One Step Closer Away Part I (REVISED)    The House Fan Fiction Archive  
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  One Step Closer Away Part I (REVISED) 
 by GLady  

 ALL YOU HAVE TO KNOW in this universe - set near the end of Season III -
Formean accepted Cuddy's offer to head up his own Neurology Dept, Chase
assists him, and Cameron (still an item with Chase) continues to work
under House. Everything else is the same.**

***********************

One Step Closer Away. ---------------------------------
---------------------------------

By G-Lady. *House & Wilson centric. Characters: House, Wilson, Cuddy,
Cameron, Chase, Foreman. Pairing: House/Cuddy (a bit), House/Wilson ( a
LOT) Rating: NG-17. Pre-slash, Slash. Content: Angst, Hurt, Love,
Violence. Disclaimer: Fox/David Shore and others own 'em. I just write
about 'em. 

***************** "...I leaped headlong into the Sea, and thereby have
become acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than
if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea
and comfortable advice." John Keats.

*****************

"What's Wilson's problem?"

Doctor Lisa Cuddy, Administrator of Princeton Plainsborough Teaching
Hospital, hoped if she didn't answer Gregory House, he would turn around
and leave her office. Her desk was piled with paperwork and her mood was
sour.

"Hello?" House plopped himself down in the chair opposite her desk,
hooking his newest cane over the chair's arm. The cane was deep, rich wood
with a curving brass handle in the shape of a naked lady.

Sighing, she knew he wouldn't leave until he had his say. That he had
limped his way to her office was telling enough. He never dragged his
painful leg anywhere without specific purpose.

Not looking up, "House, I've had a rotten day and it's still not over. I
have a lump of files to go through and a now another lump sitting opposite
me. Go do the clinic hours you promised so I don't have to dock your pay
and make for myself yet more paperwork."

"Wilson," He began, ignoring her acerbic commentary, "is avoiding me."

Considering who was addressing her, she was unimpressed. "Someone's
avoiding the biggest pain-in-the-butt in the hospital and you're surprised
because...?"

"Because Wilson's a gooey "I just wanna help" kinda' guy and I'm his best
buddy. If it was Foreman avoiding me, I'd be handing out cigars."

Again, Cuddy felt a tad regretful that she'd kept Foreman on as Head of
Neurology. He'd been strutting around like a rooster, rubbing House's face
in it every chance he got and the backlash - House - kept ending up on her
doorstep. "So go talk to him." She said, turning her attention back to her
papers.

"I tried, hence the fact that I noticed he's avoiding me. I saw him twice
today and when I tried to talk to him, he walked the other way." House
patiently explained as though to a four year old.

"Then call him. I have no time to referee you two."

House pushed down hard on the chair's padded arms and heaved himself to
his feet. "Tried. He won't pick up. Has he talked to you?"

"No. He came once, saw I was busy, and politely stated that he'd come back
tomorrow."

House got the back-handed point as he dot-and-oned his way to her door.
"Sheesh. Avoidance and Surly, two dwarfs that I guess didn't make the
final cut." He threw over his shoulder.

*

Wilson dismissed his latest patient with the soothing words of experience:
Yes, the cancer was advanced, but there were new breakthroughs all the
time. He would do his best to get her into any trials that fit the profile
of her particular disease. Yes, she could call him at the hospital anytime
if she had any concerns. No, it was no problem. Of course, yes. Goodbye.

House passed the woman with the drawn, grey face as she exited, and he
entered, Wilson's office. "Hey-"

"I'm busy." Wilson stated before House had a chance to say any more.

House made himself comfortable on Wilson's couch. "No, you're not, your
newest case of body-rot just left."

"She has cancer!" Wilson snapped, then calmed immediately. He had not
intended to sound so harsh. It was just House being House but today, in
fact lately, House had been getting under his skin in a variety of ways
and presently Wilson felt not the capacity enough to endure the man's
electric personality.

House raised delicate eyebrows at his friend's bark. Trying to lighten the
moment, "Feeling a bit droopy? Did Cuddy turn you down again?"

Wilson thought best not to try and par with House. "No. It's been a crazy
busy few days and I'm tired as hell."

"All the more reason we need to go out and get sloshed. Turnbull's having
an all-you-can-drink and-eat-night-"

"-Not tonight." Wilson said quickly.

House actually stopped mid-sentence, his face showing a rare, and
fleeting, hurt. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared. He nodded,
accepting Wilson's forthright answer, and more subtle dismissal. 

Wilson watched his friend exit his office with a pang of conscience. What
he knew, and what he had not told House, would have been worse. Wilson
rubbed his aching temples. Life had gotten more complicated than he had
ever expected, and even more disappointing. He did not know what to say.
He did not know what to do.

That last wasn't entirely accurate. He knew what he had to do; what he was
planning already to do.

He just didn't know how to tell House. 

*

"Are you sure you want this?" Cuddy asked her Oncology Department Head.
James Wilson nodded.

"I need this." He shook his head back and forth a little as though trying
to figure it out for himself. "Things have been,....hard for a while, and
it seems like my career is going forward about as quickly as my life had
been." He smiled a little sadly. "Not moving, in other words."

"Have you discussed this with House?" Cuddy asked.

No, and I have no intention to. "Yes. I mean, I'm going to. Do you think
he'll take it hard?"

"Well, Duh." She stood and walked around her desk. "You've worked on the
same floor for - what? - eight years? Now you want to move your office to
another wing? Convince me that this ISN'T about House."

Wilson tried to explain, to himself as much to Cuddy. "I need....space.
House is my friend but he's,..." He tried searching for an explanation
that to the intelligent Administrator would sound like the truth. Cuddy
rarely missed anything. "House is exhausting. I need time to...unwind.
Time to figure out if I want something besides to be House's conscience or
the guy who always watches his back even when he doesn't care whether I do
or not." He shrugged. "I know it sounds lame, but I'm...tired."

Cuddy, memory thick with her own experiences helping House out of this or
that jam, understood Wilson's problem , if not his solution.

She nodded. "Okay. I'll start the paperwork. It'll be a couple of weeks."

Wilson nodded back, in gratitude. "Thanks."

*

When House entered Wilson's office it was the next day and he stood before
his desk like a churning storm, ready to unleash. "Why didn't you tell me
you were moving to the South Wing?"

Wilson's face turned pink, not just from the embarrassment of not having
told House his intentions but because he was going to lie about the
reason. "Cuddy's moving me." She'd promised to back him up on the lie.
Coward! His conscience shouted. Liar! Wimp!

"Yeah. I asked her. She says she's hiring new staff and they need your
space until they get used to the place. What the hell kind of reason is
that?" House asked - rhetorically - because he answered for himself. "If
some new idiot needs to get used to Princeton, he can get "used to it"
just as easily from the South wing as from here."

Wilson silently agreed. It was a stupid lie and, Cuddy had pointed out,
since she was hiring no new staff House would certainly find that out.
But, Wilson had argued, it would give him time to finish the actual move
and by then it would be too late for House to scheme out a plan to stop
it. Besides, it gave him time to think of a better lie to tell House once
the man figured out their duplicity.

Seems he and Cuddy were always hatching a lie or two where House was
concerned. All for Greg's better, Wilson told himself. Right? It would be
easier on House in the long run. 

Yes. Correct.

"A change of horizon's good for the soul." Wilson quipped. How asinine! 

"Right. And life is a roller coaster - I gotta puke!"

Wilson tried for a chuckle but it came out a small cough. He continued to
place books and folders neatly in boxes while, for a few seconds, House
stood and watched. 

"How are we suppose to go for lunch or discuss the newest hot nurse's
cup-size?" House asked.

His crippled friend walking all the way to the South Wing without a lot of
pain would be difficult. Which was the point. "We'll still do those
things." Wilson lied. He would have to have a jar stuffed of ready excuses
as to why he wouldn't be able to join House very often for the
afore-mentioned lunch-time camaraderie. Wilson, you're a cowardly
son-of-a-bitch.

House looked at his cane, a sub-conscious gesture he often resorted to
when faced with things he either did not understand or could do nothing to
altar. "You'll have to do the walking over here."

"'Course."

House still didn't make a move toward Wilson's office door. 

Leave, House, and let me burn in my own shame. Wilson felt House's eyes on
him and knew House suspected there was more to his office move than met
the eye. "So..."

Wilson cringed inside. Here it came, the question that could not be
answered.

"...how's everything else going?" House asked quietly. 

A question of inquiry. Of, perhaps, concern. Unexpected. And unusual.
Wilson played it for all it was worth. Anything to avoid the stinging
truth. "Are you actually asking after my health and life?"

House looked a bit uncomfortable. "Sure."

Wilson felt on more secure ground. "Things are...fine. I guess. The usual.
I was thinking of going to see my parents. They're buying a new house and
want me to see it. Maybe I'll go next month for a couple of weeks..." He
could tell House was already bored with the conversation. He tapped his
cane impatiently on the tiles.

Wilson looked at his watch. "Oh, I've got a patient arriving in about five
minutes..." He hoped that would be enough to prompt House into making a
hasty exit. 

Though rarely succeeding, this time it worked. 

"See you later."

House nodded but didn't answer. He walked out, a bit slowly, as though
reluctant to end the one, short conversation he'd had with Wilson in four
days.

Wilson placed his palms on his desk and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he
sat and waited for his patient, who was not arriving for another thirty
minutes. Even Cuddy had no idea why he was really moving offices. Really.
But she had the tact to not ask.

*

As the day grew nearer for Wilson to leave for the South Wing, House
started making noises to Cuddy for the same thing. He wanted his office
moved as well.

Wilson ambushed Cuddy on her way out the door that same day. "You can't
let him move offices."

She pulled him aside to allow others to pass out the door for the night.
"I know. But he's come up with several reasons that are hard to argue.
Being able to consult with you, for starters..."

"He can consult Foreman and Chase. He's still got Cameron-"

"-Yes." She looked at him squarely. "But you're his friend. His only
friend." She pointed out.

That was another thing. "I can't be that anymore. His only friend, I mean.
He's forty-seven years old-"

"-He's lonely." 

