself--such a small thing, such sweet relief--he began to feel, for the first time since this nightmare had started, vaguely human, and vaguely in control of his thinking--just vaguely, but it was better than the chaos he'd been experiencing for the last 24 hours. He knew he was dehydrated--pinching the skin on the back of his hand confirmed it--so he limped to the sink, washed his hands, filled the coffee cup with water, rinsed out his mouth, and began drinking as fast as he could. He drank bent over the sink, eying himself above the rim of the cup as he did so. Watching the man in the mirror drink. Watching the man in the mirror's Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed. Watching the way his brow unfurrowed in relief as the water ran down his parched throat. Watching the man's startling blue eyes watching him.

Next he stripped off his clothes, starting with the T-shirt. He had to sit on the john to remove his pants and shoes. And then he was naked. For a long time he simply examined himself, turning to look at as much of his back as he could see in the mirror. Then he gave himself a thorough medical exam. He started with his head, running his fingers across his scalp, feeling the tender spot above his ear, checking his eyes and behind his ears for Battle's signs, covering one blue eye and then the other, watching the pupil reaction to light. He examined the inside of his mouth, the scar on his nose, the scruff that covered his face.. Moving down, he examined the scar on his neck and then the scar on his abdomen, the insides of his arms, ending with a minute examination of his hands. He sat and examined his genitals, his feet, checking between the toes.

And finally he gave himself over to examining his mauled and ruined thigh. The sight was horrifying, and he could only remain clinical about it because, eerie as it sounded, it was, in fact, like examining a stranger's leg. He ran his fingertips lightly over the pronounced ridges of the scars, then dug them into the scar tissue, feeling for what was left of the muscle, and then flexing the quads to give them better definition. He manipulated the patella while flexing and relaxing the muscle, and tried raising the leg as high as it would go--not very, as it turned out.

Throughout the whole process, he tried to remain clinical, detached. But he couldn't help sneaking glimpses of himself, the man he now was, in the mirror as he worked. It was like he was trying to catch this person off guard, as if there might be some clues in the man's expression, or his posture, that would reveal something. But all he saw was a tall, well muscled, slender man, his body scarred, his face marked by pain.

When he finished examining his body, he turned to his clothes, intending to give them the same sort of once-over, but there was a sudden sharp knock on the door. He ignored it. "Hey," said a female voice. "Other people need to use this, you know."

"Gimme a minute," shouted the man at an impressive volume. "I'm really really constipated."

The voice went away, but halfway through putting his boxers on, he was interrupted again, this time by a man's voice demanding to know when he was coming out.

"I'll be out in a jiffy, as soon as I've finished shooting up," the man shouted. When he'd finished tying his shoes, he shoved the door open, badly startling the nervous-looking coffee shop employee who had come to hassle him. The man gave a pleasant nod to the barista and headed over to the counter. "I'll have a double grande latte with whipped cream and nutmeg," he said. And as soon as the woman had turned her back on him to fill his order, he swiped a fat Magic Marker from a pencil jar next to the cash register, pocketed it, went over to the area where the shiny milk dispensers sat in neat rows, filled his empty paper cup with Half and Half, grabbed six packets of sugar from the dispenser, poured them all into the cup of milk, stirred it delicately with a slender wooden stick, and poured the whole thing down his throat in one long gulp. He set his cup down with a belch, nodded to the people who had watched the small display and stumped out of the coffee shop.

Ten minutes later he had found the last thing he needed: a bus stop bench inside a shelter with three blank glass walls. After sitting and staring at the walls for five minutes, he walked over to the nearest one, pulled the fat marker out of his pocket, and began writing. * * *

Ch. 7

Thursday 7. Foreman stopped writing, dropped the black marker into his lab coat pocket and turned from the whiteboard, looking quizzically at the three doctors seated around the conference table. His handwriting was nothing like House's idiosyncratic printing. It was ridiculously neat for a doctor's, anally neat, thought Wilson as he watched Foreman running the DDX.

"Short-term memory loss, headache, tremors, loss of appetite, elevated white count," prompted Foreman, disturbed by the silence from the others.

Chase looked at Cameron and shrugged. "Why are we doing this?" he asked. "We weren't supposed to take any patients this week. Just catch up on paperwork."

"Besides," added Cameron, "it seems like this is really your baliwick--neurology, I mean."

"Come on, peop--" Foreman stopped himself, evidently realizing he was sounding too much like House. "Come on, guys. It's not a clot or an aneurysm. There's nothing to explain the white cell count. I'm out of ideas," he concluded.

"No sign of tumors?" asked Wilson, finishing off the sandwich he'd brought up to the conference room.

"Head scans are all clean."

"Then, why am I here again?" Wilson asked. He knew the answer--surrogate father--but wanted to hear it from Foreman's own lips.

Foreman looked uncomfortable. "Just thought, you know, the more people to bounce ideas off of, the better."

"Sorry I can't help. And I've got patients of my own, so..." He rose to his feet, picked up his plate, and headed out of the room, passing by the waste basket as he went. He'd automatically ordered a double portion of fries with the sandwich, forgetting there was no one to steal them from him. He dumped them into the trash. *****

Thursday 8. The man couldn't keep his mouth from watering, even though the bread was certainly stale and probably moldy.

How could she be feeding it to the ducks, for Chrissake, when there were people dying of hunger? People like him, for example. Although he wasn't exactly hungry. He'd heard pregnant women describe a state of being simultaneously ravenous and nauseated. That about described the way he felt at this moment. He also felt that in just a few more minutes he might actually--impossible though it seemed-- rise up off the park bench where he lay curled up on his side, and go snatch the bag of Wonderbread from the tiny tot's grimy hand. Too bad her mother had an eagle eye on her child, and that her maternal radar had somehow picked up on the close attention he was paying to the little urchin's every move. He was just working up the strength to try to stand, when the mother grasped her child firmly by the arm, announced in a brook-no-argument voice that it was time to go home, and marched her off in the opposite direction, casting one backward glance at the hobo on the bench.

And no, she did not toss the bag of stale bread into the nearest trash receptacle as she went. Vile, detestable woman.

The man lay back down with a sigh. The only thing he'd had all day--the little bit of cream and sugar, the four glasses of water--had come right up again twenty minutes later, as he sat in the bus shelter staring blankly at the list of clues and symptoms he'd written on the glass walls, willing his useless and uncooperative brain to assemble them into some logical pattern. The public vomiting had scattered the handful of bus patrons waiting with him, elicited disgusted stares and comments, and the man had felt compelled to find somewhere else to lie down. It wasn't as if he was getting anywhere with his clever plan anyway. Like some car with a dead battery, his brain simply refused to respond.

Lying on the park bench, he told himself he should eat. He knew he should make a plan for somewhere to spend the night. But at the moment, he couldn't think. His head hurt, his leg hurt, and frankly he was out of ideas.

Gradually he became aware of a presence just behind his head. A man stood watching him, one hand resting on the handle of a shopping cart full of empty beer and soda cans, the other holding a bottle in a brown paper bag. He didn't know how long the stranger had been watching him, but he gave the man a baleful glare and closed his eyes. Go away.

"I hope you ain't thinking of staying there," said the stranger. The man opened his eyes again. The stranger, a great, shaggy St. Bernard of a man, pulled a bottle of Allen's Coffee Brandy out of the paper bag and took a drink. Behind him, an equally large, somewhat less shaggy, woman appeared, clutching a plastic garbage bag. The two gave him sympathetic smiles, a bit lacking in teeth, and the woman checked a cheap wristwatch.

"In exactly thirty-five minutes," she said, "the cops are going to do a sweep of the park and kick your ass out of here, along with anyone else committing the highly criminal act of sleeping in public. And who can blame them, eh Fergus?"

"That's right, Estelle," Fergus said, replacing the bottle in the bag. "Today, sleeping in public. Tomorrow"--he made a grand gesture with his arm--"Osama Bin Laden will be raping our wives and daughters." * * *

Ch. 8

Thursday 9. Thursday, after working late, Wilson stopped by House's apartment to feed the damn rat. He'd thought about saving himself a lot of trouble by keeping the rat in his hotel room, because it's not like House's place was exactly in the same direction as his hotel. Oh no. It was completely the opposite direction. So this whole thing was really a nuisance. But there was no way he was going to be able to smuggle that cage past the hotel's front desk.

So he let himself into House's place, tossed his briefcase onto the same spot he used to ditch it, last spring, when he lived here, and draped his overcoat over the couch. While he removed and filled Steve's water bottle, he played the movie file House had left on his laptop, sitting open next to the cage. To his amusement, it turned out indeed to be a bit of rat pornography--more accurately, it was a You Tube clip entitled Plush Animals Having Sex while Using Protection. Steve seemed fascinated by it, and he had to shove him aside to toss the pellets into his feeding bowl.

As he was about to leave, he bent over and sniffed the cage. House had told him not to bother cleaning out the cage, that Steve liked it that way, he was Steve McQueen, a rat, for God's sake, not Paris Hilton; but the whole thing smelled overly ripe to Wilson. On impulse, he lifted Steve out of the cage, set him in the sink, dumped the old shavings into the trash and dug out the bag of new shavings from under the sink. He had spread clean shavings in the cage, and was enjoying the scent of fresh pine chips, when he turned to pick up Steve and discovered he was gone. He'd somehow climbed up the slippery sides of the sink and vanished. Wilson looked around in panic. Not a trace of the horrid rodent anywhere. He opened every cabinet, every cupboard, rooted around inside the trash bin. He searched the living room with equal fervor, and then the entire apartment. At one point he found himself actually calling for Steve as if he were a dog, making encouraging whistling sounds.

After an hour, he collapsed on the couch. By now, Wilson decided, there was no point in going to his hotel. There was nothing for it but to spend the night here. He could resume the search for Steve in the morning.

He would order out for food. That wouldn't be so bad. He ordered out every night. And House had a very comfortable couch, more comfortable than his hotel, and a nice collection of DVD's. What House had, to be honest, was a home. The food in the fridge might be fit only for rats, his place might be a little messy--it might need to have its shavings tossed out and replaced with clean ones, so to speak--but it was a home. Unlike his sterile hotel room. He sighed, sank into the sofa cushions, and reached for the remote.

Cleaning up before going to bed, Wilson made one more attempt to find Steve. Failing to find him, he was putting the bag of shavings away under the sink when his eye was caught by a bright-colored object. It was a postcard that must have been lying under the bag of shavings. He picked it up. The front was a picture of the pond on the Boston Common, with the famous swan boats, and children feeding bread to the ducks. On the flip side, it was addressed to James Wilson, 221 B Baker Street, Princeton.

"Boston's lovely," read the inscription. "Wish you were here. If you try to replace Steve with another rat, I WILL be able to tell. Sweet dreams, House." * * *

Thursday 10. He was possessed by his dreams. He dreamed one dream after another. As each one ended, he roused himself and tried, in the pale moonlight, to write the dream down, on the large piece of corrugated cardboard that Fergus had found for him to use as a mattress. He was sure the dreams held clues, important ones.

This dream had him huddled in a nest of fall leaves, shivering and saying to someone he couldn't see, "I'm cold. I want to come in. Can I please come in, sir?" And a pair of highly shined shoes, topped with blue uniform pants came into his line of sight. "No," said the voice attached to the uniform. "You're too dirty. You cannot come in until you've gotten clean and said you're sorry." Looking up, he saw it was the police sergeant who had arrested him. But the voice was wrong, it had a southern drawl to it. And instead of a police uniform he had on a fancy dress military uniform, with rows of medals.

"I'm not sorry," the man said.

"Then you're in the doghouse," the sargent replied coldly, in that southern voice, and turned smartly on his heel.

And then there was a real doghouse, with a dog in it. (Why did he keep dreaming about dogs? he wondered, even as he dreamed.) This dog was a sheepdog, with sheepdog hair that flopped down over his eyes, his dark brown eyes. Around his neck was a collar made of green paisley silk with a brandy container attached to it. "Aren't you supposed to be a Saint Bernard?" asked the man.

The sheepdog shrugged. "We're all rescue dogs," he said, offering the cask from around his neck. "Have some Allen's Coffee Brandy? Lost sheep love it."

But the man shook his head. "I'm not lost," he protested.

"Oh?" said the sheepdog. "You look lost to me."

"I just really need to come inside," said the man. "I'm cold. It's cold out here."

So the dog moved aside, and allowed the man to come in. And he saw that it wasn't a tiny three-by-three-foot doghouse at all but a long long corridor with bright warm lights and sparkling glass ceilings and glass walls and rows and rows of beds. A homeless shelter stretching as far as he could see. The man lay down beside the sheepdog and the dog's warmth seeped into him and he unclenched and they both slept.

The man awoke again before dawn and discovered that sometime during the night, Fergus and Estelle had moved their sleeping bags right up next to him, one on either side. Trying not to wake them, he reached for his Magic Marker and scribbled down everything he could remember of the dream, then fell back asleep, and when he woke next, shivering and in pain, he found the heavy morning dew that soaked his face and hair had run all the ink together into a meaningless blot. *****

Friday 1. "I hate sleeping outside." "Why is that, dear?" asked Estelle. "Don't know. I just do." "Well, you sure thrash around a lot," grumbled Fergus. "Talk non-stop, too." "Speaking of which," said Estelle, "who's Wilson?" "Wilson? I have no idea."

Friday 2. The next morning, Steve was back in his cage, looking innocent, as if nothing had happened, and gazing longingly at the dark laptop screen. Wilson shut and locked the cage door with a disgusted noise. In his hand was a second postcard. He'd found it in the medicine cabinet while trying to locate a razor-- pointless quest--in House's bathroom. It was a picture of Portland Harbor. "You're pathetic," it said by way of greeting. "However will you manage without a blow dryer? There's some mousse in the left-hand drawer, if that helps." He didn't dare open the left-hand drawer, unable to face at this hour of the morning the sarcastic missive he was bound to find there. He went to work with wet hair, unshaven, wearing yesterday's wrinkled shirt. * * *

Ch. 9

Friday 3. "Jack. Talk to me. Jack."

There was no response from Jack Daniels. Lying on his left side, he had drawn himself into a little huddle with his arms wrapped tightly around his chest. For the last hour he had done nothing but tremble violently. Fergus and Estelle exchanged worried looks. The woman pressed a dusty water bottle to Jack's mouth, but he turned his face away.

"Jack, I'm serious," Estelle repeated. "You ain't had nothing to eat nor drink for two days." Since they'd found him, he had done nothing but sleep: under the bridge with them and the small community of homeless people at night; and on the grass by the edge of the river during the day. Every few hours he would rouse himself and pace madly on his crutches, but he always ended up curled up on the soggy cardboard pad again.

"You don't talk to me," she said, "I'm getting 911."

That got a response.

"No, wait," rasped Jack. The mere thought of dealing with another clinic doctor, one who had surely gotten his name and description as a drug seeker, chilled him even more deeply than whatever physical problems were wracking his body just now. He knew he could never subject himself to that humiliation again. "I'm fine," he protested. "Really. A touch of flu."

"Prove it. Talk to me."

There was a short silence. Estelle stood up decisively, pushing aside the milk crate she'd been squatting on. Fergus left the fire he was kindling inside a rusted-out oil barrel and joined her by her side. The two of them glared at Jack.

"Okay, all right," Jack sighed, rolling onto his back. He lay there thinking of the long list of clues and symptoms he had written on the bus shelter wall, a list that he had tried to grapple with whenever he could manage to focus for more than a few minutes at a time.

When he finally spoke again, it was to say, "You like murder mysteries?"

"What?"

"Murder m-mysteries," he repeated, his teeth chattering so hard he had trouble with the words. "It's a game. I'll give you the clues. You s-solve the murder."

"Whatever," said Fergus, shrugging at his companion. "As long as you keep talking."

"Okay.....Here's the set-up. P-Police find a body in the park. Middle-aged white male, unshaven, unkempt. No ID on him. Empty whiskey bottle beside him. Witnesses reported seeing him earlier, slurring his words, staggering and disoriented. Didn't know the day, the year, didn't even know his own name. Clothes are torn and dirty, reek of alcohol. No obvious signs of tr-trauma.--"

"How'd he die, then?" asked Estelle.

Jack paused, then turned his head to the ground and retched. Nothing came up, not even bile. "Aspirated...choked on his own vomit," he said when he'd caught his breath.

"Poor bastard," said Fergus, with feeling. He took a swig from the brandy bottle at his feet.

"Yeah," said the woman, snatching the bottle from him and taking a genteel sip herself. "But what's the big mystery then?"

"Question is: Who is he? And who k-killed him?"

"But you said he--"

"Shut up. I'm telling you, it was a murder."

"How can that be? Guy was drunk, choked on his vomit. Happens all the time."

"Nope. You need to ask the right questions. You see, right off the bat, you are jumping to conclusions."

"Huh," said Estelle, scratching her head. "Okay, I got a question then." She smirked. "What was his blood alcohol level?"

"Good question. Give Estelle a silver star. His blood alcohol was: zero." Here Jack had cheated a bit, in relying on a symptom rather than a sign; symptoms being the subjective things a patient experiences, signs being only those objective things that are evident to an observer. He had no idea what his blood alcohol level had been, but in combing through every scrap of evidence over the last day, he had finally realized, with a small jolt, that in fact he couldn't have been drunk when the police wakened him. Although he had all the outward signs of inebriation--the staggering, the disorientation, slurred speech--and some of the symptoms (double vision, vertigo), one thing was missing: he had none of the buzz that came with being drunk. He was drunk, but not drunk.

He should have figured that out long ago--and he would have, if his brain had been working at anything like normal speed, instead of this sensation that his head was packed with cotton wool. He was deeply troubled by the realization that after 48 hours, he was still having trouble concentrating on anything long enough to connect two intelligent thoughts together, much less connecting all the dots.

"Oho," said Fergus. "So the question becomes: what else could cause him to act funny, pass out and puke?"

"Exactly."

"Easy," said Estelle. "He had the diabetes, and, and someone give him too much insulin."

"Very good, Estelle. You make a pretty good d-detective. Diabetes would explain his altered mental status. Also the diaphoresis."

"Huh?"

"Sweating. Sorry...that--" he interrupted himself with a grunt of pain and pulled his right leg up to his chest, digging his fingers into his thigh.

"Breathe, Jack, dear," said the woman, rubbing his shoulder. "Breathe." Eventually he sighed and straightened out again. "Keep going," commanded Estelle, who was quite taken with this game.

"The...sweating doesn't come till later. He didn't start sweating until quite a few hours after he started acting funny. That's important."

"So was it diabetes?"

"Ask the right question."

Estelle made a face. "What was his blood sugar level?"

"Normal glucose. No diabetes." Another bit of a cheat, but he didn't need a glucometer to know it wasn't diabetes. If his behaviour had been caused by glucose levels, his condition would have rapidly worsened, and he'd be in insulin shock by now--or a coma. God, another cramp was coming on. "What else?" he hissed. " Come on, come on. I've told you everything you need to know."

"Okay, okay," said Fergus. "Keep yer pants on. You said no `obvious signs of trauma.' Did the police miss something?"

"Gold star for you, too, Fergus my boy. He had a small lump on the back of his head."

"Everyone probably figured he was drunk, blacked out, and hit his head on the way down."

"Absolutely. But since we now know he wasn't drunk ...?"

"Hey!" shouted Estelle. "Hey! I got it! Someone clocked him on the head. Concussion makes you puke, don't it? Yeah, and talk strange and see strange, too." Fergus was staring at her, open-mouthed. "I saw it on TV once," Estelle explained. "It was on this soap opera. Shawn, you know, from All My Sons and Lovers, he got hit on the head. When he woke up, he was all--" she waved her hands around her face--"swirly, y' know? Out of focus. And he couldn't remember who he was--who anyone was."

"Okay, and--" Jack began, but Fergus interrupted.

"What happened to him? Did he ever get his memory back?"

"Yes, but not till after his secret gay lover--well, his secret gay ex-lover--had nursed him back to health. And then they fell in love all over again because of course Shawn had forgot that Winston had cheated on him with his sister`s fiance and--"

"Yeah, yeah," said Fergus. "But how'd he get his memory back?"

"He got hit on the head again--"

"Of course," muttered Jack.

"-- and then he remembered who everyone was."

"Not likely," sighed Jack. "More likely a second concussion would kill him." But no one was listening to him. Fergus wanted more details.

"So then he broke up with Winston again?"

"Yeah. But not why you'd think. Not because he remembered the guy was a slut. Turns out, when he woke up, he wasn't gay anymore."

"You're shittin' me! He got the gay knocked out of him?"

"Right out of him. He was straight as an arrow." Estelle made a hand motion to indicate how straight he was.

"Holy crap," said Fergus, deeply impressed.

"Okay," said Jack. "That amnesia thing's a TV clich. Not impossible, just extremely rare....But, bingo. You win the big g-gold star, Estelle. Concussion's the only explanation for the physical s-symptoms. So now...now comes the $64,000 question. Why would someone clock him on the head?"

"Simple--to rob him. He had no ID. They stole his wallet," said Fergus triumphantly. He wanted a piece of the glory, too.

"Mmmmm," Jack said, pressing his lips together and wagging his head a few centimeters in an unconvinced fashion. "Remember how he looked. Why would someone rob a guy who looked like a b-bum? Why risk a murder rap for a few dollars, max?"

That stopped them. Overhead, the rumble of traffic was quieting down as the rush hour drew to a close. Fergus tossed another piece of wood onto the fire. Estelle got off her milk crate and began to pace back and forth in the small space between the bridge abutment and the bank of the river.

"Well," she said at last. "Like you said, we gotta figure out who he was. Then we'll know why they killed him. More clues, please."

"Not until you ask the right qu-questions."

"You're such a hard-ass. All right. Describe the body."

So he did, starting with the way he was dressed. "Clothes torn and dirty--but expensive. Two hundred dollar sneakers. Four days' worth of stubble but a recent, and decent, haircut. Scar on his neck. Scar on his abdomen, right lower quadrant."

"What kind of a scar? Appendix? Knife wound?"

"Surgical scar, but not an appendectomy. There was also a small scar on his back."

"Aha!" said Fergus. "Exit wound. That's a bullet wound. Two bullet wounds--abdomen and neck! The guy had enemies."

Jack continued without comment. "Very unusual sunburn: his arms were red, up to his T-shirt, and the back of his neck was red, too, but not his face. His face was pale."

Fergus scratched his head and frowned. "That's just too weird," he said. "Can't think of any explanation for that, unless he was a bank robber. With a mask on."

Estelle also shrugged, so Jack continued, trying to reconstruct the list he'd inscribed on the bus shelter wall. "One shoulder, the right shoulder, more developed than the other. Fingernails of his right hand longer than those of his left. Calluses on the fingertips of his left hand but not on his right hand. Calluses on the palm and index finger of his right hand." He paused to let them absorb that information, and to try to swallow some brandy from the bottle that had been offered him. He gagged a bit--it was truly filthy stuff, brandy mixed with cream and coffee-- and went on, more slowly this time. "Last of all, a very nasty scar on his right leg, older than the other scars. Looked as if he'd had a run-in with a shark."

"What coulda caused that?"

"Could be anything from necrotizing fasciitis--flesh-eating bacteria--to an infarc--a blood clot--to, who knows? A bomb. All that was clear is that it would have made walking difficult or impossible."

His two companions were silent. They exchanged a significant glance. Fergus spoke. "Then, was there...any crutches found next to the body?"

"Nothing."

"They stole his crutches?! That makes no sense."

"Agreed. But they didn't steal his crutches."

"What--?"

"They stole his cane."

"How do you know he used a cane? That's cheating, you shoulda said so if--."

"Not cheating--deduction, my dear Watson. Calluses on right palm, overdeveloped right shoulder, injured right leg... equals cane."

Estelle walked about a bit, testing. "But he would use the cane in his other hand, wouldn't he? His left hand?"

"Perhaps he had a reason not to. Maybe he was bloody minded. Musicians are like that."

"Musicians?" they chorused. "Oh, wait. Wait. I get it," said Fergus, holding an air guitar in front of him. "The long fingernails on the right hand, for picking. The calluses on his left fingers, from making chords. He played guitar. Maybe he was a rock star."

"That fits," admitted Jack.

Fergus tapped his chin. "You're holding something back, Jack. Are you withholding evidence? An important clue.? You are, aren't you. The whaddyacalllit, the `diapers'?"

"Diaphoresis. Sweating."

"You said it came later. So it's not from the concussion. Sweating and puking." He looked uneasily at Jack. "Do you..I mean, did he have a drug problem?" Jack didn't answer. "Track marks on his arms?" Fergus lifted one of Jack's arms, but he shook it off. "Between his toes?"

"Was he a drug addict, Jack?"

"No." But Fergus and Estelle just eyed him skeptically.

"All right, maybe he was. Maybe. The...evidence was inconclusive."

"You see, because if he was a drug addict, it might explain some shit," said Fergus, and he got up and warmed his hand over the fire in the barrel. "You said amnesia from a concussion was very rare, yeah?"

Jack, who was shivering badly now, just nodded. "All right, then," continued Fergus. "I've got a better explanation for how come he was disoriented, couldn't remember his name." He waited till everyone was looking at him. "Concussion plus...Post Traumatic Stress," he announced dramatically. When no one reacted, he said, "Seems clear as the nose on my face, the guy was a vet, Iraqi war vet. I mean, look at the scars he had. And you--I mean he--seems to have a shitload of medical knowledge. Maybe he was a medic. Anyways, the poor guys coming back from that war, most of them are messed up bad. The Army, the VA hospitals don't do shit for them. And I'll tell you something else: half the people living under this bridge, living at the homeless shelters, they're veterans from some war or other, Viet Nam or Iraq, and they're dealing with some serious shit.

"Yeah, so this guy, our `dead' guy"--he gave Jack another look--"he's using drugs to deal with the stress of whatever happened to him in the war, and one day somebody mugs him, he gets knocked out, and when he wakes up, it's like being back in Iraq or the VA hospital, so he goes into PTSD or however it works with that stuff. Blocks it all out by forgetting everything."

"Fergus, old boy," said Jack thoughtfully, sitting up "you might be on to something. I like the way you think. Very creative. Concussion explains most of the symptoms, PTSD explains the rest." Fergus beamed. "But it still doesn't explain why someone would think a homeless guy was worth assaulting, and robbing."

"Homeless guys with a drug problem get into fights all the time. Maybe someone was after his drugs."

"Yeah," said Jack, feeling strangely let down. He lowered himself back to the mat of corrugated cardboard. "You must be right. He was just a junkie."

But Estelle was not ready to quit. Or maybe she was just peeved that Fergus appeared to have won the game. "Don't stop now," she said to Jack. "We ain't explained all the clues. Like that funny sunburn, for example. How'd he get that? Hunh? And where'd his cane go? I'm sure that's important."

She was right, but Jack had no answers. He closed his eyes. His head, which earlier felt as if concrete had been poured into it, now felt like it was filled with hundreds of angry bees. He wanted to stop thinking, and he turned his back on his two companions, searching for sleep. A few minutes later he felt someone cover him with a thin blanket, and he caught the sound of Fergus hissing at someone to shut up and let him sleep, he'd keep an eye on him. * * *

Ch. 10

Jack dozed fitfully, assaulted, when he did drop off, by strange dreams and woken regularly by chills or dry heaves. Once he was roused by the sensation of something crawling over his feet, and he realized dully that it was a rat. He was too tired even to try to shift his legs and unable to fall back asleep, because of the increasing agony caused by the effects of the cold, seeping inexorably through the damp cardboard, on the muscles of his thigh. At one point, when he could no longer restrain the groans of pain, Fergus crept over beside him and asked him what he needed.

"There's some guys here do drugs." Fergus jerked his head toward a small cluster of people sleeping a few yards away. "Let's say, just pretend, that you are detoxing. Those guys could maybe sell you something. Or trade you, if you ain't got the cash."

"Cash is the least of my p-problems," rasped Jack through chattering teeth, with something close to a laugh. "I'm lying here, ready to k-kill someone, ready to pull my own skin off over my head, the craving is s-so strong. But a craving for what? I don't have a clue. Do you know how strange that is? It's like p-pining away for love, without having any idea who you're in love w-with." * * *

Friday 3. Wilson had always made a point of using the back elevators to and from the fourth floor so that he would have an excuse to walk by House's office to get to his own. In the morning, if House was in, and he got a glimpse of the man, it somehow made his day start off better--probably because the interaction just involved looking, not talking. No sarcasm, no complaints, no messing with him. Just the spectacle of House at work--or more often at play--something that had always made his heart lift for reasons he never closely examined.

On his way home that night, he walked by House's office again. The office, this time, was dark. But he looked inside anyway, and because it was dark he caught a glimpse of himself as he must have looked all day. The ghost of the reflection looking back at him, superimposed over the letters of House's name, showed hair sticking up in messy, unkempt...Housean tufts, his shirt badly wrinkled. No wonder Cuddy, seeing him arrive at work that morning, before he'd used the electric razor he kept in his desk drawer (a leftover from the days when he was sleeping at work) had looked at him with raised eyebrows and asked if he was channeling House. "We only need one doctor on the staff who looks like he slept under a bridge," she added with an arch smile.

He didn't even go through the formality of a mental debate over where to spend the night that night. When he got back to Baker Street, he decided to ditch the couch and sleep on the bed. It was simply far more comfortable. Pulling back the covers he found another postcard, on the pillow. This was a shot of a female bicyclist, from behind, wearing no more than a thong and a saucy expression as she looked over her shoulder at the photographer.

"Shouldn't you be home with your wife?" ran the scribbled inscription. "Oh, right, you don't have one. Portland has great hookers, btw. Sweet `dreams'. And please don't get cum on my nice clean sheets. House." * * *

Saturday 1. Early next morning, just as dawn was beginning to lighten the rim of the visible world, Jack got up to walk off a cramp. It took him a good two minutes to push himself to his feet, and then he reeled as he stood up. Hanging suspended from the wooden crutches he paused to let the dizziness pass and took his pulse. His heart was racing and--he pinched the back of his hand again--he was even more dehydrated. He knew he risked serious complications if he kept losing fluids, sweating and vomiting, and couldn't manage to keep anything down.

He paced over to one side of the abutment, and then kept on going, till he was on the footpath along the river. He was trying to summon the word, the medical word, that described those complications, but he couldn't. Like his name, it was hidden in the fog that still permeated his brain.

He hadn't lost all memories. This part he found fascinating. The slate had not been wiped completely clean--just selective parts of it. He couldn't remember events, but he remembered the results of events. He remembered, for example, how to speak English, read, tie his shoelaces, make coffee--though he couldn't remember learning those things. So, though he had forgotten the experiences that molded him, he remained the sum of those experiences. Like the child once burned and twice shy, who has long ago forgotten the time he put his hand on the hot embers, he just knows not to go near the fire; it was part of him, instinct, who he was. Similarly although he must have had some medical training, he had no memory of it, or of any of his instructors. But he had retained the facts that they must have taught him.

Still he felt like an empty vessel--or more precisely, one of those statues made by the lost wax process: the wax that the mold had formed around was gone--burned away in some fiery furnace--and all that remained was the sculpture that hardened around it. Hollow man, that's what he was.

Memory, he'd been learning, was a tricky thing. He'd given up trying to figure out who he was by the simplest route: trying to force his memory to retrieve the information. What memories did come to him always came unbidden. He would often have a flash of something from the past: a room, a shoe, a view out a window, a face, the dashboard of a car. These images were disjointed and so fleeting and fragmentary as to be useless.

But if he tried to pursue them, to fill them out, he would fail each time. The images would collapse under his probing, like a dribble castle that has dried in the sun and needs only the lightest touch to start the sand crumbling. By experimenting, Jack had found that if he was coy about it, if he didn't look directly at the memory, but off to the side, it would come sometimes of its own accord. It was like looking at a star in the night sky: if you looked straight at it, it would vanish into the blind spot of your retina. But if you looked slightly to the side of the star, you might see it.

