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The Substance of Things
by Topaz Eyes
Notes: References "The Social Contract." Sources of recognizable quotes in the text are, in order, Anonymous, Nietzsche, the Serenity Prayer, and Hebrews 11.1 (from which the title is also derived). Many thanks to blackmare_9 for early encouragement way back when, and to my lovely f-listers who commented on an earlier draft!
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Standing soaked and chilled to the bone, Wilson knew he was going to get blazes for getting caught in the early-spring downpour without a jacket, but he knocked on House's front door anyway. He shivered as he heard the familiar thump-tap of a cane traverse across the wooden floor; he steeled himself as the door opened and House peered round it.
"Wilson? What the hell--?"
Wilson tried to nod at him. "Hey. Let me in?"
House frowned as he surveyed Wilson up and down. "I thought we had a conversation once about you pretending to be homeless. Several, in fact--"
"Shut up, House, I'm freezing," Wilson stuttered through chattering teeth. "If you won't let me in, at least call me a cab and make me a coffee while I wait?"
House hung his head, his mouth working as though in thought, then stepped back to let him in. "You know where the clean clothes are," he said as Wilson stumbled past and headed towards the hall closet.
Wilson was almost doubled over with shivering by the time he reached the bathroom. He stripped, toweled dry and dressed as quickly as he could. He would have preferred a blistering-hot shower, but he knew, chilled as he was, too-rapid warming often made hypothermia worse. He was already about to incur House's mockery for showing up tonight in this weather--he didn't need more hounding about inappropriate self-treatment. As ironic as that sounded.
Drier, at least, if not any warmer, he returned to House's living room to find House on the couch and a steaming mug waiting on the beaten table. Wilson sat down on the couch beside him and leaned over to pick it up; he held it closer to his nose to savor the aroma of Lipton's instant chicken broth wafting from the surface.
"It's a proven fact that soup warms you better than coffee," House said mildly.
Wilson cupped his hands around the blissfully heated ceramic and sipped the hot liquid. The flavor was thin at the top; he swirled the cup to mix the contents better. In the meanwhile he regarded House, surreptitiously of course. The man slouched into the cushions, both bare feet propped up on the table. His head was bowed slightly, the lines of his jowls revealing a slight double chin as he stared at the flickering TV. Wilson followed his gaze to the line drawings of gears churning their way across the screen.
"'How It's Made'?"
"The remix. Tonight's episode is the personal hygiene edition. Toilets, toilet paper, and disposable diapers. Followed by an hour-long special on the history and mechanics of sewage treatment."
"Riveting Friday night viewing. Are the pay-per-view channels broken?"
"Everyone knows the good stuff doesn't start 'til after midnight."
"So in the meantime--"
"We learn all about John Harington and his miraculous invention. Also called, amazingly enough, the john."
Despite his dry flannel pajama pants, thick socks, heavy McGill sweatshirt, and the soup flooding his stomach, Wilson still felt the chill deep in his bones. He tried not to shiver as he contemplated the steam curling upwards from the mug.
House, predictably, did not fail to notice. "You say I have self-destructive habits. I say your penchant for hypothermia needs to stop before you die from self-induced pneumonia."
"Yes, because where would you be then?"
"Priorities are important."
"Of course--"
House cut him off with a fierce glare. "Wilson. Your brother is warm, safe, off the streets and doped to the gills with the good, legal stuff. You can end your sympathetic martyr complex now." Wilson heard the faint concern, buried under layers of puzzlement, in House's voice. House continued, "Unless there's another reason, which you're not going to say, so unless you want to spill right now, I'm going to have to drag it out of you, slowly and painfully. Your choice."
Wilson waited a minute, letting House stew a bit, before he answered. "You're right," Wilson said equably, "I wasn't walking around for hours in shirtsleeves in the rain because I was thinking about Danny."
House raised an eyebrow. "O--kay."
"I was thinking about--" Wilson pursed his lips, trying to think; the cold had dulled his brain enough so, drawing a blank, he had to reach for what he wanted to say. His next words startled even him.
"Do you believe in karma?" he blurted.
He instantly regretted it, and tried desperately to quell the urge to hide behind his hands, but to his surprise, House's face twisted with genuine amusement. "As in, 'My karma ran over your dogma'?"
Wilson shook his head. "No--I meant, do you ever wonder what would have happened if something had never happened in your life at all?"
House looked away and rubbed his mangled thigh, all merriment gone. "No," he replied flatly.
"In the waiting room at Mercy, while I was trying to gather my courage--courage, just to see my own brother--you said I based my entire life around that one missed phone call. And you were right. Everything that's happened, that I've let happen since then: my marriages, my career, you..."
House rolled his eyes. "I'm flattered to know that I just 'happened' in your life. I sought you out in New Orleans, remember? Not the other way round--"
Wilson ignored him and continued earnestly, "That decision to hang up on Danny was a turning point in my life. As much as I might want to, I can't go back and change it."