"Who isn't?" He put his hands on his hips and explained his rehearsed,
part-truth reasoning. "For years in this hospital I've been: "The guy
who's friend's with the bastard", "House's idiot" and "Jerk-face's
lap-dog". I have no other friends. Not because I don't want them, but
because he sucks the energy completely out of me. 

"When he needs something, he's at me all the time until he gets it. When I
need something, he tells me to go talk to you or call a Rabbi. It must
sound like I'm a teenager but I can't..." He struggled to find the words
that would inculcate his meaning into Cuddy so she would have no doubt.
"...I've had three marriages dissolve and, in every case, part of the
problem was House. And it wasn't really his fault because I let him
interfere. I allowed him to come before my wife. Not just occasionally,
but often."

Wilson sighed, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "If I don't get on with
living my own life, things are never going to change for me. I'm not
willing to let that happen. Not anymore, not after-" He looked at Cuddy,
knowing she that she had endured almost as much as he had, "..not after
this last year, I,..it's too much. I just can't do this anymore." 

Cuddy pursed her lips. "I'll deny his request to transfer. But eventually
you're going to have to tell him the truth."

"I know. I just don't want to hurt him."

"Do you think he's not hurting now?"

Wilson shrugged. The indecision itself was a painful bitch.

*

A small office-move party was held in Wilson's honor in the Cafeteria.
House got him a set of walkie-talkies - keeping one for himself - so, he
explained, they could talk back and forth where-ever they were. It was a
typical, juvenile gift from his genius friend.

"You know we can't use these in the hospital?" Wilson reminded him.

"Thh-poil thh-port." House said in a reasonable facsimile of Sylvester the
cat. House also got him a box of flavored condoms. "For all those
un-a-foreseen nurses you'll be wanting to boink."

It solicited a good round of laughter from some and rolled eyeballs from
others.

Cuddy got him a new name plate and a ticket to a hockey game. Foreman,
Chase and Cameron all pitched in and got him a weekend's fishing up-state.

Cocktails and handshakes all around and the festivities soon waned to a
few who stayed around only to finish up the punch.

House licked frosting from his fingers. He'd wolfed down three pieces of
chocolate cake and walked with Wilson back to his old office. 

Wilson piled his gifts on top of the already full to bursting last box and
gathered it under his arm. "This is it." He said lamely.

House just said, "Don't be a stranger."

Wilson stuck his hand out for House to shake and knew immediately that it
was a mistake. House looked down at it as though at an alien appendage.
"We're shaking hands? You're not off to make your fortune, Jimmy. You're
moving one hospital wing away."

"Right." Wilson agreed, feeling foolish. 

"Call me later." House said and turned away. Wilson watched him hitch away
to the elevator. He suddenly wanted to forget the whole thing and tell
House it was all an elaborate joke. But instead he let the elevator doors
open. House entered it without looking back.

Wilson felt sick to his stomach.

Everybody lies.

*

After a week of Wilson's evasive excuses, House solved his mobility
problem by borrowing a motorized wheelchair belonging to a bedridden
patient and before long was whizzing his way along the corridor's of
Plainsborough's South Wing.

"So?" House said loudly as he maneuvered through Wilson's door, making
Wilson jump like he'd been stung. "This is your new digs?" House glanced
around at the smaller office. "An inferior interior if you ask me. How is
this better than being beside me?"

House launched himself out of the chair with the assistance of his naked
lady cane.

Wilson shrugged. "It's not that bad, a little smaller but-"

"No." House interrupted him with a soft, calculated tone that said 'You're
a liar.' "No. I mean How Is This Better Than Being Beside Me? More to the
point, Why did you move your office here?"

Wilson swallowed. 

House saw the hesitation and fear in his friends eyes. "It's Truth or
Consequences time, and our contestant is Wilson!" House announced like Bob
Barker. 

Wilson sat heavily in his desk chair. "I didn't want my office beside
yours anymore." Let it be Consequences then.

House looked disappointed. Soon it would turn to hurt. "Why not?"

Wilson wished he had prepared himself for this move. Leave it to House to
resort to the sin of theft to force another into the cleansing of a
confession. "I need space."

"You had space. More space than this closet."

Closet... 

Confining. Dark. Sweaty. See nothing, be still... 

Be invisible.

"I needed space.." Wilson took one courageous breath. "...from you."

House stared, his normally animated face unreadable. In shock? "Ah." He
finally said. "My mouthwash not making it?"

Wilson drew a tired hand down his face. "Do you think it might be possible
for you to treat this conversation with a bit of seriousness? Just have a
go at it, for once?"

House looked out the tiny, balcony less window just for a second, then
back to Wilson. "Being serious, yeah. I guess that's way more important
than telling me the truth."

He'd steeled himself for it, but House's anger and hurt cut deeply.

Wilson stood, crossing his arms. "I'm going through something in my life
right now," He articulated so House would have no doubt, "that I can't
talk to you about."

"Okay. Keeping your mouth closed about it might have been easier than
moving half a hospital away and then lying to me." House's tone dripped
sarcasm. Then, without rancor, "How do you know I'd want to hear about it
anyway?"

"History." Wilson said. 

House squinted his eyes and turned his head in that way that Wilson hated,
the way that said, You're an idiot and I'm about to educate you on how big
of one. "Why didn't I think of that? Of course, "History"!" House hit his
forehead with the palm of his hand. "How stupid of me. That explains
everything!" 

"I mean your history with me. Your inability to show the slightest concern
about anything going on in my life - unless it directly relates to, and
enhances, your own narcissistic needs. I can't remember a time when you
dropped in on me to see if I was okay. When you called me to invite me
over just because you thought I might need the company, or a friend, or to
talk...about a problem I was having."

"I get you drunk and rent a porn movie. That's how I help you. Maybe it's
not touchy-feel-y but you know that's not-"

"-"Your way", I know." Wilson finished. "And that's become the problem I
guess." Wilson looked at his shoes. "House. I'm pushing forty and recently
I realized I'm not happy with my life. I have to change it. I need to
change it. And this next change,...I want to work. And with you there, in
the center, I just don't think it could."

House stared and Wilson could see the anger draining from his scruffy
cheeks. Replaced with confusion and pain, House said, "I'm the change." 

Wilson could not look at him. "Yes." It came out half-squeak.

House gestured at the undecorated walls of the office space. "So this move
was to get rid of me by you getting rid of you?"

The phrasing was like a punch to Wilson's gut. Wilson felt as though he
were tossing House aside as he might a used tissue. He thought the floor
would open up and swallow him. He nodded once, biting his lip. The worst
heel ever born is called James Wilson. Look it up.

House stared at him, then glanced away and did not look back again.
Instead he sat down in the wheelchair and maneuvered it to the door. He
did not look back even once.

"Bye Wilson."

* 

For the first week and a half, Wilson felt relieved, almost light on his
feet. Almost. It was refreshing not to have House at his elbow with this
or that want or need. 

It was also unsettling. Particularly when to his mind would pop the memory
of some small kindness or gift that House had, just occasionally, bestowed
upon him unexpectedly. House liked to give gifts but not according to the
dictates of societies urgent celebrations such as Thanksgiving, Christmas
or birthdays. He preferred to give them when he wanted to. 

"If someone else tells me I'm supposed to give you a present, it isn't
actually from me, is it?" House had once answered when a sulking Wilson
had remarked that he had not received a Thirtieth Birthday gift from his
best friend. 

Wilson thought he ought to call Cuddy to see how House was doing. One hand
held the receiver but the other hung in mid air, refusing to press the
appropriate numbers. He put the phone down and sat at his desk. It was
Thursday, November Tenth. Paperwork was caught up and his next patient was
not due until two-thirty. By his watch, Wilson saw he had about two hours
to burn before then.

Lunch at the Hospital Cafeteria was out because House was likely to be
there. He grabbed his overcoat off the hook on the door and walked to the
elevator. Lunch a few blocks over would be fine. There was a small caf
that served muffins, sandwiches and passable coffee.

Then there was to wait for his patient. Then there was to wait for
quitting time. Then for suppertime. Then for bed.

At two-thirty-four his client, a small, boney woman well along with
colorectal cancer arrived for her new prescription med's. Wilson spent a
few minutes explaining the possible side effects. She nodded, her balding
head wrapped in a pink-flowered blue scarf as he explained, once again,
the virtues of hope.

* Using his cane, House pushed open the door to Cuddy's office, the cane
entering before his limping self followed. 

Cuddy dreaded these visits, that is, the new twist they had taken. House
was on the hunt for the explanation behind Wilson's sudden severance of
their friendship. He was smarting and angry and being House, had no idea
what to do but diagnose the symptoms. 

"I'm busy." She tried, knowing it was futile.

"I'm not." He sat down opposite her and she allowed it because she knew he
was hurting and needed the company. "I've noticed, however, that though
you say you're busy, you're NOT busy moving any new staff into Wilson's
old office."

"That's because I haven't hired anyone yet."

"You haven't even accepted any resume's yet."

Cuddy tossed him a doubting smirk. "How would you know?"

House ran his eye over her desk and the piles of folders and binders on
the low shelves behind her. "Your folders are all still where there were a
week ago, the piles haven't gotten higher or lower. I know you don't keep
them in your fashionably small desk drawers. That's where you keep
staplers, pens, Super-tampons for those "heavy days", extra panties in
case of a bloody boo-boo and eye-bag concealer. 

"I've seen no new faces anywhere, other than the boring patients with the
sniffles I'm forced to contend with in the Clinic, and Harold the
maintenance man is suspiciously not busy removing Wilson's name from off
of Wilson's old office door." He took a long breath. "For starters."

"My God, it's obvious that you have not been given enough cases this
week." She looked down at the forms in front of her. They were, in fact,
separation papers for a nurse who was moving at the end of the month.
Plainsborough did not require a replacement but she wasn't about to tell
House that.

"Do you also know," she asked coolly, "how many times a day I take a pee?"

"Mmmm, depends on how good the cafeteria coffee is."

What bugged her the most was he probably wasn't kidding. He knew. 

Cuddy sighed and blew her nose.

"Are you sick?" He asked, suddenly serious of face.

Cuddy shook her head. House was always a surprise. One minute he was doing
his best to insult her, the next he showed genuine concern about her well
being. "No. My car's in the shop so I walked part way to work. The cold
air always makes my nose run."