For example, while he had been sitting in the clinic exam room yesterday, he noticed a blood pressure cuff on the counter. Seeing the cuff brought the word sphygmomanometer instantly to mind. But before he had walked into that room, if you had asked him the technical term for blood pressure cuff, he would have drawn a blank. Similarly, the word diaphoresis had come to him yesterday, without his consciously summoning it, when he stared at the sweat staining his T-shirt.

In the same way, if you asked someone to produce a synonym for outgoing they might draw a complete blank, but when shown the word gregarious they might know instantly what it meant. The whole process of trying to recapture lost memories was incredibly frustrating for Jack because he had almost no control over it--in fact, the harder he tried the less he learned.

He found, though, that pacing helped him think, to be in motion. It distracted his mind from the pain, and put him in a place where thoughts came to him without having to try. As he walked along Memorial Drive in the faint light, the blat of a solitary motorcycle, whose owner had removed all semblance of muffler, ripped the pre-dawn stillness. Jack watched the cyclist for a second, then paused in his pacing, his head cocked to the side, his eyes narrowed in thought. When the thought came to him, if he hadn't been in so much pain, he might have actually smiled.

The last clue, the one that had eluded him longest, had slipped into place. And it explained everything. He lowered himself, grunting, to his damp bed, pulled the blanket up, and fell into the first deep sleep he'd had in two days. * * *

Saturday 2. He tried to get up that day, after the sun was fully up. He had much to do. He needed to go to the police station right away. Estelle and Fergus told him he was crazy, no way could he walk two miles in his condition, and it turned out they were right. He got all of 25 yards before his legs gave out and he collapsed onto the grass by the side of the river. Estelle brought his cardboard mattress, his thin blanket and told him to sleep. It was warm here. Here was a water bottle. He needed to rest, get his strength back.

Estelle and Fergus then left to do their thing. Like everyone else under the bridge, Estelle and Fergus carefully stashed all their belongings--the shopping carts, the sleeping bags and clothes--under the bushes that grew around the base of the bridge, and went off to earn their living during daylight hours. As the breadwinner of the `family,' Fergus collected empty bottles from roadsides and trash cans, redeeming them for a nickel apiece. As homemaker, Estelle scrounged dumpsters behind grocery stores and fast food restaurants for discarded food.

In their absence, Jack managed to sleep a bit, to keep down a few sips of water and some bites of stale bread. But all his hard-earned progress was nearly undone later, when Estelle returned from her shopping expedition and tried to tempt him to eat `real food' for the first time. The sight and smell of old Big Macs and fries, the half-rotten store produce nearly brought up everything he'd managed to keep down. He stood up later that evening to relieve himself for the first time in days, but his relief that he was actually peeing again was mitigated by the fact that he had to take his belt in a full notch to keep his pants from sliding down his hips. As he watched the trickle of dark orange urine, the word finally came to him, the word his mind had been searching vainly for, the medical name for complications of severe dehydration.Hypovolemic shock. * * *

Ch. 11

Sunday 1. By the morning of the next day--the fourth since this whole nightmare had started--Jack felt a little better. Well enough, at least, to try again for the police station. The weather had turned cold, the Indian summer had vanished, and Jack's thin T-shirt was no protection against the deep chill. Fergus insisted on digging a tattered nylon ski parka, easily fifteen years old, out of the shopping cart that held all his and Estelle's belongings. It had once been yellow--now coated with a patina of grease so old it was shiny. Jack, too had acquired a patina of filth in the last few days, so he didn't much care, nor did he care that it was so big (Fergus being a very ample man) that it hung on him as if he were a scarecrow. He was just grateful for its warmth as he made his slow way along the sidewalks of Cambridge, and grateful that at last he was on the way toward solving the mystery of his own identity. * * *

Sunday 2. Not having House around meant Wilson had more time for work, more time for long-neglected colleagues who tended to avoid him because of the force field that surrounded the two of them whenever House was with him.

That morning found him in the doctor's lounge, after checking in on a critical patient. Seth Jacoby from Radiology buttonholed him there, ostensibly to discuss a new treatment protocol, but the man quickly veered off into a rant about the evilness of Cuddy and her evil proposed budget cuts that were compromising patient care and the idiocy of the billing procedures and as a member of the board what was Wilson going to do about it. Wilson presented his concerned listening face and wondered whether he might contrive to get Chase to page him (House would have known to do it without being asked) and why, when it was House saying the same things it seemed funny, whereas with Jacoby it was merely tiresome--

"Exactly," said Wilson.

--and while still managing to look interested and nodding sympathetically, he was rehearsing the way in which he would tell House about what a royal whinger Jacoby was. He would have to remember to describe Jacoby's pompous speech mannerisms, the way he started every sentence with "the fact of the matter is," and that, at age 62, he appeared to be trying to grow a "soul patch." That would get a smirk out of House--

"I see your point," said Wilson.

--and then Wilson would toss in something about middle-aged men with mid-life crises who have to prove their virility by, oh, say, buying motorcycles...or canes with flames painted on them. That might actually get House to laugh, one of those rare laughs that almost no one else ever saw. It was strangely satisfying to get House to laugh. And it was at that moment that Wilson realized he hadn't seen House laugh in a long time. A very, very long time.

"Oh, is that the time?" he said, rising to his feet. "Sorry--late for an appointment."

Jacoby was left with his mouth hanging open, and a sneaking suspicion that he had misjudged the easy-going Dr. Wilson. * * *

Sunday 3. The line of people waiting to talk to the receptionist at the precinct house was long, and when the man in the grimy yellow ski jacket, hanging off a pair of crutches, finally reached the plexiglass window, he was clearly exhausted from standing so long. "I need to report a stolen vehicle," he announced in a hoarse voice. The secretary reached for a form and passed it under the slot in the window. The man hesitated. She tapped her pen against the desk. "And also a missing person," the man added.

"Then fill this out too," the secretary said, sliding another form through. "Get in line over there to talk to Officer Robinson."

Officer Robinson was merely a reserve police officer, and as such got the unpopular weekend shifts at the precinct house. This was fine by him, since he needed the money, and his weekdays were taken with private security guard duty and studying to become an EMT paramedic. But Sunday mornings were always a little frenzied, dealing with the fallout from the previous Saturday night urban craziness. His patience was more than a bit thin at the moment.

He looked at the forms before him, the handwriting so shaky as to be almost illegible, and then at the hollow-cheeked man sitting in the wooden chair next to his desk, a vise-like grip on his right thigh. "You want to report a motorcycle that was stolen...four days ago?"

"Yes," he said. "Sometime Wednesday evening, on Memorial Drive."

"And you just noticed this?" asked the officer glancing at the form.

"In a way, yes."

"You've also left the make and model lines blank. In fact, there's no information here at all--no VIN, no license plate info. Why is that?"

"Because I have no idea what kind of bike it was. I just know I was driving a motorcycle, I had to have been driving a motorcycle, there's no other explanation, and someone stole it from me--along with my wallet. And cane."

"Uh huh," said the officer, sliding the stolen property form behind the second form and scanning that one quickly. "And you want to report a missing person, but you don't know his name or anything else about him." Christ, why did he get all the raving lunatics? Was there a full moon or something?

"Look," said the man, leaning forward with an intense look in his unsettlingly blue eyes. "I know how this sounds--completely nuts." You're right about that, thought Robinson, but he managed to keep a serious expression on his face. "But I'm the missing person. I got mugged Wednesday night, and since then I haven't been able to remember my name or where I live, or anything."

How to put this nicely? "If you stop taking your meds, it can have that effect," Robinson suggested, trying and failing to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

An angry flush crept up the man's neck, disappearing beneath a week's growth of thick, scruffy beard. "I'm not--" he began, but just then Robinson's phone rang. He talked into it for a few minutes, laughed heartily, then turned it over and cradled it on his shoulder. The man in the parka was still there, alas. Robinson covered the receiver with one hand.

"Listen. What do you expect me to do for you?"

"I need you to check and see if any motorcycles have turned up anywhere this week. And if anyone has reported someone missing who fits my description. Is that asking too much?"

Robinson gave him a look. If that would satisfy this guy and shut him up, he was happy to oblige. "Hang on," he said, typing for a few moments into the computer on his desk, his neck crooked to hold onto the phone. He hit the print button, and finished his phone conversation while the printer churned out three pages of type.

"Gosh darn it--no motorcycles in the Lost and Found," he said to the man. "What bad luck. But here's a list of every Missing Person report that has been filed on the entire East Coast since Wednesday." He handed the printout to the man in the parka and held up the forms the man had filled out. "I'll file these reports for you," he added "Is there anything else I can do for you? No? All righty then, if anything turns up, we'll be in touch." The man finally lurched to his feet and left. As soon as he was gone, Officer Robinson filed the meaningless forms in the `circular file', along with his empty coffee cup and napkin. He turned to the row of people sitting patiently and let out a long-suffering sigh.

"Next," he said. * * *

Ch. 12

Sunday 4. Rooting around in House's nearly empty fridge, he'd come across a container of Chinese take-out that had to be months old. Taped to it was a Post-It note saying "Dim Sum, Class of '05. Do NOT discard!!" Wilson had smiled as he tossed it into the garbage, thinking of all the food containers of his whose plaintive Post-It notes House had ignored. Payback was indeed sweet.

The postcard he found that night was tucked into a DVD of "Vertigo" that he'd left behind during the month he lived with House. "Call off Lady," it said. "I like my mess."Wilson smiled. Too late. His former cleaning lady was scheduled to come tomorrow morning, and House would return to a neat apartment, like it or not.

Wilson calculated that House was halfway home by now, breaking his trip somewhere between Maine and New Jersey. Pulling the bedroom shade down that night, Wilson could see the nearly full moon high over Princeton. He imagined House looking up at that same moon, at that same instant, from some hotel window. It was a strange kind of personal geometry: Wilson's gaze going from Princeton up to the moon, then deflecting down to House, wherever he was, like a telephone signal bouncing off a satellite, while House was maybe doing the same thing back at him. It was oddly comforting. * * *

Sunday 2. Jack fished the printout from the police station out of his pocket and tossed it into Fergus's oil barrel fire. There were hardly words to describe the way he was feeling.

Most people judged by appearances and saw what they expected to see. Experiments on vision and perception--he dragged this fact from the recesses of what remained of his memory--had proven that: let someone in a perfect gorilla costume wander into the middle of a basketball game, and no one would report seeing it--simply because they didn't expect to see a gorilla at a basketball game. Looking at him, the cops, the clinic doctor had seen only what they expected to see, as had Officer Robinson, and everyone else. A bum. A homeless person. A crazy. A drug addict.

Up until this moment, he'd been completely convinced they were wrong. Bums didn't have perfect teeth. Homeless people didn't drive motorcycles. Crazy people didn't didn't know about diaphoresis and hypovolemic shock.

But maybe they did. The police printout was irrefutable evidence that, although he'd been "lost" four days now, no one--no wife, no lover, no child, no boss or colleague, no relative, no neighbor--had reported him absent. No one had missed him. No one had initiated a city-wide search for him. No one had alerted authorities, called the local press, or put up posters on telephone poles. No one wished to find him. No one cared that he was, or was not, still alive.

And if that wasn't the definition of homeless, he didn't know what was.

Hell, even Fergus and Estelle had each other.

Later that night, having refused Estelle's offer of `dinner' he lay down on the cardboard mat, his physical agony compounded by the punishment of a four-mile walk, the days of detox, of being unable to eat, by the unshakeable cold that had gotten into the marrow of his bones. He watched the nearly full moon rise over the Boston skyline, its reflection shimmering on the inviting black surface of the Charles River, with a new question uppermost in his mind: whether there was any real point in going on. *****

Monday 1. By morning, as so often happened around the time of full moon in early fall, there would be frost, and he would awaken with his hair in frozen points, his leg on fire, and a dream-fueled conviction that, all evidence to the contrary, he was not alone in the world.

And he had a plan to prove it. * * *

Ch. 13

Monday 2. Wilson, on the other hand, awoke Monday morning feeling unaccountably uneasy. He got to the hospital early, hoping that working out in the exercise room might banish the bad mood. But all he could think about as he ran on the treadmill was the last time he'd caught sight of House exiting the same exercise room the night Wilson had urged him to "go for a run" in order not to let his physical rehab program lapse. He was sure that stopping running would cause House to lose all the progress he'd made after the ketamine treatment. He was sure House was imagining the return of the pain. He was sure he and Cuddy were right to let him think he had blown his last case so that he would have to accept the fact that he was just an ordinary mortal and start behaving like one.

He was sure about everything.

And then, on his way to the locker room with several colleagues to change after an unscheduled surgery, he'd caught a glimpse of House leaving the darkened workout room. He was damp with sweat but his face was grey with pain. He was limping hard, using the wall to prop himself up, and he looked as beaten as Wilson had ever seen him.

Wilson pounded the off button on the treadmill, although he'd run less than a mile, and let himself slide off the back of the machine. He showered quickly in the adjacent locker room and headed to the cafeteria with some patient files. He'd only just settled down with a cup of coffee when Cuddy approached and stod opposite him. She gave him a bright smile.

"Taking advantage of your last few hours of peace and quiet?"

Wilson tried, but it was at best a wan smile. He went back to reading his file. The sense of release--release from worry--the almost rush of relief he'd felt when House first left on vacation had not lasted. The worry didn't come back; no, what overtook him was something subtler than worry, something he couldn't quite get a handle on. It nagged at him, just below the surface, growing greater every day. And while he and Cuddy had spent the last week exchanging private jokes about House's absence, speculating about hot tubs and hookers, Wilson's participation had grown less and less enthusiastic until, this morning, he felt unable to respond in kind at all.

He felt Cuddy's eyes on him, her head tilted questioningly. He kept reading.

"Wilson? What's up? Do you know something I don't know?"

Wilson continued to stare at the file, but he wasn't seeing the words there. Cuddy pulled out the other chair and sat down. At last he closed the folder and sighed.

"There's a reason why the suicide rate goes up at Christmas time," he said without preamble.

When he showed no inclination to go on, Cuddy said, "And so...?"

"It's all those people outside the circle. Every time someone inside the circle wishes them Merry Christmas, it's like being told they should be merry and happy too."

Cuddy had the good sense to keep quiet and let Wilson work out whatever was bothering him. Her cell phone vibrated in her coat pocket, but she didn't answer it.

"Last week House said something strangely...revealing. For him anyway," Wilson continued. "Probably because he was stoned at the time." He must have caught Cuddy's startle reaction in his peripheral vision because he raised his eyes to her. "Nitrous oxide," he started to explain, but Cuddy waved him away. "Got the incident report from the anesthetist," she said. "Go on."

So Wilson told Cuddy about the comment House had made, while under the influence of the nitrous, about people who lived outside `the circle'--like the autistic boy who was his patient at the time. How circle dwellers were always trying to pull them inside the circle. "It's like: In here, we obey the rules, we treat each other politely, we have manners. And look! We're attractive, we're successful. Happy."

"And House lives `outside the circle'?"

"He didn't say that--of course. But, yes. Doesn't he?"

"Way outside. So what's your point?"

"You can rope a wild mustang, and you can drag him, bucking and kicking, into the corral along with all the fat, sleek, gelded domesticated horses. You can say, Look at us. We are well fed. We have mates, and families. But all it will do is make the wild horse realize exactly how different he is from you, how impossible it all is."

"I'm still missing your point."

Wilson still couldn't meet her eyes. He leaned back in his seat, stared at the ceiling, and sighed. "Last week we told House to take a vacation. Go enjoy yourself. Be happy. Meet new people--like a.. a normal person. We might as well have told him, Why can't you please just walk without a limp, like the rest of us? Is that so hard?"

God doesn't limp.

"And the worst part is, we kid ourselves into thinking we're doing all this for them--the people outside the circle--because we want them to be happy. But House has said for years that he's happy the way he is--he doesn't need relationships. In fact, House is fiercely protective of exactly those qualities that disqualify him from life in the circle--his uniqueness, his non-conformity." Cuddy nodded thoughtfully, but when she didn't respond, Wilson continued. "All we ever did was tell him how little we valued those qualities."

Cuddy fiddled with the lid of her coffee cup for a long moment. "So, if we're not doing it for them--lassoing the wild horses that is, dragging them into the corral--who are we doing it for?"

"We're doing it for is ourselves. Because people who live outside the circle make us uncomfortable, uneasy. What we're really afraid of is they might make us question our comfortable happy lives."

"Yes," said Cuddy, so softly he almost didn't hear her. "Because look at the two of us--we're so happy." This was said with such a soft vehemence that it startled Wilson. In the silence that ensued, he looked at her downcast eyes, and he almost reached for her hand. But it was Cuddy, after all, so he settled for ducking his head to catch her eye and giving her a wry grin. She responded in kind, and then seemed to shake herself mentally. "What brought on all this...introspection?" she asked in a completely different voice.

"No idea," he said. "I think I was trying to imagine House returning from vacation, all tanned and relaxed and happy, and it just...didn't compute. So," he added, his voice mirroring Cuddy's change of mood, "does this mean when he gets back, you're going to cut him some slack?"

"Not a chance," she said, standing. She put down her coffee cup and then she walked out of the cafeteria, as only Cuddy could--hips swaying, head thrown back, the picture of self-confidence. And it was then that Wilson recognized the feeling that had overtaken him while on the treadmill this morning. It wasn't worry--his old friend--it was an entirely new feeling: Doubt. * * *

Ch. 14

Monday 2. The plan was simple--which was good, because complicated plans were beyond him. He would go to the library, do some research on the computers there, and start making phone calls. How he would make the phone calls he hadn't yet figured out. He had only two nickels in the coin pocket of his jeans. He'd need a lot more than two nickels for a pay phone. He wasn't even sure if they still made pay phones. But he could only think one step at a time right now, the way he was feeling. He would do the research and then he would, he'd have to...he...well, he would come up with a way.

Fergus knew--of course-- where the nearest branch library was, but Jack didn't confide his plans to either him or Estelle. They were concerned about his physical condition and Estelle was making noises about calling the EMTs again. He had had another bad night and by morning was feeling physically wretched--light-headed and weak--lingering effects of the concussion that, he knew, could last a long time. Plus he'd developed some new symptoms: an annoying cough, and an ache in his lower back that he recognized as his kidneys reacting to severe dehydration. Despite his best efforts to eat and drink, and though he seemed over the worst of the detox, the process of withdrawal from whatever drug it was had triggered the dreaded downward spiral: detoxing causing vomiting and sweating, which caused dehydration; dehydration itself causing more nausea, which caused more vomiting, which caused more dehydration. If he didn't deal with this soon, he risked serious kidney damage.

Once Estelle and Fergus had left, Jack set off, making his careful way along the slick brick sidewalks. He walked like a very very old man, his right leg still unable to bear weight. Even had he been able to use his leg, it would still take him forever, because he was so weak that everything exhausted him, even concentrated thinking. Still, he had little else to do these days than think.

But he had finally managed to assemble the clues and the disjointed memories into some semblance of an identity. He was sure, as sure as he'd ever been, that he had once worked--no, currently worked--at a hospital or medical center in some capacity. He refused to accept that this may have been in some distant past, that he truly was a homeless ex-medico, or even an ex-Army doc, as Fergus had hypothesized. Although the military resonated with him in some ways (he recalled a dream about an officer of some branch of the military), it didn't do so in the same way as, for example, the clinic had. He pushed away the thought that maybe he'd attended medical school courtesy of ROTC and gone to Iraq when Uncle Sam had called in the debt. The simple fact was, he had no way of tracking himself if he was a vet. If he was a hospital employee somewhere, he had a much better chance of finding out who he was.

Really, the sunburn was the key to everything. It was the clue, the straw he clung to. Street people, unemployed people didn't get sunburned from a few hours on a motorcycle. Only someone locked indoors with a full-time office job had the kind of pale skin that would get burned after a few hours in the October sun. And since the only kind of job he could imagine was in some sort of medical setting, ergo...

Stumping his way toward Harvard Square, lost in thought, he was not paying attention to where he planted his crutches, and suddenly the right crutch slipped out from under him as he crossed a shady patch of ice. He fell hard onto his right knee, tearing his jeans and opening a gash. The pain was so sharp that everything else faded for a few seconds--the pain in his thigh, in his back, in his head. Somewhat to his surprise, two students in jogging gear stopped instantly and lifted him to his feet before he could even object. "You okay, man?" one asked, handing him his crutches, and before he could do more than nod, they were off jogging again.

It took him ten minutes of leaning against the sidewalk's wrought-iron fence before he could move again. The library was four more painful blocks away, but he negotiated the walkways without any more misadventures, despite his stiffening knee...only to be stymied by the most simple--and insurmountable--of obstacles.

In the fog of the last few days, time and dates had melted together into a meaningless mist. No more. Today, according to a sign on the library door, was Monday, October 13. Which happened to be Columbus Day. And the library was closed.

Shit. Shit. Shit. * * * Monday 3. Monday after work Wilson went home to his hotel for the first time in five days. House was due back sometime that day, and he could feed his own damn rat. It was a relief to be free of that obligation, to be in his own place again, he thought as he hung up his coat on a theft-proof hanger attached to its rod in the tiny closet and flung his briefcase down on the generic armchair. Good to be home. He sighed, ripped the sterile paper seal from the drinking glass in the bathroom, and poured himself a scotch, checking as he always did to be sure that the bottle hadn't been watered down by someone from housekeeping wanting a little pick-me-up in the middle of her work day.

Not that it really needed to be said out loud--it really was a given--but later that evening Wilson called House to ask if he wanted a ride to work the next day. The answering machine picked up and House's recorded message came on instantly. "You have reached Dr. Gregory House and no," said the recording, "I don't need a ride. I have a license and a vehicle and everything."

Wilson couldn't help grinning, but part of him also recorded the fact that House was clearly not expecting anyone else to call during the week he was away. And in fact, as he looked back over the four nights he'd spent there, there hadn't been a single message on the machine. There was something so... wrong about that.

The record-now beep sounded, and Wilson sighed a loud sigh, meant to register as long-suffering. "Your crotch might disagree," he said, "after having logged, what? Three hundred miles on that beast? Call me if you change your mind." * * *

Ch. 15

Tuesday 1. Not surprisingly, there was no answering call, but Tuesday morning Wilson found himself passing by House's place anyway. In case he hadn't checked his answering machine. Yeah, he'd no doubt gotten in late and crashed without bothering to listen to his messages.

But...damn! No motorcycle. The rat must have anticipated that Wilson would show up anyway and decided to beat him to work, late night or no late night. (He seemed to have anticipated every other move Wilson made that week, so why not?) It was uncharacteristic of House to get to work early, but maybe he missed the place. Wilson snorted to himself as he threw the car into gear. It would take a week away from PPTH to make House realize how much he needed the place.

Wilson was a little peeved, since he'd spent yesterday trying to think of ways to get back at House for the barrage of irritating post cards. He'd considered juvenile pranks like cramming his office full of hundreds of helium balloons. In the end he had decided just to retaliate in kind--a postcard war. Two could play at that. But half the pleasure of pulling a prank was watching it unfold, and he hoped House hadn't beat him to the punch. Wilson hastened out of the elevator, a half-smile of anticipation on his face.

House's private office was dark. Dark and locked, and none of the fellows had heard from him. Now, that was strange. Back in his own office Wilson dialed House's number before he even removed his coat. House, after recording his outgoing message, had added a good two minutes' worth of an unbelievably nerve-jangling electronic version of the opening bars of `Fur Elise'. Wilson nearly strangled the phone receiver as he waited through the interminable cheeriness of the music before the beep came on that allowed you to leave a message. "Wake up, House!" he shouted into the phone."You're late for work!" He gave House a good 60 seconds to respond--he pictured him limping down the hallway, balancing himself on the walls, the couch--before hanging up in disgust.

By 11:00, when there was still no word from House, and Wilson was ready to commit a crime if he had to listen to any more Fur Elise, he worked his way down to Cuddy's office.

"He's causing trouble already?" inquired Cuddy, her eyebrows raised sardonically. "That's quick work, even for--" She broke off, seeing how serious Wilson looked.

"He hasn't shown up. There's no answer at his house. Did he call to let you know he was, I don't know, extending his vacation time?" House knew Diagnostics wasn't taking new patients during his absence and it was possible he had felt there was no harm taking an extra day or two.

Cuddy raised her eyebrows. "Not a peep. He probably got in late, turned off the ringer on his phone, and overslept."

"Yeah," said Wilson, who'd already considered that--and a half dozen other possibilities. "I'm sure that's it. Inconsiderate lazy bastard."

"What else is new?" asked Cuddy lightly.

But in that case, where was his bike? Parked out of sight somewhere, no doubt. Or maybe he'd taken it to the shop for some repairs. But by three o'clock Wilson could no longer convince himself with any of those arguments. He found himself reading and re-reading the short journal abstract he'd being trying to finish for an hour now. It hadn't helped that he'd stopped everything to check his voice mail both at the hotel and at work every twenty minutes. He found himself in Cuddy's office again.

"I'm going over there. This is beyond the pale."

"Fine," said Cuddy. "When you find him passed out on the couch, do me a favor and put his hand in a bowl of warm water. Leave him to stew in his own hung-over `juices' so to speak."

"A charming image--and don't think I haven't already thought of doing just that," said Wilson. He and Cuddy exchanged scowls. The more irritated they were, the more it meant House wasn't in trouble somewhere. * * *

Ch. 16

Tuesday 2. When Wilson called to report that the apartment was empty, the bike still missing, Monday's mail untouched in the mail box, Cuddy had already done her homework. "I called the police," she said grimly, her tone still implying she was very pissed off . "But they can't officially declare him missing until he's been gone for twenty-four hours--in other words, tomorrow morning."

Wilson replaced the phone and sat stock still on House's couch trying to ignore the warring feelings--irritation versus concern (a concern which had morphed quickly into fear)--that had been building all day. When the act of sitting became intolerable, he stood abruptly and paced a circle around the living room, picking up objects at random and putting them down again. House was certainly fine, sleeping it off somewhere. He'd behaved irresponsibly before, and not showing up for work was entirely in character. He might even be trying to punish Wilson and Cuddy for forcing him to take time off: Make `em sweat a bit.

But what if something had happened to him? It could have happened at any time during the last week. Wilson put the burnished brass mortar and pestle back on the book shelf and looked around. He was damned if he was going to give whatever it might be another twenty-four hours before he took any action. He walked over to House's desk, sat down in the chair, and began rifling the desk. * * *

Ch. 17

Tuesday 3. Jack, as he was finding out, was nothing if not stubborn. And perhaps the tiniest bit casual with the truth.

Tuesday morning, his cough was worse, the throbbing in his back had ratcheted up a notch, his knee was working on an nice little infection, and it was getting harder to ignore the voice in his head that told him he needed to get medical attention--at the very least some IV fluids. But the thought of trying to return to the clinic where he'd been banned--or to any clinic that his name and description as a drug seeker had been circulated to--was simply anathema to him. He'd really almost rather die than subject himself to that again. So he told Fergus and Estelle he was fine, lied through parched, chapped lips about how much food and water he'd been able to hold down, and promised to spend the day resting in the sun.

It took him even longer today than it had yesterday to make his way back to the branch library. But he was there an hour after it opened at noon.

He got a number from the reference librarian and waited to use one of the ten computers arranged in a long row. At last his number was called. He tossed his parka down beside the computer, ignoring the look from the older woman seated beside him, and logged on. For ten minutes he did a Google search for missing persons with every keyword he could imagine. Nothing.

Finally he gave up on that and, taking a stubby library pencil and dozens of the little scraps of paper provided for patrons to use, he searched the web for the phone numbers of every hospital, medical center or clinic within a half day's drive of Boston (having calculated, from the red of the sunburn on his forearms, that he'd been on the road for a maximum of five or six hours.) There were, literally, hundreds of such places. Just as he was trying to write down the last dozen or so, an embarrassed looking reference librarian informed him that he'd have to leave, as he was violating library policy.

"This is a joke, right?" he muttered.

"No sir, I'm sorry, but we have to ask you to leave." She held out a sheet of yellow paper, which he'd seen posted at every carrel in the reference room, (along with a big pink one with a graphic of an owl saying Be Wise! Keep an Eye on Personal Property!) It listed the library's many do's and don'ts. No loud talking. No skateboarding or roller-blades in the library. Duh. Please restrict use of cell phones. No dogs, or pets of any kind. No playing of loud music. No eating of food or drinking of drinks. He'd done none of that. The woman returned his angry stare by pointing to a line at the bottom that said Patrons whose personal hygiene interferes with other patrons' ability to use the library will be asked to leave the premises.

"No way," he said, his voice low and dangerous, but he could feel himself almost literally starting to come unglued. "That is just the library's way of keeping street people from using libraries as a hang-out. I'm not `hanging out' here. I'm using the library services. You have no right---" The effect of this speech was undermined by a sudden coughing fit, a fit that left him gasping for air, and clutching ribs that felt like they were separating from the rest of his body. "...no right to kick me out," he continued weakly when he could breath again. "My taxes pay your damn salary." Two teenage girls sitting in the row of computers giggled when he said that. The older woman who'd been seated beside him, and who had moments ago left her seat (clearly to report him), hung back behind the librarian, looking scared.

Jack glared at all of them, and then he began shouting. He could hear himself creating a huge scene amidst the tomblike quiet of the library. The librarian and the woman backed away, looking around for help. Jack swept up his little scraps of paper and tried to thrust them into his pockets. But he was clumsy and angry and a little snowstorm of them fluttered to the floor. Dropping his crutches he lowered himself to the ground, clinging to the desk with one hand. He scrabbled at the scraps of paper with the vital phone numbers on them, but there was a beefy security guy coming for him, being joined by another large man from behind the reference desk. As they converged, he raised a crutch at them, like a shotgun, halting them in their tracks. "Stay away from me. Don't fucking touch me!" he rasped. They backed up a few steps, their righteousness turning to uncertainty. Jack stuffed the papers into his pockets, pulled himself upright, and very deliberately gathered his parka from the computer table. Then, with as much dignity as he could muster, he walked slowly out of the reference room.

Once outside, he crutched over to the side of the library, to the spot where the high school dropouts hung out, smoking and dropping their buts on the sidewalk, or sitting on the low wall next to the sign saying Please do not sit on this wall. Jack hoisted himself gently onto the wall. He propped his crutches carefully beside him. Then he put down his yellow parka and retrieved the cell phone hidden in its folds. The cell phone that had belonged to the woman sitting next to him. She should have been Wise and Kept an Eye on her Property. Libraries these days, they're full of undesirable people who think nothing of stealing your personal possessions.

When his breathing had returned to normal he flicked open the phone. Perfect. It wasn't locked, and it was fully charged. He began dialing. * * *

Ch. 18

Tuesday 4. Cuddy was in the Diagnostics conference room, along with all three somber-looking members of House's team, when Wilson returned to the hospital two hours later.

Wordlessly he dumped his briefcase on the long table.

"Let's get started," he said. "Here are his credit card statements. This is his E-Z pass account. I'm going to go through his office computer and see if I can find out where he was staying."

"But they won't give out any information over the phone to anyone but him," protested Cameron. Wilson rolled his eyes.

"You've worked for House for three years and you don't know how to hack into someone's account? Here's his mother's maiden name, his social security number, and the name of his first pet. Find a phone and a computer and meet me back here in half an hour." No one bothered to ask Wilson how he knew these things. They stared silently at his back as he shoved open the door that let into House's office.

"If this is one of House's stunts," muttered Chase, as he headed out the door, "I'm so going to kill him."

"Crapola?" said Cameron, staring at the papers Wilson had thrust into her hand. "He had a pet iguana named Crapola?"

Tuesday 5. He spent all of Tuesday afternoon making calls. The list he was working through made a series of concentric circles around Boston and Cambridge, starting with the nearest hospitals and working outward. By the end of the day he'd called all of the ones on his scraps of paper--and gotten nowhere.

Another dead end.

Tuesday 6. Wilson pulled up the whiteboard and produced a fresh marker. He uncapped it and pointed at Cameron. "What's the E-Z pass tell us?"

"The E-Z pass is good all the way to Maine, but he only seems to have gotten as far as the Mass Turnpike," said Cameron. "He went through a turnpike exit just outside Boston on Wednesday at around 6:30." Wilson scribbled this fact down on the whiteboard.

