You Already Know How This Will End: Part 4
Notes in Part 1.
31. Sunrise
Wilson prefers when patients die in the mornings. At early-morning deathbeds, the family is usually so tired that they're past the hyper portion of their exhaustion and into the quiet, weepy acceptance. They can say good-bye with the curtains open to the world beyond, and somehow it always seems to make everyone feel better. When he was younger, he used to make a point of changing his clothes after these rituals, both because of a faint superstition and a desire to cleanse himself of the after effects of death. Now he just changes his tie, and this is a practical concern: families don't like it when they run into him later in the day and he looks unscathed, unchanged. The border that is drawn in their days by death is no longer a very big line for him.
Even now, when his job is no longer to be on the floor, when he doesn't have to sit at anyone's bedside, he finds himself still drawn in to the various details of death. He won't sign those charts in the evening or the afternoon, if he can help it; he saves them for the start of the day. This is how he comes to find out that Grace Karmon has died. In the middle of all of the strange parts of his life right now, he hasn't thought about Grace in months; when he resigned his practice, he'd sent her a letter, hoping it would be forwarded to Florence or wherever she'd ended up, and he'd recommended Carrie Stark to take over her treatment. He'd never heard back, but he hadn't really expected to. She'd helped him through a pretty horrible time in his life, but he'd never given much back, beyond a steady shoulder to cry on, a body to lie next to in bed. He looks at the note in his pile of death records and feels a swell of sadness and shame. Her time of death is listed as 7:03 a.m., two days prior: Saturday, when he was just getting up, getting ready to pick up House.
Wilson sets the chart down, runs his fingers over the paper, then shakes his head. He signs off on the line he's supposed to and folds it back up. It's not like this was an unpredicted ending. It's not as though his presence would've been helpful or even appropriate. He stacks her file into another bunch of signed forms and carries them over to the main reception area in Oncology. Then it's a whirlwind of meetings, three in four hours plus a list of calls to return, and so he doesn't have to think about Grace or death or anything but money until mid-afternoon.
His clinic hours start at two, and he exchanges his suit jacket for a lab coat in his office. On his way out, he passes House's office and decides to stop in. It's his first day back. Wilson scheduled a full day for himself, suspecting House would jump right back in and knowing he wouldn't want a big coming-back party. He thinks it's probably better for there to be space between them at work right now, but it may look funny if he doesn't stop at all.
House's fellows are all standing at the door, taking orders, and Wilson hears, "Tegretol for the pain," as he steps in. House looks up. "Dr. Wilson," he says. His voice is bright and surprised, the engaged voice that means he's just solved whatever this mystery was. "You're looking very doctory today."
The fellows walk out en masse, and Wilson holds the door for them. "Just thought I'd see how the first day back was going."
House rolls his head around. "Late presenting alpha thalassemia trait, type 1," he says.
Wilson narrows his eyes. "From the middle east?"
"Nope, New Jersey native."
"That's one you don't see every day." He shakes his head. "Not the best diagnosis to hear."
House grins. "Presented with priaprism and skin lesions, so I think anything's going to be a step up from 'We don't know what it is but here's a shunt we'd like to shove into your penis.'"
"True." Wilson is still holding the door open slightly with one hand, and he lets it slide all the way closed. It almost feels like a normal conversation, like it's any day out of a thousand. He feels a dry catch in his throat. He's missed House; he still misses him.
"Anything interesting in oncology?" House asks.
There is only one person in the world who even knew about Grace, and that's House, so there is no one to whom he can talk to about her death. Wilson has a pang of regret, of self-pity. He has always married women who don't mind hearing sad stories, women who would curl up on the couch next to him and nestle closer and oo and ah and sometimes get a little teary-eyed themselves. It's funny that these are the qualities he's sought in mates, while his friends are precisely the opposite: all doctors, all clinical.
"Not really," Wilson says. "Just the usual death and baldness."
"Uh-huh." House has his arms crossed, and Wilson realizes, too late, that he's walked into some kind of trap. His powers of House observation have really fallen off. "Here's something interesting I learned in oncology today: you aren't actually seeing patients anymore."
Wilson rolls his eyes. "I see patients all the time."
"But not your own patients."
He shrugs. "I'm the head of the department. In a way, everyone's patients are my patients. And I put in 14 hours at the clinic a week."
"So that's it? You're too busy to have a practice?"
Wilson sighs. He'd put off this conversation on Saturday because, as of yet, he doesn't have a good explanation - or, rather, an explanation that will satisfy House. He leans back against the door. "It was time for a change," he says. With anyone else, he'd worry that saying this would bring on guilt, or concern - most people in House's position would feel responsible. Wilson worries that House will feel victorious, instead.
"You're not a burnout," House says after a moment. His eyes have narrowed. "And you needed that job."
"I still have the job," Wilson says. "And things are better this way."
"That's not what I'm asking." House gives him a very funny, evaluating look that makes Wilson squirm. "Maybe I'm not the only one who's detoxed."
It's funny, really, but he hasn't been angry at House just for being House in quite a while. It's almost a joyous kind of anger. "What makes you think I'm not telling the truth?"
House laughs. "Everybody lies," he says. "And you lie to everyone."
He walks into his office, ending the conversation, and Wilson doesn't try to follow.
32. Sunset
Cameron walks into House's office at the end of the day. It's dark inside, the sun setting just beyond the balcony, and so she turns on the light. House looks up. "Dr. Kenimore took Kevin onto his service," she says.
"Hematology, right? Because if you got him a herpetologist, well -"
"I know the difference between blood and snakes." She smiles anyway and sits in the chair across from his desk. He's playing with his yo-yo, and she tries to look like that's what she's watching. Really, she's just watching him. It's nice to have him back, and it's a bit of a relief that he's exactly the same. Or mostly the same. He's not the House that came back to them from the ketamine - not out to find meaning - but he's also not the House that left in December. His face is thinner and his hair looks a little grayer, but those could just be tricks of memory and light, she decides. He is better.
"If you keep staring, your face will freeze that way," House says, though he doesn't look over.
"That's not medically true."
"It would be if I had the power to cause strokes." He catches the yo-yo and looks up and over at her. "Don't think I'm not working on it. I have all of this free time now."
His eyes are narrowed, and his voice is gravelly. She sits forward. "You're in pain," she says, and she feels bad about her surprise. Of course he's in pain. No Vicodin may mean a better engaged House - it may even mean a more healthy House - but it's a very hard drug to replace.
"Gold star, doctor," he says. He sets the yo-yo on flat on the desk and leans back in his chair. "Why did you sleep with Wilson?" he asks.
She keeps her face blank. It's something she's practiced, actually, in front of the mirror at home - thinking shocking, horrible, out-of-the-blue things while maintaining an absolutely straight face. The only way to save this patient is to take out her liver and feed it to her husband. "I like damaged people," she says. "And you damaged the hell out of him."
House jerks and draws in a dramatic breath. "Ooo, you got me," he says, holding up both hands. "I drove you into his arms, at least the first time. But I'm thinking the next round was all about you."
"Everyone needs a hobby. And we can't all afford a piano."
"Chase is pretty damaged," House says, nodding as though this is something they're agreeing on. "The drunken mother, the disinheritance by a distant, over-achieving father..."
"He's also a great lay," she says.
"Better than Wilson?"
"Try it and find out." House actually laughs, then, and he shakes his head. There's a glint of pride in his eyes that Cameron is ashamed to have wanted. "Are you really sorry that you hired me?" she asks.
House stares at her, and his face is a blank that Cameron can't achieve, a mask of nothing that she's never been able to approach. Her eyes always give her away, but he seems to have trained himself, from the soul up, to be this hard and unreadable. "Yes," he says. "But there's a difference between being sorry for you and being sorry about you."
She stands up. "Don't cry yourself to sleep over it," she says. "I signed on for another six months. Cuddy offered us all contract extensions."
"I know," House says.
He doesn't look like he's ready to leave, and Cameron thinks, briefly, that she should offer to help him out, ask if he needs a ride home. He looks like he's waiting on something. But she told Chase she'd meet him at the bar, and she's tired and if House is about to mess everything up again, she doesn't want to know. "It'd be nice if you were here for the extra time," she says.
His smile is brief, stunted by pain or memory, she can't tell. She never can tell with him. "I'll do my best," he says. He clears his throat. "If only I could get one of you trained to take bullets for me."
"Talk to Foreman," she says, and House laughs again, keeps laughing even as she's leaving.
33. Too Much
Lisa has her first big moment of doubt while she's interviewing a candidate for Dr. Glover's old job as the head of cardiac medicine. The candidate, Mark Mendel, is a snappy, attractive cardiologist who's flown in from Chicago. He's the first one she's seen who is dressed for the weather, and she appreciates this even as she thinks her fellow committee members are marking his snow boots against him.
He offers them a well-done presentation on his own accomplishments at the Chicago Heart Hospital, where he's worked for two years under Dan Bleekman, who Lisa knew at Michigan. Mendel has a number of research credits to his name in addition to his recommendations, and his work at CCH is nicely documented. When he leaves, Lisa turns to the committee members and is surprised to see they all look uncomfortable.
"Well?"
"He's almost - too good," Janice Beckman says, her voice soft, halting. "He's only 35, and he's already got more publications than most of the long-term cardiac staff."