"Makes it Rudolf red too." He said. "Does it also make it grow, Pinochio?
Your nose is much bigger since Wilson took his ball and left the
playground."

She glared daggers. "Fine. You win. There isn't new staff moving in. What
do you want me to do, House? Tell Wilson to come home and play nice?"

"No, I want to know why he suddenly can't stand the sight of me."

"I thought he told you why."

"He lied."

Cuddy didn't know all the reasons behind Wilson's decision to put distance
between himself and House but she was tiring of the dancing parlay'
between them and her. "Well, I'm not going to talk to him for you. You
boys are just going to have to sort the marbles out on your own."

House stood though he was reluctant to leave. He had nothing to do and, in
the past, whenever boredom confronted him he would wander to Wilson's
office and dilute the stupor with a few jokes or chit-chat about their
current respective cases.

Foreman could barely stand him, Chase was far too busy running after
Foreman and Cameron, well, she was so deep in sugary eyed sympathy for his
present predicament that whenever he got too close to her, he felt the
keen need for a shot of insulin.

As he moved to leave, House stole a glance down Cuddy's low cut blouse. 

"And stop staring at my breasts!" She barked.

*

At the end of the second Wilson-less week House borrowed the electric
wheelchair and once again motored over to the South wing. It was
two-twenty-five on a Thursday and he was determined he would have the
truth by three.

Wilson's office door opened and House burst in (as fast as a man with a
cane can burst into a small room). 

"House, I'm with a patient."

House all but ignored the frail female and addressed himself to Wilson.
"Why don't you want to hang with me anymore? What changed from last month
to this one?"

With an apologetic look to his shocked patient, Wilson stood and quickly
moved to House, his hands up to guide the irate doctor to the door. "We'll
discuss this later. right now-"

House refused to budge. "We'll discuss it now." To the woman, "Nice scarf.
If you're a patient of Wilson's, I assume that means you're dying? So two
minutes more or less won't make much difference unless of course you're
dying right now - am I right?"

Wilson's eyes were black with fury and his cheeks burned red.

The timid patient pleaded to him, "Maybe I should go, Doctor Wilson? I
have an engagement."

"Splendid idea." House quipped. "Those wigs aren't going to buy
themselves."

Wilson shoved him toward the door. "That's it, House, GET OUT!"

"Not until you tell me the truth!"

"I told you the truth. You just can't handle it."

"What I can't handle is the load of crap you fed me last week." House
gestured to the frightened woman. "Did you tell her the truth?" 

Wilson stared at House as though to a crazy man. "What does my patient
have to do with anything?"

House gave the woman a quick once-over with the trained eye of a
diagnostic physician. "You've got a bandage and a pelvic wrap under your
dress. You had an abdominal skin metastasises removed, right? That means
you were diagnosed with, probably, colorectal cancer - what - five years
ago? Now you're about to get the latest experimental med's and radiation
on any new legions in what I'm thinking are your inguinal lymph nodes.-"

"Hous-s-s-e..." Wilson's voice was a deadly warning.

House ignored him. "So Doctor Wilson here has probably told you that you
might see another year?"

The woman stared up at House in white-faced shock. Though her eyes were
saucers of horror, she effected one, tiny affirmative nod.

"He's lying. You've got four months, tops."

With white fists Wilson grabbed House by his shirt collar, throwing him
off-balance, and unceremoniously began pushing him out the door. In the
hallway, House managed to get his feet under him and somehow stood his
ground against his furious former friend and colleague. 

"You'll lie to your dying patients. Is that why it's so easy to lie to
me?" House pushed, trying to provoke Wilson into confessing his sin. 

House had stepped over the line, way over, and he knew it. It was too late
to do anything now but play it out to the end. Wilson hated him, or
claimed he did, so what difference would it make if he hated him a little
more after today?

Wilson stared into House's cool, blue eyes, too angry to speak. But
somewhere down inside, another angry man woke up and before he could pass
judgement on the action, that angry man's balled left fist was making hard
contact with House's right eye-socket.

House actually spun in place once before hitting the opposite wall with
his head and falling hard to the floor. The sound his head made when it
struck the wall was like a bat on a fastball. Crack!

Wilson watched in horror as the stranger's fist - his own - completed it's
left hook and saw House spin like a top then slump like a rag doll. His
victim lay still for a few seconds before stirring and managing to get at
least onto his hands and knees. 

A tiny creak of blood followed a path down House's angled face. The skin
where his head had struck the unyielding plaster had split apart two
inches. The blood flowed a bit faster as House groped for his cane, got it
under him and pushed himself upright again. Without a word, he limped
away, much more slowly than usual, forgetting all about the electric
wheelchair.

Little round splatters of blood trailed evenly behind him.

A small crowd had gathered but quickly dispersed when they saw the show
was over almost as soon as it had begun. It had been a lightening brief
spar, with one clear loser and neither fighter appeared to want a
re-match.

*

"Oh God." Wilson covered his face with his hands. "I can't believe I did
that." 

Foreman enjoyed Wilson's occasional visits to his new digs. Wilson didn't
talk at you, he talked to you. He was a man you could work with a feel
better for the experience. "I can't believe you didn't do it years ago."

Foreman poured Wilson a cup of coffee. "Here, drink this caffeine, it
won't settle your nerves but it might your stomach."

"Thanks."

"What happened?"

Wilson shook his head to dispel the question and because he didn't have
the mind to invent another lie to explain the first one. "It's
complicated."

"Well, yeah, it's House, so no kidding?" Foreman said. "I for one do not
miss working under the man. He's arrogant, pig-headed, thinks he's right
about everything..."

Wilson was glad for the change of topic, if not subject. "You regret the
three years?"

Foreman looked at him, shrugged. "No. I'm a better doctor for having had
the experience. But it could have gone easier if he wasn't always such an
ass. Or detoxing, or in rehab or-"

Wilson held up one palm faced outward "-I get the drift." Funny how he
felt the need to defend House even when his own anger at the man had not
fully subsided. "House...almost...can't help the way he is, you know."

"You think it IS Asperger's, not that he's simply a first class jerk?"

Wilson shook his head, not in the negative but because he truly didn't
know. "I think it's something. Maybe a few something's that togther add up
to a bigger something that even House doesn't recognize. Like a distorted
mirror. The way he see's things and acts is the way he's used to seeing
them. The way he's always seen them his whole life. I've known him for
eleven years and he almost never, ever perceive's things the way other
people do."

"You mean normal people?"

"I mean average people. Me and you, Cameron and Cuddy...House is unusual.
He's...House." It was a lame answer but the only one he could presently
produce.

"Where is he?" Wilson had come to his old working area in search of House
but had run into Foreman. It was just as well.

"Cameron's licking his wounds." Foreman said.

Wilson was glad. As long as someone was caring for him, Wilson felt it
would be better if he stayed away. *

In the small exam room, Cameron stitched very carefully to minimize
scarring. House's hair would grow back over the scar in time, but she did
not want to pucker the skin. "Stop fidgeting."

"My leg hurts and my Vicodin is in my jacket which is in my office."

"You can wait ten more minutes. And keep that ice pack on your eye."

House held the blue freezer pack against the swollen skin surrounding his
right eye socket. The area was as red and tender as a delinquent's
backside. When Wilson had landed that blow, House thought his eye had
popped out. 

"Why did Wilson hit you?"

"Wilson doesn't want me riding my bike over to his house anymore."

Frowning at House's usual obscurity when it came to explanations, Cameron
finished the stitches, dabbed the area with another alcohol soaked cotton
ball, then lifted the ice pack. "Let me see." Already she could see the
black and blue spreading south like a river overflowing it's banks.
"That's going to be a hell of a shiner. What did you say to set him off?"

"Nothing mean. To him."

"Oh? So Wilson almost punched your lights out for no reason?"

"I didn't say it was for no reason, I said it was nothing I did to him.
Obviously there was a reason." House took the ice pack back and angrily
slapped it against his eye, immediately regretting the action for the
extra pain it caused. "Ahhg!" He held it more gently. "I just don't know
what the reason was."

"Wow. I've never seen two grown men have a girly fight before."

House looked up at her. "It wasn't a girly fight. And it's Wilson, not me
for a change, who's being the ass."

"You'd better go home. That eye's going to swell and be hurting pretty
badly and you're going to look like..." Cameron tried to remember the name
of any boxer that House would also know, but her knowledge of sports was
next to nothing. "...like some...old, ugly boxer from some boring, old
sporting event..." 

"You mean like Mickey Mantle?" House offered, and waited.

"Yeah, like him." Cameron nodded.

House rolled his eyes, then winced in pain. 

* House popped Vicodin like candy once the eye swelled to it's full glory
and bloomed into a rainbow of purples and blues. The stitches stung, his
leg ached with extra vigor due to his hard fall outside Wilson's office.
Once or twice he almost called him but slammed the phone back down the
second time too. "Fuck it."

At the end of the week, he called Cuddy, booked long overdue vacation
time, and threw together a few clothes and supplies for an impromptu road
trip. He told no one where he was going and left the next day, a crisp
Sunday morning. 

The air was cold but felt good against his skin. The road was frosty but
almost empty of cars as he burned west for a few hours, then turned north.
He wanted trees, a river, a bottle or two, a few Vicodin and the music
from his Ipod. It would be the perfect week.

He knew of a small Inn with individual cabins that weren't too expensive
in the fall. He might even get lucky a meet a good looking woman with whom
to share it for a night or two.

House felt like some music and fumbled with the Ipod. He eased back on the
throttle, best to be careful, and with one hand on the left handle-bar, he
plugged his earphones into the tiny Ipod's jack.

When he next lifted his eyes to the road there was a white-tailed deer
standing in the middle of it, it's eyes wide and frozen at the noisy
creature approaching. House made an attempt to swerve but the road
conditions were less than ideal for traction. Hitting the deer head on was
unthinkable at fifty miles per hour. He and his motorbike would be stopped
dead and then catapulted a hundred feet, the twisted bike and all it's
hard, hurting parts probably landing on him somewhere down the highway. 