"And the Visa card shows he filled up with gas in New Haven a few hours before that." Chase volunteered. He had been in charge of getting Visa to release his most recent charges. "I don't know if it means anything, but he began stopping more and more frequently as he got closer to Boston."

"Yes," said Cameron. "The EZ pass shows he was stopping almost every half hour by the time he got to Boston."

"His leg was hurting him," said Wilson curtly. "What else? Hotels? We know he made an online reservation at the Ritz Carlton in Boston for that night using his Visa card. Who checked on that?"

"The Ritz charged him $245 for Wednesday night," said Chase, glancing down at his notes.

"So we know he got as far as Boston," said Wilson. "What about after that? Where did he eat that night?"

"No charges on the card after the hotel charge," Chase said. "Not even dinner that night."

"No hookers?" said Cameron, but no one laughed.

"So," Wilson summed up, "last known sighting at the Ritz Wednesday night."

"Wait a minute," said Cuddy. "It's possible he never got as far as the Ritz."

"What do you mean?"

"If you make an advance reservation, the hotel will charge your card, even if you never show up."

Chase was already dialing the Ritz's number. "Could I speak to a guest named House, Greg House, please," he said smoothly. There was a pause. "He checked in Wednesday. Has he already checked out?...Oh, I see. You're sure?...Yes. Thank you very much." He hung up, and dropped his head for a second. "He never checked in at all. They just ran the charge because he failed to cancel by 4 pm. So he didn't show up...and he didn't cancel."

The silence in the room went on for so long that it became like a pond freezing over. It would soon make speech impossible. Cuddy plunged in, carving out possibility like an icebreaker.

"Okay," she said, trying to sound upbeat. "This is a good start. As we all know, House is nothing if not unpredictable. We'll give all this to the police tomorrow when we file the Missing Persons report."

Wilson was having none of it, none of the waiting. He looked back at the whiteboard, at the few pathetic scraps of clues scribbled there. "Fine," he said. "But in the meantime, we should check local hospitals to see--"

"Already did that," said Foreman, speaking for the first time. "There is no one named House in any of the Boston area hospitals."

Cuddy nodded, impressed with Foreman. There were a lot of hospitals in the Boston area.

"What about a John Doe? If he'd been brought in, unconscious or ..." Wilson skipped over that word he couldn't say, "and didn't have any ID for some reason, they'd have..."

"I didn't check for any John Does ."

"Then we should--"

"Right now we should go home," said Cuddy. "It's getting late. I say we all go home. I'll keep in touch with you if anything changes."

The fellows gathered their papers together reluctantly and stood up. Cuddy nodded them out the door and went to Wilson, who was leaning against the whiteboard, his left hand hooked over the top, staring at the floor in an unconscious parody of the way House stood, hipshot, draped over the board when he was resting his leg and pondering some imponderable.

"Don't jump to any conclusions," said Cuddy. "This is going to turn out to be some stupid prank on House's part. He probably never had any intention of going to the music festival and is checked into some Boston hospital under a false name in order to participate in that clinical brain trial. Or he's getting over some massive hangover after having orchestrated a four-day orgy in a hotel somewhere. It's not the first time he's blown off work."

"No," said Wilson slowly. "He actually bought tickets to the whole music festival weekend. Why would he bother to do that if he had no intention of going?"

"I don't know. As a smokescreen? But knowing House there's a good reason for all of this--well, maybe not good, but at least there's a harebrained reason. But the good part is, when he does show up, then we'll get to make him really pay for it." Wilson nodded and attempted a grin. These were the motions they had to go through to keep the wolf from the door, and he appreciated that Cuddy knew how important they were. "Go home. Eat something. Get some sleep," added Cuddy, and Wilson nodded again.

"Yes," he said. "I will."

Cuddy left the Diagnostics room, went back to her office, and checked her voice mail one more time. She considered spending the night in her office in order to be there if a call came through--someone who might have found House and tried to contact his work number. But instead she called the switchboard and ordered any calls to her office to be forwarded to her home number. She'd be more useful tomorrow if she had had at least a few hours of real sleep.

It wasn't till long after Cuddy had left that Wilson, still leaning on the whiteboard, finally capped the Magic Marker, that one simple act having too much of an air of finality about it.

For a long time he sat on the conference table and simply stared at the whiteboard, as if willing the few clues there to give up some sort of answers. Then he went over to House's desk and sat down. Fighting back an urge to go through the drawers and shelves, to pick up and touch anything House had once picked up or touched, as if they might somehow communicate something, he settled at last for rolling House's giant tennis ball between his palms, over and over. Then he reached for the Magic 8-Ball resting on the credenza and asked it a question, point blank.

The 8-Ball's answer was unequivocal. "No," it said.

Wilson put the 8-Ball down, turned on House's computer, and began looking up the numbers of all the hospitals in the Boston area. * * *

Ch. 20

Wednesday 3. Lisa Cuddy got the call at 2:55 Wednesday afternoon.

She was in a budget meeting in her office with the head of housekeeping, but after listening to the caller for a moment she looked the woman in the eye and tilted her head toward the door. The head of housekeeping took the hint, gathered her papers, and left.

"Yes," said Cuddy into the phone, her voice without expression or tone, calm and professional. "Where?...Yes...Do you need me to--?...Yes, I understand. Thank you for calling me so promptly." She hung up slowly, without saying goodbye, then buzzed her outer office. "Hold all my calls for the next half hour," she said. Standing, she went and leaned her head against the window, wrapped her arms around herself, and waited. Waited for something to happen. But she seemed to be devoid of thought, incapable of feeling, emptied out but for the one irrefutable fact that took up all the space inside her, all the oxygen in the room.

When she was sure of herself, she walked out of the office, past an assistant who started to speak to her and thought better of it, into the elevator, where she pressed the button marked 4. ******

The three fellows were on Wilson's couch, huddled together while conferring over their latest findings. Wilson had just told them he was taking the next train to Boston and had lifted the phone off the cradle to make the reservation when he heard the click of his office door opening. In that micro second, Wilson experienced a kind of Pavlovian jolt. Only one person opened the door to his office without knocking, and so his heart leapt up quickly and for no sane reason. He turned to the door, his expression caught between the extremes of relief and happiness.

It was not House who enteredhis office, but Lisa Cuddy. The fellows took one look at her face and stopped conferring. Wilson set the phone back on the cradle. He smiled at her: Oh it's just you.

Cuddy hesitated. "What's up?" said Wilson, into the sudden silence, because by smiling, by tackling it straight on he might change the nature of what she was about to say.

Cuddy closed the door behind her and leaned lightly against it, her hands behind her back to keep them from showing any sign of emotion. "They found House's motorcycle," she said, simply.

Cameron began shaking her head ever so slightly. Chase closed his eyes, and thengently put a hand on Cameron's knee.

"Where?" said Foreman, and Wilson could have hugged him for the defiant note in his voice.

Now Cuddy seemed to have difficulty speaking. She took two breaths. "In Boston Harbor," she got out at last. "It seems, from the evidence, that it was driven off a hill, a bridge abutment, beneath the Mystic Bridge, forty feet above the water."

"So someone stole his bike sometime yesterday and--" Wilson began, but Cuddy cut him off.

"It's been there for days. They only just found it because there's a full moon, and the tide was lower than usual. It could have been there all week, since last Wednesday, for all they know."

Cameron was openly crying now, making small sounds with her hands cupped over her face. Chase, too, looked stricken; he took his hand off Cameron's knee and folded himself into his own private grief. Foreman pressed his elbows to his knees and rested his face on his clasped hands, staring at the carpet. No one spoke.

"All right," said Wilson, after a short pause, tapping his fist rapidly against his desk blotter, barely able to conceal his irritation. "So someone stole his motorcycle a week ago and dumped it in the ocean. That doesn't prove anything." He found that his voice was rising, and he had gotten to his feet and walked around his desk to confront Cuddy more directly. She didn't seem to understand.

"James," Cuddy began, her eyes begging him to stop, her voice throaty and dark, "I know you--"

"No!" said Wilson. "You don't know anything at all." He needed to emphasize this point. He needed to make sure that she knew that he knew that House was not dead. He half turned and with his forearm swept the front of his desk clear of all the little tchotchkes he'd collected over the years. They flew across the room toward the door, and Cuddy took a half-step back. "So stop pretending you do! Stop saying that...that. .It doesn't mean anything. He could, he could be, he went into a convenience store, and someone stole the bike while he was buying a candy bar. How do you know that didn't happen?" His logic was unassailable, and the very unassailableness of it allowed him to give her a triumphant look.

"James..." She reached a hand out to touch his arm but he flinched and turned away from her, from them all, because to do otherwise was surrender. "James, the cane...his cane was still on the bike."

Not that. Not that. That was like telling him they'd found House's hand, or foot. Just...not that. He was talking again, and he thought he was being calm but he might have been shouting.

"No. He is not dead. Because he was just here. He was just here a few days ago, and he is not dead now. That makes no sense." House's voice, still on the answering machine five minutes ago when he'd last called the apartment. House's postcards, still showing up in random places, one of them tucked into Wilson's breast pocket right now. Why couldn't they see how illogical it was to say House was dead?

He was being firm and reasonable, and he was pointing at Cuddy and backing her into the door, and suddenly Foreman was pulling him back and saying Don't kill the messenger, man, be cool, it's not her fault, and before he knew it he had decked Foreman with a shot that felt sweet, sweet to hit someone, flesh against bone, hard and painful, and then Cuddy had opened the door and everyone had gone and he was alone with Cuddy.

He stood utterly still, breathing hard, staring at the floor, and then went and flung open his balcony door and walked over to the thing that divided his space from House's space. He stopped there, looking into House's balcony, looking north, hands braced on brick, shoulders hunched. Maybe he would have stayed that way for hours if he hadn't heard the swish of his office door opening, felt Cuddy's presence behind him.

"They have divers searching for the body," she said, and now her voice quivered. He become aware that she was crying, crying in complete silence. He could sense her shivering, practically smell her grief. It was the scent of tears mixed with perfume. "I'm so sorry," she said, her voice small, infinitely sad. She put a hand on his back. "James, I'm just so sorry." Finally the meaning of her words sank in--divers looking for a body, Christ, he'd been on that bike--and he turned silently and put his hand around the small of her back, pulled her close, his own breath catching in his chest.

"Oh, God," he whispered, burying his face in her hair. "What have we done? What have we done?" * * *

Ch. 21

Wednesday 4. Somehow, he'd done it. He'd managed to get to the library and scribble down the last few phone numbers before being shown the door. But as he sat on the wall outside the library, making his way down the list, he was overcome with a wave of nausea, dizziness, and fatigue. It was so hard to concentrate that he couldn't remember the numbers long enough to dial them. When he finally got through to the first hospital, he couldn't remember why he'd called.

All he could think about was that he needed to lie down and sleep. And to do that he would have to walk two miles. He turned off the cell phone andslidit into his pocket. Tomorrow he'd feel better. Tomorrow he'd make those last calls. It was something to hold onto. It was a reason to keep going. * * *

Wednesday 5. "What good can you possibly do in Boston?" asked Cuddy. "And I'll need you back here by Friday, noon at the latest."

"I have to do something," said Wilson. "If I take the fast train, I can be there in three hours, stay there tonight, be back Thursday night. I checked with the city morgues in Cambridge and Boston. They have several bodies that might fit...the right description, and I need to ...see for myself. Check the area hospitals too. And the divers might need someone to help, if they..."

So she let him go. Because she couldn't bear looking at him the way he was. * * *

Thursday 1. The next day the story broke nationally. It made page 5 of USA Today and the front page in the Boston papers, complete with the out-of-date photograph of House, looking clean-shaven and happy.

Officer Robinson got his copy of the Boston Herald and folded it open directly to the sports page. Because the Red Sox, God bless `em, had the Yankees up against the wall in the race for the ALCS championship.

Over her bowl of Cheerios, the receptionist from Halfway Home lingered with her Boston Globe, marveling over the faint resemblance between the poor doctor who had clearly died last Wednesday--a suicide, the story hinted at--and the poor man who'd come by Halfway Home, when was it? The next day. What had his name been? John something. Daniels, that was it. They'd both even used crutches--or a cane. "Isn't that strange," she started to say to her husband, but just then the phone rang. It was her daughter calling from California to say she'd just gone into labor with their first grandchild.

Fergus, who had snagged a copy of USA Today from a park bench, was happy with his find. He pulled out the page with House's picture on it. The rag wasn't good for much, but it did make great kindling for the fire in his oil barrel. He crumpled it up without looking at it and lit a match to it.

Thursday 2. The next morning, the only thing that got him out of "bed" (so to speak)was the thought of completing his phone calls. He was feeling less confused and dizzy as he sat beneath the bridge, in the one spot that got reception, but this morning it was his body that refused to cooperate. He couldn't get his clumsy and shaking fingers--cold, numb, and swollen like sausages-- to work the tiny buttons of the phone. It was like a terrible bad dream. He could see the battery icon steadily losing power, down to one bar now, and he kept misdialing the numbers, having to hang up, wait, and start all over again. But he refused to give up, and little by little he worked his way through the list until, finally, he got through to the last one, a teaching hospital in Princeton, New Jersey. * * *

Ch. 22

Thursday 3. "What kind of a sick joke is that?" asked the assistant to the HR director from their office in the bowels of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. She slammed the phone down in disgust.

The director gave her a quizzical look from across the room. "Some sicko," her assistant explained, "thought it would be funny to call us up and ask if Princeton Plainsboro was missing any member of its medical staff."

"Honest to God," said the director. "You get a little national press and the weirdos crawl out from under the all the rocks. Well, never mind. It takes all kinds, I suppose. Now then, are you having any luck finding a more recent photo of Dr. House?"

Thursday 4. Jack hit the "end" button on his phone, then went for redial. This time he would ask for the Dean of Medicine, not some lackey in HR.

"Dr. Cuddy," said a woman's voice on the other end.

But the battery signal was beeping, and just as Jack opened his mouth to speak, the phone went dead. ********

"How can I get to Princeton, New Jersey?" Jack asked Fergus.

"You take the Chinese bus from the train station,South Station," said Fergus. "It just costs $15 to New York. And then you change--probably another five bucks to Princeton."

Just twenty dollars. He might as well have said just twenty thousand dollars. Jack rubbed the two nickels together that were still in his jeans pocket. He'd find a way somehow. It was his only lead, a faint, tiny lead, but he had to do something. As soon as he felt strong enough, he would come up with a way. For now, he was just going to lie here and sleep a bit. When he woke up he would feel stronger and he would be able to think well enough to come up with a plan.

An hour later, Fergus woke him up by shaking his shoulder. He shoved his grimy fists in front of Jack's face. One fist was full of one-dollar bills; the other was full of nickels and dimes. Jack looked at him with a frown.

"Here you go," said Fergus. "I took up a little collection. Eleven dollars and fitty cents. Plus Frenchie over there says he'll buy your sneakers for ten bucks." He indicated one of the young drug addicts who had joined them under the bridge.

"No," objected Jack, struggling slowly to his feet. He had to cling to Fergus's arm to keep from toppling right back over again. "This is your brandy money. I can't take that," he added, as soon as the head rush subsided.

"Oh,he can drink beer for a few nights, won't kill him," Estelle interjected.

"You got enough for the subway to South Station, even," said Jack. "Subway's only half a block from here, too." He pointed in the direction of the subway stop and grinned his largely toothless grin. Jack reluctantly pocketed the money. He hesitated a moment, and then stuck out a hand. Fergus shook it energetically. Estelle, however, was not to be satisfied with anything less than a full hug. . Jack paused once more before setting off to negotiate the sale of his sneakers and find the subway. "What will you two do next? You can't sleep here all winter. Why don't you go to Halfway Home?"

"That's not a home, it's a shelter," explained Estelle, and somehow that made sense.

"Besides," added Fergus, "they got too many rules there. Can't do this, can't do that."

"The Widder Douglass wants to civilize you?" asked Jack, and Fergus smiled again.

"That's right," he said. "Me and Estelle, we'll light out for the territories. Somewhere south, somewhere warm. Don't you fret about us. Keep that parka. We won't be needing it. And here." He removed his baseball cap and handed it to Jack as well. "Gotta wear a Red Sox cap if you're going to New York. Yes?"

Jack nodded. Then he pointed to a spot behind Fergus's right ear. "You get someone to look at that lesion," he said. "It could be a melanoma." But Fergus just gave him a wink.

"Sure thing, amigo. And you get that cough checked out," he said. "Happy trails." * * *

Thursday 5. He spotted House straight away. He was lying on a bench, right leg stretched out full length, left foot planted on the ground, his face and torso covered with an open copy of that day's USA Today. Fast asleep.

In the ten strides it took him to reach the bench Wilson experienced the entire gamut of human emotion, and not in any logical order: My God, he's alive, what a miracle that I happened on him. But wait, is he okay? Yes, still breathing. Bastard fell asleep reading his own obituary. Thank you, God, thank you, I am going to rip him limb from limb.

"House, you ass--" He tore the newspaper off House's outstretched body and was greeted with a stunned expression, an outraged scowl, and a curse, in that order.

"What the hell? Who the hell are you? Give me back my newspaper!" * * *

Ch. 23

Wilson backed away, palms uplifted. "I'm so sorry. I thought I recognized--" He stopped himself before he could utter the ludicrous words--I thought I recognized your sneakers--and stammered an excuse to the bearded, and strung out-looking, young man. He hastily retrieved the copy of USA Today. "Here you go. Sorry. I...sorry."

The encounter with the young man had happened first thing in the morning, as Wilson had headed for the Ritz Carlton. He'd seen the House look-alike on a park bench in the Boston Common, just across the street from the luxury hotel. It was only the first of many such sightings.

Wilson had lied, to Cuddy, to himself, when he'd said he was coming to Boston to check out the morgues. Oh, he'd done that. Nothing came of it, of course, except for the gut-churning awfulness of the moment when the saturnine morgue assistants unzipped the bags to reveal the faces of the dead and unclaimed. Moments that added together, meant that by the end of the day Thursday he was unable to consider the thought of eating the food in front of him.

No, the real reason he'd come to Boston was because deep down he was still convinced House was alive. House didn't just die, like that. Like some sort of ordinary mortal. Sure, he lived like a man with a death wish, but the man was a cat--morally, mentally, and physically. He could bob and weave, twist and turn, feint, dodge and hide with an agility a cat would envy. House took whatever life tossed at him and always managed to land on his feet somehow. Of the nine lives he was owed, he'd only used up, well, two by Wilson's reckoning.

But Wilson's quest, this act of faith had all, all been in vain: his visits to the morgues and his roaming across Boston, checking out the Boston Common, the lobby of the Ritz Carlton, the hospital that had run the clinical trial, the streets nearest the Mystic Bridge, looking and looking. Again and again he had seen House, from a distance, first resting on a park bench, his right leg elevated; then leaning hip-first into a lamp post, arms folded across his chest; next sitting in the window of a coffee shop; then reading a newspaper in the hotel lobby; lastly in the cafeteria of Mass General hunched over a plate of fried food.

He had heard his snicker somewhere in the background a half dozen times, heard somebody calling "Wilson!" and turned to find nothing. He flinched even now when people walked up behind him as he sat waiting for his train at a caf table in the South Station's vast boarding area, sure that a hand with long slender fingers would reach out and grab food off his tray.

How was it possible for everyone in Boston to look and sound like House? Even the homeless guy in the flip-flops and filthy parka--Red Sox hat pulled over his face as he slept it off on a bench behind his table--even he looked like House. It was driving Wilson crazy and he told himself he had to stop it, get a grip.

And no, the irony of the homeless man reminding him of House had not escaped him.

The last time he had performed such a quest--or act of faith--was in search of Danny. Long after his brother had dropped off the family's radar screen, Wilson continued to believe he was alive. How many times had he returned to that street corner in Princeton--the corner in the bad part of town, near all the cardboard homeless shacks--looking for his brother, thinking against all reason that he might turn up?

The first time he'd found him there, Danny had been panhandling--smart guy, he'd picked a spot near the church, caught the crowd just when they were feeling most like doing a good deed. Wilson had spotted him, and Danny hadn't had time to run. He'd been barely civil to Wilson, answered his questions with monosyllables, and the first time Wilson offered money, his brother had refused.

"You know what I'll do with that," he said, and Wilson had nodded.

Wilson had had no choice. The unspoken contract from then on was that his brother would show up every Sunday, to let Wilson know he was alive, and Wilson would give him money for...whatever. There were seldom words exchanged. Wilson once had tried to let his brother know their parents and other brother were well, but Danny hadn't been interested. Nor was he interested in any medical advice.From week to week he grew thinner and more haggard looking. Wilson would hand him the one hundred dollars, and his brother would respond with a sneer.

Then had come the Sunday when Danny didn't show. No one knew where he was. The other street people said he'd gone south, found a job, been sick, gone to California, met a woman. Wilson continued to frequent the street corner every Sunday for a year. All those months, wherever he went, in Princeton, New York, Boston, any large city, he had imagined it was Danny whenever he spotted a lone figure sitting begging on a sidewalk, huddled under a piece of cardboard in a public park, panhandling at intersections. Under the beard and shaggy hair, any one of them might have been Danny. And yet none of them were. Then he'd taken to going to the corner once a month. Then once a year, on the anniversary of the last time he'd seen his brother.

What had started as an act of faithhad becomean act of denial,and thenan act of mourning, and finally an act of remembrance. ***** Wilson sighed, put down his fork, and pulled the postcard from House out of his breast pocket. He had kept it there all day like a talisman.

Yesterday, before Cuddy had gotten the phone call, he'd gone over to House's place. He had paced around the apartment. He was looking for something, he didn't know what. Some proof of House's continued existence. But since his last visit there, Lady had come. At his request, she had dusted, vacuumed, changed linens, sponged, scrubbed, wiped and tidied. She had reduced the peculiar House chaos to something resembling organization. Books no longer lay sideways in bookcases but were shelved in places where House would never find them. The medical journal was no longer folded back to the page House had been reading (and writing biting comments on) just before he left. It sat neatly squared on the coffee table. She had cleaned out the fridge, including the Dim Sum '05. She'd removed his fingerprints from faucets and fridge doors, piano keys and piano covers. Worst of all, she cleaned the unique House smudges from the surfaces, the spots where, over the years, he'd braced himself time and again as he used the walls or furniture to navigate around his apartment without a cane. His handprints were gone, his fingerprints too. A lingering hint of cigar had been masked with Murphy's Oil Soap. His scent was gone from the bed sheets and from the towels. To his dismay, Wilson realized he'd managed to sterilize, to erase every trace of House from his own home, as if he were some sort of infectious disease instead of his closest friend.

As he was standing, bereft, in the middle of the living room, the mail delivery slot had clanged. He'd gone, automatically, to pick up the mail. On top was a postcard, a picture of a tiny kitten in a basket, yawning adorably for the camera. It managed somehow to look both fluffy and scruffy at the same time. On the flip side, a Cambridge postmark, dated last Wednesday, and in House's unique scrawl, the words: "Miss me yet?"

It was this postcard he clung to, his proof that House had not killed himself. You'd have to be a sadist to off yourself and taunt your friends about it. He knew, at the root of his being, that House would never do that. House could be cruel--cruelly honest--but he was never malicious. He was never, in his own Housian way, even unkind.

His train was being called. He pocketed the postcard and looked at the untouched plate ofChicken Caesar salad. He was about to dump it in the trash when he figured the homeless guy might wake up and need a meal, so he left the whole thing on the table, and hurried to make his train. ******

Ch. 24

Thursday night/Friday morning 1. Wilson, as a kid, always woke to the sound of rain or bad weather with a slight panic and the thought Oh, no. Did I leave my bike outside?

Long into adulthood, long after the cherished bike had been outgrown, tossed out, and rusted away into the soil of a landfill, until in fact just a few years ago, the sound of rain at night had the same brief panicky effect on him. More recently it had morphed into a different anxiety, and in the early hours of Friday he awoke from the light doze he had finally achieved after hours of tossing and turning, to the sound of rain, the chill of a front coming through and thought, Shit. House will be in agony. He'll need a ride to work.

And then he remembered House was dead, and wouldn't need a ride. And he wondered how long it would be till he stopped waking up like that, every single time it rained.

Thursday night/Friday morning 2. He was dreaming the sheepdog dream again. "Cold," he said through shuddering teeth, gazing at the brightly lit doghouse. "Need to come inside."

But this time the sheepdog just shook his head sadly-- except he wasn't the sheepdog anymore. He was the policeman, the one with the military uniform and the southern drawl. "No can do," he said. "You're dirty and you smell like an animal. Animals sleep outside."

"Please," whispered Jack. "I'm cold--"

"Hey, buddy. Wake up." A hand shaking his shoulder. Oh, God. It was happening all over again. He was being arrested again. This was how the whole thing had started. "Wake up, buddy. Don't make me--"No way, not again. He lashed out. "Dammit!" said the voice, and Jack opened his eyes. The bus driver backed away, glaring at Jack and rubbing his shoulder. "Get a grip, mister," he said angrily."This is the last stop. Everyone off."

Jack mumbled something and squinted out the window. It hurt to open his eyes, and he was shivering hard, even though the heat in the bus was cranked up high. Outside, the other passengers, most of them college students, were being met by laughing girlfriends or boyfriends or just plain friends and driven off to warm dry beds somewhere.Jack pulled himself to his feet, found his crutches, and somehow made it down the three steps to the tarmac without falling. He blinked at his surroundings.

The Chinese bus to New York took a whole lot longer than the Amtrak Accela, and by the time Jack had made the connection to Princeton, it was the middle of the night. The bus now sat, its engine idling as passengers debarked, in the pouring rain at a bus stop that seemed to consist of an unsheltered bench in front of a lonely Exxon gas station.So much for his plan to spend the rest of the night sleeping in the bus station.

After the bus pulled out, Jack talked the acne-covered Exxon attendant into giving him the restroom key, walked around to the back of the station, propped the door to the bathroom open with a stick, and returned the key to the attendant. Then he huddled on the bench for another half hour until the station closed down. He spent the rest of the night on the cold concrete floor of the four-foot by three-foot bathroom. It was filthy, it stank, and although it was dry, that didn't count for much, since Jack was by that time soaked through.

Chap. 25 Friday 3. He dreaded going into work that morning. It wasn't so much that for a third straight night he hadn't slept more than a few minutes at a time; that he couldn't organize his thoughts well enough to make the coffee he needed to get through the day without burning it (and it took quite an effort to actually burn coffee); or the knowledge that he probably looked like crap.

It was the way people treated him, they way they looked away when he entered an elevator or stopped talking around him in the cafeteria, like there was some sort of vacuum field around him. It was Cameron coming into his office, hesitant, unsure, and trying to offer comfort but then falling apart so spectacularly that he found himself comforting her. It was catching Chase staring vacantly out the window of the conference roomthen watching him boundto his feet the moment Wilson opened the door, as if to prove nothing was wrong. It was Foreman's deference. It was everyone else's pretence.

It was all so brittle, so artificial, and so wrong that he wanted to throw something.

Only one person didn't behave that way around him. The moment he entered the hospital lobby, he steered for Cuddy's office, before anyone could give him a sad look or a fake smile.

He shut the door and leaned back against it with a sigh. Cuddy was on the phone, nailing down details. She glanced at him, nodded her head, and hung up the phone as soon as she could. She rose and went over to him.

"Wilson," she said, cocking her head. "Wilson."

"What?" he said. "I'm fine." And he was. This morning he'd remembered to shave. So what if he'd nicked himself three times? He'd even remembered a tie. Yesterday, to be truthful, had been a bit ragged. He'd remembered to button his shirt all the way up, but then he'd forgotten the tie.

She gave him a smile, a real one, and then reached out and began undoing his tie. He looked down at what she was doing. "What's wrong?" he asked. Wordlessly she held up the two ends of the tie. He'd knotted the tie so that the fat end was about eight inches long and the thin end reached down to his crotch. "Details, details," he sighed, trying to take the tie from her. She batted his hands away and finished reknotting it.But instead of backing off, she frowned, leaned in closer, and sniffed. Her eyes widened in disbelief and alarm.

"Have you been drinking?" she asked, forcing him to meet her eyes.

"No," he said. "Well, yes. But it's okay. I'm fine now." He had needed a glass of scotch to fall back asleep in the early hours of the morning. Actually he'd needed two. But it had done the trick. He just hadn't counted on still being slightly drunk when he showed up at work. Cuddy pointed to the couch.

"Sit," she commanded. "And don't move until I tell you to." Then she buzzed her outer office and ordered some black coffee. Lots of black coffee. * * *

"Mmmm," said Wilson sipping it with his eyes shut. "S'good. But I miss that scorched taste." He opened his eyes halfway and watched her going about her job. "How're you doing?" he asked after a few moments.

He saw the pause, the slight look of alarm, then she appeared to take an internal reading. "Good," she said. "I'm fine. Really."

He watched her a bit longer, answering the phone that never ceased ringing, noting things in files, typing on her computer. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Keeping busy. It helps."

Wilson shook his head. That particular tonic had not worked for him. He couldn't concentrate long enough to be any use to anyone.

"There's so much to do," Cuddy continued. "I'm still trying to track down his parents, and all the arrangements..." Her voice trailed off. In truth she felt like she was still waiting, the way she had waited that first day, leaning on the window after getting the phone call. The last two days had been filled with business, with arrangements, dealing with press, dealing with the needs of others: Wilson, House's team. The busier she was, the better she performed, the less time there was to be blindsided. But she knew it was out there. She could only forestall it so long, and she walked in dread of someone asking the wrong question at the wrong time--in the middle of a board meeting, say. She deflected Wilson's question with a question--always a good tactic.

"Are you okay with this?"

"No," said Wilson bluntly. He pushed himself to his feet. "No, I'm not. He's not dead. Not officially anyway. You--"

"I had to do something," Cuddy answered, hearing her own defensiveness. "The police can't make it official for six months, legally, but waiting that long...You know we have to do something now."

"And not waiting is like...killing him," he answered stiffly, and put down his coffee and walked out, wondering which one of them was in denial. *****

Friday 4. It was a scarf that did her in. A simple, innocuous red scarf she had worn last week, that was still hanging on the coat rack by her door. The same scarf she'd worn on her disastrous blind date, the one House had sabotaged. It caught her eye when she was deep into aphone callthat had nothing to do with House--talking to LifeFlight about the construction of the new helipad--and she heard his voice--smug, insufferable, and just a tiny bit jealous-- as if he was standing directly behind her. "You could have just left the scarf at home and told him you'd be wearing a look of desperation."

She would never hear that voice again. Never see House look at her with that mixture of little-boy mischief and grown-up lust that made her glad she wasn't hooked up to a heart monitor. In the middle of her sentence--in the middle of a word--her throat closed up as hard as if a hand had grabbed her by the neck.

She made a noise that sounded like "mmmff" and reached blindly for the disconnect button on the phone set. Then she stumbled to the private bathroom, locked the door, and sat on the lid of the toilet seat. The part of her brain that never really shut off told her she had only five minutes before LifeFlight called back and her assistant came banging on the door to find out why she wasn't picking up her phone. But for those five minutes she allowed herself to forget about everything else in the world except this one thing, this one thing she had lost.

Ch. 26 Friday 5. He began regretting having sold his sneakers almost as soon as he started walking. Frenchie had thoughtfully let Jack take his flip-flops in the exchange, but the thin rubber sandals were not only a size too small, and no protection from the rain, but they gave his leg neither support nor cushion. Each step jarred painfully and, combined with the stiffness and pain of the infection that was now thriving in the gash in his knee, it meant he was soon forced to proceed without using his right leg at all. His left leg thought little of this arrangement and said so. For its part, the right thigh quickly grew too tired for even the small task of keeping his right foot airborne, and he was reduced to dragging his right foot behind him. At some stage the flip-flop got tugged off, or broke, he was too tired to find out which, too tired to even consider bending over to put it back on.