"Not unless you had a TARDIS and the Doctor at your disposal. Oh, wait a minute, they're not real. Like your expectations."
"Oh, snap," Wilson replied dryly, then looked away and pursed his lips. When he turned back a few seconds later, House was watching him with a studied look of amusement. "Tonight, after I got home from work, I started thinking, what if I had stayed on the phone when Danny called that night? Where would I be now, what would I be doing--?"
"Would we be sitting on my couch watching a crap show about making toilet paper and having a crap discussion about randomness, fate and Monty Python's Meaning of Life?" House's mouth twitched.
"Would I be happier than I am at this moment?"
He felt, rather than saw, House tense in his seat. "What do you think?"
"Well, it's obvious that you don't believe in fate," Wilson said, "so I know your answer is an uncategorical no."
"Well, duh. Because sometimes we can't choose what happens to us." House stared down and frowned at his mangled leg. "But that lack of choice doesn't mean it's fate. Though you're telling me you think otherwise."
"Sometimes we can't choose what happens, but we can choose how we see it. We can choose how to deal with it."
"'What doesn't kill us, makes us stronger?'"
"More like, 'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can--'"
"'And the wisdom to hide the bodies of those I killed because they pissed me off.'" House leaned forward and snatched the remote from the coffee table. "Got any other trite Hallmark sentiments you want to throw at me?"
Wilson jabbed a finger at him. "You see, that's the difference between us, House. You're not willing to look past the rational. For you, nothing exists beyond logic, beyond cause and effect. You're afraid to accept that for some things, there may be no explanation except faith."
"'The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' Becoming a blind adherent now, Jimmy? Decide to renounce your Old Testament ways and become a Catholic? I'd love to be a fly on the wall during your confession."
Wilson wagged his finger. "You are afraid to take a leap of faith."
"Do I look like I can jump?" House clutched his leg and turned back to the TV.
"What I meant was--"
House addressed the screen. "Humans are hard-wired to seek patterns in random events even when we know they don't exist. Millions of years ago it made evolutionary sense when we knew squat about why bad stuff happened to us. Today we call that impulse to glean meaning from irrational pattern-seeking 'religion'."
"Why can't God, random and fate mean the same thing?"
Wilson watched House's mouth twitch upwards in a half-smirk. "You're disappointing me, you know that? After all this time spent hanging with me I thought you knew better."
"Perhaps it was fate for me to head out tonight without a coat."
"Yes, your fate was to get soaked in a sudden cloudburst and end up on my sorry doorstep. Newsflash, Wilson: that wasn't fate. That was you being stupid and predictable for going out when you knew the forecast called for rain." House turned his head to look at him. "What exactly is your point, assuming you even have one?"
Wilson sighed, shook his head, gazed straight and steady into House's eyes. "House. I know it sounds weird to say this, but--despite everything that could have happened, has happened, is going to happen--despite fate--I'm glad I hung up that phone."
House blinked, appearing caught off-guard, then peered at him. Wilson held his gaze. After a long moment, House tore away and said, "You walked over an hour from your apartment to here, got caught and nearly froze to death in a downpour, just to tell me that? Geez, can you get any soppier--?"
He rose from the couch, ignoring Wilson's pointed glare. "Wait, don't answer that," he added as he thump-tapped into his bedroom.
Wilson tensed as another blanket of shivering settled over his shoulders; he drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. Of course House would respond by getting up and running away. Stupid predictability was a two-way street. At least it was a comfort to know that, albeit a cold one, he thought wryly as the chills descended towards his toes.
"Put this on."
Wilson looked up to see House in front of him, holding out a ball of dark blue fleece. Wilson blinked, not quite comprehending.
"What, did your brain drown out there too?" House dropped the ball onto his knees. "Though that would explain a lot," he added as he turned to head back towards the bathroom.
Wilson heard the hiss of water from the tap, the thud of cupboard doors opening and closing beyond. He unwrapped his arms and opened out the rolled-up fabric. When he saw what it was, he unfolded himself to don the bathrobe. He then curled up again as before and buried his head beneath the lapels. Lingering scents of Zest soap, citrus shampoo and a darker, earthy undertone mixed with the sharper smell of his own exhaled breath as he finally began to thaw.
House was sitting on the opposite end of the couch and peering at him, a thoughtful expression on his face, when Wilson withdrew his head a few minutes later. After the darkness inside the robe, Wilson blinked at the change of light.
"You can call your own cab if you're not going to stay," House said gruffly. He picked up the remote sitting in his lap and turned toward the TV, flicking through the channels as if nothing had happened.
Once his eyes re-adjusted, Wilson grabbed the now-cool soup mug and settled back into the couch. House might deny having faith, but he did believe in substance; maybe that was what mattered, he thought as he rolled the dark blue fleece between his fingers. The substance of things--maybe that was enough.
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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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