All he could do was try to lay the bike down and slide to a stop. It
sounded easy, but it wasn't. If the rubber tires caught the pavement in
just the right way, the friction would cartwheel him and the bike end over
end. If he got a leg caught in the mechanisms of the engine chain or the
wheel spokes, he could tear apart muscles, snap bones or sever a foot
altogether. 

Laying a bike down was nothing more than a controlled crash. Usually a
little control and a lot of crash. 

House turned the front wheel slightly left and leaned over left all in as
smooth as one motion as he could manage with his bum leg. His right thigh
screamed in protest as it was asked to momentarily balance the weight of
not only his leftward leaning body but the bike as well. Going down, House
pulled his left leg free from beneath the Honda's engine. His jean's cuff,
however, got caught up in the chain just long enough to bungle the attempt
and House and the bike began to flip. Luckily, he flipped only twice as
his momentum had been enough reduced to prevent a truly spectacular, and
deadly, crash.

He finished up by sliding twelve feet on his back to a painful stop on the
left shoulder of the highway, his bike in two pieces a little farther up
the road. The front wheel and shocks had snapped off and careened away in
their own crazy direction.

The deer he had managed to miss watched him curiously for a moment,
snatched a few spiky mouth full's of grass from the roadside and pranced
off in oblivious innocence.

House tried to move his hands. They worked. He slowly tried to turn then
lift his head from the cold pavement. His helmet was still in place on his
skull, though his wound felt warm and sticky. The stitches had most likely
torn. His back hurt but his ability to move indicated that his spine was
not broken. He could feel road rash from shoulders to ass, and his leather
jacket was in shreds.

But his left foot throbbed the worst. House managed to sit up. His right
sneaker was where it should be but his left was sole-less and his left
foot was twisted outward to such a degree that it was obviously not only
broken, but dislocated. That meant likely bone fragment or ligament
tearing and so surgery. He tried to lift that leg and was rewarded by a
terrific pain that traveled up his leg like an electric jolt, making him
gasp and forcing him to lie back down.

He hoped a car might happen by soon as he felt dizzy and tired. Blood
pressure dropping. A bit shocky, then. Not bleeding internally he didn't
think, but it was cold of course and that made it worse. His cell phone
was in the saddle bag on his mangled bike four dozen yards beyond his
reach. House's right thigh was mightily protesting its ill treatment of
the last few minutes and began to shriek for its Vicodin.

Soon, he was smothered by a blanket of pain and he passed out. *

Cuddy answered the call from Pennsylvania. 

Bradford Regional Medical Center had one of her doctors as a patient.
Single Motorbike accident. Injuries were non-life threatening. He was
being treated for a badly broken left ankle, one cracked rib, road rash,
general cuts and bruises. They'd had to re-stitch a previously treated
head wound. Complications: Patient was an obnoxious ass. Doctor House was
awake and asking for a Doctor Cameron to drive up and bring him home.

"Oh God." Cuddy replaced the phone and dialed Diagnostics.

Cameron was clearly very concerned but was busy with a very sick case and
a diagnostic puzzle.

Cuddy tried Neurology. Foreman agreed to go and left Chase temporarily in
charge.

"Fine, but you'd better take some Tylenol for the headache you're sure to
get." Chase said as Foreman slipped on his coat. "Or a sedative for
House."

"You wanna do this?" Foreman asked.

"Are you kidding? House fired me." Chase sourly reminded him. "I hope his
scalp has a big scar." *

Foreman helped House from the Bradford Center's generic wheelchair into
the passenger seat of his shiny, new Impala Limited Edition four door
sedan. He was immensely proud of his new position at Plainsborough and his
new car. "Try not to get blood on the upholstery."

An ill-humored House didn't bother to answer or thank his former
employee-now-colleague and let Foreman close the door for him. His foot
was killing him, his thigh was throbbing, his head hurt, his road-raked
skin was on fire and he was out of Vicodin. 

The idiots at Bradford had declined his request for a refill and had
instead given him four Extra-Strength Tylenol Three's. They had done the
job for about two hours, then the various painful locations had already
begun to hurt. Now he faced a six hour ride home - with Foreman no less -
and not a Vicodin to be had.

House was in no mood to be nice or accommodating. When Foreman wasn't
looking, he dabbed his finger in the sticky blood seeping from his
stitches and wiped it down the side of Foreman's pretty tan leather seat. 

Somewhere on the east side of the New Jersey state line, House asked,
"Wanna grab a beer?"

Foreman looked at him strangely. "You just got out of the hospital."

"So?"

"So, I have a job to get back to, and so, by the way, do you. And the last
thing you need after the drugs they pumped into you at Bradford is
alcohol, which could cause several bad after-effects not the least of
which is it'll thin your blood and you'll most likely bleed all over my
new car."

"But aside from that, so?" House raised his eyebrows in a mimic of a
recalcitrant child, but was forced to stop when it made his black eye
sting.

"So, you look like shit, House. Besides the fact that I happen to not like
you, I'm not taking you into any public house looking like one big bruise.
They'll probably think I bitch-slapped you."

"Why don't you wanna hang around with me? I'm interesting, I'm funny and I
promise never to expose myself when we're sitting at the same table."

"Wow, how can I say no?" Foreman shook his head at his nutty mentor. "You
must miss Wilson a hell of a pile if you're asking me out."

"I'm not "asking you out". I'm not looking for a dude-date. All I asked is
if you wanted a beer."

"Well, I don't. I want to get back to the hospital and my job. And you
need to get your ass home in bed. You're even whiter than most white men
usually are."

House didn't say anything else for the rest of the trip, causing Foreman
to look over at him now and then to be sure he hadn't fainted.

House's face was covered in beads of sweat and he held his hand against
his right thigh like a vise. Pain had shut him up. 

Foreman wondered about all the hub-bub between Wilson and House. It was
none of his business but it seemed House was on another of his downward
spirals only this time Wilson wasn't around to pick him up before he
reached bottom.

Who was going to take up the job no one envied? Who would be willing to
keep House sane enough to stay alive and do his job if not Wilson?

* Foreman saw House to his apartment. Not an easy task as House had to use
a walker. His right lame leg was now asked to bear most of his weight as
his left foot and ankle were encased in a cast and could stand almost no
weight at all. House bit his lip the last few steps and all but fell onto
the couch, doubling over with pain. His hand only clutched, Foreman
noticed, at his scarred thigh. 

Foreman spent a few minutes settling him in. Got him a blanket and a
pillow, a glass of water and his Vicodin. House right away swallowed four
of the pills dry and lay his head back to wait for them to take effect. 

When he seemed a bit better, Foreman asked. "Anything else? I gotta go."

House shook his head and muttered a thanks as Foreman opened the door to
leave. He hesitated, his hand on the door-knob. Then he took a piece of
notepaper from his pocket, scribbled something on it and handed it to
House. "Here. My private cell' number. If you need anything, call."

House placed the paper on the coffee table and nodded his thanks.

Foreman closed the door behind him and waited on the step. He'd done all
he could. He'd call Cuddy to see if she had any ideas. House would need
in-home care as long as his foot was in a cast. He would hardly be able to
get around his own apartment, never mind cook for himself or bathe without
assistance.

He'd let Wilson know, too.

* Cuddy called Wilson to her office. "You know about House?"

"Yes." Wilson wanted to run away from her accusing eyes. But to where? To
House's angry ones?

"He needs in-home care. Which Agency do you want to call?"

At what she thought was a protest when he raised an uncertain hand, she
interrupted. "I know you can't or won't do it yourself, but you'll have to
be the one to make the arrangements and ensure the job is being done
properly. You know how difficult a patient he can be."

Wilson nodded. "I'll do it." He said simply. There, it was done. He'd made
the commitment to see and speak to House. Only one thing remained to be
discovered: Whether House cared to see or speak to him. Ever again.

"You want to? Are you sure?" Cuddy leaned across her desk, chewing her pen
thoughtfully. "Why the sudden change? Last week you punched his lights out
and this week you want to play nurse maid?"

Wilson sighed and ran a hand down his tired face. "It's complicated."

"Boy, I'd love a nickel for every time I've heard someone say those words
when referring to House."

Cuddy stood and walked around her desk to speak to him eye to eye. "What's
wrong between you two? I know House is an ass. I know he's exhausting and
a load of work. But he's..." Cuddy searched for the right word,..."he's
worth it." She spread her hands helplessly, knowing it made no sense. But
she also knew she was right.

Wilson felt an odd sort of relief that Cuddy had just hit on exactly what
he'd been feeling. House was an endangered creature. Difficult.
Infuriating, yes. But one of a kind. Few people had known the privilege of
being his friend. He, Cuddy and a couple of others blessed with insight
enough to recognize something rare and special in the man. 

"Yes." Wilson said. "He's worth it. And I'm an idiot."

"You needed a break from him. That's not idiocy, that's preservation of
sanity."

Wilson appreciated her moral support, but, "No, I lied to him about
everything. Not just a white lie, a real big lie. Just to make it easier
on myself."

"What do you mean? What lie?"

Wilson swallowed and took a moment to compose himself. What difference did
it make anyway? House would probably not let him in the door. No
difference. Cuddy knowing would be a relief at least.

"I love him."

Cuddy nodded, all agreement and kindness. "I love him too, he's my
friend-"

"No, I don't mean "I love him, he's my pal". I mean I...love him."

Cuddy tilted her head and her eyebrows nearly disappeared at her hairline.
"Oh..." Nodding. Enlightened.

She sat at her desk again, heavy with the weight of what he had just
confessed to. "Oh." Understanding. Quick acceptance.

"Yeah." He agreed. It was an "Oh" situation all right. 

Cuddy, curious, "Uh, when..?"

"A long time. Since before Stacey left, I think. Through my three wives
and my bankruptcy. I just didn't recognize it. I thought it was a special
sort of loyalty on my part. Thought myself a savior or a rescuer. Three
divorces and it still didn't click in my head."

"What?"

"That House always came first. Always." Wilson sat down wearily on Cuddy's
leather sofa. "At least until last Christmas. I never told you but House
OD-ed on booze and Vicodin."

