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No Exchange of Payment
by Otter
The wrapping paper is Monday's Star-Ledger, repurposed: two pages of the business section, with neat little rows of stock numbers crumpled and spiking like an EEG of the nation's economy. There's half a page of classifieds underneath, and maybe it's an ironic statement on consumerism, or maybe it isn't a statement on anything at all. The package is held together with decorative chunks of duct tape, as if MacGyver has taken up gift wrapping.
The present inside doesn't surprise Wilson -- he's gotten the same thing every year for the past five -- but he smiles anyway, and half-laughs, and puts it in a place of honor on his shelf, between the 1993 Amateur Championships trophy and the 1995 Celebrity Swing Tournament cup. Those are both plastic painted to look like metal, but this year's offering is a step up; it's old and heavy, made from real bronze and thick marble, and the figure on top is a leaping horse. The metal plate fixed to the base says "Regional Junior Jumpers."
Wilson contemplates it for awhile, with one hand on his hip and the other rubbing at his neck. He didn't know that House knew anything about horses. This is new information. This means something. He doesn't know what, though, and he's forced to leave the question behind when he's called away for a consult.
The newsprint has left ink on his fingers, and he doesn't notice that it's rubbed off on his neck, leaving a dark smudge under the corner of his jaw. Nobody points it out, because it looks like a love bite, a little barely-there hickey; Amanda in Radiology gives him a mysterious little smirk, and Janice at the front desk smiles a little too widely when he checks in for clinic duty.
His earlier consult leaves the hospital with time like a bomb around her neck, waiting to go off. She has four months, maybe five.
His first clinic patient is a mother of two, and when he enters the exam room the kids are rooting around in the drawers, opening up packages of supplies and contaminating sterile equipment.
Julie leaves him voicemail asking if he'll stop at the grocery store on his way home and pick up some things. She reads off the list and the last two items, spoken in the same recitation tone as the rest, are "I love you" and "goodbye."
His last appointment of the day is a 13-year-old. Her mother holds her hand tightly, and when Wilson says, "The biopsy was negative; it isn't cancer," the girl starts crying and the mother says, "It's okay, honey, it's okay," as if they've just received bad news.
He's forgotten about the gift entirely by the time he returns to his office to give his paperwork a final shuffle, pack his briefcase, and pick up the doctor-scrawl grocery list that's waiting on his blotter.
On the shelf, the horse is flying gracefully over an outstretched nine iron. The lamp on the desk is throwing a larger horse-shaped silhouette against the back of the bookcase, and it almost looks like it's doing battle with the club-wielding golfer.
It means something, but Wilson doesn't know what; he turns off the lamp and closes the door, and he forgets to stop at the grocery store on his way home.
+++
The next day he stops by House's office at a quarter 'til noon to propose an early lunch, but House isn't in; he's tracking down what may or may not be a bizarre case of Adult Refsum Disease, and Cameron says, "I'll let him know you were looking for him, Doctor Wilson," as she rushes back out the conference room door with a chart in one hand and a thick medical reference in the other.
Wilson buys lunch in the cafeteria: overcooked hamburger, undercooked fries, and maybe he should start listening to Julie and try the salad, because he's had everything else on the menu and he knows that none of it tastes very good. He takes his food back to his office, and he only eats half of it before it gets cold and feels somehow greasier than it already was.
He's bored and House doesn't conveniently appear in the doorway to provide distraction, so Wilson wipes his fingers on a napkin, tosses the remains of his lunch into the garbage can, and turns to his computer. The Internet is uncooperative in offering up evidence of any Gregory House who might've ridden horses in his youth, and Wilson gives it up after awhile, abandoning the search in favor of answering his email and tidying his case files.
House shows up at 1:30, when Wilson is just about to head down to Radiology to pick up some films. They nearly run into each other at the threshold of Wilson's office, and then House steps one way and Wilson steps the other, and they're standing just inside the door.