"He won't stay." This from Orrin Welch, who's been the chair of internal medicine since the beginning of time. He believes in constancy, in consistency - things that Lisa values, as well. "Why should he? In three or four years, if he keeps publishing like this, he could get a position anywhere in the world for twice the money we can offer him here."
Lisa folds her papers closed. "He's not in it just for the money, though. He'd have taken the offer from Hopkins last year if that was it."
"Hopkins would've been a lateral move," Janice says. "We're a step up."
"And he's going to keep stepping up," Orrin says. "He's always going to be looking for the next challenge."
"You don't think we could keep him challenged here?" Lisa meets his eyes, dares him to say what he's thinking.
Orrin shrugs delicately. "I don't know that we could afford him."
They debate his qualifications for a while and talk briefly about the last two people they saw. Lisa lets them go without taking a vote. After all, she doesn't need their permission to hire Mendel. She's gone against recommendations only twice in her career to hire a department head: once for House, who was highly qualified but highly - and rightly - vilified, and once for Wilson, who was, in the committee's view, too young, too ambitious, and too likely to burn out. She can't quite hold them up as trophies, anymore, but she likes to think they've done more good than harm.
She goes to lunch with Sarah Andrews, a friend from medical school who now works full time in research at Princeton. They talk about work a little, and Sarah talks about her husband and the drama of their Christmas holiday at his parents' house. It sounds nice, Lisa thinks, though she feigns horror on cue. Sarah's life is right on schedule, everything sweet and wonderful, her biggest worries tied up in whether her husband's mother is still angry about Sarah making the wrong kind of stuffing.
Lisa works in the clinic all afternoon. She sees fourteen patients and takes a stack of charts to sign back to her office. It's well past dinnertime when she leaves, and it's dark outside and starting to snow. At home she sits in the garage with her hands over her stomach. This is going to be too much, she thinks. It's 7:00 and she's left a mountain of paperwork behind; she needs to be back at the hospital in 12 hours, and in between she should make a few phone calls and eat something and pay some bills and exercise a little and probably talk to Wilson for a bit. Once the baby is born there will be infinitely more things to do, more things left undone every day, more leaps she can't make and chances she can't take. She thinks about Mark Mendel and his slick presentation and his unending list of accomplishments and she knows why she wants to hire him, knows why she will hire him: because he's just like her, he's just like everyone she admires, always looking for a new challenge, a new obstacle to overcome.
She gets out of the car and goes inside and sits in a chair at the dining table and waits for Wilson to get home. When he does, he sits across from her and asks if she's eaten yet. "What if this is all too much?" she asks him. "What if I'm not built for this, if this is the time when I've bitten off more than I can chew?"
"It may be too much for both of us," he says, and she looks up sharply at that. "I'm not saying I think it is, or that we should - not. I mean, worse people than us raise kids all the time."
"I don't think that's very comforting," she says.
He shrugs. "I don't have a lot of comfort in me, today." He stands up and walks around the table, puts one hand on her shoulder. It's a strange feeling, Wilson's hand there, and it feels more intimate than anything else. She tries not to want it or like it too much. "What I meant was, we're better equipped to handle this than 90 percent of the population. So if it's too much, we call for help."
She nods. It's that simple, she realizes. She's done it before, and it's why Wilson's here at all. "Do you mind cooking?" she asks.
"Least I can do," he says.
34. Not Enough
The first two days he's back at work, House stays late. He doesn't do any actual work in the evenings, but he sits at his desk and hurts and listens to the sound of the hospital around him and doesn't think about his empty apartment or his very large bed or the pharmacy downstairs. He doesn't think about Wilson leaving without checking on him. He doesn't think. He sits at his desk and hurts, and both nights, at around 7:15, he calls Dr. Earle and doesn't talk to him about all of the things he's not thinking about. On the third night, Dr. Earle calls him at 6:30 and says, "Go to the damn meeting. My wife wants to see a movie tonight."
So he goes to the NA meeting in the basement of the hospital. It's held every night at 7:00, and it's run by a woman who doesn't work at Princeton-Plainsboro. House knows this because he checked with the receptionist for the therapy division before he even considered the meeting. He knows how lax security is at the hospital; no way is he getting involved with a group where his pain could end up as gossip.
He doesn't recognize any of the other attendees, which is a promising sign. Mostly community members, it seems. He doesn't talk, and he doesn’t really listen to those that do. Instead, he plays with his paper cup of coffee and wishes for more sugar and wonders if it's decaf and if it isn't, he wonders how late he'll be awake and if he'll hurt for the whole time. He remembers the vial of Tramadol in his pocket and feels a small thrill at having held off this long.
He makes it through the meeting and slips out afterward with a donut in his hand. At the front desk, he stops and dials a taxi company on his cell phone. His leg hurts too much for him to be driving. The operator puts him on hold. He could go out to the taxi stand in the visitor's lot, see if there's any waiting, but it's starting to snow and it's a very long walk. Instead, he hangs up and dials Wilson's number.
"I'll be right there," he says. House regrets calling him even as he feels relieved by the response.
Wilson pulls up fifteen minutes later. House sits in the car and makes himself say thank you.
"Do you have a patient?" Wilson asks.
"No," House says. "I had a meeting."
"With Westin?"
"Like that guy ever works more than a six hour day," House says, shaking his head in admiration.
They stop at a light, and Wilson looks over. "Seriously, what were you doing there this late, then? And please remember that I'm not an idiot if you're thinking of saying you were catching up on paperwork."
"I had a meeting," House repeats.
"Who holds meetings at 8 at night?"
"People who wish to remain anonymous," House says, facing the window so he doesn't have to see the spectacular flash of guilt and understanding on Wilson's face. He clears his throat and fingers the vial of medication in his coat pocket. It's almost 9; if he can make it through until 10 then maybe he'll sleep through the night.
Wilson stops at the curb near House's apartment. It's too much to ask Wilson to come in, but he thinks about it, anyway, thinks about the pleasant distraction that Wilson's low thrum of annoyed disappointment might provide. House opens his door and finds a dry spot for his cane on the damp street.
"I'll just park the car," Wilson says, and House nods and steps out. It takes him longer than it should to get to the door, but he has it unlocked and is in his own place by the time Wilson comes up. House is resting his forehead, just resting, on the door of the refrigerator.
"I need your help," House whispers after a moment, aware that this is the way it started, five years ago. Wilson must be aware, too, because House hears him shift, looks over to see his arms cross. He shakes his head and steps back, just slightly, from the refrigerator, turns to face Wilson. Everything he's feeling is on his face - all of it, the pain, the shock of finding himself here, the humiliation of having to ask Wilson what he's got to ask. "In my coat pocket," he says. "From Westin."
Wilson nods, after a long moment, and goes out to the living room. House thinks he should move himself to the bedroom, but he can't, not right now. His leg is tight with pain, and there's sweat beading on his forehead and the back of his neck. Wilson comes back in and rolls up his sleeve; the needle prick is short, professional, and House can't even feel it over the thrum of his leg. He lets Wilson help him back to his bedroom and fumbles for a moment with his pants and shirt. Wilson helps with this, too.
"This is too much," House says, because it is, it's too much for anyone to see, for anyone to know about him, that he needs this help, that he's this far from well.
"Not for me," Wilson says. He pulls the blanket up over House, and he hadn't even realized he's shivering. Wilson's hand on his shoulder is heavy, warm, but it's not enough, not nearly enough.
35. Sixth Sense
Cameron doesn't stay over on Thursday night because they have an actual date scheduled for Friday - with the usual, unless-there's-a-patient caveat. Chase hopes, for once, that there's not a patient. He has plans. There's a pretty good band playing at the downtown coffee bar that Cameron likes best, and Chase is pretty sure they can have dinner at the Italian place next door beforehand, listen to the band, and browse the bookshop all for under $50. Less, if Cameron wants to go Dutch treat.
Chase drives himself in to work and makes it to the conference room right at eight. Cameron's the only one there, and she smiles over at him, a sly little smile that he likes. It's their standard work greeting. When he picks her up at her place, there's always a greeting kiss. When House is in the office, it feels weird, this non-denial denial of their relationship, but today, it's juts the two of them and it's OK. "Nothing?" he asks, looking at the empty conference table, then over at House's dark office.
"He's got physical therapy this morning," Cameron says, shrugging. "I think I might spend some time in the lab, write up Kevin's case."
Chase isn't sure that's a good idea. Thalassemia is pretty well covered, at the moment, what will all the talk that it's the coming plague in India. But it's date day, and he wants things to go well. "Sounds all right," he says.
She smiles and draws her hand across his shoulders as she walks past. She smells like the lavender-scented soap she bought at the street market last weekend. "Find me at lunch?"
"Absolutely."
He watches her leave and shakes his head. He's totally smitten. It surprises him a little more every day. It's Cameron, for Christ's sake. Weepy, over-involved Cameron. But she's funny, and she's tougher than he would have ever guessed, and, well, there's something about dating a doctor. Chase can't think of anyone with whom he's ever had a better sex life. Hot and clinically knowledgeable and virtually unembarrassable. He blushes a little just thinking of the weekend before, and takes a few cooling breaths before he busies himself with getting a coffee.
He dabs in a bit of sugar and a nice shot of cream, then picks up his crossword book from his desk and takes his mug over to the conference table. It's actually a book Cameron picked up for him, from a bookstore instead of from the hospital gift shop - it's filled with challenging Sunday crosswords from the New York Times. He's not actively pursuing a publication of his own at the moment - he has two articles out to editors, and is waiting to hear back on either one - so he finishes about one and a half a day.