At Cuddy's shocked expression, he quickly assured her, "I found him. He
was okay because he'd vomited up most of the pills. I didn't even stay to
make sure he stayed okay. I couldn't take the pain of seeing him like
that. Not when I could nothing to stop it. 

"I made the decision then to get away from him. I took a coward's way out.
So, a few weeks ago, instead of telling him the truth about how I felt, I
made him think he was the problem. Just him."

"No one could blame you. He's not easy to be around sometimes." She smiled
a little. "I'm glad he has someone in his life. Someone who cares for
him."

"I care. I'd just like to kill him now and then! Well, maybe it's a good
thing I won't have the opportunity to."

"-Wilson." Cuddy paused until she had his full attention. "House misses
you. He may be angry, he may be resentful, but he's hurting. The previous
two weeks, before his bike accident, he spent every Saturday at my house,
sitting on my couch, watching football and getting cracker crumbs on my
furniture. I've seen House disappointed, I've seen him frustrated, angry,
depressed. But until these last few weeks, I'd never seen him truly sad."

Cuddy clasped her hands. "I'm his boss, I can be a friend but not a pal.
You're that. He needs you. Go talk to him."

"I don't know what to say."

"Tell him the truth. He can deal with that easier than believing that his
best friend hates his guts. Go be his friend. Because, frankly, I'm tired
of vacuuming."

Wilson smiled at that. Then quietly, "I hurt him pretty badly."

"So? Go try to heal it. What else do you have to lose?" * 

Wilson sat in his car outside House's apartment for close to an hour
before he found the courage to walk into the building, and then, only went
as far as the small foyer. Apartment "B" stared him in the face. Best
friend. "Bestest buddy". House's words.

Wilson knocked and was not surprised to get no answering call from inside.
Foreman said before he left that House had taken a palm full of Vicodin to
kill his many pains and so by now, House was probably passed out on the
couch.

Wilson knocked again and then fished his copy of House's apartment key
from his pocket. House had never asked for it back. Not even after Wilson
had blackened his eye and bruised his dignity in front of all those
witnesses.

Wilson stepped quietly into the entry. The room had one small lamp on and
it did not reach all corners. The couch was to his right and Wilson walked
softly over to see if House was sleeping there.

Indeed he was, but he did not appear comfortable. Slouched over to his
left, his blanket had slipped to the floor and his pillow was squished
behind his lower back. Wilson bent over him a little.

"House?" He said softly, not wanting to startle him awake. "House?" Wilson
said a bit louder. An unpleasant smell reached his nostrils. House had wet
his pants in his sleep. Wilson checked the pulse at his throat. It was
strong but a bit slow, down to under sixty beats per minute. House must
have taken quite a tidy handful of painkillers. 

Wilson spotted the aluminum walker tipped over on the hallway floor
halfway between the livingroom and bathroom. Apparently House had tried
and failed to make his way there. On the coffee table sat a glass already
full of discolored urine.

Discolored. Cloudy. Could be infection setting in somewhere. Wilson felt
his friends forehead and found it quite warm. A bit too warm for a man
asleep, where the body's temperature was naturally suppose to be a degree
lower than in wakefulness. 

Wilson shrugged off his coat and suit jacket, laying them across the far
end of the couch. He hooked his hands under House's armpits and heaved.
House was not a lightly built man. But Wilson managed to throw House's
right arm over his own shoulder and half carried, half dragged House to
the bedroom.

Wilson laid him down as gently as he could manage and wiped the sweat from
his forehead. He struggled to remove House's soiled clothes, considered
and rejected the idea of giving him a quick and painless wipe with a
clean, warm cloth and instead, just covered him with a clean sheet and
blanket. He'd worry about a bath for him, somehow, tomorrow. 

The couch was unusable.

Wilson considered returning to his own apartment but it was fourteen miles
in the other direction and he was already having trouble keeping his eyes
open. He found another sheet and blanket in the bedroom closet, removed
his belt, tie and dress shirt then folded his long frame into House's easy
chair. It wasn't that comfortable but he was so tired it didn't matter. In
minutes he was snoozing.

* House woke to the odor of frying bacon. Trying to sort out when he had
gotten up and put on bacon to fry, he opened his eyes and quickly closed
them again when the right one protested with a dull ache. 

The shiner had faded but the swelling remained.

He didn't own bacon. He couldn't recall the last time in fact he'd gone
food shopping or opened his fridge for anything other than blueberry jam
for toast or a cheap beer.

It had to be Cameron. Since she and Chase had begun their horizontal
"relationship", she had spent far less time worrying about his ills or
needs which was way cool and also sucked a bit. He'd had to start doing
his own paperwork and other than when Wilson used to, she was the only
other person he knew who used to drop in once or thrice a year. Though
never when he was feeling fine and would have appreciated...

...tolerated it.

"Cameron?" He called feebly from the bedroom. Louder, "Cameron!" He tried
to sit up. Couldn't. Not quite yet. His legs hurt like burning. His head
throbbed, his back stung like...stinging needles. 

Trying again, "You don't have to nursemaid me like I'm an infant!" To
himself, "I can cook my own breakfast and wipe my own ass Snow-white."

"How'd you get to bed?"

A voice from the bedroom doorway made House rapidly sit up and turn his
head. Nausea and dizziness hit and he had to wait a few seconds before
speaking.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Wilson turned away and said over his shoulder, "Wiping your ass and
cooking your breakfast."

House threw the covers off, (it took three mighty tries to do so), and
swung one leg - the crippled one - and the other leg - the broken one - to
the floor. "Get outta my house!" He shouted, but in reality it was a
pathetic rasp.

Wilson had heard him. "This isn't a house, House."

"I said get out!"

"Make me."

Wilson had leaped over the preliminary verbal sparring which habitually
occurred at this juncture in any of their arguments and crossed the finish
line first.

There was no way Wilson intended to leave just because House told him to,
and there was no physical way House could force him to leave. 

As though reading his thoughts, "You're stuck with me." Wilson shouted
from the kitchen.

"Great." House muttered. "You here to match-up my other eye?"

Wilson didn't answer. No doubt on purpose so House would have to use the
walker to get out of the bedroom and to the kitchen so he could shout
closer to his target. 

Wilson had anticipated all of House's needs and had left on his bedside
table beside his alarm radio fresh water in a clean glass, his bottle of
Vicodin and his aluminum walker upright and ready two feet from the bed
frame. House's dark blue bathrobe hung over the handle on the walker.

"Hey, Snow-white!" House shouted again, "There'd better be coffee!"

Wilson heard the walker and halting steps of House's slow advancement into
the living room.

"Don't sit on the couch." Wilson warned him. Unnecessary as House smelled
the drying urine before he sat. He moved to far end of the couch and eased
himself down onto it's softness.

He was sweating from the effort. "So?" He addressed Wilson who was still
puttering around in his kitchen. "You tell me we're done, blacken my eye,
split my scalp and now we're back to being pals?" 

Wilson carried two plates into the living room. "I'm assuming nothing.
Here." He handed House a plate piled with bacon, buttered whole-wheat
toast and two sunny side up eggs smothered with melted cheddar. On the
cheese was a reddish sauce. 

"What's this?"

"Southern style eggs. You'll like them."

"Doubtful." House remarked but scooped a big fork full. He was starving.
The eggs were spicy and delicious. Out of one corner of his mouth, "Tastes
weird." 

Wilson was used to House's lies about his cooking. House liked his cooking
but would never admit to it.

Wilson picked at his own breakfast. He'd woken up hungry but now that he
and House were speaking, his stomach flipped-flopped. Depending on how he
handled House, it might be the last conversation he ever had with him. "I
pushed it until it broke." Wilson said simply. "I'm sorry."

"Unaccepted." House answered, then glanced at Wilson's veiled eyes. "That
doesn't explain why you pushed it." 

Wilson did not know how much to tell him. He would, he believed,
eventually tell him everything but should everything be right now? "I'm
having a personal problem that I can't discuss...at present. I...didn't
think you'd understand. I didn't know how to cope with it. I still don't."

"That's it?"

"For now, that's all I can say."

House nodded and continued to shovel food into his mouth. "Thanks for
breakfast, you can leave now."

Wilson wasn't that surprised by his friend's reaction. He left his
untouched plate and gathered his tie and coat. When he opened the door to
leave, behind him House said, "Stay."

Wilson hung his coat and sat back down on the easy chair.

House took a big gulp of coffee, looking at his friend over the rim.
"You're an idiot."

Wilson detected the facetiousness and chanced a tiny smile.

House shook his head and matched it. "Idiot." He repeated.

* House had the television on and was watching Spongebob Square Pants,
chuckling every so often. 

Wilson washed dishes and wiped the stove. He heard House shake out a
Vicodin and down it with the dregs of his coffee cup. A moment or two
later, the walker's scraping could be heard heading back down the hall. 

Good. House needed the sleep.

A few seconds later, Wilson heard retching and the toilet flush. 

At Wilson's approach, House raised his head from the bowl. He was no
longer white, he was positively green. "Told you it tasted weird." He
croaked.

Wilson wet a face cloth and handed it to House who used it to wipe his
mouth. 

"Nausea from the pain or the pills?"

House shrugged. "There's some Gravol in the medicine cupboard." House
indicated with a nod of his head.

"Ginger-ale might be better. Sometimes Gravol can make you puke more."

"I hate Ginger-ale."

Wilson fished out the packet of pills and squeezed two out of their
tin-foil pouches, then got him a glass of water. By that time House was
making his way back to his bed. He sat on the edge and leaned over.
Obviously the nausea had moved in to stay for a while.

"Here." 

Still in his bathrobe, House swallowed the pills, took a small sip of
water and lifted his legs one by one onto the bed, twisting around to
properly lay down. "Vicodin." He said.

Wilson realized House had probably threw up the Vicodin along with
breakfast. "You just ate too much all at once. Sorry, I should have
realized. Next time I'll make oatmeal." 

"Vicodin." House repeated.

Wilson got him the pills and left the bottle by his bedside. House
swallowed two more and closed his eyes with a weary sigh. He was asleep
almost immediately.

* While House slept Wilson made a second trip to the grocery store to
stock up on food. House's fridge had been empty, and still was with only
eggs, bacon, bread and butter in it. 