House says, "Please tell me you've got an extra shirt in your gym bag. I don't want to be reduced to wearing scrubs. People might think I'm a doctor." There's a splash of vivid scarlet across the front of his shirt, and it's still wet; Wilson can smell the blood, sharp and sweet like damp pennies retrieved from the bottom of the washer after the rinse cycle.
"Sure," Wilson says, as he pulls his bag out from under his desk. "Don't tell me that was your ARD patient."
House pulls a had-it-up-to-here face, shuts the door, and says, "Pneumonia, courtesy of the clinic. I would send my dry-cleaning bill along to Cuddy, except that I plan to have this shirt incinerated." He puts his cane aside, shrugs off his jacket, and manages to carefully extract himself from his shirt without disturbing the bright red Rorschach on the fabric. He rolls it up carefully, blood on the inside, and catches the t-shirt that Wilson tosses to him. He frowns at it suspiciously, holds it to his nose, and says, "By 'extra shirt,' I actually meant 'clean shirt.'"
Wilson shrugs; the bag hits the floor with a muted thump, and he pushes it back under his desk with a foot. "I only wore it for thirty minutes this morning," he says. "Hardly worked up a sweat. Take it or leave it."
House takes it; he pulls the t-shirt over his head and settles the hem around his hips. It says "The Doors" across his chest. "You realize," he says, "that now everybody is really going to think we're sleeping together."
"Everybody thinks we're sleeping together?" Wilson repeats. He says it with the tone of a man waiting for a punchline.
"Apparently," House says, "after I left your office yesterday, you emerged sporting a brand new hickey. The rumor mill found a whole afternoon's worth of grist in the story, and a number of department-wide pools were settled. I for one am thoroughly scandalized."
Wilson says, "Hickey?" and the bewilderment he doesn't bother to find words for is communicated by his knit brows and open mouth.
"Don't look at me." House picks up his cane again, settles it into the groove of his hand the same sure way surgeons hold scalpels. "I don't remember a thing; I suspect I was drugged. My mother tried to warn me about men like you." He turns, opens the door, and exits with the exaggerated self-satisfied air of a man who's just enjoyed a relaxing nooner.
Wilson can hardly hear, but he's pretty sure that House is actually humming "Afternoon Delight" on his way out. He resists the urge to retreat into his office and hide under his desk until the day is over; he still has films to pick up in Radiology, and House has left his blood-stained shirt on one of Wilson's guest chairs.
Wilson is fairly certain he's supposed to send the shirt to the hospital laundry for cleaning. He sends it to the incinerator instead.
+++
House's patient doesn't have Adult Refsum Disease, which is both good news and bad news. It's good news, because a diagnosis of ARD probably would've meant nightblindness, anosmia, ataxia, deafness, maybe even cardiac arrhythmias. It's bad news because ARD could've been treated with dietary restrictions, maybe plasmapheresis. Not cureable, but treatable.
The patient didn't have ARD, or any other kind of leukodystrophy. House doesn't know what the pathology is, and he won't find out until he receives the report from the coroner, telling him where he went wrong.
Wilson isn't there when they wheel the body away, and neither is House, but later Wilson hears Chase complaining that he has to clean up House's office and re-shelf all of the medical references that House tipped to the floor in a fit of pique.
Exam Room Two is Wilson's fourth guess at where House might be, and he finds House in there with his chair balanced dangerously and his feet propped up on the windowsill.
"Hiding in plain sight?" Wilson asks, while he's closing the door.
House has his fingers knit together over his stomach, and he wiggles his thumbs, taps them together three times but doesn't turn around to really acknowledge Wilson's presence. After a moment he says, "I figure the last place Cuddy will think to look for me is the place where she wants me to be. What do you think? Is it working?"
Wilson hoists himself up onto the exam table and rests his weight on his arms while he watches House watch the world outside. "Well, she hasn't found you yet; otherwise there'd be a patient in here. So I'd say your theory's panning out so far."