The heat radiating off Jack's body had dried his clothes at some point in the night, but he was soon soaked again. Rain dripped steadily off the brim of his baseball cap, which was snugged beneath the parka hood that covered as much of his head and face as he could manage. Still, he could feel cold drips making their way down his neck and back.He had more and more trouble breathing and had to stop to pant for breath every few steps, making small clouds of steam in the raw air. He stumbled on, trying to remember the directions he'd been given for Princeton Plainsboro Hospital, a task that seemed to grow in complexity with every step he took. Was it"first right and second left?" Or "second right and first left?"

One mile was a huge distance, he was discovering. Still, he'd gotten an early start, and he could afford to stop and rest at every stone wall, bench or guard rail that came along. If worse came to worse, he could always try hitch-hiking. He wasn't the most attractive specimen--he was well aware of that--but he hadn't even left the sidewalk or stuck out his thumb and there, ahead of him, a silver Volvo was slowing down, its brake lights winking on. Jack stupidly hesitated, instead of picking up his pace or signaling to the driver, then watched as the brake lights blinked off and the Volvo continued on without stopping. Driver probably got a better look and decided not to risk the damage to his leather upholstery.

Jack lowered himself onto a stonewall that ran along the sidewalk and turned his burning face to the sky, trying to catch some raindrops in his mouth. He was not only parched but famished and he reached into his pocket for the chicken he'd hoarded there, chicken scrounged from a table in South Station when the owner of the Caesar salad--a well dressed commuter, by the look of him--had suddenly bolted for the train without touching his meal. It took Jack a moment to remember that he'd left the chicken on the bus. The napkin he'd wrapped the chicken strips in had congealed to the greasy meat, and he'd been trying, with shaking fingers, to peel it off, when he'd dropped it and watched the whole thing slide out of reach under his seat.

He sighed and pushed himself to his feet. Propped the crutches in place. Ahead was a traffic circle. What had the person said to do here? Take a left? But as he headed around the roundabout, he couldn't figure out which way was left. All the roads were on his right, weren't they? Round he went, trying to recall, trying to make sense of it.

Maybe he would never get there. Maybe he'd be stuck here forever, going around and around. *******

Ch. 27

Friday 6. Cuddy gave Wilson a curious look, and he noticed for the first time how puffy her eyes were, that her make-up looked like it had been applied in the dark. "Where'd you find the photo?" she asked. "It's so...different."

Human Resources had finally come up with a few photos, but they were either badly out-of-date or long shots that didn't show his face very well. Wilson had searched House's apartment and computer files. He too had come up with nothing, except photos House had taken of others (a large number featuring Cuddy's cleavage, and an inordinate number of Wilson.) The single photo of House was one House had taken while having his teeth cleaned at the dentist, snapped while extending the camera an arm's length in front of him as the hygienist distorted his mouth with various instruments. The closest he came to a serious shot of House was one House had taken of him--Wilson--through the glass of Wilson's balcony door. He had held the camera over his own head to take it, and it captured Wilson with the reflection of House's face in the door superimposed on top of him, ghost-like, deadly serious, and eerie.

He found it indescribably sad that this brilliant man had left almost no photos of himself behind.

And then, Friday morning, he'd made one last visit to House's place. He stood in the center of the living room and tried to think like House. Gazing around he had a flash of insight and knew exactly where House would hide things that were important but that he didn't want out in plain sight. An instant later he had opened the lid of the piano bench. Inside, beside the sheet music,House had hidden a framed photo of himself with Stacy, some family snapshots his mother had taken, and the single missing shot from that day at the mall. * * *

Wilson had still been reeling from Julie's infidelity, and House had practically dragged him to the mall. "I'm gonna get you to have a good time. Laugh again. Love again. How else will you have the strength to find and marry the next ex-Mrs. Wilson?" he said.

So they'd spent an hour in the arcade. House trounced him at every game, from basketball tossing to car racing. Worst was the skiing simulator that he finally shoved Wilson away from and took over, left foot planted on the plate that tracked your turns on the screen, hands gripping the side rails. He'd managed, skiing on just one leg, to outdo Wilson's best two-legged scores. Apparently letting Wilson feel better by winning at games was not an acceptable strategy in the House universe, even under the worst marital circumstances.

Wilson had just announced that he'd had a ton of fun and could they go home now, when House noticed the old-fashioned photo booth.

"Come on," he said, yanking him by the elbow. "Gimme all your change. I'm going to make you laugh if it's the last thing I do."

Wilson sat, resigned, squashed onto the small bench while House jammed money into the coin slot. At the last second Wilson stood up.

"Seriously, House, I don't feel like this now."

But House grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back down.

"Too late. Sit still and make nice for the camera," he said. A nanosecond later, before House had prepared himself properly, the flash went off.

"Ruined the first one," House groaned. "All right. Prepare to smile." And he proceeded to do the most outrageous things he could think of, while Wilson sat staring wearily into the mirror above the lens. When the photos came out the little slot, House grabbed the strip, tore off the first picture ("makes you look fat"), stuffed it in his pocket, and handed the rest to Wilson. The first one had House, next to unsmiling Wilson,sticking out his tongue and crossing his eyes in a way that should have been medically impossible. The second featured House in profile, tongue fully extended, licking the side of Wilson's unsmiling face from jawline to ear. For the final one, House had grabbed Wilson's face in both hands and planted a quick open-mouthed kiss on him. The flash a second later caught House staring innocently at the camera with Wilson looking stunned and trying his best not to smile.

But this fourth photo Wilson had never seen, the one torn off the top of the strip. In it, House was slightly behind Wilson, and the camera had clearly caught him in an unguarded moment. He was eying Wilson with an expression completely at odds with the manic House of the other shots; it did something to Wilson's insides, made his breath catch in his throat, and he put the photo in his wallet and sat on the piano bench for a long, long time. ***** "Who's he looking at?" asked Cuddy. "He looks ...compassionate."

"Stacy," said Wilson, after only a brief pause. "I cropped her out."

Ch. 28 Friday 7. Four hours. Four hours to go one measly mile. And he very nearly didn't make it at all. By the time he arrived, he was hardly able to draw breath between coughs, and his head was swimming so that he had a difficult time focusing his eyes. It was lunch time when he entered the lobby of Princeton Plainsboro, the strangely empty lobby, and limped slowly over to the reception. A young woman at the desk looked up, took in his flushed cheeks, his haggard appearance, and pointed to the left. "The free clinic is that way," she said. House stifled a cough that began deep in his chest.

"I'm looking for," he paused to catch his breath a bit, "the Dean of Medicine."

The girl looked dubious. "Do you have an appointment to see Dr. um...?"

"Cuddy," supplied another woman, sitting at a computer with her back to the two of them.

"Sorry, I'm just filling in this morning," said the girl. "Yes, Dr. Cuddy's very busy. In fact he's not in his office. He--"

"She--" interrupted the other woman. Jack was glad to hear this. He was pretty sure Dr. Cuddy ought to be a woman.

"Sorry, she's got a meeting in the..." She checked a date book. "Where is that meeting?" she asked the other woman.

"They had to move it to the auditorium," grunted Mrs. Back-to-Them, her contempt for temp agencies and their spawn radiating from her body like heat waves.

"The auditorium?" the girl asked. "I thought it was supposed...because the schedule says..." and then the two launched into a conversation Jack could only partly hear.

He cleared his throat. Hello, he thought. Still here. Then he shrugged. He could find the auditorium. It seemed clear for some reason that the auditorium should be on the basement level. Without another word he turned his back and headed off toward the elevators. Although he was feeling distinctly light-headed and moving at all required an enormous effort, he couldn't help noticing the security guard at the door keeping a close eye on him. He couldn't really blame him. If he were a security guard, he'd keep a close eye on him, too.And security was really important at hospitals. People could get shotin hospitals. Not surprising, when they kept the place so hot. People could really get hot headed in a place this hot, fly off the handle and...

Jack realized his thoughts were floating in an alarming way and tried to reel them in. He pushed the elevator call button and leaned sideways until his cheek was pressed against the cool burnished metal of the wall. That felt better, and he stayed there until he heard the ding announcing the car had arrived. More cool metal as he backed up against the elevator's corner walls, noticing how they fogged up wherever he touched them. He was tempted, very tempted to slide slowly to the floor, where he could have cool metal on three sides. The elevator was empty and it would be so easy. But just as he was about to try it, the doors opened, and he remembered that he had places to go. He shoved himself forward, turned without thinking about it to the left and soon came to the swinging doors that let into the auditorium. He didn't think about how he knew where the auditorium was, or why the name "Cuddy" had suddenly conjured up an image of dark curly tresses; he just let it flow over him.

Outside the auditorium doors, though, he paused. What was he planning to say to this Cuddy, if she was indeed in there? And what would she make of him? Would she believe him any more than anyone else had, these last days? His face was dripping with sweat, which wasn't helping matters. Untucking his T-shirt, he mopped his face with the hem. That looked better, he hoped, although the shirt was so muddy it might have made things worse, and he was too tired to tuck the shirt back into his pants. With the shirt untucked, he noticed that his pants were sliding down his hips, and he considered whether it was worth the effort to try to tighten his belt a notch. Nah. The way his hands were shaking, he'd never manage it.

He stood there for what seemed an age, unable to go inside.In a moment of lucidity, it came to him just how absurd he was being. He'd based this whole trip, jumped to this insane conclusion, on the basis of one aborted phone call, on the over-reaction of one HR person to his innocent question, on the faintest of memories. He must have been completely off his head. Here he was, about to interrupt the Dean of Medicine's important conference. She would gaze at him slack jawed, shewould laugh and call the too-eager security guard and have him carted off to jail or a homeless shelter. He turned to go, but at that instant, four people in white lab coats thrust past him, hurrying impatiently into the auditorium. As one of them held the door open for the others, he saw an amazing sight.

The auditorium was filled with people, nearly every seat taken, and the person who must be the Dean--long, curly dark hair--was running the meeting from a podium. But that was not the astonishing thing. The astonishing thing was the picture projected onto the screen behind her, partially obscured by a huge bouquet of flowers sitting on the stage.

It was a picture of him. Or at least he thought it was a picture of him, of him looking with a worried frown at something that had been cropped from the photo. He tried hard to remember what he looked like, to call up the face last seen in a coffee shop bathroom mirror a lifetime ago. All he could remember were blue eyes and a brow furrowed with pain lines. He rubbed a hand across his face, testing. Yes, that must be him up there.

Under the photo was the caption "Dr. Gregory House, 1959-2006."

He had stumbled into his own memorial service.

Ch. 29 The auditorium door swung shut and House stared blankly for a long moment. Then he shook his head, trying to clear it. No, no, no. The whole thing was a hallucination concocted by his fevered brain. He needed to get out of here, pronto. Turning, he started making his way back to the elevators.But somebody was messing with him because the elevators were now several miles away and the walls were tilting alarmingly. He stopped, steadied himself, and reconsidered.

What the hell, he thought. If it was a hallucination, at least it was an interesting one. And there would be chairs in that room. He turned back, shouldered the door open anddropped heavily into the nearest aisle seat, the aisle seat of the last row which was the only one with a handful of empty seats. Propping the crutches beside him, he leaned his head back against the fabric-covered wall. It felt so good to sit down that for a moment he forgot what he was doing here.

Dr. Cuddy. He needed to get Dr. Cuddy's attention, let her know that...what? He could no longer remember, so he closed his eyes. GregoryHouse. That was his name. A strange name, House. A home is not a House. A House is not a home. Home is where the heart is.

His thoughts were interrupted by a high-pitched squeal from the PA, and the person who might be Cuddy began speaking. He closed his eyes again--it was far too strange to stare into his own super-magnified eyes as projected in front of him--and drifted slightly. The lights were burning, too hot and too bright, so he yanked off the parka hood and pulled the brim of his cap over his eyes and wondered how long this thing would go and whether it would be rude to interrupt and ask for some water. More importantly, would there be food afterwards? Didn't these things usually have food after? He was famished, thoughts of the chicken he'd abandoned on the Boston bus tormenting him. He began fantasizing about hors d'oeuvres and wondering if this House guy was important enough to merit, say, champagne and shrimp cocktails, or if he was only worthy of wine and rubbery cheese cubes.

He had to remind himself that he was Dr. House. This came as a slight disappointment, as he was forced to admit that he didn't think he would be worth more than a can or two of dry roasted peanuts. He drifted off again, coming back to the sound of might-be-Dr. Cuddy's voice.

"We're here today to honor the memory of one of Princeton Plainsboro's most esteemed faculty members, Dr. Gregory House," she began, and it was a fresh surprise that she was speaking of him. He really ought to try to pay attention to what probably-Dr. Cuddy was saying. She had a nice body, for a Dean, and there was something enchanting about the way she gazed out at the crowd, as if daring them to disagree with her.

But when oh when would this be over?

The two people in front of him began talking over Dr. Cuddy. That was just plain rude, and House shushed them. They went right on talking. "This is absurd," said one, who looked a little like JR from Dallas. "The guy was an ass and a liability. He should never have been allowed to practice medicine, much less run a department."

"Then why are you here?" asked the other, who looked like...House couldn't think who he looked like.

"I'm a department head," muttered JR. "Had to come. I can't imagine why all these other people are here. Why are you here?"

"I don't know," said Nondescript Man. "I hated his guts. But I have to admit, there was something about him. Like it or not, he had an amazing--"

"Would you please shut up," said House. "I'm trying to enjoy this." The men exchanged irritated glances but stopped talking.

They had dimmed the house lights to run a slide show of photos: brightly colored ones that looked like they were taken for a hospital brochure: House--himself, that is-- in scrubs, leaning on his cane (aha! So he did have a cane!), talking to three younger doctors; House--him-- doing a surgical procedure, only those disturbing blue eyes visible over a mask; him--House--from the back, brooding at a desk in what must have been his office, legs propped on a credenza, a large strange ball balanced on the fingertips of one hand.

Might-be-Dr. Cuddy droned on and on. "Many people have said that House was brilliant, unique....patients came from all over the country, all over the world...hundreds of lives...solved cases no one else could...nothing could come between him and diagnosing an illness, and I have the legal bills to prove it." A small ripple of laughter.

Someone else was speaking now. An old black guy. "I'm one of those people responsible for your big legal bills. Yeah, I sued him for assault... He was an obsessive sumbitch, wouldn't take no for an answer. Thank God. Otherwise I would not be standing here, or still recording music..."

New guy: "I didn't sue him for assault. I assaulted him--kicked the bastard in the balls when he tried to talk me into...Glad he did, because...."

Another black guy who talked in long declamatory sentences like a politician. Something about genius and having faith in people and fighting the good fight. He went on way too long and House couldn't take in a single thing he said.

"Risked his career for me..." A woman talking now, thin, well groomed, pretty. "...lied to the transplant board..."

Another woman, this time in a lab coat. One of the doctors from the slide show? "Taught me about making tough choices, always put patient first, no matter what your own..." She sat down abruptly--what the hell? Was she crying?--and others in lab coats got up, a black man, a blond man. Was there to be no end to this? House tried to concentrate but his hearing was going in and out and someone had turned on the air conditioning, it was cold now, fucking freezing.

Might-be-Cuddy said something at the podium that he missed. This was followed by a long pause. Maybe it was all over. God, let it be over. But if it was all over, people would be standing up and leaving, wouldn't they? Instead, someone in the front row stood up hastily and hurried onto the stage. Someone in a green paisley tie.

The lights, which had been getting brighter and brighter, were now making a loud buzz in hisears. But House sensed the audience grow completely quiet, so he pulled himself up straight in his seat and tried hard to pay attention. ****

Ch. 30 Wilson stood at the podium staring, unseeing, at the sheets of paper he'd unfolded and placed there. The speech he'd spent hours trying to compose. Cameron had had to elbow Wilson twice before he realized that Cuddy had just called his name. He had tried to pay attention to the people who were speaking before him, but the surreality of it all--House was dead; House couldn't be dead--had finally caught up to him. Or possibly it had something to do with the almost complete lack of sleep over the last three nights. Or the residues of sleeping pills, alcohol, coffee, and yes nicotine, still working their way through his system. Whatever the reason, sitting there, he'd started to experience the mild hallucinations that went with extreme sleep deprivation, the kind where the wallpaper patterns start to merge and move about under their own steam. Or in this case, where House's eyes--those piercing blue eyes on the screen in front of him-- seemed to move around the room until they settled back on him with a sad expression. Maybe it wasn't sleep deprivation. Maybe it was a psychotic break, a dissociative state, a -

"Wilson," Cameron had hissed into his ear when nudging didn't work. "Are you okay? You're supposed to be up there."

He wasn't okay, really.But he placed the papers on the podium and adjusted the microphone. The only way to get through this was to keep his eyes on his speech and not think about what he was saying. ***** What was taking this speaker so long? At this rate, he'd perish of hunger before they were done. House slouched back down wearily in his seat and tried not to think of champagne and shrimp cocktails. Suddenly the man at the podium folded his prepared notes carefully in half, put them in his pocket, and began to speak. He spoke without lifting his eyes from the podium.

"Others this afternoon have already mentioned Greg House's qualities as a doctor: his genius at diagnosis, his ability to connect the dots, his single-mindedness, his stubbornness, his passion for what he does. I want to talk about his qualities as a human being." The man paused and grasped the podium sides with both hands.

Nondescript Man hissed to his friend out of the corner of his mouth: "At least this'll be short then."JR gave him a smirk.

"Let's be honest," the man began again, and suddenlyhe lifted his eyes and looked slowly around the auditorium, his gaze, much like Cuddy's, defiant. It was House's first real glimpse of him, before the men in front of him shifted positions again and blocked his view. Hair like a sheepdog. Maybe he had a brandy cask. House badly needed a drink. Brandy, champagne, water, anything."Let's be honest," the man continued. "Most of you are wondering why I would bother being friends with someone like Greg House, a selfish, inconsiderate jerk most of the time, a man who runs roughshod over anything--anyone-- that gets between him and whatever he needs."

"With friends like him," JR asked in a stage whisper, "who needs enemies?" Nondescript Man nodded his agreement, and although House couldn't help agreeing, he felt vaguely offended on this guy House's behalf.

Wilson felt the audience shift in their seats, heard some of them murmuring to their neighbors. "Well, the truth is, you never knew the real Greg House. He took pains to make sure you never did.... One of his most extraordinary qualities was his willingness to forgive. That probably surprises you. You've all seen House get angry. And it's true there are some things he can't forgive: acts of cruelty, malice, laziness, selfishness, betrayal...when they are directed at other people. Particularly helpless people. Children. Patients. But whenever they were aimed at him, he was quick to forgive." Wilson realized his verb tenses were all over the place, but he didn't care. He stared back down at the podium, lost in thought.

He thought of all the times House got angry: when someone got between him and a patient, or when protecting a friend. He would get angry on behalf of the patient, or on behalf of the friend. But you could do almost anything to House and he would forgive you. He was endlessly patient with friends and colleagues who let him down, betrayed him. It was almost as if he felt that was his due: to be disappointed, let down, betrayed. That he was worth no more than that.

Stacy had once told Wilson she suspected House didn't feel he deserved happiness. Perhaps that was why he was so quick to forgive the betrayal of others: He expected it. He felt in some screwed-up way he deserved it.He'd forgiven Chase for the most outrageous betrayal, saying Chase was just trying to protect his job, as if that was how employees could be expected to treat their boss. He'd forgiven Stacy for betraying his deepest trust. Few people knew that that was what had actually driven Stacy away: not that House couldn't forgive her, but that he did forgive her, when she couldn't forgive herself.

And what of Wilson's own betrayal? The many times Wilson had refused to trust House, to trust that he was in pain, that he was doing the best he could, that he didn't need his life managed for him, behind his back. He had an image of House leaving the workout room, grey with pain, after Wilson had goaded him into running on his deteriorating leg. House had never said a word about that. House had never rebuked him for colluding with Cuddy on the detox "bet," although he must certainly have figured that one out. He thought of House's reaction when he found out, just last month, that his closest friends had lied to him about a case he thought he'd blown, tried to clip his wings so he wouldn't get a "god complex": He'd said almost nothing to Cuddy, a mild reproach for lying. To Wilson, a hurt look and a reminder that he knew damn well he was not a god: God doesn't limp.

Wilson realized he had stopped talking. He saw that both Cuddy and Chase had ducked their heads. Cuddy wouldn't look at him. Chase was pressing his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. Wilson took a deep breath and looked back at the crowd, almost angrily, and as he did, all the faces started to merge together. He couldn't recall what he'd been saying. How much of what he'd just been thinking had he actually said out loud?

"For God's sake, let's get this over with," muttered JR. This time House didn't bother shushing them. Instead, he leaned forward and coughed on the back of the men's necks, a nice, productive wet cough. This, apparently, was the last straw, and with a mutual glance, the men shifted their places three seats to the right.

Good. Now House finally had an unobstructed view of the man at the podium. And there was something faintly familiar about him. Where had he seen him before? He forced his uncooperative mind to concentrate. Where had he seen that green paisley tie? The sheepdog hair? And suddenly he remembered.

Wilson brought himself back to the present with a little shake of the head. He couldn't recall what he had just been saying, but he knew he had one more thing he needed to say. "The truth is, Greg House is a good friend, and I hope that this one last time he'll forgive--" His gaze locked on a lone figure in the empty back row. A figure that had not been there a moment ago. Wilson froze, feeling all the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand up. Not possible. No, it was not possible. He was imagining again. Like in Boston. Or hallucinating. He felt a tremor run through his arms as he grasped the podium in a death grip, but he forced himself to look away, forced himself to draw a shuddering breath and continue. "I, I hope...that he'll--"

Enough. It was time to end this. House stood up, knocking his crutches to the floor with an abrupt crash.

"For the love of God..." he gasped, working for breath, "let's cut the touchy feely crap... and get to the... food and drink part. Okay?"

He took a step into the aisle, as if to lead the way, but the floor suddenly rose up to meet him. He put a hand out to fend it off. Then lights in his eyes, faces looming above him, JR, Nondescript Man, someone taking a carotid pulse, someone shouldering JR violently aside and calling House? Oh Jesus, House? But before he could speak, the lights of the auditorium, the hubbub around him, the buzzing in his ears, the searing pain in his leg and head--all of it grew and grew until someone pulled the plug and everything winked completely out. * * *

Ch. 31

The relatively insignificant pain of someone trying to start an IV brings him back, just barely. Not enough to get his eyelids to open, but enough so he's aware that he's lying on a gurney somewhere. Probably the ER. Big clue: someone's cutting his T-shirt off. Also: he has an oxygen mask on, a non-rebreather. He drifts off again.

When he comes back next he hears a familiar female voice just behind his head asking for a new set of vitals, and another familiar voice shouting at someone, "What do you mean you can't find a vein because he's too dehydrated. That's why he needs an IV--because he's dehydrated! Here, give me that, get out of my way--"and there's a bit of a scuffle right there beside him and someone says, "Dr. Wilson, please!" But he can't see because his eyes are closed so he makes an effort and in a moment he's able to open them. He watches Dr. Wilson, with his back to him, concentrate on trying to find a vein in his hand. He lifts his other arm even though it weighs 100 pounds and pulls the non-rebreather off his face.

Cuddy is at his side in an instant. "House!" she exclaims. Her expression, he can tell, is torn between happiness and fury.

"Dr. Cuddy, I presume," he rasps, and he even manages a small smile.

"Very funny, House," she says, grabbing the oxygen mask and putting it back on his face."Save your wit, and your breath, for later. You're going to need all of it when you explain exactly what you've been up to."

Wilson has handed the IV needle back to the nurse--he can't find a vein either, it seems--and he's staring at House. House can feel Wilson's eyes traveling down his naked chest. He's shaking his head and saying something to House, but the simple act of lifting his arm, the few seconds without oxygen, have taken a toll on House and he's having trouble tracking again. His eyes flutter shut just as Wilson is saying something to him, but then what he's saying, something like What the hell... do to yourself?...better have a good explanation...scared the crap..., it all collides with the memories ofDream Wilson, and Wilson's speech at the memorial service. He remembers parts of that speech, remembers Wilson saying something about forgiveness. He realizes there's something he has to say to Wilson before he can't talk anymore. He forces his eyes open and motions to Wilson that he needs to speak. He's too weak to lift the mask himself a second time so Wilson does it for him and bends low to hear.

"Who the hell--" he's interrupted by a fit of coughing but catches his breath and continues before Wilson can put the mask back on--"are you?"

Then, despite his best efforts, his eyes close and he sleeps the sleep of the dead.

-------------------End of Sleeping Man Part I: Outside-------------

Sleeping Man

Part II: Inside Characters: House, Wilson, Cuddy, Chase, Cameron, Foreman. Pairings: A little House/Cuddy (as per canon) and House/Wilson strong friendship (slash only if you wear goggles). Spoilers: None Rating: Gen (with R for language) Timeline: Early fall of Season Three, somewhere around the time of Cane and Able, Lines in the Sand. Summary: When House goes missing, Wilson, Cuddy and his team have to solve their toughest puzzle ever: where is he? And House has to solve his toughest puzzle ever: who is he? Disclaimer: Characters belong to David Shore. A/N: This was written a year ago, so any similarity to events in House's Head/Wilson's Heart are purely coincidental--or because I'm so amazingly prescient.

Ch. 1.

Wilson stood, his back against the wall beside the swinging doors of the ER, where he had been unceremoniously escorted--no, escorted was too kind a word: shoved--and watched as the ER team worked on House.

To say that he had been shocked by the sight of House's body as they cut the clothes off him would also be too mild a word: the infected knee, inflamed and oozing pus was bad enough, but House had lost an impossible amount of weight in the ten days he'd been gone. House had always been lean, but now his hip bones, collar bones, and ribs were starkly visible beneath the pale flesh. His eyes were deeply sunk in his face, and the rest of his features, the little that was visible beneath the heavy beard, were gaunt and grey and--not to put too fine a point on it--filthy. As was the rest of him. He was almost unrecognizable as the man Wilson had seen just ten days ago. How could he have gotten into this state in such a short period of time? What had happened to him?

The ER staff was too professional to show any reaction to the sight of House's naked body, though he caught several of them--including Chase--stealing glances at the ugly, raggedscar on House's thigh. But Wilson was unable to find the same detachment, to tamp down the feelings roiling around inside of himself.

At the moment, the most critical problem was House's blood pressure, which was tanking. It was no exaggeration to say that if they didn't get it under control, before it reached the point of no return, House was not going to make it out of the ER. After a frantic and breathless fifteen minutes, during which time it took all of Wilson's self-control not to yell at people, the ER team finally managed to get it stabilized.

The urgent beeping of the monitors gradually receded, and Wilson became aware of Cuddy's voice, eerily nearby. He opened his eyes to see her inches away from him. He hadn't even realized that at one point he'd had to close his eyes to stop watching the scene in the ER.

"Wilson?" she repeated. "He's stable. They'll betaking him up to radiology for chest x-rays." Behind her he could see them readying the gurney, while the ER doc handed over the chart to Chase, who immediately began ordering a series of tests.

"What's Chase doing with his chart? I should be his--"

"Last time I checked, Chase was a board-certified intensivist. And you were an oncologist. Let's see: Oncologist? Or intensivist? What does House need right now? I'll tell you what he needs: a friend. So go tag along. But stay out of Dr. Chase's way. And Wilson?

"What?"

"Breathe."

"What?" He was distracted by the sight of the gurney coming at them. Cuddy put a hand on his arm.

"Breathe out. Breathe in. You remember how it's done?"

Wilson let out a long breath. He felt Cuddy's arm still on his, and her worried gaze, and realized he was feeling a little light-headed. Probably he had actually been holding his breath. He braced himself against the wall and watched the gurney .

"He's going to be okay," said Cuddy.

"You don't know that."Pushing himself off the wall, Wilson caught the side rail of the gurney as it went out the door. He would hold on until they reached radiology. He wasn't letting House out of his sight yet. Or ever, probably.

Part II: Inside

Ch. 2. When the elevator doors closed around the gurney holding House, it was as if a switch flipped over inside Wilson. Now that the immediate crisis was past, now that House, having miraculously reappeared from the ranks of the dead, no longer seemed about to turn around and rejoin them, the tension flooding out of Wilson allowed him to think, for the first time, about House's words to him before he lost consciousness.

He had looked at him with a gaze completely devoid of anything but curiosity. "Who the hell are you?" he had asked Wilson. What was that about? Was he jerking Wilson's chain? Did he think this was all some sort of cosmic joke? That he could crash his own funeral and then make light of it afterwards? Before even offering any sort of explanation for his absence?

As if he had heard Wilson's thoughts, House fluttered his eyelids open halfway. He licked his lips and seemed to be trying to speak. The ER nurse leaned down, lifted the oxygen mask from his mouth, bent her ear to his head. She replaced the mask as House's eyes closed again.

"What did he say?" demanded Wilson.

"I probably misheard him," the nurse said, shaking her head.

"Well?"

"I think he said...'Where's the champagne?'"

That sealed it. Wilson turned to Chase. "You need to do one more test," he said, jaw clenched.

Chase gave him a wary look. "I think I've ordered everything I need to, to gauge the extent of any organ damage--"

"Not that kind of test," Wilson said. "Run a tox screen."

"For what, exactly?" asked Chase.

"Hallucinogens. Opiates. Hydrocodone. Ecstsy. Ketamine. The whole shooting match. There's no other explanation for this than drugs."

"Severe dehydration can cause altered mental status," Chase argued. "Confusion, disorientation, anxiety. Plus he's running a temp of 104." It sounded to Wilson as if even Chase were trying to convince himself of the truth of his own words.

"He's been on a ten-day bender," Wilson asserted. "Nothing else could explain"--he made a gesture that encompassed House's whole body--"all this."

Chase looked grim at Wilson's words, but finally he nodded and made a note in the chart. Then he hesitated once again. "I was going to ask you to recommend pain meds, since you're prescribing for him. "

"Nothing," said Wilson unable to mask his disgust. "Not one baby aspirin, until the tox screen comes back. He's probably got Vicodin coming out his eyeballs. And God knows what else."

When the elevator doors opened on the radiology floor, Wilson released his hold on the gurney. It wasn't easy, since he'd been gripping it so hard his fingers had practically melded to the rail. He watched them wheel the gurney out the door and turn left. Then, alone in the elevator, he pushed the button for the fourth floor, and punched the useless `door close' button repeatedly until finally, with a sigh, the doors closed around him.

****** The first thing Wilson did, when he was back in his office, was lock the door behind him. Then he locked the balcony door, even though no one used that entry to his office but House. Lastly he reached into the inside breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out the postcard from House that he had kept there for the last three days, moving it to a new jacket each morning when he dressed, like some sort of talisman. A good luck charm that might keep House alive.

He looked at the scruffy kitten pictured on the front, the "Miss me yet?" message scrawled on the back. Those words had meant one thing three days ago. Now they seemed to mean something entirely different. He stood over the wastebasket and he tore the postcard into confetti, into fragments, into shards. ******

He was stuck in an MRI machine. House was looking at him through the little window. "I'm coming in there with you," he said. "I've got champagne."

"No," said Wilson. "Stay out. There's only room in here for one. Stay out." But the MRI began making louder and louder thumping noises, and he couldn't tell if it was coming from inside the machine, or if House was beating on the outside with his cane, trying to get in. "Stop it, House!" he shouted, and woke himself up. His head was resting on a patient file on his desk--the little brad at the top had made a dent in his forehead, his drool had formed a little pond on the first page.

And the pounding was coming not from the MRI but from his office door.

"Wilson! Open up! Open up or I'll get a key and do it myself."

Cuddy. He had been sofar down in the valley ofsleep thateven standing up and walking over to open his door didn't wake him fully. Cuddy took in his sleep rumpled face and let herself in, closing the door behind her.

"Sorry," he said. "Fell asleep at my desk."

"Good," said Cuddy, seating herself wearily on the couch. "When was the last time you got eight hours of sleep?"

Wilsongave her a searching look. "I could ask you the same thing."

"Yes, but I'm the boss here. And I asked first."

"I don't know. The year 2000?"

"Hm. Let's see. That's about the time House first got sick, right?"