Wilson purchased fresh fruit, lean ham and pork chops, whole wheat pasta,
sauces and frozen vegetables. A dozen or so salt-lite canned soups were
added. He selected a variety of flavored oatmeal packs, and some healthier
snacks than House was probably used to like baked sun chips and granola
bars. Out of the goodness of his heart he also tossed a few candy bars
into the basket. A six pack of light beer finished the task and he filed
through the cash-counter.

By the light snoring coming from the bedroom, House was still asleep when
he got back. With a practiced hand, he put the newly bought foods neatly
away and set another pot of coffee on to brew. 

Wilson stripped the cover from the soiled couch cushion and took it (and
any other dirty clothes he found) down to the basement laundry room.
Feeding coins into the machine, adding some powdered soap, he set it on
Extra-wash.

Wilson spent some minutes just flipping through channels and sipping hot
coffee. Things were back to normal between him and House.

Wrong. They were not. House thought they were, Wilson knew they weren't
and never would be again. He was in love with House. House wasn't. House
was straight. Hetero'. He told gay jokes, he rented hookers of the female
variety, and though he'd never said anything about it directly to her or
Wilson, Wilson knew House was crazy about Cuddy. Did he love her? Wilson
didn't know for sure. But House liked her. Enough that he followed her on
her dates and stared at her rear-end whenever he thought she wasn't
looking.

What was Wilson against all that? There was zero chance. He and House
would never be together. As he sat there, Wilson came to the sad
conclusion that he shouldn't have changed offices. 

He should have moved to the west coast.

*

House's cast came off at the end of six weeks. After a few therapy
sessions, he was able to bear almost his full weight on the ankle and had
Wilson toss the walker into the big garbage bin at the back of the
apartment building.

Using his cane, House practiced walking again around his apartment. 

As Wilson caught up on his medical journals from the easy chair, he
surreptitiously watched his friend pace in circles around the couch and
coffee table, into the kitchen and around the island, out to the
livingroom, passed Wilson in the chair, and down the hallway to the
bedroom where he'd turn one-eighty and start all over. 

Today was the first day House had gotten fully dressed and was wearing
faded jeans and a red T-shirt.

House used his cane on the right side of his body, where his crippled leg
was. Not on the opposite side, which was usual. Wilson sometimes wondered
why House used it that way. Was it because using it on the left was how
crippled up old men did it? Or was it simply easier? 

House was right handed. When he needed to write on his whiteboard at work,
to drive, to eat, to hold his dick when he peed, he needed his right hand,
forcing him to place the cane temporarily in his left or hang it on
something while his right hand was busy. 

It made more logical sense for him to use the cane with his left, but he
didn't.

The use of his cane on the right was interesting and a bit inexplicable.
But it also lent House's lurching walk a shadow of gracefulness. Wilson
was so used to seeing House with the cane and the gently rocking limp
that, back when House was still delighting in the painless after-effects
of the Ketamine treatment, it had seemed foreign to see House without his
constant wooden appendage. 

House kept up his pace around the apartment. He'd been at it without
let-up for a full hour. 

Wilson stole a glance at House's face the next time he passed. It was
shiny with perspiration and the skin over his cheekbones was stretched
taut. His eyes squinted as though the lights were too bright. 

"Is your leg bothering you?" Wilson asked.

House nodded but did not stop.

"How bad?"

The next time House passed, "Bad." 

"Did you take a Vicodin?"

"Four an hour ago. Today, not enough."

Wilson felt like he'd been gut punched. The Vicodin always worked, he'd
assumed. That's why House demanded them, ate them like gum-drops. But "Not
today"?

Wilson saw House slow his pace and his limp grew more pronounced. He
stopped and placed his hands on the back of the couch, easing his weight
completely off his right leg. His breath hitched in his throat, like the
spasm's were suddenly worse - after the exercise. After the endorphin's
were supposedly coursing through his blood and easing the ache.

"How often does your leg get this bad?"

"Every few days." House kept his answers short and concentrated on
breathing. Maybe it helped.

Wilson was alarmed and ashamed. He'd seen House detoxing and in pain, in
rehab and in pain. He'd never seen him doped up on enough Vicodin to get a
buffalo giddy yet still be in agony. The leg was no joke. It wasn't a scam
to get high. It never had been. 

Wilson had always believed that House's need for Vicodin had been half
real pain and half junkie craving a fix. "Jesus." He said under his
breath.

Suddenly he saw the reasons why House had been so difficult on Stacey. It
is possible he might have died had she not made the proxy choice (against
his wishes) for him and instructed the surgeons to go middle ground and
remove most of the dead muscle. Possibly but not certainly.

But they had known, certainly, that going middle ground would leave him in
chronic pain for the rest of his life. The possibly in it was they had no
idea how much possible pain he would have to endure. Had Stacey known of
this, seen this now, would she have made the same decision?

"I can get morphine." Wilson offered. 

House shook his head. "I have some." He was out of breath and exhausted.
"Sometimes it eases on its own after a while."

Wilson wanted to give him an injection now but didn't want to over-rule
House's good decision to avoid the more addicting morphine and instead
ride the pain out a bit longer. House was trying to stay off pain killers
as much as possible, it seemed. It was becoming obvious to Wilson that it
just wasn't always possible. 

For five years House had lived like this. Five years, every day. And two
or three days of every week the pain was like this. Not merely bad but
unbearable. Excruciating. 

Wilson did a quick calculation in his head. Seven hundred and eighty days
of insupportable pain. How many hours, Wilson wondered, did House usually
sweat and gasp in agony before the pain broke him and he surrendered to
the needle?

Wilson had an urge to hug him long and hard, but instead stayed put in the
easy chair and, trying to take House's mind off his leg, asked, "Are you
coming in to work tomorrow?"

House nodded. "New case. A weird one, Cameron says." House always perked
up at a new, interesting sounding case. "She's bringing the file by
tonight."

Now Wilson perked up. "Good. Sunday night television blows."

Cameron did not show up alone. She towed Foreman with a sour faced Chase
taking up the rear. The two doctors politely greeted Wilson. Foreman said
a hello to House while Chase donned a strictly neutral expression and kept
quiet.

Cameron gave House a quick hug, which he endured silently then asked for
the case file.

"Female," House read aloud. "Seventeen years old, general health good.
Skin is blistering and sloughing off." He looked at Cameron. "History?"

"Dad is diabetic. Mom has high blood pressure. No brothers or sisters.
Maternal grandmother lived to be ninety-two. No health problems. Husband
killed in the Second World War at age thirty-eight. No known health
problems -"

"-Except probably a few gun-shells in the torso," Chase said. "That'll
kill you." 

"I got a couple of those and I'm alive." House said.

Cameron ignored the interruption, "Paternal grandparents are both living.
She's fine, he's had two heart attacks and a double by-pass - sedentary
job and a bad diet - otherwise fine."

House read some more. "Her skin blistered and peeled off after twenty
minutes playing volleyball on the beach...." He looked at Cameron. "She's
allergic to the sun. Why is this interesting?"

"Keep reading." 

He found the crucial part. "She got the sunburn though she was fully
dressed. So a severe allergy to the sun."

Cameron shook her head. "No, I tested her. No allergy, and she's fine
under light. No reaction."

"If she's already blistered, how could you tell?"

"I tested her feet. They and her hands were the only parts not blistered
or partially blistered."

"Hmm." House was curious, Wilson could tell. 

"Arthritis? NSAID's? SAID's? Sulpha drugs?" House asked her.

"None. No arthritis in the family. The beginnings of osteoporosis in the
mom."

"Infections?"

"Blood work was clean, but we could have missed something."

House closed the file and handed it back to Cameron. He clutched at his
right thigh. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. "If she's not in a
clean room, get her in one. Treat the burns, Morphine sulphate if she's in
a lot of pain, keep her on fluids and I'll see you tomorrow." The meeting
was adjourned.

Cameron stood up. Foreman and Chase exchanged glances that said "So why in
the hell did Cameron insist we come?"

"Thanks for dropping in." Wilson said lamely as the three filed out the
door.

Wilson thought of scolding House for not saying Boo to either Foreman or
Chase but seeing the pain he was in, he decided against it. Foreman and
Chase were old enough to make up their own rules regarding House. And
House, he didn't follow rules.

"Need a massage?" 

House looked sharply at Wilson, his eyes wary.

"I meant I could call Ingrid. She does house-calls, no pun intended."

House stood, shook his head. Cane in his right hand, he limped off to the
bedroom. "You don't have to stay here tonight. I'll be fine." House said
as he retreated. "Nite'."

Wilson felt a bit lost, and a bit sad, having to go home. He'd become
comfortable sleeping with House in the next room, even if he couldn't be
in there with him. "Goodnight House."

Wilson moved back home.

* "How's our patient?" House asked, entering the meeting room next to his
office. Cameron was checking lab results. She let him get his own coffee.
"Resting. The parents want to talk to you."

"Of course they do, and I'm sure you told them they can't?"

"No, I said when we know something more, we'll talk to them."

"Is that the second blood work results?"

"Yes."

"Clean?"

"Yes."

"Then we already know something more and I'm still not going to talk to
them."

"We don't know anything more."

"Sure we do. We know it's unlikely to be an infection."

"That's one of your negative result something more's."

"It's called the process of elimination. It works for Columbo, Nancy Drew
and Survivor."

"Great. We eliminated that it most likely isn't an infection, now all we
have to do is eliminate a hundred other things that could cause skin
blistering and peeling."

"A hundred? That's way too many. Maybe twenty-five things, or thirty.
Well, fifty. Or so." House sat in his habitual head of the table chair.
"Drugs. Drugs are the most likely culprit."

"We already ruled out allergy after she was admitted."

"Not a drug allergy, a drug reaction."

"She isn't on any drugs."

"Cancer then. Or a lack of something reaction." House sipped his coffee,
thinking. "Sulphur deficiency. It affects first the skin, then the immune
system, then the blood, then the liver. The body can't fight infection and
the first line of defense against infection is-"

"-the skin." Cameron finished. "It seems unlikely. There was no sign of
infection in the blood work."

"Not yet. It hasn't got there. But it fits. Sulphur deficiency leaves her
open to skin infection. Skin infection spreads in the subcutaneous
tissues. Was her skin tested for infection?"