After fifteen minutes, Foreman walks into the conference room, holding a donut. "Where is everybody?" he asks.
"House has PT," he says. "And Cameron's in the lab. She's writing up the thalassemia guy."
Foreman snorts. "Overdone," he says. "Unless she's got some new bleeding-heart angle on it." He pauses, then glances sidelong at Chase. "Sorry," he says, and Chase shrugs it off.
"'Sallright, I agree with you," he says, setting his crossword book down.
"I may end up owing you some money today," Foreman says as he sits down, and Chase looks over.
"Yeah? He's got Wilson and Cuddy sorted, you think?" They have a hundred-dollar bet about when House will figure out that Wilson and Cuddy are an item. Foreman bet within two weeks; Chase had picked the end of the month.
Foreman shrugs. "He was lurking around oncology yesterday afternoon."
Chase smirks. "They've been pretty quiet about it, though." He only knows because Cameron told him.
"I'm surprised it's taken him this long. I mean, he had you two figured out in about five minutes, right?"
"House has a sixth sense for things that can cause me embarrassment," Chase says. He hasn't quite given up trying to figure out how House does it, but at the moment, he can't really make himself care too much. There's something a little thrilling about House knowing that Chase is shagging Cameron. He wonders if it's as hot in House's head as it is in real life, and he hopes it is. He's never really seen House jealous, but there is a tiny part of him that very much wants to.
Foreman looks up and out into the hall, and Chase turns to look, too. Dr. Wilson is walking past, and he gives them both a short wave. Foreman returns a nod and Chase waves.
"That guy has balls of titanium," Foreman says, and Chase almost snorts up a sip of coffee. "He rats on House and now he's sleeping with Cuddy? Tell me a scenario that doesn't end with the brake lines being cut on his car."
Chase shrugs, but Foreman has a pretty decent point. "House would be more subtle," he says, and Foreman nods.
"Poison?"
"Something completely undetectable," Chase agrees.
"He'd probably test it out on a patient, first," Foreman says.
"Or one of us."
They both turn to look at the coffeemaker at the same time. "Did you -?" Foreman asks, and Chase pushes his coffee away. After a moment, Foreman takes a defiant sip.
"Awfully brave," Chase says, and he's only half kidding.
"I figure, of the three of us, I'm safe," Foreman says.
Chase pulls his cup closer. "I suppose he'd take out Cameron, first," he says. He makes himself take a sip, because he's already had a half a cup. And really, it's all just stupid supposition.
"She does drive him nuts," Foreman says. "Of course, you have a record, too." Chase glares. He's not going down this road again; the Vogler debacle wasn't his finest hour, but if it came down to losing his job, he'd probably do it all again. "And you know, if you ever break up with Cameron, she's going to get even more obnoxious, and he'll probably off both of you just to reduce his own pain."
"No worries there, at least," he says. Foreman grins a wicked little grin, and Chase rolls his eyes. He hasn't really thought much about what breaking up with Cameron might mean, but Foreman has a point. As much as House seems to be annoyed by Cameron, she's clearly higher on the food chain than Chase. He tries to imagine the hell his life will become if he and Cameron don't work out and House gets a hold of that information. It actually makes him shiver. "Oh, shut up," he says when Foreman starts to laugh. He stands up and gets himself another cup of coffee, just to prove he can. "He'd probably make you do it," he says.
Foreman grins. "You want to make a counter offer?" he asks.
Chase is trying to think of a response - other than yes, absolutely - when House walks in. "I don't like this no-patient thing," he says. "You two look like you're plotting a murder."
He limps into his office, and Chase sinks into a chair at the table. "How does he do that?" he mutters into his hands.
"Sixth sense," Foreman answers. When Chase looks over, Foreman's pouring his coffee down the sink.
36. Smell
It is the smell of lemons that does Lisa in, now. The morning sickness is usually over before she leaves the house - she's been careful to schedule her meetings only after 9, now, and she stays late to make up for that. But one morning, her assistant is snacking on lemon pound cake when Lisa walks by his desk, and she almost throws up in his trash can.
"A little indignity every day," her mother says when she calls to complain. Her mother had five children, and somehow Lisa was counting on this expertise, was hoping for a homespun cure. Instead, her mother says, "Bake him some pumpkin bread instead."
Lisa rests her head in her hands. "You don't understand my life at all," she says, but her voice is so low that her mother can't hear it.
Two of the nurses in the clinic use lemon-scented shampoo, and for the first time, Lisa ducks into an exam room and decides maybe she won't come out for the rest of the afternoon. If House can make a career of dodging it, surely she has built up the credit to take an afternoon here and there.
She sits in the chair, rests her head in one warm hand. Being a doctor should help, she thinks, but that hasn't been true so far. There's a list of side effects next to every drug in her head, and every time she wants to reach for a syringe - just a drop of ondansetron, just a few capsules of Diclectin - she goes through the list in her mind. She pictures herself tucked into a bed, Betsy's calm, clinical voice and sympathetic eyes above her, Wilson's worried face looking in from the hallway. No medications, she thinks.
The door opens and she turns around with a jerk, almost falls off of the stool. Of course, she thinks, standing up, straightening out her blouse. "Dr. House."
"Dr. Cuddy." He closes the door, and Lisa has a perfect idea of what this might look like to anyone outside. Oh, maybe they'll just think she's giving him drugs. She leans against the counter. "If you're hiding out, it's much more effective if you slide the 'occupied' bar on the door."
She wants to snap, to argue she isn't hiding, but the words just aren't there, so she nods. He hoists himself up onto the exam table - the move isn't graceful, but it's well-practiced - and looks down at her. "Hiding from Wilson?" he asks, and Lisa closes her eyes. "You two have a lovers' spat?"
"We're not," she says, and she waves her hand around.
"Not lovers? Or not fighting?"
"Both."
She hears him grunt and opens her eyes. "And yet he's staying at your place."
"He stayed with you last year," she says, rubbing her temples. "Were you sleeping with him?"
"I'm not his type," House says. "Though maybe, if I'd offered to have his baby..."
She sighs, and it's deeper and more choked than she wanted. "I don't have the energy to do this," she says.
"Funny, the first trimester will do that to you."
When she looks up, he doesn't look nearly as cruel as she would've expected. She sees emotion there that she hasn't expected - surprise, confusion, maybe even disappointment. "House," she says. There's a lot she could say, and most of it would be true. She had thought of him, she had even, briefly, wanted him. If it hadn't been for the drugs - but no. There's more to it than that. It's all so complicated, and she doesn't know where to start, or how.
He shakes his head, reaches into his pocket and pulls out a GameBoy. "There's a bakery on 12th Street that sells ginger scones just for pregnant women. I've heard good things," he says. "And if you asked him, Wilson would take your clinic hours."
She nods and rubs her hands over her face. "Thank you," she says, letting herself out of the room. The air is clear without, and she takes the opportunity to sneak out of the clinic and over to the cocoon of her office.
37. Sound
House does physical therapy three days a week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he has four hours in the clinic scheduled before lunch. He meets with Westin every morning, though now their meetings are short because Westin has the pharmacy deliver House's dose to his clinic. He goes to meetings in the evenings and eats almost all of his meals at the hospital. In some ways, it's not that different from his rehab schedule - just less softball.
He's only had the one patient since he's been back, and he's not completely sure whether that's Cuddy guarding him or Cuddy being mad at him or what. She's been avoiding him, which means he could be slacking off on his clinic hours. He doesn't. He goes through patients like he always has. One of his fellows or another doctor has to sign off on any level-3 or above narcotics that he prescribes, but that's the only change.
On Tuesday night, after his meeting, he takes a cab home, gets his mail, and goes into the living room. He sets the mail on the piano, then stares down at it. He hasn't touched it since he's been back. Tonight, he eases himself down onto the bench and lifts the cover. It doesn't hurt to sit here because he's used to the bench; it's nicely padded and at the perfect height. The pain is there but manageable. Livable, he thinks, and snorts and put his hands on the keys.
Something simple, he thinks. He closes his eyes, listens, plinks a finger down one C above middle, then up to E and G. Mozart. Sonata I, the simple sonata. It's childish, and his fingers still remember the whole thing from grade-school piano lessons. In his mind, it's his mother's poorly-tuned Kimball playing the song out, and he winces when he starts the arpeggios, expecting the clash of an untuned octave at the end. But it's his own piano, which he has tended carefully for years, more carefully than anything else: plants, friendships, lovers. The piano gets tuned every six weeks; it is settled neatly in the corner, out of damaging drafts and away from the warping sunlight of his windows. He sets a drink on top every now and then - or used to, when drinking was something to be excited about, when it meant liquor instead of water or weak tea - but there's no mark, because he is fastidious in his polishing.
It feels like a betrayal that he's been home for almost two weeks and hasn't done this, yet. He starts the Andagio, and when he comes to the middle, the minor, he bows his head in apology. I'm so sorry, he thinks, looking down but not watching his fingers. His memory keeps the music going. It takes more effort than it used to. He's glad for that. There is the pain and the music and he doesn't have room for anything else, and he lets it stay that way to the end, through the brittle challenge of the Rondo, until the final triumphant chord echoes through the room. He's thought of moving, before, but here the acoustics are great, full and perfectly bounded by books, the hard floor softened by the high ceilings.