Wilson didn't answer. Instead he began picking up papers and files and stuffing them in his briefcase.

"Chase told me you ordered a tox screen on him," she continued. "You think he's been doing drugs?"

"Do you have a better explanation?"

"Maybe he got abducted by aliens. Fell down an abandoned mine shaft. Was kidnapped. Got amnesia. Just like the detective said happens in, what? One percent of the cases?"

"And, being a drug addict, which is more likely? Alien abduction? Or that he's been on a suicidal bender, and staged his own death, just to get back at us for forcing something on him he didn't want to do. Like a goddamn teenager telling his parents to fuck off because they care too much."

"I admit, that scenario is far more likely. But you--" She watched Wilson throwing things randomly into his briefcase. Papers slid out of files and slipped to the floor. He ignored them. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to catch up on my sleep. You and Chase can keep an eye on him. He's going to be okay."

"You don't know that," said Cuddy quietly. She saw that this hit home. Wilson stopped his manic packing for a moment and stood staring out the window. She pressed her advantage. "I know that you're sleep deprived and not thinking very well right now. But, James, you're his friend. And friends have an obligation."

"What kind of an obligation do I have to him? After everything he's put me through, what kind of an obligation do I have to him?" He could hear the timbre of his voice rising, the note of anger and despair clearly audible. "I'm tired of caring too much. This time, he's crossed a boundary. I have an obligation to me, too, Lisa."

Cuddy stood and blocked the doorway. "You have an obligation as his friend, James, not to automatically assume the worst of him. To give him the benefit of the doubt. At least until you know the full story."

Wilson looked at her for a moment that stretched into an eternity. "Get out of my way," he said at last. "I'm going home."

Cuddy stepped aside, a sad look on her face. And at that same moment, first her pager, then Wilson's, went off.

Ch. 3 By the time they got to House's room in the ICU, he had stopped seizing. Wilson couldn't see House, as his bed was surrounded by nurses. One was re-inserting an IV that must have gotten pulled out during the seizure. The sheet beneath House's hand was stained with blood. A second nurse was drawing blood from his other arm.

"What's going on?" Wilson demanded, but Chase was on the phone and deliberately turned his back to him.

"That's no excuse," Chase said in a voice Wilson had never heard him use before. "Get me the goddam lab reports now!"

"What happened?" asked Cuddy as soon as he put the phone down. "He was stable. You were giving him fluids. He should be getting better, not worse."

Wilson, meanwhile, had snatched a set of x-rays from the table and was holding them up to the light. He pointed to several white blotchy areas. "He's obviously got a whopping case of pneumonia, and he's dehydrated, but as long as you're giving him fluids he shouldn't be seiz--" He broke off, staring at the IV pole. "You're not giving him saline? What--"

"Dr. Cuddy, you're the Dean of Medicine," Chase interrupted, clearly doing his best to speak calmly and patiently. "And Dr. Wilson's got House's medical proxy. You're both his friend. I understand that. But you need to let me do my job. Unless you'd rather put someone else in charge."

Cuddy nodded, and shot Wilson a warning look. "You're quite right, Dr. Chase. Why don't you tell us what happened?"

Chase looked relieved. Then he walked over to House's bed and held up the Foley bag. "This is why I stopped the fluids." The bag was empty. "We've pushed three liters of saline into him, and he still hasn't produced a drop of urine."

"So what?" said Wilson. "You could put five liters into him before he started producing any--"

"Be quiet, Wilson," said Cuddy. Wilson dropped the x-rays down on the table, but he nodded at Chase to continue.

"I haven't got the labs back yet, so I can't know for sure," said Chase, "but trust me. I've seen a lot of this in the ER. I don't think he's just a little dehydrated. I think he's in acute kidney failure. Prerenal ARF. That's why he seized." He turned to the nurse as she hurried by with the blood draw. "Start him on calcium," he told her. "And get the crash cart in here." Then back to Cuddy and Wilson. "Yeah, he badly needs fluids. But until his kidneys are working again--if they ever work again, if they aren't already toast--more fluids will kill him."

"If he's not hyperkalemic, that calcium you just ordered could stop his heart," added Wilson, gesturing at the nurse as she returned with an IV bag.

"But if his potassium is as high as I suspect it is, his heart could stop any minute now unless he gets calcium right away. It's a calculated risk," Chase said gravely. "You're his proxy. If you tell me to wait till the labs are back to confirm it, I'll wait."

Wilson hesitated. He saw the nurse hanging the calcium on the IV pole. She reached for the stop cock to start the flow, but Chase stayed her hand, eyes fixed on Wilson.

It was a hideous choice to have to make, and Wilson fell back on something he'd never had to rely on before. What, he wondered, would House do in these circumstances? Wait for results? Or trust his fellow's hunch and start treatment? Put that way, the answer was clear.

"Go ahead," he muttered. Cuddy gave him a smile that was meant to be reassuring, but he felt nothing but dread as he watched the ICU nurse start the flow.

One minute later, for the second time in his life, House's heart stopped.

"V-fib," shouted the nurse, above the noise of the heart monitor.

Chase grabbed the equipment from the crash cart. The nurse opened House's gown and Chase applied the paddles. "Clear!" he called, and just before Chase released the charge Wilson found himself being propelled rapidly backward. A male nurse had yanked him away from the bed, which he hadn't realized he was clinging onto as he tried with every ounce of his being to will House's heart to start beating again.

Thereafter, he had the sensation of watching from a very great distance. The sounds were muted and tended to run together, the frantic alarm of the monitors, the peculiar whining of the defibrillator as the paddles re-charged. The thump of the current being applied. The sight of House's body reacting, the muscles of his torso contorting, arcing him up off the bed. And finally the announcement from the nurse: "Normal sinus rhythm." An audible sigh from the entire room. ***

The three doctors moved out of the way and let the nurses take over as soon as House's heart was beating normally again. It would have been hard to say which one of the three of them looked worst. Cuddy was pale and subdued, Chase looked deeply shaken, and Wilson knew he must look just as bad. Chase was the first to speak.

"Listen," he said to Cuddy, and he couldn't have sounded less like the confident doctor he had been ten minutes ago. "I think I should take myself off this case. House is my boss, he's...I'm too close to it all. And I just nearly killed him."

Cuddy pulled herself together with a visible effort. "If that's the case," she said with something resembling a smile, "he'll have something to say about it when he comes to. Remind me not to be here to witness it."

"You don't know if you nearly killed him," said Wilson, who found he was not remotely able to joke about it. "You won't know until you get the lab reports."

Chase's reply was cut off by the entrance of the charge nurse, bearing a sheaf of papers. She was a large and buxom woman of few words. "Labs," she said, thrusting the papers toward Chase. "At long last." Then, with an anxious glance at the bed, "How's he doing?"

"Touch and go," said Cuddy as Chase studied the reports. "Touch and go."

Chase walked over to a chair and subsided into it, leaning his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. Wordlessly Cuddy removed the lab reports from his hand and read them herself. When she was done, she placed a hand on Chase's shoulder and squeezed.

"Nice call," she said. "His potassium was through the roof. Looks like you saved his life."

Chase opened his eyes for the first time. "For the moment," he agreed. "But those labs are scary. He's in ARF. He's got a virulent pneumonia, pericarditis, and a bunch of other problems as well caused by the dehydration and ARF. I've got to be honest. House is seriously ill--critically ill."

"I know," said Cuddy. "But he's in good hands." As she left the room, she passed the labs silently to Wilson. "You'll be particularly interested in this result," she added, pulling out a green form and sticking it on top of the stack.

Wilson recognized the tox screen form. Suddenly he didn't want to know what it contained. He rolled the lab results into a tube and stared over at the bed containing House.

"I'll save you the trouble," said Chase, pointedly, as he followed Cuddy out of the room. "It's negative."

"For Vicodin?" asked Wilson, unable to keep the surprise from his voice.

"For everything. He's as clean and sober as a newborn baby. Cleaner and more sober than some newborns these days, in fact." **********

Ch. 4 Wilson shifted in his chair, trying to find a more uncomfortable position. If he was uncomfortable, he reasoned, he might stay awake more easily. He studied House's unconscious face from the new angle. Ironically, House actually looked better than he had in the ER. Some of the gauntness was gone from his features, but it was not the result of any real weight gain but rather of fluid retention caused by the kidney failure. And despite that, he still looked drawn and sick.

Many people's personalities assert themselves even when they are asleep: Wilson remembered particularly his second wife's face, which in sleep bore a pinched, resentful expression she managed to suppress when she was awake. His first wife, when asleep, looked even more childlike and confused than when she was awake. But House...his features might be called handsome, and they were especially so when smoothed out as he lay on his back in the bed; but in repose his face was wiped clean of all the personality that animated it to such an extraordinary degree when House was awake. He didn't really look like House. He looked like any sleeping man. An empty vessel.

But as Wilson watched, House's face changed. The change was so subtle as to be almost imperceptible. It certainly would not have been obvious to anyone not schooled to notice such things. His eyebrows moved a fraction of an inch higher, and a small furrow appeared between them. Oncologists--and anyone involved in pain management-- are taught to read the faces of patients who are unable to communicate. Wilson instantly recognized the subtle change that had come over House's face as a classic sign of pain. He cursed himself for a fool and pushedthe call button for a nurse.

It took forever for the nurse to respond. What, was she walking through molasses?

"What orders has Dr. Chase left for pain meds?" Wilson asked the moment the laggard appeared in the doorway. The nurse, who was actually a little out of breath from hurrying, consulted the patient file in her hand and wondered, not for the first time,who had kidnapped the mild-mannered Dr. Wilson the nurses all knew and loved and left this short-tempered wretch in his place.

"Nothing," she said. "There are no orders."

"That's just insane," said Wilson. "Page Dr. Chase for me." He remembered at the very last instant to add "please," but the nurse was gone by then. *****

It was Cameron who finally brought him a cup of coffee. Probably it was an excuse for her to check on House as much as anything, but Wilson took the Styrofoam cup gratefully.

"How is he?" she asked, her glance skittering from the monitors back to the bed. "He looks...really bad."

Wilson had already closed the blinds to the room, and now he stifled an urge to pull the sheets up over House, to keep curious eyes off his semi-naked form, which was laid out on the bed, tubes and wires stuck to it like some sort of insect specimen pinned to a wall that doctors, nurses, orderlies, med students, and virtually anyone seemed to feel they had a right to examine, poke, prick, measure, or just plain ogle. True, being in the ICU by definition meant an uninterrupted stream of intruders--someone was always needing a specimen of this bodily fluid or to regulate that med. But House, he'd come to realize as he witnessed the comings and goings, must occupy some sort of strange niche in the hospital's collective unconscious. An unusual number of staff had found an excuse of some sort to come into his room, just to look, as if they needed to see with their own eyes that the legendary doctor, the indomitable, irascible force of nature that was Dr. House, had been reduced to the frail figure in the bed hovering between life and death.

Coffee was Cameron's excuse. But for that cup of coffee Wilson was deeply grateful, since everyone else in the damned hospital seemed to have decided, like some sort of communal barkeep, to shut him off.

"He is pretty bad. Still unconscious. And just had another seizure."

"What's the diagnosis?"

"You name it, he's got it:"

"But he'll recover, right? I mean, he's...House." She shrugged, unable to come up with a better explanation for why he couldn't die. All part of the legend, Wilson realized. But he was still amazed at her naivete. Or were they all guilty of a similarly nave assumption?

"Sadly, that doesn't count for much when you're fighting off infection and your lungs and kidneys don't work. Turns out you can't simply browbeat electrolytes and bacteria into doing your bidding."

The coffee was the poor, thin stuff they brewed in the cafeteria--what House referred to as pee pee de chat--but Wilson pulled the lid off the cup and drank it down in three long swigs.

Cameron tore her gaze away from the unconscious House and widened her eyes as she watched Wilson finish the coffee.

"Thanks," he murmured, wiping the back of his mouth with a hand.

"I could just get an IV started, pump it straight into your jugular," she suggested.

"But then I'd miss out on the delicious taste part," he said with a rueful half smile.

"Cuddy says you're going for the world no-sleeprecord. She's a little worried about you."

"Never trust that woman to bring you coffee," said Wilson vehemently. "I think she dosed the last one with Ambien. It took three No Doze to stay awake after that." He stifled a yawn and then suddenly looked closely at Cameron. "You didn't put anything in this one, did you? Cameron?"

"No! I promise! There's nothing in there."

Cameron was such a lousy liar. "Not even...caffeine, right?" said Wilson. "This is decaf." He threw the cup in the trash with disgust, and reached for a phone, but at that moment Chase entered the room with the charge nurse.

"He's not on any pain meds? What were you thinking? "demanded Wilson, without preamable.

Doctors were widely known to make the worst patients, but no one ever pointed out that even worse than a doctor-as-a-patient was a doctor-as-a-friend-or-relative of a patient. Wilson should long ago have been hauled off and drugged and tied to a bed somewhere. His ragged mind had clearly forgotten his earlier conversation with Chase over painkillers. A sense of pity for Wilson's position allowed Chase to forebear bringing up that earlier conversation now, but he couldn't keep the note of irritation out of his voice

"I was thinking that it would be better if I didn't kill the patient."

"He's in pain," said Wilson, gesturing at House. "He needs something."

Chase looked closely at House's face. The furrow had deepened, a new one had appeared above his eyebrows, and tiny lines were visible at the corners of his eyes. It was clear that House was hurting. He shook his head.

"I'm sorry. There's nothing I can give him that won't make his condition worse. Morphine and all the opiates, hydrocodone--they all depress the respiratory drive. And the others, all the NSAADs, stress the kidneys or the liver. He can't afford that right now. Even aspirin is too risky. And given the choice between killing him and leaving him in pain for a few more days, I chose not to kill him."

Chase's logic was irrefutable but that didn't mean Wilson had to like it. "What's she doing now?" he asked as the nurse begin setting up some equipment. The need to know every detail, every facet of what was happening to House had become an obsession. This time he was going to keep things under control.

"We're going to prep him for dialysis. Start a sub-clavian line."

The relief showed in Wilson's face. Dialysis was House's last, best hope, both for survival, and for recovering some kidney function. But it wasn't easy to slot someone into the full dialysis schedule. "That's great," he said."When's it happening?"

"We're prepping him now, just in case," Chase said. But he shook his head."They don't have an official opening until tomorrow night."

"That's not acceptable," said Wilson, struggling to keep his voice calm. "He could be dead by then."

"You know that we've only got one dialysis center, and he's too critical to be moved to another hospital. We have no alternative."

"House wouldn't accept that as an answer," said Wilson. "He'd find a way to jump the queue if it was his patient."

"Look, Dr. Wilson, I've already gotten Dr. Cuddy to move him up the list in front of four other patients. But everyone else on the list is just as critical as he is."

Wilson glared at Chase, but once again he couldn't argue with his logic. He rubbed the back of his neck tiredly and nodded . "All right then. We'll just have to keep him alive until tomorrow."

Chase looked at him, at the nearly purple circles under his eyes, his unkempt hair. And you seem to think you can do that by sheer force of will, he thought. He exchanged looks with Cameron. She was clearly thinking the same thing.

"If you got a little sleep," she said gently to Wilson, "you'd be in better shape when he wakes up. And staying here with him will not, by itself, keep him alive."

Wilson didn't even look at her. "You don't know that," he said. What he wanted to add, but couldn't find the words to explain, was that it wasn't so much his presence--his conscious, awake presence--that would keep House alive, but his absence that might let him die. House would simply be unable to die under his watchful eye. He couldn't explain that, so he settled for something more rational. "The next 48 hours are critical," he told them both. "He needs someone to monitor his meds and his vitals twenty-four/seven. You said so yourself, Chase."

Technically Wilson was right. With a patient in House's condition, it was going to be a constant, continual struggle to keep one step ahead of the changes in his body. All his electrolytes needed constant monitoring: too little or too much potassium or sodium could kill him. Keeping his blood pressure in normal range required a complete pharmacy full of carefully monitored drugs.

"Dr. Wilson," Chase explained patiently,"there are machines to do that. And the nurses are in here constantly checking on him."

"That's great. And I'll be here, too. Just in case."

In that case, thought Chase, you might as well make yourself useful. "The fact that he's registering pain means he's slowly regaining consciousness," he pointed out. "Maybe you could try to wake him up enough for us to do a neuro exam. He might respond better to your voice."

"Fine," said Wilson. "Lend me your penlight." And he moved to the front of House's bed and shook him gently by the shoulder.

Ch. 5

Dogs again. A pack surrounding him, nosing him, gnawing on him. The one gnawing on his leg suddenly sank his fangs deep into the thigh, all the way to the bone. He heard himself cry out with the pain, and he tried to roll away out of reach. But others of the pack pushed him down, paws on his chest, pinning him. It hurt, their claws hurt. They were clawing his chest, grinding into his sternum. Then a dog began shaking him, shaking him by the shoulder. "Come on, buddy. Wake up. Wake up."

Not dogs, then. Worse than dogs. Police. Was it happening all over again? "Wake up, House," the voice intoned, over and over, while the dogs gnawed at his leg, his chest. And then the cop shone his damn flashlight into his eyes, ordering him to wake up.

He was not going back there, not ever. It was not going to start all over again. He opened his eyes, just enough to see the cop flashing the light in them. He was leaning right over him, and it was a simple thing to get rid of him. A simple thing, but there were more of them. He should have known. Cops always travel in pairs. But he would escape. He could outrun them, even if they had dogs. *****

"Dammit, House!" Wilson reeled backward, clutching his face.

"Are you all right?" asked Cameron, trying to get a look. Blood was flowing from one nostril, and Wilson was gasping with the peculiarly intense pain of being struck in the nose. Cameron grabbed a towel from the bedside but Wilson brushed her arm away.

Behind her, House was sitting up, struggling to get his legs over the side of the bed. He'd pulled off the O2 mask and was tugging at the leads and IV lines. "Whoa!" cried Chase, and both he and Wilson put a restraining arm on him. House continued to struggle. "Take it easy," said Chase in a soothing voice.

"Where do you think you're going?" asked Wilson.

House looked straight at him, at them all, without a glimmer of recognition. "Out of here," he said, and redoubled his attempts to get out of bed. "You can't...keep me. Not drunk."

"Get some restraints on him!" ordered Chase, but Wilson was already fumbling for the Velcro ankle strap. House's struggles grew rapidly feebler and feebler, and by the time Wilson was reaching for the wrist restraint, he wasn't able to put up any fight at all.

"No," gasped House weakly, coughing as the straps grappled his hands to the bed rails. "No handcuffs," he begged Wilson. "No... handcuffs." House looked directly at him and again there was that utter lack of recognition. Wilson felt a chill creep down his spine.

"House, look at me," Wilson commanded while Chase tried to check his reflexes. "Do you know where you are?"

"Yes," murmured House.

"Well?" Wilson persisted. House could exasperate him even when he was 50 percent dead and 90 percent unconscious. "Where?"

"Jail," said House. And then his eyes closed and he was gone again.

CH. 6

"What the hell was that about?" asked Wilson, applying the ice pack, which Cameron had just passed him, to the side of his nose.

"I've seen that kind of reaction before," said Chase. "Severe dehydration, like he has, causes symptomssimilar to those of blood loss and shock: anxiety and mental confusion--and combativeness."

"I get that he might be disoriented, not know where he was, or why he's here," said Wilson. "But I seriously think he didn't have the faintest idea who I was. That's different from being disoriented."

"Well, add to that a fever of 105, the toxins and crap clogging his system, the fact that his brain is shutting down just like his other organs...nothing he does or says right now would surprise me."

But Wilson couldn't shake the feeling that something was deeply wrong--something besides the fact that House's body was, once again, betraying him. ****

As it turned out, House's attempt to flee the ICU was just the beginning.

For the next twelve hours, while Wilson sat beside him, and maintained his vigil, House's fever raged unabated, the kidney failure showed no signs of reversing itself, and he suffered two more seizures.

In between it all, House talked non-stop.

Sometimes his eyes were closed and he appeared to be talking in his sleep. These times he held incoherent conversations with people who weren't there.

"No!" he called out, tugging against the restraints.. "Why? You don't have to." And "Don't.... I said I forgive you... Listen to me."

And then, lying utterly still, and in a totally different voice, one that broke Wilson's heart to hear: "I'm sorry. It was an accident. I'll wash them.... Yes, sir. It won't happen again... No, sir."

Other times, when the fever ebbed a bit, he opened his eyes and appeared to be semi-lucid. The first time this happened was when the night janitor passed through the room. Wilson got up to tell the man the room didn't need cleaning. He'd decided early on that the one thing he could do for House, really do for him, was to protect his privacy and dignity, two things House valued above all else, and which there was precious little of in the ICU setting. He felt rotten enough being privvy to House's inner ramblings--it would kill House to think he was being overheard by Wilson, or anyone else. Wilson was determined, during these talking jags, to do whatever it took to keep strangers out of the room.

So he stopped the man with the mop, before he had a chance even to get the floor wet, and asked him to leave. But he must have woken House, because the next thing he knew House was talking again.

"Sensei... Doko...?" he rasped, staring straight at the janitor.

The janitor swiveled around in surprise, and Wilson registered for the first time that he was Asian.

"Doko...?" he asked House.

"Watashi no tomodachi... Akio."

"Shiranai. Sumimasen," the janitor replied, then turned a puzzled face to Wilson.

"What was that about?" asked Wilson.

"He is speaking Japanese. He ask me, Where is his friend, Akio," replied the janitor with a shrug. Then he smiled. "He think I am a doctor."

House's eyes were still open, though barely. Wilson approached the bed. "Do you know where you are?" he asked him.

"Hai," said House, still looking at the janitor. "Byooin."

The janitor paused in the doorway. "He say he is in hospital. He get that right."

Sort of, thought Wilson. Right building. Wrong continent.

House also babbled snatches of German, and several other languages Wilson couldn't even begin to guess at. But every now and then, mixed in with the rest, would be a medical phrase in English or Latin that he recognized.

Then came the moment House opened his eyes and looked at Wilson. They were wide with fear. "House?" said Wilson, hurrying to the bedside. "What's wrong?"

"Hurts," he gasped. "Hurts." He was trying to free a hand to massage his leg. When that failed, he tried to curl in on himself, but he couldn't manage that either and fell back on the mattress, panting.

"I'm sorry," said Wilson, his gut twisting. "I can't give you anything for it."

"Please," begged House in a voice that was hardly audible, his features contorted as he twisted feebly in the restraints. "Something... Anything."

"I can't. Even aspirin is too risky." He was trying to take refuge behind Chase's words. But suddenly he heard his own words, Not so much as a baby aspirin, and he couldn't look at House anymore. Couldn't believe he'd actually uttered those words just a few hours ago. He felt a vague wave of nausea and had an urge to leave the room, to call a nurse, to have someone else take over.

Instead he sat down beside House, and wrapped his hand around House's fist, clenched and shaking inside the cloth restraints.

"Please," repeated House. "Not faking...I'm not...an addict. Not looking for...a fix. Just need some..."

Wilson looked more closely at House. Where did he imagine he was? Once again he asked the question: "House. Do you know where you are?"

House's reply was whispered: "Clinic."

And then Wilson asked the question, the one he had been too afraid to ask, fearing the answer. "Look at me. Do you know who I am?"

House nodded. But apparently he couldn't bear to look at Wilson, either. His eyes were fixed somewhere over Wilson's shoulder.

"Yes," said House bitterly. "Sanctimonious...prick."

Ch. 7.

By dawn, House gradually settled down, his ranting and struggling subsiding as the fever slowly gave way before the antibiotics they had flooded his system with.

During the night the usual parade of hospital personnel had come by, despite Wilson's best efforts to keep them away. Chase, before retiring to some doctor's lounge or on-call bed with strict instructions to page him with any developments, had left an order for House to be suctioned. A respiratory therapist removed a startling amount of dark-tinged mucous from House's lungs while Wilson watched. Wilson had been appalled by it, but he was sure that House's breathing improved a little bit afterwards. He was sure that it was less shallow and labored.

Shift change at 7 am found Wilson nursing a cup of coffee that he'd bribed--and bribed handsomely--an orderly to bring him. With his other hand he picked at a plate of dried out scrambled eggs and dry toast that the ICU charge nurse had added to the breakfast order for House and slapped onto House's bedside tray.

"Eat this," she had said in her take-no-prisoners voice, glancing significantly from Wilson to the unconscious House. "Otherwise you'll get your very own NG tube."

Another nurse was busy prepping House forthe NG tube. Although no one had paged him, Chase had shown up an hour earlier, wearing the same clothes that he had clearly been sleeping in, and decided he couldn't wait any longer to get a naso-gastric tube started. Patients with altered mental status weren't supposed to get NG tubes, but Chase decided that House's mental status should improve as the fever was subsiding, and that it was too risky to let him get any more malnourished. They'd keep the restraints on him a while longer, just to be sure he wouldn't pull the tube out. He was scheduled for a trip to radiology first thing in the morning to get it inserted. It was also a chance to check his arterial line and the subclavial line for the dialysis.

And then, just after seven, another nurse had brought in a wash basin and suggested subtly that it might not be a bad idea, seeing as House was stable for the moment, to give him a sponge bath.

"He could really use one," said Nurse Rachel, making a slight face. "Even though he's only been here a few hours."

Wilson no longer noticed it, having shared the same room for many hours, but he remembered now that House had reeked when they'd brought him into the ER. It was one of those disturbing anomalies that had been nagging at the recesses of Wilson's fatigued brain all night. House might go out of his way to create the opposite impression with the way he dressed, but he was in fact extremely meticulous about cleanliness. The dirty condition he was in right now was (barring Wilson's drug bender theory) completelyinexplicable.

Nurse Rachel was exceedingly young and very pretty, and she'd already been in to check on House more than was strictly necessary. There was no way Wilson was going to let her give House a sponge bath.

"Give me that," said Wilson, his voice rough with lack of sleep. "I'll do it." Rachel seemed startled by the idea of a doctor doing such a menial job, but she handed over the basin and washcloth. "Toothbrush, too," added Wilson, looking at House's sleeping form. He picked up House's hand. "And a nail brush from the scrub room." Rachel returned quickly with the other items and then lingered needlessly checking lines and monitors while Wilson prepared to brush House's teeth for him.

The reason most unconscious patients get their teeth brushed is to prevent the build up of bacteria that can cause pneumonia. That horse had long ago left the barn, Wilson thought, as lifted up the oxygen mask and slid the toothbrush in, but no harm brushing them anyway. He leaned down for a closer look, once House's mouth was open. Yet one more anomaly: House clearly hadn't brushed his teeth in a long long time.

Wilson finished that job and then waited, pointedly, for Rachel to leave the room before he pulled back the sheets and opened House's gown for the sponge bath. He began with his feet. These were truly filthy, and Wilson remembered that House had been wearing flip-flops, or, to be precise, one flip flop, in the ER. His right foot was covered in scrapes that must have occurred while he was trying to walk, or rather drag himself along, barefoot. Wilson took a long time getting House's feet clean, and he was not unaware of the symbolism of what he was doing.

Next, his legs. Laid out like this--Wilson was trying hard to ignore the overwhelming sensation of preparing a body for burial, but he couldn't avoid the comparison with a body on a slab in a funeral parlor--laid out like this, the difference in musculature of House's two legs was starkly visible. His left leg was heavily muscled, especially the long, well formed quadriceps, because so much more was asked of it. While he was walking, House used the cane, and his shoulder muscles to make up for the deficit in his right leg. But as he soaped the washcloth, Wilson's mind replayed images of House standing, always standing with his full weight on the left leg. House tried to minimize the impression that he was favoring that leg when standing still, he was good at that, but Wilson had known him too long, known him from before when he was whole, to be fooled. He ran the washcloth up and down the leg, taking his time. And then he shifted to the right leg.

The calf was undersized. He washed that quickly, and around the knee, with its gauze bandage covering the infected abrasion. Then he couldn't avoid it any more: the thigh with its long ribbons of scar tissue, the mess where most of the rectus femoris had been. His hand hesitated, and he told himself it was because he was afraid of hurting House.

"Ugly, isn't it?"

Wilson startled, his hand jerking away from the leg. House was watching him through heavy-lidded eyes, his face expressionless. Wilson took a slow breath and then deliberately laid the warm washcloth on the thigh, washing the corrugated surface of the scarred area gently. "Does that hurt?" he asked.

House shook his head. "Helps."

Wilson looked down at the clenched muscles and could see them visibly relaxing. "Heat helps? I'll get a nurse to bring a heating pad." He kicked himself for not thinking of that sooner. Drugs weren't the only thing that could help with pain.

"'Kay," said House, his eyes closing again.

Wilson studied him closely. The fever was ebbing and House seemed fairly lucid. Wilson realized yet another opportunity might be slipping away. He pressed his advantage. "House," he said. "What the hell happened to you?"

House opened his eyes again, halfway. "Bear," he said. "Car crash. Who knows?"

Wilson sighed. He had no idea what House was talking about. He was clearly not even halfway lucid--probably due to the toxins from the kidney failure. But Wilson wasn't going to let House go back to sleep if he could help it, so he took the washcloth and began washing House's hands (like his feet, filthy) and arms, his torso, the chest with its light smattering of dark hair, his abdomen--again avoiding the surgical scars-- his too prominent rib cage, his too prominent hip bones. He talked as he went, trying to keep House with him.

"There," he concluded. "I've washed up as far as possible," he told House, who was still watching him groggily, "and I'll wash down as far as possible. And you can--"

"--wash possible." There it was, an actual smirk. House was ...in there, somewhere. Wilson put down the washcloth and tried once more.

"House, look at me. Do you have any idea where you are or who I am?"

House rolled his eyes, looking around him without moving his head. "It's a...hospital," he said, or guessed. "And you're"--the smirk again--"my secret ...gay ex-lover?"

"What? No!"

"Good, `cause..." he glanced down at the washcloth in Wilson's hand, and paused for breath, "you had me...worried."

Wilson tossed the washcloth into the basin with a gesture of irritation. But House wasn't done with him yet. He gestured with his head for Wilson to come closer.

"I have to warn you," he whispered. "I've had all the...gay...knocked out of me."

"House, get serious. House?" But he was asleep again. Wilson regarded him with exasperation. "Well, we'll see who gets the last laugh here, my friend," he muttered. Then he reached for the Rachel button. She appeared so quickly he suspected she'd been lurking outside the door.

"Bring me a heating pad," Wilson commanded. "And an electric razor." *****

Wilson regarded his handiwork with bemusement. House clean-shaven bore almost no resemblence to House unshaven. Losing the heavy beard changed the shape of House's face radically, far more than it did most men when they shaved. This new face was markedly paler and longer. The hollows beneath the cheekbones, the jawline, and the Adams apple, all were more pronounced now that they were more visible. Wilson almost wished he had left well enough alone. The face of this House was undeniably the face of a very sick man.

He was about to pack away the razor when something caught his eye. He pulled on a pair of gloves and leaned in closer for a good look.

"Damn," he sighed, shaking his head. There was no doubtabout it. "House, you don't do anything by halves, do you?" And he reached once more for the razor. ****

The pager roused Chase from a deep sleep. He was still only half awake when he stumbled into the ICU. For a moment he was convinced he was in the wrong room. The man in the bed wasn't House. Then he saw Wilson in the corner of the room, pulling his latex gloves off and dumping them into a trash container, along with a towel full of what looked like hair.

"What the hell did you do?" asked Chase, looking again at the bed. It was House. Only his beard was gone. And all his hair.

"Oh, that?" said Wilson dismissively. "I shaved his beard off. He was overdue."

"But why--" stuttered Chase, gesturing toward House.

"And then I noticed he had pediculosis."

Chase, being only human, shuddered. "So you shaved his head, too?"

"Had to. No other way to deal with it. He's going to kill me when he wakes up."

Chase smiled for what felt like the first time in days. "He sure is, mate." His smile faded as he regarded the unfamiliar figure in the bed, face and head beautifully clean shaven, to be sure, but looking more than ever like someone at death's doorstep. Looking, in fact, like one of Wilson's terminal cancer patients. "But you didn't page me down here to tell me House had head lice."