"No, we thought she was burned."

"Test it. If I'm wrong, we need more information anyway." House stood up
and made his way to his office. "I'm going to talk to Wilson about cancer.
You - research. Find out what else she was doing on the beach that day."

* Wilson, back in his old office again, felt somewhat comforted by the
fact that while not everything was back to normal, some things were. Like
House entering his office without knocking.

"What's up?"

House plopped down in the opposite chair. "My case might have skin cancer.
Any cancer's where the skin sloughs away to the granulosum?"

"A few. I've never heard of any affecting, what, ninety percent of a
person's skin."

"Which one might?" 

"Rhabdomyosarcoma."

"Embryonal?"

"Possibly. Aveolar's more likely, considering the extensive involvement of
her skin. The presentation is unusual but not out of the question. You
might need to do a chest X-Ray and check her bone marrow."

"Skin layer test first."

"Yup. If it is Aveolar's, there's almost no hope. We don't even know what
causes it. Some rare genetic disorder's contribute- "

-House let out a great sigh.

"What?"

"Now I have to go talk to the parents."

* House explained their various theories simply and directly. Cancer
maybe. If it is, treatments are available. Twenty percent survival rate.
He waited until the cries of shock and tears subsided and then continued
with the lesser bad of the bad news. Maybe a severe allergic reaction to
an undisclosed drug - yes, even good girls sometimes take drugs and don't
tell their parents - or a reaction to something missing, like acute
Sulphur deficiency contributing to an undiagnosed systemic infection.

The parents cried and hugged and House returned to his office for a snooze
and to await the lab results.

Cameron returned late that afternoon. "The kids on the beach did some
skinny-Jacuzzi-ing. In a portable, heated mud bath. I sent a sample to the
lab to check for bacteria and contaminants. We'll have the results
tomorrow."

"Horny boys and girls mud skinny-dipping. What's the point if nobody can
see anything?" House remarked. *

Wilson dropped House off at his apartment. "Need a ride tomorrow?"

"Nope. Bike's fixed. New paint job too. Want a beer tonight?"

Not feeling like going home, Wilson accepted. 

House found a game on the television, cracked a beer and kicked back. His
leg was behaving itself for a change and he seemed in a good mood. House
often was when he had a bit of baffle in his cases.

Wilson sat beside him on the couch. Not too close. But he could smell the
subtle, almost-not-there scent of House's cologne. An understated odor of
spice and oak that reached Wilson's nostrils if he leaned to the right
just a little. Mixed with the fading smell of House's Irish Spring
shampoo, Wilson felt a warmth spreading through his torso and soon a hot
stirring in his loins.

This was just a bad idea. "I gotta go."

House frowned and pointed at the TV with his cane. "The game just
started."

"I'm tired."

"You can sleep on the couch." 

"I've got a lot of paperwork."

"You always have a lot of paperwork. What you don't have is a lot of
Football, the season's almost over."

"My team is losing."

"No one's scored yet, and the Giant's are gonna win!"

"My mind isn't on the game."

"Have another beer."

"It's warm."

"I have ice. I think."

There was no escaping. Wilson crossed his arms and tried to concentrate on
the men in uniforms trying to beat each other into the ground to score
their turn with the little pig skin. 

House removed his jacket and cotton shirt, leaving just his Tee-shirt and
stretched his legs out on the coffee table.

Wilson stared at them. God they were gorgeous. Beautifully muscled things
of perfect length. Few tall men were nicely proportioned but House was.
Tall men were often mostly leg, and then chicken-legged to boot.

Not House. He had the leg length but a long torso to match. And all of him
was still in shape. Even after the infarction and the surgery and the
detoxing and stints in rehab, House had tried to keep in form. When the
Ketamine had worked, House had jogged a dozen miles a day. When it had
stopped, he continued to work his upper body in the Hospital employee
weight room.

At forty-seven years old, gravity was starting to shake hands with House
as it eventually does with all, but on the whole the man was tight and
tasty. Wilson strictly kept his eyes from wandering further north to the
area above House's thighs. Fantasizing any more, especially about that,
and he would squirt in his dress pants.

Wilson's blood pressure was rising. He had to get out of there.

To his horror, Wilson realized that House was watching him. How long had
he been staring? 

"What?" Wilson asked, hoping his voice was not as shaky as his thighs
felt.

"What "what"? You were staring at my legs."

"So?"

House rolled his eyes. "I'm fine. The leg is fine, the ankle is healed.
Have another beer and stop fretting like a Jewish grandmother." 

"Sorry." Wilson almost fainted with relief. How the hell was he going to
stand another two hours of sitting so close to the object of his desire
and lust? Wilson opened another beer and tried filling his mind with naked
images of ugly, bloated truck drivers and hairy circus freaks.

* "This isn't going to work." Wilson sat across from Cuddy. 

Cuddy sympathized with her friend and employee but she had no sage advice
to offer. "Now you want to close your practice and move to California? How
is this going to solve your problem?"

"It'll get me away from House."

"And then he'll make my life miserable until the day I die, or he does."

"I have parents out there, I could tell him they need me, or that one of
them is sick..."

"And House'll phone them to see if you're lying again."

Wilson nodded rapidly, resembling a chicken scratching for seeds. He
covered his face. "God, this sucks."

Cuddy held her head in her hands. At times, Wilson and House seemed like
two pre-teens in grown men's bodies. "Listen to me." Cuddy began. Wilson
leaned on her desk, his fingers laced.

"What will happen if you don't tell him?"

Wilson's eyes flicked to the side and back. "I suffer."

"Why?"

"Because I love him and want to be with him and can't."

"So you'll suffer. And maybe you'll have to move to relieve that
suffering. So what if you do tell him?"

"He rejects me, maybe wants nothing to do with me as a friend. I suffer."

"And maybe have to move to relieve that suffering."

Wilson laid his chin on his hands in defeat. "I'm screwed no matter what I
do."

"So tell him. Maybe he'll surprise you. Maybe you won't be together, but
maybe he can handle it. All you have to gain is your friend."

Wilson knew she was right. He needed to tell House how he felt. "Oh, my
God, this isn't going to be easy."

*

"Talk to me." House said to Cameron as she entered his office.

"No cancer, no skin infection."

House bounced his big baseball off the office wall again and again. It
helped him think. "No cancer...no infections...huh. What about the mud
Jacuzzi?"

"It was positive for a number of common and harmless bacteria. None of the
other kids have gotten sick or displayed skin outbreaks of any kind. One
of them said Kristy.."

"-Kristy?" House asked.

"Our patient. One of them said Kristy was a little distracted that night.
She sort of zoned out once or twice, but they were all smoking cannabis
and drinking heavily."

"Zoned out. Sounds like acid, not pot."

"No evidence of LSD."

"The wuss's!" House went back to his ball tossing. "We need more
information. Talk to her parents again and get her grade-school medical
records. I want to know every cold she ever had, every vitamin they ever
gave her, every measles outbreak, every diaper rash. Everything that has
ever gone wrong with this kid."

Cameron looked tired. "O-okay-y." 

House's phone rang. He tossed the ball across the room and picked up the
phone. "House." He said into the receiver.

"House?" It was Wilson.

"Is there anyone else by that name who calls himself by that name talking
to you on the phone?" House asked.

Wilson didn't get the joke, or didn't care. "No. Um, you want to grab some
dinner Friday? My place? I want to,...I'm cooking,...I feel like some
four-cheese lasagna" (Wilson knew House loved it) "and spinach salad,"
(House poured extra portions of Wilson's home-made dressing on his
salad),"and maybe a pineapple cheese-cake...?"

"With the little pineapple chunks?"

Wilson could almost hear House salivating. "'Course."

"What's the occasion? Did the other one finally drop?"

"Hilarious. Uh, n-no occasion. I'm sick of take-out and I'm off early
Friday."

"I'll bring the beer."

"I have white wine."

"And I have golden suds."

"Fine, bring beer, ya' Homer. Seven o'clock."

* House showed up with a six pack of Pilsner under his left arm. He wore
faded Levi's and a thread-bare faded blue tee-shirt with the slogan: "When
monkey's masturbate, they go bananas!" 

Wilson shook his head. "Charming. When your mother goes to Bingo, she
probably wears a bag over her head." 

"My mother loves me. I'm her favorite."

House set the beer down on Wilson's neatly made up dining table. Two
plates with cutlery were already set atop a round beige table. A piece of
art was sitting off to one side and House killed time trying to figure out
what it was. He leaned in close, his forehead crinkling. "What the hell is
this, a whale's pe-"

"-No! It's a leopard sea cucumber."

House looked at his friend with misgivings. "Interesting choice of art for
a dining table. Where's your stereo?"

Wilson gestured to the other side of the dining/living area, realizing
that this was the first time House had ever been to his apartment. "The
CD's are in the drawer - no Blues!" To himself, "Too damned depressing."

From the closet-sized kitchen off from the dining nook, he watched House
rifle through his music collection then removed the lasagna from the oven.
The top was crispy orange and bubbling.

A soft music drifted from the stereo like a fog. House had kept the volume
reasonable, for once, and Wilson groaned inwardly. House had chosen Beth
Orton.* 

"Couldn't you have chosen something less..mournful?"

"Beth's a babe." House answered.

"Fine, whatever." 

Wilson kept his hands busy hacking into the cheesy, gooey mass and
plopping a large portion on house's plate. He followed with a salad bowl
each of spinach salad and placed the gravy boat of dressing within House's
reach. 

The pineapple cheesecake was cooling in the fridge.

"It's ready."

House grabbed a beer and seated himself in front of his plate. "Looks
good." He remarked and started shoveling.

Wilson picked at his plate but mostly sipped from his glass of Pinot.

House set his fork down two-thirds way through his lasagna, took a big
swig of his second beer, linked his hands together above his plate and
turned to Wilson. "So, aren't you going to talk about your problem?"

Wilson's glass halted halfway to his lips. "Um...what?"

House shook his head, annoyed. "Come on. You've never had me over to your
apartment. you sure as hell never made me my three favorite things all at
the same time before."