House lets out a huff of breath that might be agreement. "You here to give me a pep talk?"
Wilson shakes his head and looks out the window, too. There isn't much to see out there, and if any of the faces out on the lawn seem familiar, it's because he's looked at a thousand faces just like theirs and told them that they're going to die.
"Tell me about your horse," he says. He stretches out on the exam table and laces his fingers together at the back of his head. His feet hang off the end of the too-short table, and the sun shining in between the wide-open blinds feels tangible against his skin, like sinking into a warm bath.
"What makes you think I ever had a horse?" House asks. He seems to be contemplating the small stretch of wall between the top of the window and the edge of the ceiling. His cane is hooked over the arm of his chair, and he starts fingering it with one hand, the same absent way a violinist might caress his idle strings.
"Well, the trophy with a horse on top of it was a clue," Wilson says.
"Maybe I got it on Ebay," House says. His tone is careless. Everybody lies.
"No," Wilson says. "Then it wouldn't mean anything."
House makes a thoughtful sort of "hmmm" noise and tilts his head back so he can stare at the ceiling. "Who says it has to mean anything? I thought the idea of this gift-giving tradition was that I conceded your point that in polite society, people give gifts to acknowledge birthdays, and you conceded my point that if I ever gave you anything it'd be some random second-hand crap I dug up in my house."
"It always means something with you," Wilson says. He stares at the ceiling, too, like he's trying to figure out what's so interesting up there. "You never do anything without a reason."
House sighs and drops his feet carefully to the floor, returning his seat to an upright position. "You could be right," he says. "But what do I know? I may have a comfy couch, but my specialty is infectious disease, not psychology."
Wilson sits up too, perches on the edge of the table and says, "I never even knew you liked animals."
"I don't like anybody," House says. He taps the end of his cane against the floor, watching it rebound off the rubber tip. He gives Wilson a sideways look, and Wilson gives him a sideways look, and then House says, "Oh, alright. Maybe I like you a little. Even though you're so needy."
House might say more, might answer the original question -- though that's about as likely as Princeton suddenly sinking into the ocean -- but Wilson's pager chooses that moment to go off, buzzing against his belt. House raises an eyebrow but kindly refrains from making any of the obvious remarks, though he's clearly thinking them.
Wilson sighs and hops down off the table. "I've got to go. You wanna go out tonight? We can go to PJ's and have pancakes for dinner."
House is moving to his feet, too, but with less urgency. He's looking at the floor when he says, "Yeah, sure. Just swing by my office on your way out."
Wilson nods, and takes a step out the door before he turns around again, leaning back into the exam room with his shoulder against the door frame. "At least tell me the horse's name," he says, and gives House a challenging little you-haven't-got-the-balls smile.
"I lived a sad, deprived and pony-less childhood, Doctor Wilson," House says. "I never had a horse." He gives Wilson a look like he's just daring him to push it.
"But you loved one once," Wilson says. He completely disregards House's warning look, because House is just full of warning looks and he's always been more bark than bite. "I'll bet there was a little boy who was very proud of that trophy."
"There was," House agrees, "before I beat him up and stole it." He swings his cane a bit, as if to illustrate, and smiles a smile that's mostly teeth. "I took his lunch money too, while I was at it."
"Careful, House," Wilson says. He pushes himself away from the doorway and turns to leave, and this time he's really going, before his beeper starts buzzing again. "I might have to tell on you. It would ruin your rep if people found out you had a heart."
House shouts after him, "You're so dead after school!" and the sound follows him out into the waiting room.
After his last appointment of the day, Wilson packs his briefcase and picks up his coat. The horse trophy is still where he left it on the shelf; he examines it critically for a moment, then carefully repositions it so it looks like the horse is trampling the golfer in some sort of freak sporting catastrophe. It doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it probably does.
He turns off the desk lamp, and shuts the door as he leaves.
the end
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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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