"No," said Wilson. "I paged you down here to show you this."

He approached the bed and tilted House's head gently to the left. There, above his right ear, in a sickening shade of yellowish purple, was a large, partially faded, and very nasty-lookingcontusion.

Ch. 8 One of the most common false assumptions that both patients and their families make about the course of a serious illness is what might be called the Straight Line fallacy. It's assumed that the road out of ICU is either a straight downhill ride to death or a straight uphill ride to recovery. In fact, it is almost always a lurching rollercoaster of a ride, with all progress forwards and upwards being met at some point by a backwards and downwards slide, and vice versa.

So it was with House. At seven a.m. he had been at least able to respond to questions, even if his answers frequently made no sense. But by the time they had gotten him back from radiology and were awaiting the results of the PET scan, doing a meaningful neurological exam had become almost impossible. He was awake and responsive to pain--just barely--grimacing as the nurses transferred him back into his bed and trying instinctively to protect his leg, but not reacting at all when Wilson first asked him if he was all right and then snapped at the staff for their rough handling of him.

Foreman finally put down his penlight and exchanged a look with Wilson and Cameron. The whole of House's staff had gotten into the act ever since Wilson discovered the contusion on House's skull that morning and Chase had decided that the mystery of what had happened to House was a puzzle worthy of the Diagnostics department whiteboard. Besides, they had all ignored Cuddy's orders to go home and sleep, choosing instead to camp out in the doctor's lounge and wait for updates from Chase, until he had thrown up his hands in defeat and invited them into the process.

"His pupils are equal and reactive but sluggish, his reflexes are slow, and he's responsive to pain--but that's about it," said Foreman, tucking the penlight into his pocket. House couldn't follow the simplest command--"keep your eyes on my finger; squeeze my hand; wiggle your toes"--and all he had gotten out of him in response to the verbal part of the exam had been mumbled or hopelessly garbled.

"Are you thinking brain damage?" asked Cameron. She looked pale without any makeup, and she had dealt with her hair by the simple expedient of pulling it all back into a Scrunchied ponytail. The overall effect was to make her look ridiculously young and surprisingly vulnerable.

"No, this behavior--" Foreman gestured to House--"is not traumatic brain injury. This is more likely--" He was interrupted by Chase walking in with a folder full of test results. Chase handed Foreman the PET scans and CT scanswordlessly.

The neurologist held them up to the light while the rest of the room held its breath. At last he put them down. "The scans are consistent with a severe concussion," he confirmed.

"When?" asked Chase.

Foreman took another look. "At a guess, a week to ten days ago."

"A severe enough concussion," asked Wilson, "to cause retrograde amnesia?"

Foreman nodded. "It would be unusual, but not impossible."

Wilson sank into a chair and let his head rest in his hands for a long moment while nobody said anything. "That," said Wilson at last, "would explain a lot. A hell of a lot. But not everything. Why didn't he--" A sudden thought struck him, and he reached for the call button. When a nurse appeared, he ordered her to bring him House's belongings. "Everything he had on him when he got to the ER." She looked puzzled but went to a cupboard and pulled out a pink draw-string trash bag with "House, Gregory" scrawled on it in Magic Marker.

Wilson quickly dumped the contents out on the floor. Grabbing a latex glove he picked through the clothes. Filthy yellow parka, baseball hat, a single flip flop, jeans slit open with trauma shears, T-shirt ditto. He looked up at the nurse. "Where's his wallet? His watch? Car keys? Are they in Security?" The nurse frowned. "No," she said. "This is everything he had on him."

Wilson dismissed her with a nod and then looked around the room, his eyes finally settling on House. "You got mugged, didn't you? Hit on the head. Someone stole your wallet, your bike, everything that would help you figure out who you were. So..." He let out a long sigh. "That explains it all. Am I right, House?"

House, who looked like he had been trying to follow the conversation, at least with his eyes, blinked and moved his lips soundlessly. "Wuh," he managed to say after a long struggle.

Cameron stared at her boss, her brow wrinkled with concern. "But what explains this? It's not the concussion. And he's not delirious with fever anymore. Why's he so out of it?"

Chase pulled House's most recent blood work results from his folder and passed them to her. "His brain, his whole body, is full of toxic sludge. Waste products. His kidney function, what's left of it, is tanking, and tanking fast."

Ch. 9.

"House? House?"

He had no idea whom the voice was addressing until a hand shook his shoulder gently.

"Come on, House. I need you to wake up. House."

House. That was him. His name. He was House. He blinked his eyes open one at a time.

"Attaboy," said the figure looming over him, a tired smile flickering across his face. It was the doctor who'd been there since, well, since whenever it was he had landed in this bed. He searched his memory, but his brain felt like it was working in super-slow motion. At last he came up with the man's name. Wilson. Dr. Wilson.

Dr. Wilson moved the bed tray over in front of him and adjusted the head of the bed so House was sitting up even more than usual. That felt good. It helped his breathing to be upright. Next Wilson slid the bed tray across his lap. The tray was covered with plastic food containers. Dr. Wilson undid the restraint on House's wrist and replaced the oxygen mask with a nasal cannula. Then he flipped the lid off one of the food containters. Green Jell-o. He dug a spoon into it and held it out for House. House blinked at Dr. Wilson dumbly.

"Come on, House. You need to eat something. Otherwise you'll never get rid of the NG tube."

When House didn't move, Wilson picked up House's hand and thrust the spoon into it, making a fist around the handle. House stared at it for a second, uncertain what was expected of him. What had Dr. Wilson said about an NG tube? He vaguely remembered being wheeled down the corridors to somewhere. Radiology? Had they put in an NG tube? He raised his hand to his face and felt his nose. Yes, there was a tube there, taped to his face.

"House!" cried Dr. Wilson with dismay.

What? What had he done? Dr. Wilson grabbed the spoon out of his hand and reached for a napkin. House looked down. He had spilled food all down the front of his gown. Idiot. He'd forgotten about the spoonful of Jell-o he was holding. His face must have registered something because Dr. Wilson's expression softened, and as soon as he finished cleaning House up, he retrieved the spoon from the bedclothes.

"Never mind, House," he said kindly, digging out another helping of Jell-o. "I'll do it for you. Open up." It was humiliating, being fed. But House knew he couldn't manage anything as complex--not to mention tiring--as feeding himself, so he let Dr. Wilson shovel Jell-o into his mouth, swallowed when he was told to--that part he could do--and felt obscurely touched. It was surprising how very good the green Jell-o tasted, too, as it slid easily down his throat. Even so, after just a few bites his hunger evaporated, overtaken by a wave of nausea. He turned his head away.

"Come on, House," pleaded Dr. Wilson holding the spoon in front of him, but at that moment the other doctor entered the room. The blonde doctor with the accent. House felt vaguely embarrassed to have anyone see him being spoon fed.

"I see you're awake," the new doctor said to House with a cheerfulness that rang false in House's ears. "How are you feeling?" But he wasn't looking at House. He was looking at the monitors behind House's head. "How long has he been on the nasal cannula?"

"Five minutes," Wilson answered. "His O2 sats have stayed steady in the low 90's."

"Respirations are down to 22, too," added Blondie. Then, addressing House in a louder voice: "That's good news, Dr. House."

"He's sick, not stupid, Chase," muttered Dr. Wilson.

Chase. That was his name.

Dr. Chase had the grace to look embarrassed. He turned his head again to look at the monitors. "Heart rate's still slightly elevated, though. How's the pain? Can you give me a number? If your breathing keeps improving, we'll be able to give you something for it soon."

House managed to shrug one shoulder, not sure what he meant by "number," but Wilson interceded.

"I'd guess it's around four or five. That's the only bright side of having his system full of sludge. It seems to have dulled the pain receptors along with everything else."

"And his mental status?"

Wilson's turn to shrug. "Oriented times two. He's in and out. Getting worse."

Dr. Chase pulled out a penlight and checked House's pupils. "Do you know what your name is?" he asked.

He was able to remember that one. "House," he answered softly.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Hos..hosp...," he trailed off, unable to finish the word.

"And do you remember who I am?"

House looked to Wilson for help, then remembered just in time. "Chase," he managed to say. Dr. Chase raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"He's faking it," said Wilson. "He has no real idea who you are."

"How do you know?"

Instead of answering, Dr. Wilson turned to House. "What's Dr. Chase's first name?"

Were they playing a game with him? Should he know this answer, too? He frowned and shrugged again.

This got a strange reaction from Chase. He stood back, head cocked, and asked, "You really don't know who I am?" House couldn't figure out why this would surprise him, sinceHouse still wasn't 100 percent sure who he--House--was. Chase started to ask another question, but before he couldfinish, to House's relief,there was a knock on the door.

"That'll be Fitzgerald," Chase explained to Wilson. "I paged him for a consult." But when the door opened, it was the woman with the wavy dark hair--he dredged up the name Cuddy from somewhere--followed by another woman he thought he might have seen before: slender, with pretty brown hair. He couldn't quite place her, but for some reason he was pretty sure she wasn't Fitzgerald.

Wilson wasn't looking at either of the newcomers. He glared at Chase. "Why didn't you ask Jacoby for the consult?"

Dr. Cuddy answered for him. "Because--" she began,but she was interrupted by a horrified cry from the other woman, who was staring at House with eyes like saucers.

"House!" she exclaimed, approaching the bed. He shrank into his pillows a little. She looked like she was going to pat his head or something. Then, to Wilson, she said, "What did you do to him?"

Before Wilson could answer, Dr. Cuddy joined her at the bedside. "Why, House," she said with, House would have sworn, an evil smirk, "you clean up real nice." What the hell did she mean by that? The two of them stood there gaping at him.Was he still covered in Jell-o? What were they staring at?

Finally Cuddy turned away, her smirk fading. "As for you, Dr. Wilson," she continued, giving him the once over, "while House is all bright and shiny, you look more and more disreputable every time I see you. What is this, opposite day?" Now that she mentioned it, Dr. Wilson did look like he had slept in his clothes--well, everybody did, including Cuddy--plus he had dark circles around his eyes, his hair was unkempt,and he had at least a day's growth of stubble, not to mention what looked like a shiner under his left eye.

Wilson managed to look exasperated. "Look, could we discuss this nephrology consult instead of the state of my clothes? I'd like to know why you're bringing John Fitzgerald in, instead of Jacoby. Jacoby's head of nephrology, and Fitzgerald, let's face it, is not nearly as good a doctor."

"Simple," said Chase. "Jacoby hates House with a passion."

"'Loathe' would not be too strong a word," Cuddy agreed. "He threatened to resign when I first brought House into the Nephrology Department. House had been a fellow under him at Hopkins, and--"

Wilson gave a weary sigh and waved a hand. "You don't need to elaborate. We can all guess. But the fact remains, he needs a good nephrologist, and even more, he needs someone who can get him into dialysis as soon as possible. The very fact that Jacoby hates House--"

Chase, looking like House felt--confused--finished Wilson's sentence for him. "--means there's no way he's going to do him any favors. And essentially that's exactly what we'd be asking..."

While he talked, House saw Cuddy and Wilson exchange some secret look. Cuddy laid a hand on Chase's shoulder. "I see exactly where Wilson is going with this. Cancel the consult with Fitzgerald. Leave this to me." She reached for the phone by House's bedside and requested a page for Jacoby to meet her in her office. At least that's what it sounded like. House was having more and more trouble following events around him, and more and more trouble staying awake. *****

Ch. 10

When he opened his eyes again, there was a small hub-bub going on outside his open door. Cuddy, Chase, and a new person. Tall man who looked faintly familiar and aroused instant feelings of dislike. He pushed his way through the cluster of doctors and nurses, everyone giving way before him. As he came in, Wilson leaned over House, wiping away the last traces of green Jell-o from his face and gown and whispering in his ear, "All right, House. Whatever you do, don't drool. Jacoby will never let you forget it."

Then he straightened up. "Dr. Jacoby. Good to see you."

Jacoby didn't bother with so much as a glance at Wilson. He was flipping rapidly through House's chart, and when he finally looked at House, his eyebrows shot up into his hairline and he suppressed a smirk. "I'd say that was a great look for you, House, except that you really look like shit. And I see you've managed to fry your kidneys. Well done. What are we going to do about it, that's the question. You won't last the day without dialysis."

The man was an asshole, it was abundantly clear. Or a moron. Or both. House had a sudden memory of where he'd seen the guy before. Wasn't he JR, the man sitting in front of him during the...thing in the auditorium? Yeah, it was JR. It was nauseating to watch Wilson, Cuddy, and Chase all kowtowing to him.

"Are we having a state-the-obvious competition?" he asked JR. But it was too much work for his mouth to manage so what actually came out sounded more like, "Wuh....kup." Shit. He couldn't even manage to form a single word anymore.

"What did you say, House?" Dr. Wilson asked. He bent over and put his ear next to House's mouth. House moved his lips again but this time nothing came out. Not a single syllable. Wilson straightened and looked at Jacoby.

"I think he said, Even with one lobe of his brain tied behind his back, he's still a better doctor than you are."

JR snorted. "What are you, his translator?"

"Yes, actually," said Cuddy crisply. "He's our resident House Whisperer." Chase said nothing, just stood there looking gobsmacked. "So," continued Cuddy, "what's the verdict?"

JR jutted out his handsome square jaw and looked once again at his chart. "All right," he said, his mouth working hard as if he were trying to swallow something foul tasting. "I can work him into Mrs. Sprague's spot. You've got"--he checked his watch--"forty minutes to get him down there." He signed a piece of paper, thrust the file into Chase's hands and stared at House a moment longer. At last he smirked. "You owe me big time, House," he said with a satisfied look, and strode out of the room.

Chase gaped at Dr. Cuddy, who in turn was grinning at Wilson like an idiot.

"How on God's green earth did you manage that?" asked Chase when he was able to speak.

"Oh, I did some more research among all the nephrology department patients, called in a few favors, went through lab results until I found one of them who had improved a good deal since last night. A Mrs. Sprague. She is currently just healthy enough to put off her dialysis until tomorrow. The tricky part was getting Jacoby to authorize it."

"Yeah," said Chase. "But no one could force him to agree to that. Even you. Even a court order would be tough to get."

"Right," said Cuddy. "But I took the opportunity to remind Dr. Jacoby exactly how many times Dr. House had attacked his reputation. I brought up the little incident House staged at the last Nephrology fund-raiser."

"The steak-and-kidney pie thing?" interjected Wilson.

"The same. Then I mentioned how sweet it would be to be able to remind House for the rest of eternity that he had saved his life. To have him in his debt forever. I laid it on pretty thick. Oh, yes. I think I quoted Emerson. `A man in debt is a slave.' And possibly Benjamin Franklin. `The heaviest debt is the debt of gratitude.' And so on."

"And he went for it," stated Chase, shaking his head in what looked like admiration. The three of them then exchanged strangely happy smiles.

"Well, House," said Wilson, addressing the patient at last. His breath seemed to leave him in a rush. He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice had an odd, squeezed quality to it. "It looks like you might just catch a break after all."

House didn't know what they were all so happy about. If he had understood half of what they said, it seemed like an awfully high price to pay for some dialysis. "Couldn't you just have bought me some black market kidneys?" he asked them. "Is that too much to ask?"

Or maybe he didn't say it out loud. In any case, none of them paid the slightest attention to him. They were busy calling nurses to get him ready for dialysis. And he was soon too exhausted to really care. **** The next time he woke up, it was from the shock of pain, felt even through the shit clogging up his central nervous system, as they were transferring him onto a gurney. He looked around the room, at the nurse moving the IV to its temporary pole, at the orderlies who had slid him on the draw sheet, at another nurse placing a pillow under his right leg.

Something was wrong. Something was missing. His heart started racing with an undefined panic. He tried to speak, but it just turned into coughing. It was hard to breathe lying flat, even with a nasal cannula.

"Crank up the head of that gurney," ordered the nurse who had placed the pillow under his leg. She spoke sharply. Then she held a non-rebreather over his mouth until the coughing subsided. "Is that better, Dr. House?" she asked him gently. He shook his head. He was still struggling for breath, and something was still...off. Missing.

She must have seen him looking around because something dawned and she put a hand on his. "He's just gone to answer a page. He'll be back any minute now to take you down to dialysis."

He nodded and lay back against the pillows. His breathing steadied, and he fell asleep again.

Ch. 11

Dialysiscan bea double-edged sword. The machine cleans blood of everything that isn't usually found there--bad and good alike, it makes no distinction.In House's case, for example,while it was slowly filtering out the fluids and toxins that were causing his multiple-organ failure, it was also removing the antibiotics that were keeping the pneumonia under control. And it removed those same toxins that had recently kept much of his pain at bay.

By the time they had gotten House down to the dialysis center and hooked up to the machine, he had hit a 6 on the Glasgow Coma Scale--responsive only to pain. But two hours into the procedure, he began to stir.

Wilson watched him gradually, very gradually, return to consciousness. But as signs of awareness returned to his features, so did the signs of pain and fever: the creased brow, the flushed cheeks. Three hours in, and House tried to turn onto his left side, to take pressure off his right leg. Wilson helped him do it, propping him up with pillows, and then sat back in his chair. He'd snagged one of the comfortable recliner-style chairs they carried in the dialysis center, and sitting next to House they looked for all the world as if they were in someone's living room watching a movie together. Except, of course, for the large dialysis machine on the other side of them.

Glancing at House, Wilson picked up yesterday's newspaper, folding it in half with a loud rattle.

"Listen to this, House," he began. No response. He kept going. "This is important. The Red Sox beat the Yankees. You heard me. They now lead the championship series two zip. `Red Sox ace Josh Beckett iced the second--`"

"Doctor...Wilson."

Whole words. Halting. Almost inaudible. But words. That was a definite improvement from just a few hours ago. He dropped the newspaper."You recognize me?"

House blinked hard a few times, as if trying to get his eyes to focus. "Come closer."

Wilson stood up, took his pen light out and leaned over House to check his pupils.

"Too close. Screw the... neuro." He was still too weak to push the pen away. Instead, he closed his eyes.

Wilson put the penlight back in his pocket and leaned back a bit. "You remember where you are? Who I am?"

House spoke slowly, deliberately. "James Wilson," he said, and it was a statement, not a question. Wilson felt a bubble of elation in his chest that lasted a nano-second--the nano-second it took to realize that House was, in fact, reading his name off the hospital ID clipped to his breast pocket.

When House finally lifted his eyes from the nametag to Wilson's face, he seemed to be searching it carefully, looking for clues. It was almost more than Wilson could bear. "What do I...call you?" House asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Every time I... open my eyes you are... right there. How long now?"

"Twenty-four hours."

"So you're a friend or...you're sitting shiva. Or something." He paused as if to gather his thoughts. "Not Doctor Wilson. ...James? Jamie? Jim?"

"Just Wilson, actually."

"Wilson...Wilson."

House seemed to be trying it out, testing it in his mouth to see what happened. As if the act of saying the name might create some connection. But when he opened his eyes again, the blue eyes were just as blank. Perplexed, but blank.

There were a million questions Wilson longed to pepper House with, but instinct told him to go slow, let House take the lead, set the pace. "Sometimes it's Jimmy," he added. "When you're being sarcastic, or witty."

House sighed and squinted at the ceiling. Wilson could tell he was trying to hide a grimace of pain. "Do I do that a lot?" House asked after a moment.

"What? The sarcasm? Or the wit?"

"Mmmm. Both."

"All the time."

"I'll...try to remember that."

The conversation appeared to have exhausted House, because he closed his eyes again. But he opened them again a few minutes later.

"You're sure you're not...my gay ex-lover?"

"What?"

"Joke, Jimmy. Remember?"

"Yes. Ha ha." **** The man had incredible eyebrows, like woolly bear caterpillars, and House had asked the question largely just to see the eyebrows react. He was not disappointed.

"Ha ha," Wilson had said, but his smile looked pained for some reason.

Still, he had an interesting smile, the way his upper lip curved down to a point in the middle.

Ch. 12

When Wilson next checked, over the top of his newspaper, House was awake again, staring at the ceiling. He spoke without turning his head, as if talking to himself. "Wilson. Cuddy. Chase."

Wilson lowered the newspaper and waited.He could almost see House trying to process something.

"So, who's... the beauty?" House asked finally.

"What?"

"Skinny brunette...With Cuddy."

"Oh, her. That's Cameron. One of your fellows."

"Why does she...look at me that way?"

"It's, uh, this Beauty and the Beast thing she has going on."

It took House a moment to digest this. "I'm the Beast?"

"Well, I hope this doesn't come as a shock, but you sure aren't the Beauty." Wilson was surprised to see the corners of House's mouth tug upwards in an almost-smile.

"And she thinks...one kiss will...what?"

"Fix you."

"Mmmm." He was starting to drift off again. "Think it's gonna take...more than that."

******* At several other pointsduring the lengthydialysis procedure, House opened his eyes again.

Wilson's earlier eagerness to take advantage of these brief windows of semi-lucidity on House's part quickly faded. It was abundantly clear that House didn't recognize him, and it was too eerie, and far too painful, this House-as-stranger business. Foreman had said that being back on familiar ground should help House recover his memory. While every case of retrograde amnesia was different, he suggested that House would either remember everything, and soon, or there was a strong chance he would never remember his past at all, ever. And he was concerned that House had shown little change, very few signs of recognition, during the brief moments when he was conscious. Wilson had been trying to convince himself that the reason for this was that House was so out of it--his brain and body so racked with fever, pain, hallucinations, or the systemic toxins from the ARF, or all four--that even when he was `awake' he had not been able to really register where he was. When he was lucid, surely then it would all come back to him. Surely then his memory would return.

But what if it didn't?

Wilson tried to imagine what would happen if House never did recover his memory of the past. Would they have to rebuild their friendship from scratch? Was such a thing even possible? Would House even want to try? After all, he had always claimed he didn't need friends, and he would only have Wilson's--a stranger's--assurances that they had once been friends.

Wilson's own brain was too tired to grapple with this possibility. It had been three straight nights now with almost no sleep, and he was actually relieved that the return of House's fever and pain, as the dialysis progressed, made him lose interest in talking. Wilson told himself he wouldn't think about the `what if's' just now. Tomorrow was another day. He would think about all that tomorrow. Assuming House lived that long. ****

As soon as dialysis was finished, House was transferred back to his bed in the ICU. He was sweaty with fever, and rigid with pain. He resisted all attempts to get him to uncurl from the semi-fetal position he had resorted to, to ease the pain in his leg. Chase quickly hooked him up to the monitors, re-started the IV antibiotics, and wrote him an order for IV Demerol.

The nurse who brought the pain meds also brought House's most recent lab work. Chase studied the results, and the monitors.

"Looking much better, House," he said at last, an expression of relief on his face. He nodded at the nurse to start the pain meds. "Just a few more minutes and you'll feel much better, too." He put a hand on House's shoulder, feeling the clenched muscles slowly relax, the breathing ease as the Demerol kicked in. "He should sleep now--really sleep," Chase assured Wilson. "And so should you, if you don't mind me saying so."

"Will do," said Wilson. But once Chase had left, he glanced out the window at the setting sun and then at House, who was watching him blearily through half-lidded eyes. He took three pills from his jacket pocket and swallowed them dry, House style. "Not just yet though," he said to no one in particular, and pulled up a chair.

"Night, House," he added, as House's eyes finally closed.

"Mmmm," mumbled House.

Ch 13

House slept. He slept and slept. He also dreamt, his dream of the doghouse, of warm lights and shelter just out of his reach, of being as always on the outside looking in. But mostly, he just slept. ----------------

Wilson, on the other hand, did not. Even when it became clear that House was out of any immediate danger, he could not sleep. Maybe it was the Dexedrine he'd taken at dusk. Maybe it was the feeling he still couldn't shake--primitive and irrational, he knew, but still a conviction--that if he closed his eyes, something would happen to House. Sleep was out of the question.

He was like a cat on hot bricks. Chase had barely made it back to the Diagnostics office before Wilson paged him and Foreman asking when would be a good time to meet. Foreman sighed and called House's room. Wilson picked up after half a ring.

"Why don't you meet us up here?" suggested Foreman

"I can't. I can't leave. I need you both to--"

"You do know that you don't have to sit up with him all night now?" said Foreman with deliberation. "The concussion was eleven days ago, and you only have to do that for the first 24 hours. You know that, right?" He could practically feel Wilson vibrating on the other end.

"Yes, of course," he snapped. "The point is, you need to do a complete neurological work-up on him, find out the extent of this amnesia, devise a treatment plan--."

Foreman shook his head. "Yes, at some point we'll need to do a work-up. But there's no evidence of swelling in the brain, no immediate danger from the concussion. And, as I said, there's no `cure' for amnesia. But there is a cure for complete exhaustion, and that's sleep. Sleep is the best medicine right now. Everything else can wait until morning. Sleep, Dr. Wilson. It knitteth up the ravelled sleeve of care."

He was being cute, Wilson could tell, deliberately ambiguous about who needed the sleep, but before Wilson could think of some even cuter comeback--"Thank you, Dr. Shakespeare"--the son-of-bitch hung up on him.

Everyone else involved in House's carecontinued to be utterly unhelpful and unresponsive to Dr. Wilson's differing demands until, finally, near dawn, someone must have complained. Cuddy showed up at 6 am, wearing clean clothes and looking like she,for one,had slept, and told him if he didn't go home and, at the very least, change his clothes, well then she would call the Haz Mat team and have him escorted off the premises.

Wilson hesitated. Cuddy thrust House's chart under his nose. "His vitals have been stable for the last ten hours," she pointed out. "He isn't going anywhere." When Wilson still hesitated, she sighed. "All right," she said. "I'll stay with him. I'll keep him alive for the next hour until you get back. I promise. Okay? Now go." And she literally propelled him out the door.

When he returned two hours later, freshly showered and shaved and with something very fragrant in his backpack, she handed him some crackers and a glass of orange juice. "Eat," she said. "Drink." He did as he was told and never saw Cuddy replace the cap on the prescription bottle and tuck it into her pocket. He returned to his place beside House's bed. * * *

They say smell is the most evocative of all the five senses: it is the smell, more than the taste, of a petite Madeleine that can awaken memories of a certain time and place, memories that were long dead...or perhaps just slumbering.

Afterwards, if you asked him, House would swear that it was smell that triggered it all. But he was not at first able to find an adequate way to describe how it happened. He could tell you what it was not. It was not nearly as dramatic as one might have expected. It was not as if a light had been turned on, suddenly illuminating a dark room. It was not as if a floodgate had opened, with a rush of memories overwhelming him.

It was closest to the way he puzzled out a diagnosis. When he was working on a case, his subconscious mind, he was sure, figured out the solution long before his conscious mind ever did. But it always took something from the outside world to force the idea to the surface, something to make the bigger picture emerge. Something as simple and evanescent as, for example, a scent.

The change, when it happened, was both tiny and...enormous. House, the master of the metaphor,finally found the right one:those Magic Eye visual puzzles that had been so popular a few years ago. You stare at a jumble of meaningless shapes and colors long enough until at some point you blink and, suddenly, who knows how or why, those meaningless shapes assemble themselves into a clear, stunning 3D image. An image that had been there all along but you simply couldn't see. From the moment he'd first walked back into Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, House had been assaulted by a disturbing feeling of deja-vu, as if the hospital--and not the doghouse-- were the dream, and by a sense that if he stared hard enough at it, at the people, they would suddenly assemble themselves into something meaningful. Yet he was too tired, too distressed, too sick to concentrate hard enough to make it happen.

When House awoke that morning, his mind clear and his body free of pain for the first time in days and days, it was shortly after the seven o'clock shift change. A nurse in latex gloves had just replaced his nasal cannula, and the room had been freshly mopped. On his bed tray was a Tupperware container of hot, fragrant pancakes. And lastly a head belonging to James Wilson was resting beside him, cradled on his arms as he slept, leaning forward off the chair beside the bed.

None of this didHouse see, however. His eyes were closed and he lay motionless as he slowly surfaced from the boundless depths of sleep, allowing a bath of pleasant sensation to wash over him: The absence of pain--the complete absence of pain. The incredible softness of his mattress after so many days of sleeping on concrete. The delicious warmth of the covers forming a protective cocoon around him. The feeling of being inside, sheltered, safe.

And the smells. He breathed in deeply through his nose.

And so it was that when he'd fallen asleep the night before it had been in an anonymous, alien hospital room. But when he finally opened his eyes in the morning, he was in a warm, sunny glass-walled room that opened, he knew, onto a long, brightly lit corridor. It was a room that smelled of pine-scented hospital disinfectant and Purel hand cleaner, rubber gloves and talcum powder, macademia nut pancakes and...

"Jimmy," he said, prodding the head next to his pillow. Wilson raised his head a few inches and blinked groggily at him. "You are the only man I know... over the age of four who uses...Johnson's Baby Shampoo."

"Guh" said Wilson, struggling mightily to keep his eyes open. He lost the battle and settled his forehead back into his arms.

"Wilson," said House. "I know where I am."

"Nuh?" Wilson mumbled into the mattress.

"Yes," said House. "I do." He looked around the room with its familiar equipment, he drew in its familiar scents and sounds. And then he looked at the slumbering Wilson. "Home, Jimmy," he said softly. "I'm home."

* * * *

Sometime later, two orderlies, under instruction from Cuddy, entered House's room and bodily lifted Wilson out of his chair and deposited him in the empty second bed in the room. Wilson turned his head and gave House a doped-up smile as one of the orderlies spread a blanket over him and the other removed his shoes.

"Night, House," he mumbled, his eyes closing.

"Night, Wilson," said House.

Ch. 14. "Try again, Dr. House. Do you recognize this one?"

Cameron picked up another photograph from the pile of hospital personnel headshots. House stared at it for a long moment before shaking his head, his expression equal parts concentration and confusion. Just as she put it back in the pile he spoke.

"Wait," he said. "I'm thinking--I don't know why--the word `Jack off' comes to mind. Dr. Jack Off. Is that possible?"

Foreman, Cameron and Chase exchanged wondering glances. Cameron approached even closer and sat in what had been Wilson's seat.

"That's very close, Dr. House," she said gently, her brow furrowed with hope. "It's actually Jacoby, Dr. Jacoby. He's head of Nephrology here."

"Sounds like jack off," Chase added encouragingly.

House lay back against the pillows doing his utmost not to react. His team was arranged in a semi-circle around his bed, and they all seemed strangely...tentative. Among other things, he'd noticed that they had all reverted to calling him "Dr. House," as if he were the stranger here. As if he might be made of glass. House looked at their concerned faces, at Wilson fast asleep in the bed beside him, and told himself he really should put an end to this. That sentiment lasted exactly a fraction of a second, because, honestly, you'd have to be a complete idiot not to ride this one for all it was worth.

"Keep going, Dr. House," said Foreman. "Who knows what might trigger a memory, any memory? That is, if you feel up to it." Cameron passed him another headshot, her fingers slowly brushing his as he took it from her. House just glanced at the photo (Marco the pharmacist) and then tossed it down with a tired sigh. He raised his eyes to Cameron's supplicatingly and spoke so softly she was forced to lean in to hear him.

"You know"...(he paused to sigh pathetically a bit)... "I've heard that the most evocative of the five senses is the sense of... touch. Of touch, Dr...."

"Cameron," she said eagerly, trying not to look hurt that he'd forgotten her name again. "Yes?"

"Dr. Cameron, do you think it might be...therapeutic...if you were to... kiss me? Might it not ...awaken some memories?" He raised his eyebrows and made big eyes at her. Then, before she could respond he lowered his eyelids and lifted his chin a smidge. He peeked through his lids just enough to see Cameron making a face at Chase, who shrugged and made a what-the-hell face.

And Cameron did it. She actually bent over and kissed him full on the lips. This time it was a prim, medicinal little kiss, though. There was no tongue action at all, and House stifled the urge to open up wide and see what she would do. Instead, when she pulled back, he put a shaky hand to his brow and frowned thoughtfully.