When the phone rings, the sound is harsh and horrible. He can't believe he bought a phone that's this discordant, and then he remembers, he didn't buy it, Stacy did. They'd always had corded phones, content with one in the kitchen and one by the bed, until the infarction. Then she'd bought the cordless, an expensive phone six years ago, and she'd made him carry it around whenever she wasn't nearby. What if you fall, what if you have a problem, she'd said, and she'd left it behind when she'd left. He gets up from the bench and answers the phone just to stop the ringing.
"Are you all right, honey? You sound out of breath."
"I'm fine, Mom," he says, sinking on to the couch. "Just couldn't get to the phone fast enough."
"What were you doing? I didn't mean to interrupt."
"It's fine. Just playing around on the piano."
She makes a surprised, happy sound, and House closes his eyes. "I'm so glad you've kept that up. You never wanted to practice when you were little, you remember?"
"No." In his memory, the piano is the only constant. They traveled all over the world, and in every apartment, every new, crappy base housing project, his mother would find the piano. Usually, they were hidden away in the community rec rooms, the places set aside for wives to play cards on Tuesdays, the same rooms where they had covered-dish dinners when someone's husband would go missing. He can remember spending hours in rooms like this - white tile floors, dull green walls, every note a sharp echo - and if it's not exactly a fond memory, it's not a bad one, either. "Remember that piano you got when we were back in Ohio? I was thinking about that."
"Oh, the one from your aunt? Sure. What a beast that was to move in." What they are not saying, here, is that his mother is the only one who has ever thought the piano was a good undertaking for him. His father would've rather had a boy out in the yard, playing catch, messing with the car, running around raising hell with the townie girls by the base. House had been happy with his piano, with his books, and, when he turned 16, with a quick ticket out of base life and into an early-acceptance program at Johns Hopkins. "So how are you doing, Greg? We haven't heard from you for a while."
"Yeah, I've been kind of busy," he says, dodging the first question, because he can't think of a truthful answer. "Getting settled back in at work."
She hmms. She has never really understood what it is that he does. He sent her his first publication, back in his post-doc days, and it's still sitting on the bookshelf in the living room, the journal scrunched in between his father's Double Gun Journal editions and her yearbooks from Better Home and Garden. The accomplishments she understands are those that he's ruined - Stacy, in particular. "Do you think you might make it out this way sometime?" she asks. "We'd love to see you for Easter. Your cousin Carol and the boys are going to be in from London."
"I don't know, Mom. I have a lot of catching up to do." He tries to picture himself at his parents' house again. He hasn't been there in three years, since his Uncle Alfred died. And then, he'd gone only because his mother's news of the death had been so vague on the phone that he'd had to go, himself, to see what was going on. The house had been full of people, and that had been so strange that he'd stayed only for the day, driven back late at night after drinks with his remaining uncle and two cousins whose names he couldn't remember. He still can't remember precisely how he'd gotten home that night.
"Greg," she says, and he shifts on the couch and thinks please, please don't. Please. But he doesn't have these powers. "What was that all about, anyway?"
He can't lie to her. He can tell her the wrong truths, sometimes, but not now. Recovery is a process, he thinks, and almost laughs to hear Darien's voice in his head. "I'm a drug addict, Mom," he says. "We talked about this."
"Your pain medication," she says, her voice uncertain. "You said you were taking too much? But you were going to talk to your doctor about that."
"It wasn't - it wasn't his fault," House says. "I knew what I was doing. I got into some trouble. But it's fine now. It's going to be fine."
She is quiet for so long that he thinks she's going to say he's lying. He tries to figure out which part is untrue. It could be anything. "Son," she says, after a moment, "you know you can always come to us, if you're in trouble."
He laughs, and his face is wet when he rubs his hand across it. "OK, Mom," he says. His voice echoes up across the line, sounds too bright, too happy. "I should go."
"Well. All right. It's good to talk to you, though. Don't make me chase you down."
"All right."
"Your father says hello."
House nods, makes himself say, "Tell him hello."
"We love you, Greg."
He bites his lip. "I need to go, Mom. I'll talk to you soon." He hangs up and stares at the phone, at the base. He runs his thumb over the little switch that will silence its ring, and he clicks it to silent, then clicks it back. He picks it up again, wishes Stacy was still on speed dial, that she was still in the same area code. Then again, he thinks as the line rings, maybe it's better that she's not.
38. Touch
"James."
He looks up as he's locking his car and flinches at the sight of her. Stacy, in a black winter coat and hat, almost completely cocooned but still, clearly, Stacy, standing in the parking lot next to a silver Mercedes. "Stacy! Wow," he says, his voice bright, an attempt at recovery. He accepts her hug with a smile. She smells like cinnamon. When she pulls back, she keeps hold of his arm, and they don't move. "What are you doing here?"
Her lips thin into a line, a wry grin. "Greg called me last night," she says, and Wilson's stomach plummets. "I thought you said he was doing better."
Wilson shrugs. He did think things were getting better. He'd talked to Cuddy about House's pain last week, and he thinks she put pressure on Westin, because House has had his medication increased. He's doing better. He hasn't called for help in days - at least, he hasn't called Wilson. "He called you. You don't think that's a good sign?"
"I don't know what to think," she says.
"Have you seen him?"
She shakes her head. "I wanted to talk to you first. Do you have time?"
"Now?" He's supposed to meet with a representative from GE at 8:30 about some new testing equipment. Stacy's eyes are dark and serious and a little scared. "Sure," he says. "Just let me make a call."
He cancels the meeting while Stacy drives them away from the hospital, a few blocks down to the nearest Starbucks. It's busy inside, but they get drinks and find a small table by the window. Wilson likes the professional hum of the place, all of these people in a hurry to somewhere, but none of them so tied down that they can't stop for overpriced, overflavored coffee. He sips his drink - nonfat cappuccino with an extra shot - and watches Stacy watching him. He can guess what's coming.
"He says you're with Lisa, now."
Wilson rolls his eyes. "That's not entirely true." He hasn't yet had to explain their relationship to anyone. He's not sure he wants to. "I'm staying at her place," he says.
"And she's pregnant."
He didn't know that House had figured that out, but he should've guessed. He sets the coffee down and looks at his hands on the table. His nails are short but neat, a habit formed from years of dealing directly with patients. No one wants a doctor with bitten-off finger nails, with any outward sign of nervousness or vulnerability. "Yes," he admits, and he hears Stacy gasp.
"James!" He looks up. He wonders how House found out, whether Cuddy already knows. It used to be that House would storm across the balcony at the slightest provocation. "You're - well. Well. Congratulations?"
He laughs. "Yeah, thanks. It's only the second month," he says. "So we haven't really told anyone." He doesn't like the way that sounds - the we is too formal. It implies too much. "We're really not involved. Not romantically. It's - complicated, I guess."
"It always is." She shakes her head. "You know, I always thought you'd be the one who'd get the whole picture. The wife, the kids, all of it."
"You didn't think you two would make it?"
She shrugs. "Maybe. We could've. But it never would've been all of that. Not with House. He doesn't have it in him. And, well, maybe I don't, either." She shakes her head. Wilson opens his mouth to ask about Mark, but Stacy says, "I'm happy, now, though. Happy enough." She tilts her head to the side. "He's not happy at all, is he?"
Wilson shrugs. Every doubt he's had for the past three months bubbles up. "Maybe it was a mistake," he says. "Maybe - I don't know. He's in pain, now. He was functioning, before. Maybe not in the way I would've picked for him, but now -" He picks up his drink, but he doesn't want to taste it, doesn't think he can bear it. "He's not even angry, right now."
Stacy shakes her head. "God. House, not angry. This, I have to see for myself." She reaches out and touches his hand, and he looks up at her, really looks. He thinks of all the ways that his life could've been different, if Stacy hadn't left, five years ago. If she'd stayed here, instead of staying in touch. He wants to pull away, to walk out into the cold, to run, to find someplace to hide. Instead he blinks and ducks his head.
"James," she says, and her voice is gentle.
"Does he know you're here?" he asks.
"Yes," she says, which is the worst possible answer, because it means she's going to see him, talk to him, probably tell him all of this. They have been friends and confidants for many years, now, but House has always come first. "I'm picking him up from physical therapy." Her hand tightens briefly over his. "You don't have to be the only one who cares," she says, and he laughs, a brief, hard, painful choke of a sound. "He called, when he was in rehab. He said he wants to be friends."
"He doesn't know how," Wilson manages. His voice is more bitter than he could've imagined.
"Well," she says, drawing back. "He's willing to try. And he's a fast learner."
Wilson snorts. There's an actual pain in his chest, an actual physical reaction to this idea that House is going to try and bring in Stacy, that he's turning to other people, that he's beyond Wilson's ability to help and save and care for. He rubs his face with one hand and looks up at Stacy. If there's anyone else in the world who can fix this, surely it's her.
Her frown is full of sympathy. "I never should have left you alone with him," she says. "I'm sorry."
Wilson shrugs. "I've done some pretty bad things," he says. "He's never going to forgive me."
She smiles as she leans in. "You think that in the beginning," she says, "but trust me, eventually, it works out."
39. Taste
Stacy takes him out to lunch after PT. It's early for food, and the grueling session with Geoffrey hasn't sparked his appetite, but House orders a burger and fries off the diner menu, anyway, and gets a chocolate shake. He sips his water and they chat carefully. She's the same as always, beautiful and direct and smart, and she asks right away about rehab and what it was like and whether it's working.