"You've been to my apartment." Wilson stumbled, trying to encourage an
argument more than anything so he wouldn't have to talk to House. That was
the whole point to the dinner but now that the dreaded moment was upon
him, he wanted to run from House's insistent manner.

"I have not. And you're not eating. James Wilson never not eats unless
something's stuck in his craw."

Wilson was surprised that House had noticed. "I lost my appetite."

"And you're acting more and more like a wet noodle. I've half a mind to-"

House's half-hearted tirade was cut short when Wilson clasped shaking
hands under his chin, frantically trying to stop the glistening in his
eyes which were glued to the wine glass in front of him. He did not dare a
glance toward House.

House was mute in the face of his friend's obvious grief. Finally, he
stuttered, "Look, I didn't m-mean to..." Then stopped. He was aware of his
own inadequacies in such situations. They made him squirm. He had no idea
what to do. 

"Friends...help friends." House kicked himself. He tried again. "Did
Hector die?" He hadn't seen the dog underfoot. "Did he try to make it with
your sea cucumber?"

Wilson laughed in spite of himself. House, while stumbling around in the
emotional dark, always managed to stumble upon what was the very nearly
perfect thing to say. That's why he loved him. One of the reasons. 

Wilson collected his tumbling emotions together in one place. "I have
something to say to you, and..." Wilson shook his head in defeat, "I have
no idea how you're going to react, so I'll just say it."

Wilson looked at House with frightened eyes. "I love you."

House stared. Then a tiny smile escaped his lips, the smallest flash of
teeth showing. He laughed. A simple harumph that jerked his body once.
"Yeah, I love you too, Jimmy. you're a pal. Weird sense of humor, but a
pal." House looked passed Wilson to the fridge. "How about that cheese
cake?"

Wilson figured it wouldn't be that simple. "House? I mean it."

House stared at his friend, searching for the twinkle in Wilson's brown
eyes that would indicate he was just pulling his leg. The brown eyes
looked steadily, unblinkingly, back. Little, upside-down, dining-room
lights were reflected in them, one in each dark iris. "You don't mean it."
House said.

Wilson could not place the inflection in House's words.

"Yes I do, I lo-"

House stood, using the table for support. "No-o-o-o. You don't!" He was no
longer looking at Wilson. His eyes darted elsewhere, never again at
Wilson. 

House did a visual search for his cane, found it on a chair by the stereo
and slowly limped over to retrieve it.

"House..."

Walking as quickly as his leg would allow, House ignored him, and limped
back, grabbing his jacket from where it was draped over an empty dining
table chair. He shrugged into it and turned to the door to leave. 

But Wilson was too quick for him. He slammed his hand up against the door
so House couldn't open it.

"Move it or lose it." House ordered.

"No." Wilson held his ground. "We need to talk about this."

"O-o-o-o no we don't. YOU can stay here and chat all you want. I'm
leaving." 

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you couldn't cope with this news
with the least grain of maturity, but you're not leaving until you hear me
out."

"Look, honey!, I just found out you're gay. News flash: I'm not. End of
conversation." 

"What the hell are you so embarrassed about?"

"Maybe because I've, for purely medical reasons, been bare-assed around a
guy who's favorite dish, it turns out, is franks and beans - mine!"

"Oh, give it up! You're ego knows no bounds. I'm not a voyeur. I haven't
spent the last eleven years drooling over your ass pimples."

"My ass thanks you. Wanna smell?"

Wilson let his hand drop. "Oh, you're SO the sexiest thing." Wilson walked
back to the table and began cleaning up dishes.

House didn't leave. He watched Wilson move back and forth from the table
to the kitchen sink. 

"Tell me this is a joke so I can have cheesecake."

From the kitchen, "It's not a joke, House."

House rubbed a hand over his face a couple times. "Christ. I knew
something was up I just didn't know it was your-"

-"Again - charming." Wilson remarked from the garbage tin. Wilson was
scraping the plates.

When Wilson returned to the dining area, House had not moved from the
door. But at least he was facing inward. But he was not relaxed, his arms
and legs were crossed and he stared at Wilson from beneath pinched brows.
"So? Talk." House demanded.

Wilson wanted to but it would achieve nothing. Nothing would change except
House. House would be walking on eggshells around him, avoiding trips to
the hospital bathroom with him, not talking about nurses with him, no
longer eating lunch with him...

Things seem to have gotten a whole lot worse. "It doesn't matter. You're
obviously freaked by this and I'm...I don't know, screwed I suppose." 

"I'm assuming non-sexually." House sighed, looked at his sneakers. "How
are you "screwed"?" 

House waited patiently, Wilson saw. He really did want to know. "This
clearly changes our friendship, for the worse I'm assuming. You don't want
a gay friend, especially one who's in love with you-"

House cringed.

"-I don't want just the old friendship now. I want...something more which
you can't give. So, I'm screwed. I guess I'll be taking that post in
California after all."

House stood straighter. "What post?"

Wilson remembered that he had not divulged Plan B to House. "Alvarado
Hospital in San Diego needs an Oncology Department Head. It's mine if I
want it." Wilson explained a little sadly. "I get a new job in a nice
sunny spot and I don't have to daily pine after you anymore. It's
win-win."

House took a step - one step - away from the door. "So, you turn gay, move
five thousand miles across the country, I lose my best buddy...how is this
win-win for me?" 

Hands on hips, "I guess it isn't." Wilson said. 

House tapped his cane on Wilson's wall-to-wall. "Look, you don't have to
move. Why don't you...why don't you just rent a penis and pretend he's
me?"

"What makes you think I haven't? And, by the way, your insinuation's a
little insulting. I'm in love with you, not just your pickle."

"Stop saying you love me and it's a cucumber!" 

Wilson shot him a pointed look. "You willing to prove that?"

House raised his cane over his head and laid it across the back of his
neck, using it to massage a tense spot. "How long have you been hiding in
the closet anyway? Since you lived with me? Were you hiding in MY closet?"

"Since college maybe."

House fidgeted. "So whenever I was taking a leek or showering and you were
shaving...?"

"Yup."

House reddened, letting his cane fall. He let out a long breath from
between pinched lips. "You married three times. Three times! I'm pretty
sure they were all women. Except for Amanda, she seemed a little butch."

"I lied." 

"You lied? That's some big, goddam, massive amount of lying."

"I didn't say I'm proud of it."

House swung his cane around, part in nervous play, part to distract
himself from Wilson's watchful eyes. "So-o-o, When exactly did
you...start...renting Brokeback? Putting from the rough? Packing fudge
into the candy-box-?"

"-I get your meaning - you have such a delicate way of putting things!"

"I mean, when did you start wanting-?"

"-Loving you? I'm not sure. It sort of happened gradually. Then last
Christmas, when you O.D-ed-"

"-When you walked out an left me dying on the floor..."

"...LYING on the floor, yeah." Wilson nodded vigorously. "That day! I
couldn't...pick up your pieces anymore. Not without something for the
effort. Not without nothing in return. I was getting nothing." 

House thumped his cane down hard. "We hung out! We laughed! We drank beer
and watched great porn. And I never meant to O.D. It was an accident."

"We did the things YOU liked." Wilson underlined it for him. "And, by the
way, the Head of Diagnostics at one of the most prestigious hospitals in
New Jersey does not swallow thirty-six Vicodin and drink sixteen ounces of
whiskey "by accident". You tried to kill yourself."

"YOU walked out!"

"You'd puked! You were fine."

"Right. Puking saved me."

House had swallowed those pills to punish. To punish Cuddy for taking away
his Vicodin, to punish Tritter for making his life even more miserable
than before and to punish Wilson for lying and betrayal. For not believing
him when he said he was in pain. And maybe to punish himself for flooring
the gas pedal in the car wreck which had become his life. 

Wilson turned back to the table and picked up the salad bowls. "Go home,
House."

House didn't move. Suddenly he shouted, "Why the hell did you have to turn
queer and fall in love with me anyway?" Then, more controlled, "I'm older
than you, I don't dress an snazzy as you, I have no sense of personal
style, I'm a jerk, I'm not quite as handsome as George Clooney, I'm a
cripple, I'm an addict - I never iron!..."

Wilson nodded, thoroughly agreeing. "Doesn't add up, does it? You are all
those things." Wilson turned to face him squarely and his voice dropped a
full register. "But you're also tall and artfully muscled. You have sweet,
suckable lips, gorgeous eyes the color of an arctic lake and when you get
to within ten feet of me, you get me so hot for wanting you I can hardly
breath."

House was stunned. Disbelieving. Rendered speechless. Then, "Really? No
way."

Wilson threw him a smokey look that left no room for doubt. "Way."

"Cool."

Wilson chuckled. "Only you..."

"So what now?" House asked.

Wilson shrugged. "Nothing."

House felt let down. Not by Wilson's lack of answer but by how he knew
things were going to change for them after tonight. "I don't think we can
do the same things anymore." House announced quietly, looking at his own
hands instead of at Wilson.

"I know."

"Consultations. Lunch maybe. Jokes. I'll still be the funnier one."

Wilson turned to him sadly. "And now I'll be the "funny" one."

House turned to the door. "You really going to take that job in San
Diego?"

"Probably."

House nodded once and turned the handle. "See you Monday."

"Goodnight House."

* End Part I ********************** ********************** *The Stars All
Seem To Weep

Stayed true to the things I knew when I was younger And food and love was
all but left to hunger. 'Cause when I stray from my truth as I grow older
Too much leaves an empty hollow hunger.

I think about you on a moonlit night And the stars all seem to weep. When
there's so much love to lose There's never any time for sleep.

Look at me doing all these things without you. We always left a new world
untrue. Where was it we tried hard not to go to? I think that's how I
finally came through.

All the things we took for granted The words still live on in my head All
the times I took for granted All the words I never said.

I think about you in the moonlit night, And the stars all seem to weep.
When there's so much love to give, There's never any time for sleep, yeah.

So I stayed true to the things I knew when I was younger And human life
was all but left to hunger, 'Cause when I stray from the truth as I grow
olderToo much leaves an empty hollow hunger. Too much leaves an empty
hollow hunger.

Living without you Living without you. Living without you, oh.

Beth Orton From the CD: Central Reservation  
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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
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nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the
show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.