"Yes," he said. "Wait... Yes.... Doctor... Cameron.... Allison. Suddenly it's all--" At that moment Dr. Cuddy walked into the room. In one swift glance she took in Dr. Wilson snoring away in happy land and the three fellows poised in some dramatic moment around House's bed. "Ah, Dr.....Dr. Cuddy, isn't it?" House was speaking in a barely audible rasp. "Come closer, Dr. Cuddy."

Baffled, she did as she was told, leaning in and straining to hear him, her breasts presenting a delightful scenario. "Dr....Cuddy, you know, I've heard that the most... evocative of the five senses is the sense of touch. Do you think it would be therapeutic if you were to let me..." and he raised his hand and traced his thumb lightly along the curve of her left breast. She startled backward, but he appeared not to notice. "Yes, yes," he said as if in a trance. "It's all coming back to me now." He squeezed his eyes shut and placed his fingertips dramatically around his temples. "Lisa Cuddy... Dean of Medicine...owner of the world's finest... ass." He groped blindly with his right hand and Cuddy, coming to her senses with a gasp of fury, swatted his hand away just as he went in for the kill.

"House!" she hissed at him, getting right down in his grinning face, "if you weren't suffering from concussion I'd slap you silly." She stood up and addressed her next remark to his team members. "When did this happen? Why didn't anybody tell me?"

Cameron had her hand to her mouth in disbelief, whether over House's miraculous recovery, or at the fact that she'd been tricked into kissing him, was not clear. Chase was chuckling in open pleasure, whether at the idea that Cameron had been conned at her own game, or at the familiar sight of his bosses going at each other, was equally unclear. Only Foreman was even trying to maintain some semblance of professional dignity.

He scrambled up next to the bed, elbowing Cameron aside. "House. You know where you are? You remember who you are?"

House gave him his wolfish grin. "I have it on good authority," he began, and this time his gaze took in the whole group, and Wilson, too, "that I am Gregory House, one part genius--I'm quoting here, now--and one part saint. `Saver of lives, breaker of rules, lover of humanity, and,' how did you put it, Cuddy? `The most brilliant'--"

"You know," Cuddy broke in, "I might just slap you silly anyway, concussion or no concussion. I think I preferred you when you didn't know up from down."

And then everyone started talking at once. Foreman tried to ask House more diagnostic questions--all in vain as no one was listening. At a certain point Cuddy kicked them all out, saying it was really time to let House rest and for them to go home, go home for the first time in days. They complied, though House did his best to get Cameron to come back one more time and try to "wake up Sleeping Beauty here"--gesturing to Wilson with his thumb-- with one of her "magic kisses." All he got for his trouble was a glare and a too-firm closing of the door on her way out. She didn't slam it. Cameron would never slam a door. But she managed to convey, in the closing of the door, exactly how ticked off she was, and exactly how pleased she was at the very same time.

Ch. 15. At last it was just him and Cuddy, and of course Sleeping Beauty over there.

Cuddy perched on the edge of his bed for a moment and looked at him with an expression that could only be described as fond. Dangerous, dangerous ground.

"I never thought I'd say this out loud--and to you--but it's good to see you, House. It's good to have you back. I actually"--oh, God, she was tearing up--"missed you, you complete jackass." Any minute now she would pat his hand.

"Oh, sure," said House, pissed that the effect he was going for would doubtless be ruined by the way he had to pause for each breath, and by the pathetic coughing jags that continued to interrupt his speech. "You didn't miss me one bit... until the day you thought I might never... come back. Admit it."

"No, I--"

"And then when you thought I wasn't coming back, you couldn't wait to bury me.... What kind of person ...buries someone alive like that?"

"House, you don't know, I tried--"

"As for all that...all that stuff you said about me at the memorial service? Complete crap. ...Everyone knows you have to say nice things about dead people, even if it's all rubbish."

Cuddy snorted and said nothing for a moment. Then she wiped her nose with a tissue from the bedside table. "Yes," she rejoined, at last. "In fact, in Sweden, it's actually illegal to speak ill of the dead. Did you know that? So I was just following my lawyer's advice."

That was more like it.

"Besides," House added, "it's a little early to celebrate my return from the dead. I'm still short a few functioning kidneys. I'm still at death's doorstep. Don't deny it. Yes, I read my chart. Wilson left it on the bedside table before passing out. So I think that rates a few more days off work, at least."

"Don't worry. I'm not scheduling you for clinic duty anytime soon. You're too scary looking, for one thing. The patients would all run away screaming."

"Which is just what I aim for in the clinic," said House with a smirk.He looked at her more closely. "You're joking, right?"

Cuddy gave him a look that he couldn't begin to interpret. Part evil, part amused, part something else. "You mean you haven't looked at yourself in a mirror?" she asked.

"No. I somehow neglected to pack my vanity mirror when I checked in here," House retorted, but Cuddy was already on her way out the door. Somewhere she managed to scrounge up a hand mirror, which she presented to House with a small flourish.

He held it up curiously and froze, the smirk vanishing from his face. The last time he'd looked in a mirror--in the coffeehouse bathroom in Cambridge--the face looking back at him had been that of a complete stranger. Now, once again, he was looking at features he didn't recognize--skin stretched tight over prominent cheekbones, eyes sunken deep under the brow, but most jarring of all, the freshly shaven chin and naked skull. The visage staring back at him looked like a death mask and felt, once again, like a complete stranger's.

It was as if the puzzle that had so recently assembled itself into something recognizable had suddenly shattered, leaving a meaningless jumble of shapes once again. The mirror slipped unnoticed from his fingers and he shut his eyes against the image he had seen there. * * * * * *

Cuddy experienced a stab of panic, looking at House. He had dropped the hand mirror onto the bed and turned his face away from her, eyes squeezed shut. His chest was heaving, and a check of the monitors showed that his pulse was racing.

"House," Cuddy said. "You okay?"

"Mmmm," he answered. "Yeah. Fine. You were right, though. It is a little scary. " But the monitors belied his attempts to pass it off as a joke. Cuddy could see him trying to slow down his breathing. Was he having a flashback of some sort?

"Not that scary, House. What just happened?"

"I'm fine," said House, but there was a tremor in his voice and in his hand as he ran it along his chin and then his head. He didn't' speak again until his breathing had slowed to normal. "There are no sutures," he said at last, "so no brain surgery. So no need to shave my head. While I was out of my mind, did I join the Hare Krishnas or something?"

"Nothing so uplifting," Cuddy replied. "You had head lice. Wilson shaved your head. Easier than doing the whole Rid thing."

A very small smile greeted this revelation.

"Head lice.... Thank you, Fergus. And thank you, Wilson."

"You should thank Wilson," Cuddy agreed, pleased to see some color returning to House's face. She glanced at the sleeping oncologist and added, "If he ever wakes up. That's how we discovered your concussion." She picked up the discarded mirror and held it so he could see the contusion on the back of his head. This time House was able to look in the mirror without flinching.

"What did the MRI show? I assume you did an MRI?"

"Grade three concussion. No skull fracture. And who is Fergus?"

House touched the fading bruise thoughtfully. "Grade three. Well, that does explain it."

"Maybe," said Cuddy, and vulnerable though House seemed at this moment--or more accurately just because he was so vulnerable-- she determined to press her advantage "And maybe not."

"What's that supposed to mean? A severe concussion could cause retrograde amnesia, all sorts of memory problems. It's--"

"It's highly unusual, and you know it. According to both Foreman and Chase, it is far more likely that there's some other explanation. A delayed reaction to the ketamine treatment, maybe. It can cause memory loss. Or PTSD. That can cause a temporary fugue state, which is a much more common cause of the kind of amnesia that you--"

"To have post traumatic stress, you have to first have trauma. Wait. Unless PTSD means Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Cuddy, are you about to traumatize me? Unbutton your blouse? Take off-- "

"House! You were shot a few months ago--nearly bled to death in front of your staff."

"Traumatic for them, not for me. I was unconscious at the time."

"You've never talked to anyone about that, or about losing the use of your leg again."

"Cuddy." He reached for the nurse call button with one hand and made an exaggerated pointing motion to the back of his head with the other. When he spoke it was slow and loud, as if explaining basic math to a first grader. "Head injury equals amnesia. Hoofbeats equals horses. Stop looking for zebras."

Before Cuddy could answer, Nurse Rachel appeared in the doorway. "Did you need something?" she asked, the light of eternal hope in her eyes.

"An electric razor," said House, dismissing her and her hopefulness with a curt nod.

"You, you're going to shave again...voluntarily?" gasped Cuddy.

"Why not?" asked House, picking up the hand mirror again and examining his head from all angles. "I think I'm kind of rocking this Dr. Evil look."

"More like Dr. Death," she muttered. And because he did, in fact, look like he was fast reaching a point of exhaustion, she rose to leave once the nurse returned with the razor. It wasn't till she was in the elevator that she realized how thoroughly, once again, House had managed to deflect the entire conversation she had been so determined to have with him. **

And it wasn't until she was out the door that House hefted the razor in his hand, put the mirror back on the bedside table and turned over onto his other side to look at Wilson. The man had not stirred once in the hours since he'd been deposited in the bed.

"Hey!" House shouted. "Sleeping Beauty! Wake up!"

Wilson snored on, oblivious. Clearly nothing was going to disturb his sleep. Not even a kiss from Cameron. Not even an earthquake. And certainly, thought House withwhat he thought of as his new, Dr. Evilsmile, not the sound of an electric razor.

Ch 16. Wilson slept. He slept and slept.

He was on the couch at House's place, and House had added a second sofa, behind the leather one. House was sleeping on that couch. Wilson couldn't see him but could hear him snoring. The snoring turned into a buzzing sound.

"Aren't we a little old to have sleep-overs?" he asked House over the buzzing noise.

"This isn't a sleep-over, you girl," said House, somehow managing to talk while snoring.

"What is it, then?"

"It's a slumber party."

"And the difference is?"

"Slumber parties are for pranks. Hold still." House began snoring again. "But I'm not asking you to spend the night again. You snore too...." There was a lot of crashing around then, followed by silence.

"Wait," Wilson said. "You're the one who's snoring."

"Not me," said House. "I'm not even asleep. Also, you talk in your sleep. It's ridiculous. A grown man."

"I do not."

"You're doing it right now."

"Am not," said Wilson, so loudly he woke himself. At least he thought he was awake. It was hard to tell, he felt so sleep-drugged and out of it.

The hospital room was in darkness, and the privacy curtain had been drawn around House's bed. He wasn't sure but he thought he might have an urgent need to pee. Perhaps it was just that he'd dreamed that House had stuck his hand into a bowl of warm water once again. Wilson stumbled blindly out of bed into the bathroom and peed without turning on the light, afraid to waken House. Then, as if it was the most natural place in the world to be spending the night, he climbed right back into the hospital bed and fell asleep again.

When he next opened his eyes, it was early morning. He groaned, trying hard to wake himself, then yawned loudly, and turned over, checking instinctively to see how House was doing. The privacy curtain was still drawn, but House was speaking.

"For the longest time I had this feeling," House said in a low voice, "of missing something. But I had no idea what it was. I mean, I was really missing it, you know? It was a very disturbing feeling, let me tell you, not to be able to remember something you were so clearly...attached to. But now I know. It was you. God, how I missed you. And now we're back together again, aren't we? Where we belong."

Wilson listened to House with growing concern. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, steadied himself, still feeling groggy from whatever it was--Cuddy! Cuddy must have dosed him! Dammit!-- and flung back the curtain to House's bed, not knowing what to expect..

House was sitting part-way up in bed, plastic med-dispensing cup in one hand and in the other, a single white pill gripped between thumb and forefinger. A long oval pill. Vicodin. He was gazing at it reverently. "Come to Papa," he said, without taking his eyes off it. Dropping the pill into the back of his throat, he swallowed greedily, making a sighing sound. Then he turned to look at Wilson and frowned.

"Now, remind me again," he said. "Who are you?" * * *

It was a simple, direct question. Yet Wilson found he couldn't respond. Was his brain still too fogged with sleep and drugs? Or was the question just too hard?

"I'm..." he began. James Wilson. Onoclogist. Department head. Doctor. Healer. Colleague. Co-conspirator. Care-taker. Giver. Nagger. Conscience. Truth teller. Liar.

Liar.

He sighed, lay back down on the bed and let his eyes close. Had he said all that out loud? He ardently hoped not.

"...your friend," he finished, and hoped for sleep.

"Really?" said House, and he turned on his side, the better to examine Wilson. "Tell me, how long have we been sleeping together? Or do you do this"--he pointed to Wilson's bed--"for all your patients? I mean, friends?"

"Just the ones I care about," mumbled Wilson.

"So, next question...Who am I?"

Oh, God. Where to begin to answer that one? "You're..." Gregory House. Diagnostician. Genius. Colleague. Co-conspirator. Pain in the ass. Trouble maker. Risk taker. Taker. Truth teller.

Truth teller.

Wilson opened his eyes and once again wondered if he'd said any of that out loud. No, no. Just in his own head. He looked at House to be sure, but House was giving him an odd, quizzical look, his head tilted to the side like a bird examining its own reflection in a window.

"You're my friend," Wilson said, out loud, and let his eyelids flutter shut.

"Good," said House briskly. "Now that we've established that you don't have amnesia-- despite the good impression you're doing of being me: you know, doctor strung out on uppers, babbling incoherently, sleeping in his clothes, hiding from Cuddy. Now that we've established all that, I've got a present for you."

"House?" Wilson sat slowly up in bed and peered at the man in the other bed. He was rewarded with an enigmatic smile. "House, it's...you. You remember everything?"

"Aren't you interested in my present?"

"When did this happen? Where's Chase? And Cuddy? Do they know?" Wilson got out of bed and for a dreadful moment House thought he might hug him.

"And here I stayed up all night making it. Had to listen to you snoring and talking in your sleep. And by the way, I'm never inviting you to another sleepover."

"House, look at me." Wilson's voice was deadly serious. House rolled his eyes in a long-suffering way, while Wilson stuck a thermometer in his ear and checked his other vital signs.

"No fever. I'm not delirious. I 'm not the one who's been babbling incoherently. What I am, is hurt. Hurt that you seem to care so little about the present I made you."

Finally satisfied, Wilson sat back down on his bed and gave House a huge grin. "Welcome back," he said. "It's...God, it's good to see you again."

"You're the one who's been asleep for twenty-four hours, Rip van Winkle. Though Rip van Winkle was a little hairier when he woke up. So about this present...Could you please stop grinning like an idiot and concentrate?"

Wilson shook his head and seemed to hear House for the first time. "You bought me something? You, what, lifted my wallet while I was asleep?"

"How little you know me. I'm a whole new man--"

"--without a wallet--"

"--and as you know Martha Stewart always says home-made presents are more meaningful--"

"--and cheaper--"

"--than store bought ones."

"You made me something?"

"Took me all night." As Wilson watched skeptically, House leaned over the side of his bed, unhooked the urine collection bag from the frame, and held it up proudly. It was filled with a small amount of dark liquid. "My very own urine," he said, batting his eyelids demurely.

"House!" Wilson exclaimed, an even broader smile splitting his face.

"I knew you'd be pleased. Always be guided by Martha Stewart. You can't go wrong with urine."

"That means your kidneys are healing."

"Yes, I know. I, too, went to kidney school."

"Has Chase seen this?"

"I'm told he went home to sleep last night. The slacker." * * *

A moment later there was a knock on the door and the slacker in question entered the room, followed by the charge nurse.

"Good morning, Wilson," Chase said, hastily flicking a glance Wilson's way. "House, what's this I hear about the nurse finding you on the floor in the middle of the night--" he broke off mid-sentence and, doing a double take that was almost cartoon-worthy, looked back at Wilson. Behind him, the nurse was staring at Wilson, with her mouth ajar. House launched into a coughing fit, drawing attention back to himself, and then gave the two of them a death glare and shook his head. They seemed to get the message, because neither of them said anything to Wilson.

Chase tried to pick up where he had left off. "Um...so...What happened?"

"I must have been sleep-walking," House explained. "It happens sometimes, especially during sleep-overs. I guess I passed out." In fact, in walking the two steps between his bed and Wilson's, in the middle of the night, House had been startled and dismayed to discover how truly weak he was. A few days ago he'd been able to walk a mile, albeit slowly. Now, a mere two steps had left him exhausted and dizzy, and he had started to see spots before his eyes before he'd finished what he got out of bed to do. The nurses had found him on the floor not long thereafter and put him back in bed with a great deal of fuss. "No harm done."

"If you don't count pulling out your IV catheter once again," said the charge nurse pointedly. House gave a little shrug.

"Meh," he said.

"Ooookaaaay," said Chase, beginning to put two and two together. "How are you feeling this morning?"

"Like this," House retorted, triumphantly holding up the Foley with its meager contents. Chase of course made a gratifying amount of fuss over the fact his kidneys were working again. "So this means I'll be out of here soon, right?" When Chase gave him a dubious look, House pressed: "Soon being the operative word."

"Let's see what Jacoby has to say about this," Chase hedged.

"I'll go page him right now," said Wilson, making his way to the door. As he passed them, both Chase and the nurse made gasping sounds, but House laid his finger over his lips, forbidding them to say anything. When he was gone, Chase turned back to House, his smile fading. He cleared his throat and put on the kind of face you use to lecture a fractious teenager.

"House, you know, realistically, this is great, but you need to show a lot more improvement before you can even think about going home."

"But, Mommy, you haven't seen my latest report card," House whined. He reached over to his bedside table and picked up three color-coded sheets of paper. "I practically made the Honor Roll this semester."

"So that's where the labs are," exclaimed the charge nurse, glowering at him.

"I just finished chewing her out for misplacing them," said Chase. "How'd you get your hands on them?"

"'G'day, mate,'" said House in a terrible Australian accent. "'How about rushing those lab results for Greg House up to me in room 324? Good on ya!' It's the British accent. Fools `em every time."

Chase just sighed and reached for the labs. Just then there was a shriek from somewhere down the corridor near the nursing station. Everyone ignored it.

"Like I said," House continued, pointing to the blue sheet Chase was holding. "I got a C-minus in Renal Studies and"--he indicated the pink and green sheets--"a B-minus in Heart and Lungs. Not bad, eh? Considering I was flunking Renal and barely passing Heart and Lungs just last semester. I think that deserves a--"

The door to the room burst open and a furious Wilson stormed in, flung open the door to the bathroom, and stood there, staring into the mirror. "House!" he sputtered. "How could you? What were you thinking?" While Chase and the charge nurse tried to stifle their smiles, House looked at him innocently.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

Ch. 17

Wilson pointed furiously to his head. "You know damn well what I'm talking about!"

"Oh, that," said House. "Well, head lice are terribly contagious. When you were shaving me, some must have gotten on you."

"In my eyebrows!?!"

"Sure. Have you never heard of eyebrow lice? A subspecies of head lice: Pediculosis oculo-browitis? Don't worry. I'm sure Cuddy will lend you her eyebrow pencil."

"Very very funny. And what about this?" He pointed to the back of his head, which was shaved neatly bare, while the front remained completely untouched.

"Well, it's like this. I meant to do your whole head, but about halfway through, I inconveniently passed out. Sorry." He reached for the electric razor. "Want me to finish it off now?"

"I don't want you anywhere near my head, House---"

"I'm gonna just...go wait for Dr. Jacoby out by the nurse's station," said Chase, backing out of the room. The charge nurse also took the opportunity to slip out.

Wilson looked at the grinning House and narrowed his eyes. "You be sure to be nice to Dr. Jacoby, now. You may even want to write him a thank you note."

That wiped the smirk off House's face. "What? Why?"

"Because he saved your miserable life, for better or worse. Got you onto dialysis when your kidneys were hours away from checking out for good."

"Jacoby? That unmitigated prick? Great." House let himself sink back into the pillow and scowled at Wilson. "You couldn't have just, I don't know, given me a couple of your kidneys? Spared me the humiliation?"

Strangely, that wiped the smirk off the face of Wilson, who had clearly been enjoying the prospect of House having to thank a man he despised. Instead a distinctly sheepish look appeared, and Wilson began edging away from the bed.

"Wait a minute," said House, a note of alarm creeping into his voice. He sat upright again and grabbed at Wilson's sleeve. "Wait just a damn minute. You were thinking about it, weren't you? Admit it!" When Wilson remained mum, House shoved the shirt sleeve up Wilson's arm to his elbow. There it was: the telltale little round band-aid.

"It's not what you think. I...I gave blood yesterday."

"I don't believe this," House continued, shaking his head and ignoring Wilson. He went on, as if talking to himself "You would have done it, too. But what stopped you? We weren't a match, were we? You couldn't be a donor." There was a long pause, and then: "Shit."

"Why `shit'?" When House didn't answer, he pushed. "House?"

"Well, I was kind of... counting on your liver at some point."

"House!"

"Not all of it, of course. I'd leave some for you." It wasn't conceivable in any universe for House to look sheepish. He couldn't even manage the grace to look slightly abashed. Instead he his raised eyebrows and gave Wilson a cheerful grin.

Wilson shook his head in disbelief. "That takes neediness to new heights, House," he said, pointedly rolling his sleeves down and buttoning the cuffs. "Unscaled heights. It's the Mt. Everest of neediness. You're a...you're a cannibal."

"Yeah, well, you eat neediness. I just eat... you. We're a perfect match. Just not for livers, unfortunately."

Wilson raised a hand to rub the back of his neck, encountered the newly shaved smoothness there, and jerked his hand away.

"Wilson, Wilson, Wilson. Let's not sweat the small stuff. Why don't you look at my report card? I made Internal Organ Honor Roll. Aren't you proud of me? I deserve a treat. I bet your parents took you out to dinner whenever you made Honor Roll."

"No. They took me to see The Music Man. Your parents took you out to dinner."

"No. My parents withheld dinner whenever I didn't make Honor Roll. No to The Music Man. But I would accept a beer."

"You can't have beer."

"Beer and chicken, then."

"House, you're on this trendy new diet. I'm sure you've heard of it: the Renal Failure Diet? High carbs, no protein. Restricted liquids. Beer is out. So is chicken. Which means--what are you doing? House?"

House, who had tried to draw in a deep breath and hold it in the classic pout, was forced to expel it when it triggered a bout of coughing. "I'm trying to hold my breath," he gasped, "until someone...someone brings me a beer and... a Chicken Cesar Salad. Do you have any idea how long it's been since... I drank anything that didn't come in an IV tube? Or since I had a real meal, one which required animals to be hurt in the process of making it?"

"I'm truly sorry. But let's talk about something more important."

"What's more important than food?"

"Well, for starters: How about telling me what the hell happened to you?" House didn't answer. "What do you remember?" he asked, more gently.

"I'll tell you on two conditions. One, I'm sprung from here early for good behavior. Two, you bring me some real food."

"House."

"You do know, don't you, that it isn't at all scary if you frown at someone when you don't have any eyebrows?"

"What happened to you?"

House sighed and closed his eyes. The strange thing about the amnesia was, now that he remembered his distant past, the near past felt murky and unreal. It was as if, the fog having lifted on the far shore of the lake, it had resettled on the near shore. Also he was battling a curious reluctance to talk about it at all.

"I remember... handing you my cell phone. The next thing I remember is waking up in the drunk tank with the mother, and father, of all hangovers."

"What happened after that?"

"It's a long story, and it needs a beer to wash it down."

"One word: No."

"Two words: Beer and chicken. Chicken Cesar salad. Hold the lettuce. Hold the croutons. Hold the cheese."

"What's this sudden obsession with chicken?"

A look of longing came into House's face. "I left it on the bus. The chicken from this guy's Cesar salad. He left the whole meal on the table in the train station. I was hoarding it, and then... I lost it on the bus."

Two long beats, while both men thought about Cesar salads in train stations. In the same instant they turned to look at each other, and both blurted out, "That was you! In the train station!"

"Holy crap," added Wilson in an awed tone, remembering the ragged scarecrow of a man lying on the bench. But before either one could go any further, House's whole team walked into the room, preceded by Cuddy.

"Morning, House," said Cuddy. "I hear you're doing better?"

House tore his gaze away from Wilson and gave her the usual once over. She was wearing one of her puffy-sleeved blouses, and as House opened his mouth to say something smart, he saw it. On the inside of her left elbow, a small, round band-aid. His mouth snapped shut soundlessly, and he winced. "Crap," he said sotto voce. A sudden thought struck him. Instead of addressing Cuddy, he turned to Cameron, who was standing behind her. "Cameron. C'mere."

Cameron gave him a suspicious look. "I'm not falling for that Sleeping Beauty thing again--" she started, but House ignored her. She too was wearing a short-sleeved blouse. As she approached the bed he saw that she, too, had a band-aid on her inside elbow.

"Oh my god," House groaned. Everyone looked at him worriedly, except for Wilson, who was perched on the edge of his own bed, watching the scene unfold with amusement. "Cameron, go away," House told the mystified immunologist. She stepped backwards. "Chase, Foreman. Take off your coats. Shut up. Just do it."

Chase and Foreman slowly shrugged off their lab coats, giving House wondering looks. Both men were wearing short-sleeved shirts. Both sported band-aids on the insides of their elbows.

"Even Foreman, for the love of God," moaned House weakly, his voice grown husky from the strain of it all. "Has everyone taken leave of their senses? Is there to be no end of gratitude? I will never, ever live this down."

Just then Dr. Jacoby walked into the room. "Jacoby, I swear," said House in a fierce, hoarse voice, "if you've been tested, too, I'm unplugging this IV and swallowing strychnine."

"And you're very welcome, Dr. House," said Jacoby smoothly, though he had no idea what House was talking about. "Saving lives? Just something I do in my spare time. Dr. Wilson. That's a good look on you. Now, let's see those BUN and creatinine levels." * * *

Ch. 18.

Wilson watched House perform for Jacoby and his team, doing his utmost to hide any weakness, but Wilson could see him flagging, growing paler and having difficulty concentrating. He finally shooed everyone out of House's room, and then took his own leave, too. "I have to go do something about this," he explained, pointing to his head with a grimace. "I can't navigate the hospital with my back to the wall forever."

House didn't want to admit it, but he was relieved to be alone. After the excitement of the morning, and the night before, he was physically drained. A little thing like a ten-minute conversation left him worn out, and the effort it took to walk to the bathroom, even supported by two nurses, left him feeling filleted, breathless, like he'd run a marathon. Pathetic.

Jacoby, true to his assholic nature, had refused to budge about letting House go home. "You're here for a good, long run," he assured House, checking his chart and tapping his teeth with a pen in such an irritating way that if he had been strong enough House would have thrown something at him. "Rest assured, you'll be thoroughly sick of me, and the nurses will be thoroughly sick of you, before you're released." * * *

"No way," said Cuddy two days later. "It's against medical advice."

"Not entirely," Wilson argued. "Jacoby won't budge, but Chase is the attending and he said he'd agree to it"--Wilson left out the bit about House threatening to fire Chase if he didn't agree, and also boil him in oil and feed him to the wallabies--"as long as I'm around to keep an eye on things, draw some blood for regular lab work, and make sure he eats right and takes his meds."

"And are you really willing to do that? I don't mind giving you the time off, but he'll be in a wheelchair for at least another week, and he'll fight every single thing you try to do for him."

Wilson knitted what would have been his eyebrows, if he'd had any. Then he ran a hand through what would have been the hair at the back of his neck, if he'd had any.

"I really don't see that we have much choice," he said. "He's gone on a hunger strike, demanding real food, and won't keep the NG tube in. He can't afford to lose any more weight. We could make an argument for danger to himself et cetera, but I'm really not up for putting him in restraints in order to see that he keeps the tubes and catheters in. Plus, to be honest, he's made a really concerted effort with the nursing staff, and all but one of them are ready to suffocate him with a pillow and call it respiratory failure."

"So I've heard." Cuddy sighed. "It's sooo good to have him back." Finally she nodded. "All right. Go ahead. And may the Force be with you."

"Do me a favor?" said Wilson, turning as he got to the door of her office. "Cover me, and try to draw enemy fire."

"Copy that," said Cuddy. "It's the least I can do." * * *

"What's in there?"

"It's a present."

"What's the occasion?"

"Mutual Baldness Day."

"The fact that you shaved your head so we could be twins is cute but hardly worthy of celebration."

Wilson could see that House was bored, and not a little depressed. This was always a dangerous state of mind for him, so Wilson didn't drag it out any longer than necessary.

"I got you a wig," he said. "Raided the Oncology Department supply."

"Aw," said House. "That's even better than urine. Hope you didn't steal it off a dead patient. Well, come on. Let's see."

"You have a choice," said Wilson. "Slutty blonde?" He pulled out a long blonde wig with bangs, and modeled it for House, then produced a bobbed grey wig with sedate pin curls. "Or middle-aged librarian?"

House tilted his head pensively. "No slutty middle-aged librarian? Okay, gimme sexy blonde." He tried it on, flicking the long hair over first one shoulder and then the other. "Now what?"

Wilson settled the grey wig on his own head and tucked a stray hair behind his ear. "Now that we have our disguises," he said, surreptitiously checking out his reflection in the bathroom mirror, "we bust outta here." * * *

Wilson searched through the bedside table for any last items. He had a plastic garbage bag full of IV fluids, tape and gauze for changing the dressing on House's knee, a large bag full of IV anti-biotics, Vicodin, and a slew of other meds and equipment House would need to keep his recovery on course.

He had finished helping House get dressed in a set of clothes brought from home--thank God he'd remembered a belt, because the jeans would have slid off him otherwise--and helped him into the waiting wheelchair. House had objected as a matter of form to Wilson getting him dressed, but he'd soon found that he didn't actually have the strength to put his own socks and shoes on, so he quieted right down. He'd made no pretense of being able to get into the wheelchair under his own steam, but had allowed Wilson to help him pivot from bed to chair in one smooth motion. He'd let Wilson wrap him in a hospital blanket and settle the blonde wig on his head.

The truth of the matter was that Cuddy had paved the way for this acquiescence fairly neatly, playing bad cop to Wilson's good cop; she had insisted, adamantly, that House should not go home but to a rehab center. And it was only by signing a promise in blood that House would do as Wilson told him, that she appeared to finally relent.

Wilson had found a pair of battered old crutches that made House happy, House having spurned the notion of using a walker at any point, and House's cane still being MIA. And now House grabbed one of these crutches off his lap and poked Wilson. "Giddy up, Wilson. Get your disguise and let's blow this joint. We need to get home and tell Steve McQueen all about our Great Escape."

Wilson said nothing, just continued searching the room, opening the closet door, checking out the bathroom. House watched silently for a bit. "What's eating you, Mopey?" he asked after a few minutes. "Don't tell me you let Steve die while I was gone?"

Wilson stopped his pointless opening and closing of doors. "We need to talk," he said at last, not looking at House.

"Ruh-roh," said House. "Those four words only ever mean two things. You're not pregnant, so...are you breaking up with me?"

"I need to ask you --"

"Let me just say, for the record, that I wasn't in my right mind when I did or said whatever it was. I have the medical records to prove--."

"House, please! For once in your life? Just shut up. Shut up. I'm trying to ask you to...forgive me." It came out in a rush, not at all the way Wilson had anticipated it. But there. It was done. House looked down at his chest, silent. Finally he spoke.

"What for?"

Wilson sat on the bedside chair so he could be at eye level with House. "There was a point, just after you came back, when I walked out. Washed my hands of you. I assumed you had gone off the rails, been on a week-long binge of some sort. I jumped to the worst possible conclusion."

House made that upside-down smile that he did when he was digesting something uncomfortable, then nodded, once. Wilson, unable to bear his silence or to maintain eye contact, pushed himself out of the chair and paced over to the window.

"Could you please say something?" he asked at last.

"What's to forgive?" asked House. "I would have come to the same conclusion. Anybody would have."

"No. Cuddy didn't. Chase didn't. And they're your colleagues, not your friends. Alleged friend," he amended bitterly.

"Hang on there! Cuddy's not just a friend. She's a friend--" he waggled his eyebrows--"with benefits, if you know what I mean. I--"

"Stop it!

House sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, there was an undeniable warning couched there. "Look, I'd like to indulge your Jewish need to feel guilty about something," he said evenly, "but I can't help you here. What you did was logical. I gave you plenty of good reasons, in the past, to think what you did. If you really need some self-flagellation, I recommend Cuddy. I happen to know she's got some whips that are--"

"Stop sounding like Mr. Spock! Friendship isn't about logic. Damnit, House. Is it so much to ask for a little righteous anger? You can't forgive someone if they haven't offended you. So could you please just...get angry?"

But House refused to answer. Instead he turned away and picked up a cup of water from the bedside table. He took a long, noisy sip from the straw.

"House?" Wilson pressed. "You'll never know until you try it." Wilson was surprised to feel how hard his heart was pounding as he looked at House. House had never allowed himself to get angry at the people he cared about: not at his fellows; not at his father; not with Stacy, not even the first time around.

House sighed and rolled his head back until he was gazing at the ceiling. His next words came out sounding like a schoolchild being forced to concede an argument. "All right. You were an ass. Are you happy? But I want the record to show that I would have been just as big an ass if the tables were turned. Bigger maybe, since being an ass is kind of my specialty."

It wasn't much. No cane slamming. No swearing. Wilson sat on the bed and decided that he was going to have to be happy with what he got. "So noted. But I'd feel better if you at least sued me for copyright infringement."

But House didn't smile. Instead he gazed out the window of the room for a long long time. When he turned to Wilson again it was with a deadly serious look, and Wilson felt his heart sink. "Oaky, I did the anger," he said. "Now, about the forgiveness part."

"Yes."

"It doesn't come easily. That would cheapen it. I will forgive you. But, there will be conditions."

"Such as?"

"I'm thinking. Meanwhile, get that wig on. The eyebrows are bad enough but I can't bear looking at your naked skull a minute longer. And get me out of here."

Wilson did as he was told, and as soon as the coast was clear, he pushed the wheelchair into the corridor and made a dash for the elevators. House was determined to make his exit without encountering any hospital staff who might recognize or make a fuss over him, and the disguise worked astonishingly well. Nobody getting off the elevator gave them a second look, and Wilson backed the chair in and pushed the button before anyone else could get on.

"Number one," said House, breaking his silence as soon as the doors closed. "That tie I gave you for Christmas?"

"The hideous one with pink nymphs performing--"

"Yes. I want you to wear it to the next board meeting. Number two: There will be beer. Number three: And chicken. Number four..." The doors closed.

And when they opened again in the lobby, he was still going. "...Number seventeen: That thong of Cuddy's? The red one in my bureau? Well, I want you to..."

Wilson sighed. It was going to be a long convalescence.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Epilogue

They were almost there, almost home free, when Cuddy spotted them.

Somehow she saw through their disguises and nailed them at the lobby door. House was up to Number 29 on his list, but he interrupted himself to give her a smile and to flick the bangs out of his eyes. "Ah, Dr. Cuddy. I imagine you, too, have come to beg forgiveness for something. But it won't come easily. That would cheapen it. There will be conditions. Number one--"

"My eyebrow pencil," snapped Cuddy, not listening to House as he continued his recitation. "I need it back." She held out her hand.

Wilson dug the item in question out of his pocket and waggled his eyebrows at her. He had drawn two pencil-thin lines above each brow and it was all Cuddy could do to keep a straight face, looking at him. "You really got into this disguise, didn't you?"

"No point doing something half-way," said Wilson, deadpan. "And now, we must be off." He started the chair forward, and House looked back over his shoulder.

"...Number five," he continued, but Cuddy broke in again.

"I don't want to see either of you back in this hospital until you've grown some hair. Lots of it." Cuddy then performed the Cuddy Pirouette, pivoting away pertly while her gaze lingered, and headed back to her office. Wilson looked thoughtfully down at the top of House's blonde head.

"That could take a long time," he said. "Six weeks at least."

"So...what do you say," answered House. "Road trip?"

Wilson nodded and pushed the automatic door opener button. "I hear Boston's nice this time of year."

---------FIN--------------

[A/N Three "alternative" endings to Sleeping Man have been written by "guest authors" and are posted at my LJ, starting here:

http://maineac.livejournal.com/21796.html#cutid1

The following is a brief sequel to Sleeping Man:

Sleeping Man Part III: Settling the Score

Characters: House and Wilson Rating: Gen Timeline: The fall, around the time of Cane and Able Summary: A brief epilogue, as promised, for Sleeping Man I: Outside and Sleeping Man II: Inside. This won't make sense unless you've read the earlier parts first. 1. Since coming back from the dead, House had become something of a minor national celebrity, and when he alerted Police Department headquarters in Cambridge that he was arriving the next day, ostensibly for the simple purpose of retrieving the remains of his motorcycle, the Chief of Police himself insisted on meeting him. "Dr. House?" he asked, shaking House's hand and then raking him with an unabashedly curious gaze. "The same," said House. Everyone in the vicinity had dropped what they were doing to watch. "And I'm Dr. Wilson," said Wilson, leaning forward to shake hands since House, having flunked Manners 101 some time ago, would never think to introduce him. "Gotta admit, you still don't look much like the photograph." This was something of an understatement. The photograph the Chief was referring to was at least ten years old--and it predated House's scruffy period. It was the only one the hospital had found to give the press when House disappeared. And after he reappeared, the press had never managed to get a new photo of him, despite their frantic efforts, thanks to Cuddy and Wilson. During the initial barrage of press coverage, Cuddy had ferociously kept reporters away from House, who was far too sick to talk the first few days. When he was well enough to be discharged--House and Wilson brazenly leaving the hospital by the front door, right through the scrum of reporters--no one had recognized either of them, because they were, well, unrecognizable: not quite in drag, but well hidden under wigs Wilson had snatched from the Oncology Department. Safely home and finally well enough to talk on the phone, House had firmly declined all requests for phone interviews, had never ventured outside the door, and gradually the swarms of reporters outside 221 Baker Street had melted away, their disappointment at missing "the get" --the biggest media get in months-- almost palpable. As a result, the story of what had happened to him in the days he'd gone missing had never come out. What disturbed Wilson, though, was that House had never talked to anyone about what had gone on in those ten days. He had dodged all of Wilson's questions, just giving the sketchiest outline, claiming he could no longer remember. After a while, Wilson stopped pressing him; he figured like all things House, the information would come out when House was ready to give it, and not a moment sooner. Still, he had not stopped tormenting himself by wondering about it, wondering how House had gotten himself into such an abject, filthy, nine-tenths-dead state. "The camera always adds ten pounds, I'm told," said House, looking casually around the station house. For reasons he wouldn't share with Wilson, he'd decided to shave for this trip and don a suit and tie. In that way, he resembled the old photo the Chief was referring to--but nothing else did. It had been nearly four weeks since House had been discharged from the hospital in Wilson's care. In that time he'd managed to put back on a little weight and conquer the acute phase of the pneumonia that had nearly done him in. It would, however--in Wilson's judgment anyway--be a very long time before he was back to the shape he'd been in before getting sick. His kidneys were healing nicely, no thanks to anything House had done. He had continued vehemently protesting the strict high-carb, low protein diet Wilson had put him on, but his protests fell on deaf ears. Twice Wilson had intercepted delivery boys at the door with take-out food on the No Fly List. Thereafter Wilson had taken the precaution of removing all cash from his wallet and hiding his credit cards. House, of course, had neither cash nor credit cards, having lost his wallet during his previous escapade; thus, the third time the Thai Palace delivery boy showed up with $80 worth of food, House discovered he had no way to pay for it, and Wilson refused to rescue him. There was a tense moment while the oncologist thought the boy might throw the food in House's face. Instead he left, promising to blacklist him at every takeout place in the Tri-state area for the rest of his entire life and part of the next one. The hunger strike following that episode went on for three hideously long days. As a result, House still looked gaunt. He leaned heavily on the anonymous wooden cane Wilson had found for him. Worse, his hair had only just begun to grow in following the Wilson shaving incident. In fact the two of them still resembled post-chemo cancer patients. Their hair was an identical one inch long, the difference being that House's stood up in straight haphazard bristles like the hair of a frightened animal, while Wilson's grew flat on his skull, revealing a series of what House had dubbed "adorable" cowlicks that Wilson had been hiding since the age of fifteen when he'd first figured out how to use a blow dryer. Even worse, Wilson was acutely aware that his eyebrows were taking their own damn time growing back, and if you've never seen what an eyebrow crew cut looks like, take his word for it: you don't want to know. "You've come to get your bike out of hock, I'm told," said the Chief, whose name was Potter. "Yes," House admitted. "Or what's left of it." "I'll drive you myself," said Chief Potter, and with one last glance around the station house, House followed him out the door to the waiting squad car. ************* Officer Robinson watched the door shut behind House and collapsed back into his desk chair with a sigh of relief so loud it earned him stares from fellow officers. Ever since the news of House's miraculous reappearance had made national headlines, he had lived with the sword of Damocles hanging over him, wondering when the blade would fall and sever him from his job, wondering when the press would get a hold of the details and make him into a national scapegoat for everything that was wrong with police departments everywhere these days. He'd decided once again that he better start dusting off his resume. But who would hire a police officer who'd been nationally disgraced? Thank god he was close to getting his paramedic license. Maybe they were desperate enough for paramedics somewhere that they'd hire him. Somewhere like Alaska. Where no one reads newspapers. For the next hour, these thoughts, in rotation with the same old rationalizations he'd been making to himself this last month ("It's not my fault. Anyone would have reached the same conclusion. How could I know he was a doctor and not a loony?") ran through his head ceaselessly. Following House's reappearance, as the days had turned into weeks, and the details of House's treatment by the Cambridge Police Department--by one Officer Robinson to be exact-- had never surfaced, he had gradually relaxed, very gradually, one nerve fiber at a time. House, he concluded just days ago, must have no memory of that time, must have forgotten his--Robinson's--reprehensible mishandling of his case. Thank the lord. Then the door to the precinct house had opened, a tall, vaguely familiar looking man in a tan suit and red tie had walked in, leaning on a cane and talking to another man, and announced himself to the woman at the front desk: "I'm Dr. House, and I'm here to see Chief Potter." Robinson had nearly shat himself. But the gaze that House swept around the room had lingered only briefly on him, very briefly, before Robinson found something fascinating in his bottom desk drawer that required close scrutiny. And when he had dared to glance up again, House was leaving the building without a word. He had dodged that bullet. House was just here to get his bike. He had not remembered or recognized Robinson. If he had, Robinson told himself, he would have told every newspaper everywhere by now. He would have alerted Chief Potter, too. Robinson would long ago have been toast. No, he and his job were safe. He could breathe again. ******** Sitting in the back of the Chief's car, Wilson was getting an earful, and what he heard was dumbfounding. For the first time, in plain, measured tones, House was relating the details of exactly what had happened to him four weeks ago, or at least those details relevant to Chief Potter: from his first arrest, to being forced out of the park at dusk, to his efforts to report himself and his motorcycle as missing. He was for the most part precise and careful, like a witness on the witness stand. But he mentioned no names, nothing that would give away anyone's identity. Potter listened in complete silence. Just as House finished his narrative, Wilson's phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID and passed the phone forward. "It's for you," he told House. "USA Today." House held the cell phone without answering it. He gave Potter a long look. "I wonder," he said, glancing down at the phone, "what the Cambridge Police Department might be prepared to do to improve its treatment of the homeless population?" Potter looked at the still ringing cell phone and then back to House. "Yes," he said slowly. "The homeless. It's something I care very much about." "Good," said House. He passed the phone back to Wilson without a glance. "Tell USA Today I'm not available." ***** The motorcycle was a poor, twisted, mud-covered wreck. By some miracle, House's cane was still attached to the side. Wilson popped it off and handed it to House, who promptly ditched the other cane in a trash can. House began asking the Chief about arrangements to have the bike towed to New Jersey. When Potter realized that House was going to try to salvage the bike instead of selling it to a local junkyard, he stopped him. "My brother-in-law's a miracle worker with motorcycles," he said. "I'm sure he'd like to work on this one for you." Then he added hastily, "As a favor to me, of course." House smiled for the first time that day. *********** Despite everything, despite all his rationalizations, Robinson was still panicky when the Chief and Dr. House returned that afternoon. He saw them confer briefly at the door. Potter shot a startled look right at Robinson, and nodded slowly. House made his departure, without a backward glance. Robinson's heart was in his throat as Potter made his way over to his desk. He felt the blood drain from his face. "Officer Robinson," began Potter in a not unfriendly voice. "I thought you'd like to be the first to know that the Department will be developing a new policy regarding the homeless." "Oh?" "Yes. And before he left Dr. House mentioned that you looked like the kind of man who might like to chair the committee in charge of creating that new policy. It shouldn't take more than, let's say, five hours a week for the next few months." "He did? I mean, yes. Yes, of course." "And he also suggested that you might like to set an example for the rest of the force, seeing as you'll be chairing this committee, by volunteering four hours a week at the soup kitchen." "Absolutely." "You won't be paid for it, of course." "No, of course not. That would be...wrong." "Great! That's settled then." Potter clapped him on the back and turned to leave. "Chief Potter, sir?" The Chief paused and gave him a raised eyebrow. "How did Dr. House know that I, that I'd be happy to--or rather that I was the right man for all this?" "You know, he couldn't really say how he knew. Let's call it a hunch. A lucky hunch." "Lucky," repeated Robinson as he sank to his chair. "Very lucky." ******** The doctor at the free clinic didn't get off quite as easily. By the time House was through with his boss--which took a while as Good Morning America, The New York Times, and the Boston Globe kept interrupting with phone calls; someone seemed to have informed the press that House was suddenly eager to do interviews--there was general agreement that the clinic needed to open a satellite office actually inside the homeless shelter, Halfway Home, and that this office should be funded by the hospital attached to the free clinic. "It'll be expensive to run," said House, rising to his feet, and finally turning off his cell phone with a show of annoyance as yet another press call came through. "No expense is too great," began the hospital's Dean of Medicine, and he began listing the ways in which he hoped to make improved medical treatment for the uninsured an important part of his tenure. Wilson, who had listened tight-lipped as House detailed for the Dean his treatment at the clinic, was unable to focus on his words. The humiliation of House's experience was such that Wilson found himself, now, long moments later, still flushing in anger. He was astonished that House could relate it all so dispassionately. Clearly he'd been thinking about it for weeks, though. Once again he'd been careful to name no names, though the Dean pressed him to do so. A scapegoat for the Dean, for the hospital, would be far too easy a thing for everyone, and besides, House had never believed in ratting out another doctor. There were better ways. So it was that as House stood to leave, he seemed to be struck by an afterthought. "You have a Dr. Bates here, don't you? Young black guy? A second year resident? You know, it has just come to me that Dr. Bates might be the perfect person to volunteer at the Halfway Home clinic. What do you say to five nights a week? After he gets off work at your clinic here?" The Dean bit his lip. "Dr. Bates? Why, yes. Of course. The perfect person. I'll speak to him right away. Anything else I can do for you?" "Yes," said House. "I need a pair of crutches." **** House actually got to Dr. Bates before the Dean did. Wilson didn't witness this meeting. All he saw was House leaving the doctors' lounge a good half hour later, tucking a business card into his breast pocket, with a look of deep satisfaction on his face. "C'mon," he said to Wilson. "One more place before we go home." **** House stopped at Halfway Home, greatly startling the woman at the front desk. "Why, it's you--Mr. Daniels!" she exclaimed. "I mean, Dr. House. I knew it was you! I knew it!" House stopped her ejaculations of surprise and happiness by thrusting the crutches at her. "Thanks for the loan. I hope you can find someone else who might need them." Then he asked her something about some shelter residents named, as far as Wilson could tell, Fergus and Estelle. The receptionist checked her ledger and shook her head. House looked disappointed but pulled out a business card. "If they ever show up, please give them this," he said. "Tell them it's from Jack." ****** "Now where are we going?" asked Wilson. "I thought you said just one last stop." House had ditched the car and was walking toward the Charles River with no apparent destination in mind. "It's getting late. And cold. We'll miss our train." He didn't add that House looked completely worn out, that walking even that short distance was clearly taxing him. House paused to look at his watch while he caught his breath. "They'll be along any minute now," he said cryptically. "If they're still here." He began walking again, heading now toward a bridge abutment along the riverside. To Wilson's amazement he ducked under the bridge and re-emerged holding a long strip of corrugated cardboard hidden there, as if he'd known all along it was there. He hauled it over to some grass by the river's edge. "I've gotta lie down," he said, lowering himself carefully to a reclining position and gazing up at the sky. "Care to join me? There's another piece of cardboard in there you can have. I'm sure they won't mind." "Who--" stuttered Wilson. "What--" And then he just gave up and joined House beside the river. Sure enough, ten minutes later, he heard voices. "What the heck?" someone exclaimed. "Someone stole our mattresses." "You can't trust nobody these days," grumbled a second voice, a woman's. "Just when you--hey, there they are! You! Whaddya mean stealing our stuff?" Wilson turned his head in time to see a man and a woman, the man pushing a shopping cart and the woman hauling a trash bag, pointing at them and heading in their direction. They were worked up and decidedly unsavory looking. Wilson jabbed House in the side. "House!" he hissed frantically. "House, get up!" House ignored him, continuing to examine the heavens. But Wilson stumbled to his feet and turned to face his accusers, his hands out in a placating gesture. "No harm meant," he said with what he hoped was a friendly smile. "Just borrowing. Here, you can have it back." He grasped the cardboard gingerly between thumb and forefinger, holding it out like a piece of meat to an angry dog. These people were large, and the word scruffy hardly did them justice. They just glared at him and he felt intensely aware that he was dressed in his best blazer and grey flannels, not to mention his shiny Italian leather loafers. The man, a bearded behemoth, snatched the cardboard from him and Wilson took an involuntary step backward. "Get your own cardboard," muttered the man, his glare diminishing not one whit. "And as for your friend here--" "As for his friend," said House, and he rolled onto his stomach and found his feet in a move that was admirably nimble for a man with a bad leg. Then he grabbed his cardboard pad and held it in front of him, facing the newcomers for the first time. "As for his friend, this IS his cardboard, Fergus, you old fraud. So hands off." If there had been a contest as to whose jaw dropped farther or faster, the judges would have been hard pressed to choose between Wilson and Fergus; for her part, Estelle would have come in a very close third. There was the briefest of pauses and as the dumbstruck Wilson watched, Fergus bellowed, "Jack!" and enveloped House in a bear hug--a bear hug that he actually tolerated. Estelle quickly elbowed Fergus aside and bestowed her own hug. The two of them stood grinning at House in evident disbelief and then everyone started talking at once. "Lookit you!" said Estelle. "Lookit you all dressed up in a fancy suit." "You made it to Princeton," said Fergus, shaking his head. "Thanks to you." "We was worried about you, Jack. Thought for sure you'd croak somewheres along the way." "Came close but turns out I'm hard to kill. And it's Greg, actually. Greg House." "You remembered your name!" exclaimed Estelle. "You remembered who you are! What happened? Somebody clocked you on the head and you woke up and it all come back to you?" House shot a sideways look at Wilson. "Um, well, something like that, yes." The sideways glance was not lost on Estelle. "Who's this then, Jack?" she asked slyly. "This is Dr. Wilson." Wilson extended a hand, feeling like he was in some sort of alternate universe. House completed the introductions as Wilson's hand was swallowed in Fergus's giant one: "Estelle and Fergus." "Very pleased to meet you." House was ignoring Wilson's pointed What the hell is this? stare. "Doctor Wilson, eh?" Estelle persisted, giving Wilson an uncomfortable once-over. "Did you nurse him back to health, then?" She jabbed Fergus in the ribs. "Just like in All My Sons and Lovers," she hissed to her partner in a loud stage whisper. "I suppose you could say that, yes," mumbled Wilson. Estelle got close enough to him that he was grateful to be upwind of her and she stage-whispered in his ear: "Don't worry. He won't remember that you cheated on him." With a mysterious wink, she withdrew. "You want to tell me what's going on?" Wilson finally blurted out. House seemed to take him in for the first time, perplexed glare and all. "Estelle and Fergus here saved my sorry butt. Took me in. Let me camp out here with them"--a gesture that took in the muddy underpass, the scraggly bushes, the sodden cardboard. But House seemed oblivious to the horror of what he was revealing. "Fed me. Clothed me. Kept me alive while I was detoxing." Detoxing? Here? Sweet Jesus Christ, that explained a lot. "So you are a drug addict?" Fergus had put a hand on House's arm. "You sure don't look like one. Not now anyway." "Well, yes and no. Turns out I have a pretty steady Vicodin habit. For the leg." Wilson was forgotten again. House was back somewhere else. He had picked his back pack up off the ground and was rummaging through it. "Here's your hat," he said, extending a battered Red Sox hat to Fergus. "I'm afraid it's been boiled. Does it still fit? Great. And, look, I'm sorry about the parka. They had to...well, let's just say it got destroyed." "No problem, Jack. Really, you--" "And here's that bottle of brandy I owe you, you know, for the bus ticket home." House pulled out a bottle of something truly disgusting, coffee brandy it looked like. And this time Fergus gave him a huge smile and took the bottle gladly. "Okay, so we're even. Enough, Jack. Really," he said. But House wouldn't stop. He asked them why they were still in Boston when the weather was far too cold for living outside. When he found out they'd been prevented from travelling south because Estelle had had a "bad spell," he made them both sit on the cardboard mats, pulled out a stethoscope and listened to their lungs and heart. This was made difficult by their continued exclamations over the fact that House had turned out to be an actual doctor--"I called it! Didn't I say so, Estelle!" "No, Fergus it was me who..." After House got Estelle to describe the symptoms of her "spell" he extracted a glucometer from his bag and tested both their blood sugars. At last he sat back, satisfied. "All right," he said. "Here's what's going to happen." He took an envelope from a breast pocket. "And argument is futile, so shut up and listen." Estelle frowned at Wilson. "Is he always this bossy?" she asked. "I'm afraid so," said Wilson. "You better do what he says." "Here are two bus tickets to Florida. No, don't argue. It's payback for my ticket to Princeton. But you're not going anywhere until you get treated at the clinic. You both have diabetes mellitus and you need to get started on insulin and a proper diet. Also, Fergus, you need to have the lesion on your neck checked out. Looks like squamous cell cancer to me." "Right, Jack." Fergus nodded once or twice, but his attention seemed more focused on the brandy bottle than on what House was saying. "Estelle?" "Will do, Jack. Swear to God." House looked from one to the other and then sighed."You're bullshitting me, aren't you? You have no intention of going to the clinic." "Jack, dear, you know the problem with the clinic. The tests are free but the treatment ain't. Who can afford the treatment?" "Turns out, you can." House pulled a business card out of the envelope and passed it to Estelle. "Dr. Bates," she read with a frown. "So?" "That card's got my signature on the back, so don't lose it. You show it to Dr. Bates, and he'll see to it personally that you get whatever treatment you need. At no cost--well, except to him. And here's my card. If you run into any problems, you call me." Estelle shook her head slowly. "Amazing. It's kinda like a Burger King Gold Card for medical care." "Exactly. And speaking of Burger King..." He passed them another card from the envelope. "Get out!" said Estelle, jumping to her feet. "A real Burger King Gold Card!! How'd you get one of these?" "Friends in high places. So no more eating garbage, okay? Last order of business." He passed another business card to Fergus. "That's the Chief of Police's card, with his signature on the back. You run into any trouble with the police, show them that card." "Ho boy! A Get Out of Jail Free card." "Mmmm, more like a Stay Out of My Hair card. Careful how you use it." House climbed slowly to his feet. "Well, I guess that's everything." He shook Fergus's hand and submitted to another hug from Estelle. "Look me up if you're ever in Princeton. We'll go dumpster diving, for old time's sake." ***** Estelle watched the two doctors walk off, House limping slowly on the frozen and rutted ground, Wilson a half step away to make sure he didn't fall. "Pity," she mused aloud. "What are you talking about?" asked Fergus, who was turning the Burger King card over and over as if it were a winning lottery ticket. "Do you think he had all the gay knocked out of him when he woke up? It would be a shame. That Dr. Wilson's a cutie pie." "Except for those eyebrows." "Yeah, they're a little weird. But whaddya think? Gay or straight?" "I think you watch way too much television, Estelle Johnson. C'mon now. Let's go get us a whole shopping cart full of Whoppers." ************ 2.Conclusion

Wilson made his way from the men's room at South Station to the caf table where House was waiting. They had a good half hour till their train left.

"You're looking pretty happy," said Wilson.

"Payback always feels good."

"Yes," admitted Wilson. "So you've evened all your scores? Gotten your revenge and paid back all your debts?"

"Yup."

There was an uncomfortable pause while Wilson gave him a long look. "Except for one," Wilson finally reminded him. When House only raised his eyebrows quizzically, he continued: "The biggest one."

House had a hard time covering his surprise. It was completely unlike Wilson to ask for something so baldly. To ask at all, really. But he managed to school his features into a pantomime of innocence. "And who might that be?"

"Have you really forgotten the man who actually saved your miserable life?" Wilson tried to hide his obvious disappointment by snapping open the Boston Globe he had just bought from a news stand.

"You mean--"

"Yes, House. Tell me, is it physically impossible for you to say the words `thank you' to another human being? Just because you loathe someone doesn't get you off the hook, you know."

House wondered if he had misheard Wilson. Did he say loathe? Or love? "I'm confused," he said as Wilson scanned the headlines. "Are we talking about--"

"Yes. Dr. Jacoby. The man who actually kept your kidneys from ending up in a dumpster. You might hate the man, but that doesn't exempt you from--" Wilson stopped, perplexed, as House was actually laughing out loud.

"Jacoby? Oh, I paid him back weeks ago. Didn't I tell you?"

"No." Wilson looked a little frosty.

"Well, that's because you were being such a pill at the time."

"Then why don't you tell me now? We've got lots of time before the train comes." Wilson leaned back in his seat and folded his arms expectantly.

"It was the time you insisted on re-admitting me to the hospital, just because you--"

"Just because you had gone on a three-day hunger strike and lost so much weight you needed to be force fed. Continue."

****** Dr. Chase knocked hesitantly on the glass door of House's room. House nodded at him and he slid the door the rest of the way open. He took a seat next to House's bed and folded his hands over a red file he was carrying.

"How you doing?" he asked House, taking in the newly inserted NG tube. "Wilson tells me you took a turn for the worse."

"No, he took a turn for the worse. Got all in my face about what I could and couldn't eat. Cut off my home delivery privileges."

"Well, you do look pretty crappy. May I?" he reached for House's chart but House snatched it away before he could get it.

"No. You're not my attending any more. And I'm fine. Or will be, as soon as I get out of here. Why are you here?"

"Can't I be here just because I take an interest? Care about you?"

"No."

Chase sighed. "All right, then. I'm here because I'm your fellow, and while you've been recuperating, Cuddy's assigned me to the surgical transplant team. We have a case that worries me a bit, and I wanted a second opinion."

House narrowed his eyes. "This isn't just, we all feel sorry for House so let's throw him a bone to make him feel better. Take his mind off his pathetic situation."

"I did think it might make the time pass a little quicker, yes," said Chase.

Oh, thought House. Testiness. Fun.

"But I'm really doing it because I think the patient's been misdiagnosed."

"Not my patient. Not my problem."

"Quite true. He's actually Dr. Jacoby's patient."

That got House's full attention. "Does Jacoby know you're doing this?"

"No. The man's a first rate arsehole and won't listen to a thing I say."

House grinned and took the file from Chase's hand. "That's my good boy," he said. The Aussie gave him a complicit smile, and House was tempted to pat him on the head. He leaned back against the pillows and started to read. Ten minutes later he lifted his head. "You may be right. We have to run a few more tests."

Chase shook his head. "There's no time. Jacoby's booked the OR and the transplant team for 3:30. The kidneys are already here."

"Then get Foreman and Cameron in here. We need to do a little creative breaking and entering." *************************

Three hours later Foreman and Cameron opened the door to the room. "Where's Chase?" asked House.

"Prepping the patient for surgery."

"We've only got half an hour, then," said House impatiently. "So, what did you find?"

"The man was good at covering his tracks," replied Foreman. "He had a paper shredder. And his laptop was password protected."

"All the more reason to think he had something to hide. I hope you didn't let a little thing like a paper shredder or a password stop you."

"If you're asking if we spent the afternoon trying to piece together the scraps from the shredder or entering seven million random passwords," said Foreman, "you're nuts."

"Grasshopper, you disappoint me," said House sadly.

"Bite me," said Foreman.

"Obviously there wasn't time for that," said Cameron smoothly, ever the peacemaker. "But we did find this." She tossed a new-lookingAmerican passport onto his lap. "Check out the firstpage."

House took one look and laughed out loud. "Get Jacoby in here right away."

"You want to tell us why?" asked Foreman. "What are you thinking?"

"No time. Just get him down here."

Cameron looked dubious. "What if he won't come? He's probably scrubbing in right now."

"Tell him, if he doesn't want me to come down to the OR in my wheelchair and humiliate him in front of his colleagues, he better get his ass over here right now. He's going to kill this patient."

Ten minutes later Chase showed up, followed by Jacoby, gowned, ready for surgery, and loaded for bear. "What the hell are you up to, House? Who told you to stick your nose in my business?"

"Well, a little Australian birdie told me that you were about to do a double kidney transplant on a patient with chronic renal failure who had also been running a low-grade fever and displaying rashes on his hands and feet."

"Yes, and if he doesn't get those kidneys in the next 30 minutes, the transplant committee'll give them to someone else, and he will have to wait another six months--which he won't survive!"

"Yes, he will, because you're going to give him a loading dose of erythromycin, which will kill the bacteria that have been destroying his kidneys. This man doesn't have chronic renal failure, he has a nasty little case of phyllodistomum conostomum, and if you put him on immunosuppressants--which he will be forced to take,after the transplant, for the rest of his short sad life--those little bacteria will run rampant andkill him in a matter of days."

"That's utter rubbish, House. Did you even read his history? Phyllodistomum's a tropical disease, and the patient's never left the Western Hemisphere."

House waved the passport in Jacoby's face. "Except for an illicit little trip to Bang his Cock in Thailand, which he never told the wifie about, since he was undoubtedly there for a little man-on-underage-girl action. Or maybe underage boy, let's not discriminate."

Jacoby grabbed the passport and stared at it mutely.

"All of which you could have figured out from the fever and the rash," added Chase, "which I told you were not signs of chronic renal failure."

My, thought House. Chase has really grown a pair.

Chase gave House a nod. "I guess it pays to have a double specialty in infectious disease as well as nephrology."

"No," said House. "It pays to be a genius and not a moron. So this will be our little secret, and...we're quits, then. Yes, Dr. Jacoby? ******************

Wilson couldn't help laughing, despite the fact that House had never confided this little victory to him. He hadn't seen triumphant/smug House in such a long time, and it was a look that really did suit him.

"So you really are quits. Paid everyone back, one way or another. Settled all debts."

House shrugged. "Just one more,"he muttered, the smug look fading just a bit.

Wilson's turn to be surprised."Who?"

House said nothing but gazed into the middle distance.

"Who, House?"Wilson persisted. When House didn't answer, Wilson turned to see what House was looking at. It was a waiter from one of the many eateries fringing the South Station waiting area. As Wilson watched, he approached their table and, following some invisible signal from House, deposited the large bowl he was carrying in front of Wilson, along with silverware and a glass of beer.

Wilson looked at House, a smile creasing his face. It was a Chicken Caesar salad.

"Awww," he said. "You remembered."

"Memory like a steel trap," replied House.

The waiter handed the leather folder with the bill and credit card receipt to House to sign.

"Now we're even," said House, reaching for the folder. "Right?" Wilson just grinned.

Then House slid the bill over to the other side of the table. Wilson plucked up the card and shook his head in disbelief. "My American Express card," he said, more to himself than to the waiter. There it was again: the smug/triumphant look. Damn the man, and the dimples he rode in on.

And while Wilson was signing the tab and figuring out the tip, House leaned forward and--grabbing Wilson's fork--snared a piece of chicken from the top of the salad.

-----------------the really truly FIN--------------------

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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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