"So far," he says.
"One day at a time?" She looks over, the corner of her mouth lifted just slightly in a way that can turn to either teasing or sympathy.
"If I could find a way to take them faster, I'd do it," he says, "but this is the only option I know of."
She tells him she saw Wilson and he confirmed the baby, Cuddy, everything. "I almost made him cry," she says. "At Starbucks."
House barely holds off a laugh. He remembers lying in bed with Stacy, before the leg, before anything bad, and talking about Wilson, gossiping about his girlfriends and his bad taste in restaurants and his horrible golf game. They weren't always best friends. "Did you kick him?"
"I should've, maybe," she says. Her look turns serious, and he admires that she is able to do this, to go from satire to serious without even blinking. "He says you're never going to forgive him."
"Is this marriage counseling?" House asks. "Did you pick this up in therapy with Mark?"
"He sends his love, by the way," she says as the waitress sets down their drinks - diet soda for Stacy and the shake for House. "I would've brought it in with me, but I don't have a concealed carry license."
"Nice." He takes a sip of his milkshake, and he knows it should taste bad, bitter, wrong, but it doesn't. It's sweet and creamy and it makes him want to smile and never drink anything else but this. Nothing in life can really be so bad if a chocolate milkshake tastes this damn good. "I am a very bad person," he says, and Stacy rolls her eyes. "If Wilson is the great, perceptive friend that everyone, including Wilson, keeps telling me he is, why hasn't he picked up on that?"
"He's perceptive and hopeful?"
"He's an idiot," House says.
"Yeah," Stacy agrees, "but he's your idiot."
"Why are we even talking about Wilson?" House asks. "We know other people. Let's talk about pregnant Cuddy. Or - Chase and Cameron are getting it on, now. Don't you want to know how that makes me feel?"
"I'm going to guess it makes you a little hot," Stacy says, "because that's sort of what it does for me. And Lisa being pregnant isn't really something that's up for discussion by us. And we're talking about Wilson because you called me, last night, instead of him."
House stirs the whipped cream on the top of his shake into the ice cream, and starts to eat the top layer with a spoon. "I'm sorry I called you," he says, and Stacy sighs, her heavy, Greg-please-don't-be-such-a-bastard sigh. It's a sigh he knows well, a sigh that has mileage, history, a drawer reserved in his dresser. "He hasn't actually told me about Cuddy and the baby," House says.
"Do you want my advice about Wilson?" Stacy asks.
"No," he says, and he means it. "But I do want you to try this shake. It's amazing. In fact, you should get your own." He signals for the waitress, and Stacy catches his hand, brings it down to the table still cradled within her own. He looks only at that. "If I was better," he says, "if I wasn't a very bad person -"
"Fix things with Wilson," she says. Her voice is low and certain, and that's a relief, really, because he is a bad person, and he was looking for vulnerability. "Don't chase after me because you're fighting with him."
He manages a grin, just barely. "I like chasing after you."
She sits back, lets his hand loose. "You'd better finish your ice cream," she says, "or you won't ruin your meal."
40. Sight
Stacy pulls up to the staff entrance, leaves the car running. "Does Mark know where you are?" House asks.
"Yes," she says, and that answers the question he was really asking. "Which is why I should probably be getting home."
He turns away before there can be any awkward attempt at a good-bye. No kiss on the cheek, no too-brief hug, no sad Stacy smile. The pavement is a little slick, but he pushes himself up and out anyway. Someone has thrown down salt, and it's good for traction though it seems to be doing little to the ice. Stacy lowers the window.
House leans in and looks right past her, out the driver's window. "You don't have to come every time I call," he says.
"You will call again, though, right?"
He nods. "You could call, too." He's not sure whether she hears him. He pushes back from the car and she rolls the window up. The car glides out of the parking lot and away, and he blinks and wishes it was night, wishes the weather would match his mood. He walks inside, sees Cameron and Chase at the coffee kiosk. They're pretty far from the doors, and he doubts either of them knows off hand what kind of car Stacy drives. He wishes he could make things, people, entire situations invisible. "Oh, the powers I should have," he says to himself, heading toward them.
They are surprised to see him, which makes House feel a little better about everything. It's still weird, catching the subtle changes between them. Cameron is standing a bit too close to Chase before she sees House, but by the time he reaches them, she's moved well outside of even friendly distance. Chase's eyes track both her and House like he expects one of them to start yelling or shooting. It's kind of funny, in a sick way, and it makes House briefly happy to know that other people in the world have just as much trouble navigating romance and relationships as he does.
Chase offers to buy him a coffee, and House accepts. He gets a triple shot latte and dumps four packets of real sugar into it. "There's a guy who just came in with transverse myelitis," Cameron says.
"He's got diagnosed MS," Chase murmurs, handing over House's coffee. "It's just a new symptom off of that."
"So far, I'm with Ken on this one, Barbie," House says. "But you keep chasing, see what you can find. I've got clinic patients waiting." He makes it a few feet before he realizes both Chase and Cameron are still staring at him. "What?"
"You don't have clinic hours this afternoon."
"And I also don't have a patient. Down here - lots of patients."
"You're willingly going to the clinic? To see patients?" Cameron asks. Her eyes are wide. "Are you feeling all right?"
The clinic is safe. No Cuddy, not on a Wednesday and not while she's avoiding him. And probably no Wilson, either, if Stacy really made him cry. Out of sight, out of mind, he thinks, but he can't say that to Cameron. He leans in. "I like the clinic. They keep all the good drugs over there," he says, and Cameron's cheeks get a little pink. It's either annoyance or embarrassment. House has never been able to tell the difference on her, and he's not sure he's supposed to.
"But seriously," Chase says, "the last time you were looking forward to clinic, Foreman was dying."
"Where is Foreman?" House looks around, as though maybe Foreman will simply appear out of thin air, carrying his too-serious briefcase and wearing his too-serious face.
Random Foreman apparition, actually, is a scary thought, and it almost derails House completely, until Cameron says, "He's still at lunch," and Chase mutters, "unless you've killed him."
House snorts. "You check on that. Cameron's got her myelitis guy. And I'm going to go hunting for mysteries in the fertile grounds of the free clinic. Let's see who turns up some real work first."
He turns and walks through the doors, and he isn't followed. At the desk, he asks, "Is Dr. Wilson working this afternoon?" and when he gets a no, he says, "I'll take whoever's next. And I want one of the PA's."
The nurse looks at him, looks over at the schedule, and then looks back. Her mouth actually falls open. "But Dr. Cuttler is -"
"Tell Cuttler he's got a day off."
"She."
"Even better. Equal pay for equal work. Give me a damn chart and a patient and let's get this started."
He sees sixteen people in four hours. The PA assisting him is a quick study named Brian who doesn't argue any of the prescriptions and generally hangs out in the background while House bullies people into revealing their problems. He might even be doing Sudoku puzzles while House is diagnosing people. House likes him right away. "You ever want to become a real doctor, look me up," he says, limping out at 4.
"Yeah, you make it look so glamorous," Brian says, signing the last prescription. He hands it to the patient and offers House a funny salute with his stethoscope before he walks out. House turns and finds the surprised nurse from before. "Any way I can get him scheduled to assist me from now on?"
Her eyes narrow. "Are you going to turn him into another little you?"
"He's found that track already," House assures her. "I'm just honing his skills." She grumbles something he's not meant to hear - he catches most of it, and it ends in "jackass," - and starts to turn back to her paperwork. "Ah ah ah," House says. "When are Dr. Wilson's clinic hours?"
"None until Friday," she says, without looking at the schedule.
House rolls his eyes. "He's off the market, you know," he says. "Just because you have his schedule memorized doesn't mean he's going to make out with you after homeroom."
"I remember it," she says, and it sounds like she's talking through clenched teeth, "because half the girls don't want to be on his schedule, having had their precious little hearts broken already."
House laughs. "Any way I can get you scheduled to work with me from now on?"
"No, but if you stay here much longer you're going to need someone scheduled to put back in your front teeth."
"And they're my best feature." He taps the countertop, and the nurse actually smiles, and he pushes away and limps toward the staff elevator. It's time for 4:00 pain meds. After that, he can probably round up the troops and toss the ball around and find enough stuff to do until the meeting. After that, it'll be a cab ride home, maybe some time with the piano, and then a shot and then sleep, and it's another day down.
Part 1. Part 2 : Part 3 : Part 4 : Part 5
31. Sunrise
Wilson prefers when patients die in the mornings. At early-morning deathbeds, the family is usually so tired that they're past the hyper portion of their exhaustion and into the quiet, weepy acceptance. They can say good-bye with the curtains open to the world beyond, and somehow it always seems to make everyone feel better. When he was younger, he used to make a point of changing his clothes after these rituals, both because of a faint superstition and a desire to cleanse himself of the after effects of death. Now he just changes his tie, and this is a practical concern: families don't like it when they run into him later in the day and he looks unscathed, unchanged. The border that is drawn in their days by death is no longer a very big line for him.
