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Mnemonics
by Lena Judith
In the weeks after the infarction, and more importantly, the surgery, House had barely let Stacy touch him. He didn't need to move away, to tell her that she had forcibly made him live, forced pain and shame and life on him, took away his sense of control. God, yes, he had still loved her, but he would hold his face cold, impassive, as she gave a little smile, and kissed him, pretending to be cheerful.
She would never look at what she had done. She would fix the collar on his shirt, tease him about his sloppy clothing, sometimes try to take his hand, but she could never look at his leg, his cane. She would never touch the hand that rested on the hard, glossy wood. The last time they had sex, when the resolve had broken, after they'd screamed at each other and his icy walls had broken for an instant... even then, she wouldn't touch his leg, wouldn't wrap her own around his like she used to; she avoided it completely.
It wasn't because of the pain; he was too drugged up in those early weeks to tell, and she didn't have an aversion to causing him pain, anyway. It wasn't because of revulsion, or at least not at him. She loved him, always and forever, no matter what, all of that, and a crippled leg was hardly a cause for disgust. Maybe it was revulsion at herself, more than anything, at the love for him that made her hurt him, and made him lock her out.
She left a day later. In some ways, he couldn't blame her for being emotionally healthy and capable of moving on, capable of being anything but masochistic.
The thought of masochism itself brought to mind two things: Annette the dominatrix, and Cameron, though, depressingly, those were separate from each other.
The ingenue, somewhere around half his age, capable as a doctor, maybe because she didn't only tolerant pain and loss, she welcomed it. She cared a pitifully large amount for any lone soul in misery. She could be stubborn like no one else in getting what she wanted, or what she thought she wanted.
From the moment she was hired, she fixated on his leg, the apparent source of his pain. When he walked into the office, Chase looked up, Foreman didn't bother to raise his head or eyes from whatever he was perusing, but Cameron's eyes went first to his hand, gripped around his cane, the cane itself, and his crippled leg, where her eyes went soft before raising them to his face, and becoming her instant, overtly sympathetic professional self.
During their one and only date, her face had taken on the shocked, pained look of one who knew they were being told the truth, when he helped her along and had given her an analysis of herself. She probably loved him, true enough, and the reasons made it easier for him to believe. She loved him because he was damaged, because he was older, because he inevitably needed some sort of healing, and she thought herself up for the task. And in letting her try to heal him, what would become of her when it didn't work? Or, on the off chance that she could transform him into a whole man, complete and happy and kind, what would she do, then? When everything was said and done and she'd done her job? There'd be nothing left for her, because the darkness needed her blindingly pure light, and that light would need somewhere else to shine.
She was pretty. He occasionally let himself contemplate being with her, giving in and letting her fulfill her sensationalized storybook romance in his life. But those thoughts always seemed to give themselves over to an image of her, running a hand across his bad leg, apologizing for every time she might have jarred it the slightest bit, her hand always returning to that part of his thigh. The damaged part. Symbolically, because in her mind she was healing all of the emotional damage, too.
It was over before it had begun, because she didn't love him, she loved his dark. Rowan Chase died, a new openly broken figure had emerged for her needs, and so, Chase and Cameron as a pair had begun, complete with little kisses in the hallways. Whenever she was in the same room as the both of them, however, she couldn't look House in the eyes, and that same bit of truth came edging back into her face again.
And then there was Wilson, the boy wonder oncologist himself, whom House would've never believed belonged on the list at all. He was the one with a face that almost always looked tolerantly amused, no matter the situation, and a hefty record of three failed marriages and countless almost-affairs that never really entered into territory beyond using bookkeeping metaphors to flirt, and a few chaste luncheons and dinners.
House'd known Wilson before the infarction as one of those med school buddies, and somehow they'd managed to acquire jobs at the same hospital long afterwards. Stacy had left and Wilson had coincidentally shown up a few hours later, with a six-pack of beer and a resolution to make sure House didn't kill himself. He'd installed a handlebar in the shower for House as he watched from the doorway, inputting sarcastic comments about Wilson's mechanic skills, probably blunter than usual, because only a year before, he'd have never thought of needing a handicap-accessible bathroom. Wilson had ignored him, or occasionally shot an ironic-toned comment back at him, while painstakingly drilling into the wall.
Wilson's second wife ended up leaving him. This was apparently preceded by a lot of weepy and whiny statements about how he was never home and cared more about a coldhearted cripple than his own wife. He'd stayed at House's apartment for a while, sleeping on the couch and burning toast and scrambled eggs in the morning, until he'd met his third wife, daughter of a colon cancer patient, and married within a month.
Wilson never treated him any differently, pre- and post- infarction; didn't patronize like he did with his patients. He, thankfully, didn't obsess over his bad leg or cane, like Cameron and quite a few of the pesky clinic kids, who were always ever so curious to find out the reasons behind it.
He had never avoided the fact, however, like Stacy and many of the respectable citizens on the street and in the hospital, who didn't want to bring attention to the fact that he was a cripple. When he found House slumped and sitting on the piano bench in his apartment, empty bottles of sherry and Vicodin on the floor, hands gripping his knees, breathing hard, he first, almost casually, picked up House's cane, which had been flung all the way across the apartment, and set it down against the other side of the bench. Wordlessly, he took House's wrist, checked his pulse, kicked aside the bottles and helped House up. He spoke in his professional doctor voice to berate him for the mixing of painkillers and alcohol. His voice caught a little on some of the words.
A month or so later, without a wedding ring on, and for the first time properly so, since he was once again a free bachelor, Wilson stood in front of him, hands undecided on whether they should remain in his lab coat pockets or on his hips. He divorced Julie a few weeks before, an unprecedented first, since Wilson had previously been the one just signing the papers, instead of instigating the thing itself.
There was something flickering in Wilson's eyes that put House on edge and felt like it might be in his own eyes, too. With the first soft "Uh..." out of Wilson's mouth, he discovered maybe there was one thing that would make Wilson comparable to Stacy and Cameron, instead of just contrasting.
"There's..." Wilson's hands now fiddled with loose pens in his pockets. They were back at House's place, but he hadn't bothered to take off the coat yet. "There's something..."
His eyes grazed over House, the whole of him, his leg, too, but not for any time longer than the rest of him. "I..." His hands went back to his hips. He looked up at House; his eyes were dark with slightly dilated pupils. He looked down again, and before he could say anything, House gave him a hoarse, "Shut up."
Wilson had a broad-shouldered, thin-figured kind of strength, his mouth was hot and damp and tasted like Listerine, which House figured he could work on, and he couldn't help but hold on to Wilson, like he was some sort of life raft.
They ended up entangled and awkward and breathing like they'd both need a tracheotomy and an oxygen bag, and when House tried to reach his Vicodin without moving, and found it was out of reach, he didn't really mind all that much.
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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 Fox Television, 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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