Even now, when his job is no longer to be on the floor, when he doesn't have to sit at anyone's bedside, he finds himself still drawn in to the various details of death. He won't sign those charts in the evening or the afternoon, if he can help it; he saves them for the start of the day. This is how he comes to find out that Grace Karmon has died. In the middle of all of the strange parts of his life right now, he hasn't thought about Grace in months; when he resigned his practice, he'd sent her a letter, hoping it would be forwarded to Florence or wherever she'd ended up, and he'd recommended Carrie Stark to take over her treatment. He'd never heard back, but he hadn't really expected to. She'd helped him through a pretty horrible time in his life, but he'd never given much back, beyond a steady shoulder to cry on, a body to lie next to in bed. He looks at the note in his pile of death records and feels a swell of sadness and shame. Her time of death is listed as 7:03 a.m., two days prior: Saturday, when he was just getting up, getting ready to pick up House.
Wilson sets the chart down, runs his fingers over the paper, then shakes his head. He signs off on the line he's supposed to and folds it back up. It's not like this was an unpredicted ending. It's not as though his presence would've been helpful or even appropriate. He stacks her file into another bunch of signed forms and carries them over to the main reception area in Oncology. Then it's a whirlwind of meetings, three in four hours plus a list of calls to return, and so he doesn't have to think about Grace or death or anything but money until mid-afternoon.
His clinic hours start at two, and he exchanges his suit jacket for a lab coat in his office. On his way out, he passes House's office and decides to stop in. It's his first day back. Wilson scheduled a full day for himself, suspecting House would jump right back in and knowing he wouldn't want a big coming-back party. He thinks it's probably better for there to be space between them at work right now, but it may look funny if he doesn't stop at all.
House's fellows are all standing at the door, taking orders, and Wilson hears, "Tegretol for the pain," as he steps in. House looks up. "Dr. Wilson," he says. His voice is bright and surprised, the engaged voice that means he's just solved whatever this mystery was. "You're looking very doctory today."
The fellows walk out en masse, and Wilson holds the door for them. "Just thought I'd see how the first day back was going."
House rolls his head around. "Late presenting alpha thalassemia trait, type 1," he says.
Wilson narrows his eyes. "From the middle east?"
"Nope, New Jersey native."
"That's one you don't see every day." He shakes his head. "Not the best diagnosis to hear."
House grins. "Presented with priaprism and skin lesions, so I think anything's going to be a step up from 'We don't know what it is but here's a shunt we'd like to shove into your penis.'"
"True." Wilson is still holding the door open slightly with one hand, and he lets it slide all the way closed. It almost feels like a normal conversation, like it's any day out of a thousand. He feels a dry catch in his throat. He's missed House; he still misses him.
"Anything interesting in oncology?" House asks.
There is only one person in the world who even knew about Grace, and that's House, so there is no one to whom he can talk to about her death. Wilson has a pang of regret, of self-pity. He has always married women who don't mind hearing sad stories, women who would curl up on the couch next to him and nestle closer and oo and ah and sometimes get a little teary-eyed themselves. It's funny that these are the qualities he's sought in mates, while his friends are precisely the opposite: all doctors, all clinical.
"Not really," Wilson says. "Just the usual death and baldness."
"Uh-huh." House has his arms crossed, and Wilson realizes, too late, that he's walked into some kind of trap. His powers of House observation have really fallen off. "Here's something interesting I learned in oncology today: you aren't actually seeing patients anymore."
Wilson rolls his eyes. "I see patients all the time."
"But not your own patients."
He shrugs. "I'm the head of the department. In a way, everyone's patients are my patients. And I put in 14 hours at the clinic a week."
"So that's it? You're too busy to have a practice?"
Wilson sighs. He'd put off this conversation on Saturday because, as of yet, he doesn't have a good explanation - or, rather, an explanation that will satisfy House. He leans back against the door. "It was time for a change," he says. With anyone else, he'd worry that saying this would bring on guilt, or concern - most people in House's position would feel responsible. Wilson worries that House will feel victorious, instead.
"You're not a burnout," House says after a moment. His eyes have narrowed. "And you needed that job."
"I still have the job," Wilson says. "And things are better this way."
"That's not what I'm asking." House gives him a very funny, evaluating look that makes Wilson squirm. "Maybe I'm not the only one who's detoxed."
It's funny, really, but he hasn't been angry at House just for being House in quite a while. It's almost a joyous kind of anger. "What makes you think I'm not telling the truth?"
House laughs. "Everybody lies," he says. "And you lie to everyone."
He walks into his office, ending the conversation, and Wilson doesn't try to follow.
32. Sunset
Cameron walks into House's office at the end of the day. It's dark inside, the sun setting just beyond the balcony, and so she turns on the light. House looks up. "Dr. Kenimore took Kevin onto his service," she says.
"Hematology, right? Because if you got him a herpetologist, well -"
"I know the difference between blood and snakes." She smiles anyway and sits in the chair across from his desk. He's playing with his yo-yo, and she tries to look like that's what she's watching. Really, she's just watching him. It's nice to have him back, and it's a bit of a relief that he's exactly the same. Or mostly the same. He's not the House that came back to them from the ketamine - not out to find meaning - but he's also not the House that left in December. His face is thinner and his hair looks a little grayer, but those could just be tricks of memory and light, she decides. He is better.
"If you keep staring, your face will freeze that way," House says, though he doesn't look over.
"That's not medically true."
"It would be if I had the power to cause strokes." He catches the yo-yo and looks up and over at her. "Don't think I'm not working on it. I have all of this free time now."
His eyes are narrowed, and his voice is gravelly. She sits forward. "You're in pain," she says, and she feels bad about her surprise. Of course he's in pain. No Vicodin may mean a better engaged House - it may even mean a more healthy House - but it's a very hard drug to replace.
"Gold star, doctor," he says. He sets the yo-yo on flat on the desk and leans back in his chair. "Why did you sleep with Wilson?" he asks.
She keeps her face blank. It's something she's practiced, actually, in front of the mirror at home - thinking shocking, horrible, out-of-the-blue things while maintaining an absolutely straight face. The only way to save this patient is to take out her liver and feed it to her husband. "I like damaged people," she says. "And you damaged the hell out of him."
House jerks and draws in a dramatic breath. "Ooo, you got me," he says, holding up both hands. "I drove you into his arms, at least the first time. But I'm thinking the next round was all about you."
"Everyone needs a hobby. And we can't all afford a piano."
"Chase is pretty damaged," House says, nodding as though this is something they're agreeing on. "The drunken mother, the disinheritance by a distant, over-achieving father..."
"He's also a great lay," she says.
"Better than Wilson?"
"Try it and find out." House actually laughs, then, and he shakes his head. There's a glint of pride in his eyes that Cameron is ashamed to have wanted. "Are you really sorry that you hired me?" she asks.
House stares at her, and his face is a blank that Cameron can't achieve, a mask of nothing that she's never been able to approach. Her eyes always give her away, but he seems to have trained himself, from the soul up, to be this hard and unreadable. "Yes," he says. "But there's a difference between being sorry for you and being sorry about you."
She stands up. "Don't cry yourself to sleep over it," she says. "I signed on for another six months. Cuddy offered us all contract extensions."
"I know," House says.
He doesn't look like he's ready to leave, and Cameron thinks, briefly, that she should offer to help him out, ask if he needs a ride home. He looks like he's waiting on something. But she told Chase she'd meet him at the bar, and she's tired and if House is about to mess everything up again, she doesn't want to know. "It'd be nice if you were here for the extra time," she says.
His smile is brief, stunted by pain or memory, she can't tell. She never can tell with him. "I'll do my best," he says. He clears his throat. "If only I could get one of you trained to take bullets for me."
"Talk to Foreman," she says, and House laughs again, keeps laughing even as she's leaving.
33. Too Much
Lisa has her first big moment of doubt while she's interviewing a candidate for Dr. Glover's old job as the head of cardiac medicine. The candidate, Mark Mendel, is a snappy, attractive cardiologist who's flown in from Chicago. He's the first one she's seen who is dressed for the weather, and she appreciates this even as she thinks her fellow committee members are marking his snow boots against him.
He offers them a well-done presentation on his own accomplishments at the Chicago Heart Hospital, where he's worked for two years under Dan Bleekman, who Lisa knew at Michigan. Mendel has a number of research credits to his name in addition to his recommendations, and his work at CCH is nicely documented. When he leaves, Lisa turns to the committee members and is surprised to see they all look uncomfortable.
"Well?"
"He's almost - too good," Janice Beckman says, her voice soft, halting. "He's only 35, and he's already got more publications than most of the long-term cardiac staff."
"He won't stay." This from Orrin Welch, who's been the chair of internal medicine since the beginning of time. He believes in constancy, in consistency - things that Lisa values, as well. "Why should he? In three or four years, if he keeps publishing like this, he could get a position anywhere in the world for twice the money we can offer him here."
Lisa folds her papers closed. "He's not in it just for the money, though. He'd have taken the offer from Hopkins last year if that was it."
"Hopkins would've been a lateral move," Janice says. "We're a step up."
"And he's going to keep stepping up," Orrin says. "He's always going to be looking for the next challenge."
"You don't think we could keep him challenged here?" Lisa meets his eyes, dares him to say what he's thinking.
Orrin shrugs delicately. "I don't know that we could afford him."
They debate his qualifications for a while and talk briefly about the last two people they saw. Lisa lets them go without taking a vote. After all, she doesn't need their permission to hire Mendel. She's gone against recommendations only twice in her career to hire a department head: once for House, who was highly qualified but highly - and rightly - vilified, and once for Wilson, who was, in the committee's view, too young, too ambitious, and too likely to burn out. She can't quite hold them up as trophies, anymore, but she likes to think they've done more good than harm.
She goes to lunch with Sarah Andrews, a friend from medical school who now works full time in research at Princeton. They talk about work a little, and Sarah talks about her husband and the drama of their Christmas holiday at his parents' house. It sounds nice, Lisa thinks, though she feigns horror on cue. Sarah's life is right on schedule, everything sweet and wonderful, her biggest worries tied up in whether her husband's mother is still angry about Sarah making the wrong kind of stuffing.
Lisa works in the clinic all afternoon. She sees fourteen patients and takes a stack of charts to sign back to her office. It's well past dinnertime when she leaves, and it's dark outside and starting to snow. At home she sits in the garage with her hands over her stomach. This is going to be too much, she thinks. It's 7:00 and she's left a mountain of paperwork behind; she needs to be back at the hospital in 12 hours, and in between she should make a few phone calls and eat something and pay some bills and exercise a little and probably talk to Wilson for a bit. Once the baby is born there will be infinitely more things to do, more things left undone every day, more leaps she can't make and chances she can't take. She thinks about Mark Mendel and his slick presentation and his unending list of accomplishments and she knows why she wants to hire him, knows why she will hire him: because he's just like her, he's just like everyone she admires, always looking for a new challenge, a new obstacle to overcome.
She gets out of the car and goes inside and sits in a chair at the dining table and waits for Wilson to get home. When he does, he sits across from her and asks if she's eaten yet. "What if this is all too much?" she asks him. "What if I'm not built for this, if this is the time when I've bitten off more than I can chew?"
"It may be too much for both of us," he says, and she looks up sharply at that. "I'm not saying I think it is, or that we should - not. I mean, worse people than us raise kids all the time."
"I don't think that's very comforting," she says.
He shrugs. "I don't have a lot of comfort in me, today." He stands up and walks around the table, puts one hand on her shoulder. It's a strange feeling, Wilson's hand there, and it feels more intimate than anything else. She tries not to want it or like it too much. "What I meant was, we're better equipped to handle this than 90 percent of the population. So if it's too much, we call for help."
She nods. It's that simple, she realizes. She's done it before, and it's why Wilson's here at all. "Do you mind cooking?" she asks.
"Least I can do," he says.
34. Not Enough
The first two days he's back at work, House stays late. He doesn't do any actual work in the evenings, but he sits at his desk and hurts and listens to the sound of the hospital around him and doesn't think about his empty apartment or his very large bed or the pharmacy downstairs. He doesn't think about Wilson leaving without checking on him. He doesn't think. He sits at his desk and hurts, and both nights, at around 7:15, he calls Dr. Earle and doesn't talk to him about all of the things he's not thinking about. On the third night, Dr. Earle calls him at 6:30 and says, "Go to the damn meeting. My wife wants to see a movie tonight."
So he goes to the NA meeting in the basement of the hospital. It's held every night at 7:00, and it's run by a woman who doesn't work at Princeton-Plainsboro. House knows this because he checked with the receptionist for the therapy division before he even considered the meeting. He knows how lax security is at the hospital; no way is he getting involved with a group where his pain could end up as gossip.
He doesn't recognize any of the other attendees, which is a promising sign. Mostly community members, it seems. He doesn't talk, and he doesn’t really listen to those that do. Instead, he plays with his paper cup of coffee and wishes for more sugar and wonders if it's decaf and if it isn't, he wonders how late he'll be awake and if he'll hurt for the whole time. He remembers the vial of Tramadol in his pocket and feels a small thrill at having held off this long.
He makes it through the meeting and slips out afterward with a donut in his hand. At the front desk, he stops and dials a taxi company on his cell phone. His leg hurts too much for him to be driving. The operator puts him on hold. He could go out to the taxi stand in the visitor's lot, see if there's any waiting, but it's starting to snow and it's a very long walk. Instead, he hangs up and dials Wilson's number.
"I'll be right there," he says. House regrets calling him even as he feels relieved by the response.
Wilson pulls up fifteen minutes later. House sits in the car and makes himself say thank you.
"Do you have a patient?" Wilson asks.
"No," House says. "I had a meeting."
"With Westin?"
"Like that guy ever works more than a six hour day," House says, shaking his head in admiration.
They stop at a light, and Wilson looks over. "Seriously, what were you doing there this late, then? And please remember that I'm not an idiot if you're thinking of saying you were catching up on paperwork."
"I had a meeting," House repeats.
"Who holds meetings at 8 at night?"
"People who wish to remain anonymous," House says, facing the window so he doesn't have to see the spectacular flash of guilt and understanding on Wilson's face. He clears his throat and fingers the vial of medication in his coat pocket. It's almost 9; if he can make it through until 10 then maybe he'll sleep through the night.
Wilson stops at the curb near House's apartment. It's too much to ask Wilson to come in, but he thinks about it, anyway, thinks about the pleasant distraction that Wilson's low thrum of annoyed disappointment might provide. House opens his door and finds a dry spot for his cane on the damp street.
"I'll just park the car," Wilson says, and House nods and steps out. It takes him longer than it should to get to the door, but he has it unlocked and is in his own place by the time Wilson comes up. House is resting his forehead, just resting, on the door of the refrigerator.
"I need your help," House whispers after a moment, aware that this is the way it started, five years ago. Wilson must be aware, too, because House hears him shift, looks over to see his arms cross. He shakes his head and steps back, just slightly, from the refrigerator, turns to face Wilson. Everything he's feeling is on his face - all of it, the pain, the shock of finding himself here, the humiliation of having to ask Wilson what he's got to ask. "In my coat pocket," he says. "From Westin."
Wilson nods, after a long moment, and goes out to the living room. House thinks he should move himself to the bedroom, but he can't, not right now. His leg is tight with pain, and there's sweat beading on his forehead and the back of his neck. Wilson comes back in and rolls up his sleeve; the needle prick is short, professional, and House can't even feel it over the thrum of his leg. He lets Wilson help him back to his bedroom and fumbles for a moment with his pants and shirt. Wilson helps with this, too.
"This is too much," House says, because it is, it's too much for anyone to see, for anyone to know about him, that he needs this help, that he's this far from well.
"Not for me," Wilson says. He pulls the blanket up over House, and he hadn't even realized he's shivering. Wilson's hand on his shoulder is heavy, warm, but it's not enough, not nearly enough.
35. Sixth Sense
Cameron doesn't stay over on Thursday night because they have an actual date scheduled for Friday - with the usual, unless-there's-a-patient caveat. Chase hopes, for once, that there's not a patient. He has plans. There's a pretty good band playing at the downtown coffee bar that Cameron likes best, and Chase is pretty sure they can have dinner at the Italian place next door beforehand, listen to the band, and browse the bookshop all for under $50. Less, if Cameron wants to go Dutch treat.
Chase drives himself in to work and makes it to the conference room right at eight. Cameron's the only one there, and she smiles over at him, a sly little smile that he likes. It's their standard work greeting. When he picks her up at her place, there's always a greeting kiss. When House is in the office, it feels weird, this non-denial denial of their relationship, but today, it's juts the two of them and it's OK. "Nothing?" he asks, looking at the empty conference table, then over at House's dark office.
"He's got physical therapy this morning," Cameron says, shrugging. "I think I might spend some time in the lab, write up Kevin's case."
Chase isn't sure that's a good idea. Thalassemia is pretty well covered, at the moment, what will all the talk that it's the coming plague in India. But it's date day, and he wants things to go well. "Sounds all right," he says.
She smiles and draws her hand across his shoulders as she walks past. She smells like the lavender-scented soap she bought at the street market last weekend. "Find me at lunch?"
"Absolutely."
He watches her leave and shakes his head. He's totally smitten. It surprises him a little more every day. It's Cameron, for Christ's sake. Weepy, over-involved Cameron. But she's funny, and she's tougher than he would have ever guessed, and, well, there's something about dating a doctor. Chase can't think of anyone with whom he's ever had a better sex life. Hot and clinically knowledgeable and virtually unembarrassable. He blushes a little just thinking of the weekend before, and takes a few cooling breaths before he busies himself with getting a coffee.
He dabs in a bit of sugar and a nice shot of cream, then picks up his crossword book from his desk and takes his mug over to the conference table. It's actually a book Cameron picked up for him, from a bookstore instead of from the hospital gift shop - it's filled with challenging Sunday crosswords from the New York Times. He's not actively pursuing a publication of his own at the moment - he has two articles out to editors, and is waiting to hear back on either one - so he finishes about one and a half a day.
After fifteen minutes, Foreman walks into the conference room, holding a donut. "Where is everybody?" he asks.
"House has PT," he says. "And Cameron's in the lab. She's writing up the thalassemia guy."
Foreman snorts. "Overdone," he says. "Unless she's got some new bleeding-heart angle on it." He pauses, then glances sidelong at Chase. "Sorry," he says, and Chase shrugs it off.
"'Sallright, I agree with you," he says, setting his crossword book down.
"I may end up owing you some money today," Foreman says as he sits down, and Chase looks over.
"Yeah? He's got Wilson and Cuddy sorted, you think?" They have a hundred-dollar bet about when House will figure out that Wilson and Cuddy are an item. Foreman bet within two weeks; Chase had picked the end of the month.
Foreman shrugs. "He was lurking around oncology yesterday afternoon."
Chase smirks. "They've been pretty quiet about it, though." He only knows because Cameron told him.
"I'm surprised it's taken him this long. I mean, he had you two figured out in about five minutes, right?"
"House has a sixth sense for things that can cause me embarrassment," Chase says. He hasn't quite given up trying to figure out how House does it, but at the moment, he can't really make himself care too much. There's something a little thrilling about House knowing that Chase is shagging Cameron. He wonders if it's as hot in House's head as it is in real life, and he hopes it is. He's never really seen House jealous, but there is a tiny part of him that very much wants to.
Foreman looks up and out into the hall, and Chase turns to look, too. Dr. Wilson is walking past, and he gives them both a short wave. Foreman returns a nod and Chase waves.
"That guy has balls of titanium," Foreman says, and Chase almost snorts up a sip of coffee. "He rats on House and now he's sleeping with Cuddy? Tell me a scenario that doesn't end with the brake lines being cut on his car."
Chase shrugs, but Foreman has a pretty decent point. "House would be more subtle," he says, and Foreman nods.
"Poison?"
"Something completely undetectable," Chase agrees.
"He'd probably test it out on a patient, first," Foreman says.
"Or one of us."
They both turn to look at the coffeemaker at the same time. "Did you -?" Foreman asks, and Chase pushes his coffee away. After a moment, Foreman takes a defiant sip.
"Awfully brave," Chase says, and he's only half kidding.
"I figure, of the three of us, I'm safe," Foreman says.
Chase pulls his cup closer. "I suppose he'd take out Cameron, first," he says. He makes himself take a sip, because he's already had a half a cup. And really, it's all just stupid supposition.
"She does drive him nuts," Foreman says. "Of course, you have a record, too." Chase glares. He's not going down this road again; the Vogler debacle wasn't his finest hour, but if it came down to losing his job, he'd probably do it all again. "And you know, if you ever break up with Cameron, she's going to get even more obnoxious, and he'll probably off both of you just to reduce his own pain."
"No worries there, at least," he says. Foreman grins a wicked little grin, and Chase rolls his eyes. He hasn't really thought much about what breaking up with Cameron might mean, but Foreman has a point. As much as House seems to be annoyed by Cameron, she's clearly higher on the food chain than Chase. He tries to imagine the hell his life will become if he and Cameron don't work out and House gets a hold of that information. It actually makes him shiver. "Oh, shut up," he says when Foreman starts to laugh. He stands up and gets himself another cup of coffee, just to prove he can. "He'd probably make you do it," he says.
Foreman grins. "You want to make a counter offer?" he asks.
Chase is trying to think of a response - other than yes, absolutely - when House walks in. "I don't like this no-patient thing," he says. "You two look like you're plotting a murder."
He limps into his office, and Chase sinks into a chair at the table. "How does he do that?" he mutters into his hands.
"Sixth sense," Foreman answers. When Chase looks over, Foreman's pouring his coffee down the sink.
36. Smell
It is the smell of lemons that does Lisa in, now. The morning sickness is usually over before she leaves the house - she's been careful to schedule her meetings only after 9, now, and she stays late to make up for that. But one morning, her assistant is snacking on lemon pound cake when Lisa walks by his desk, and she almost throws up in his trash can.
"A little indignity every day," her mother says when she calls to complain. Her mother had five children, and somehow Lisa was counting on this expertise, was hoping for a homespun cure. Instead, her mother says, "Bake him some pumpkin bread instead."
Lisa rests her head in her hands. "You don't understand my life at all," she says, but her voice is so low that her mother can't hear it.
Two of the nurses in the clinic use lemon-scented shampoo, and for the first time, Lisa ducks into an exam room and decides maybe she won't come out for the rest of the afternoon. If House can make a career of dodging it, surely she has built up the credit to take an afternoon here and there.
She sits in the chair, rests her head in one warm hand. Being a doctor should help, she thinks, but that hasn't been true so far. There's a list of side effects next to every drug in her head, and every time she wants to reach for a syringe - just a drop of ondansetron, just a few capsules of Diclectin - she goes through the list in her mind. She pictures herself tucked into a bed, Betsy's calm, clinical voice and sympathetic eyes above her, Wilson's worried face looking in from the hallway. No medications, she thinks.
The door opens and she turns around with a jerk, almost falls off of the stool. Of course, she thinks, standing up, straightening out her blouse. "Dr. House."
"Dr. Cuddy." He closes the door, and Lisa has a perfect idea of what this might look like to anyone outside. Oh, maybe they'll just think she's giving him drugs. She leans against the counter. "If you're hiding out, it's much more effective if you slide the 'occupied' bar on the door."
She wants to snap, to argue she isn't hiding, but the words just aren't there, so she nods. He hoists himself up onto the exam table - the move isn't graceful, but it's well-practiced - and looks down at her. "Hiding from Wilson?" he asks, and Lisa closes her eyes. "You two have a lovers' spat?"
"We're not," she says, and she waves her hand around.
"Not lovers? Or not fighting?"
"Both."
She hears him grunt and opens her eyes. "And yet he's staying at your place."
"He stayed with you last year," she says, rubbing her temples. "Were you sleeping with him?"
"I'm not his type," House says. "Though maybe, if I'd offered to have his baby..."
She sighs, and it's deeper and more choked than she wanted. "I don't have the energy to do this," she says.
"Funny, the first trimester will do that to you."
When she looks up, he doesn't look nearly as cruel as she would've expected. She sees emotion there that she hasn't expected - surprise, confusion, maybe even disappointment. "House," she says. There's a lot she could say, and most of it would be true. She had thought of him, she had even, briefly, wanted him. If it hadn't been for the drugs - but no. There's more to it than that. It's all so complicated, and she doesn't know where to start, or how.
He shakes his head, reaches into his pocket and pulls out a GameBoy. "There's a bakery on 12th Street that sells ginger scones just for pregnant women. I've heard good things," he says. "And if you asked him, Wilson would take your clinic hours."
She nods and rubs her hands over her face. "Thank you," she says, letting herself out of the room. The air is clear without, and she takes the opportunity to sneak out of the clinic and over to the cocoon of her office.
37. Sound
House does physical therapy three days a week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he has four hours in the clinic scheduled before lunch. He meets with Westin every morning, though now their meetings are short because Westin has the pharmacy deliver House's dose to his clinic. He goes to meetings in the evenings and eats almost all of his meals at the hospital. In some ways, it's not that different from his rehab schedule - just less softball.
He's only had the one patient since he's been back, and he's not completely sure whether that's Cuddy guarding him or Cuddy being mad at him or what. She's been avoiding him, which means he could be slacking off on his clinic hours. He doesn't. He goes through patients like he always has. One of his fellows or another doctor has to sign off on any level-3 or above narcotics that he prescribes, but that's the only change.
On Tuesday night, after his meeting, he takes a cab home, gets his mail, and goes into the living room. He sets the mail on the piano, then stares down at it. He hasn't touched it since he's been back. Tonight, he eases himself down onto the bench and lifts the cover. It doesn't hurt to sit here because he's used to the bench; it's nicely padded and at the perfect height. The pain is there but manageable. Livable, he thinks, and snorts and put his hands on the keys.
Something simple, he thinks. He closes his eyes, listens, plinks a finger down one C above middle, then up to E and G. Mozart. Sonata I, the simple sonata. It's childish, and his fingers still remember the whole thing from grade-school piano lessons. In his mind, it's his mother's poorly-tuned Kimball playing the song out, and he winces when he starts the arpeggios, expecting the clash of an untuned octave at the end. But it's his own piano, which he has tended carefully for years, more carefully than anything else: plants, friendships, lovers. The piano gets tuned every six weeks; it is settled neatly in the corner, out of damaging drafts and away from the warping sunlight of his windows. He sets a drink on top every now and then - or used to, when drinking was something to be excited about, when it meant liquor instead of water or weak tea - but there's no mark, because he is fastidious in his polishing.
It feels like a betrayal that he's been home for almost two weeks and hasn't done this, yet. He starts the Andagio, and when he comes to the middle, the minor, he bows his head in apology. I'm so sorry, he thinks, looking down but not watching his fingers. His memory keeps the music going. It takes more effort than it used to. He's glad for that. There is the pain and the music and he doesn't have room for anything else, and he lets it stay that way to the end, through the brittle challenge of the Rondo, until the final triumphant chord echoes through the room. He's thought of moving, before, but here the acoustics are great, full and perfectly bounded by books, the hard floor softened by the high ceilings.
When the phone rings, the sound is harsh and horrible. He can't believe he bought a phone that's this discordant, and then he remembers, he didn't buy it, Stacy did. They'd always had corded phones, content with one in the kitchen and one by the bed, until the infarction. Then she'd bought the cordless, an expensive phone six years ago, and she'd made him carry it around whenever she wasn't nearby. What if you fall, what if you have a problem, she'd said, and she'd left it behind when she'd left. He gets up from the bench and answers the phone just to stop the ringing.
"Are you all right, honey? You sound out of breath."
"I'm fine, Mom," he says, sinking on to the couch. "Just couldn't get to the phone fast enough."
"What were you doing? I didn't mean to interrupt."
"It's fine. Just playing around on the piano."
She makes a surprised, happy sound, and House closes his eyes. "I'm so glad you've kept that up. You never wanted to practice when you were little, you remember?"
"No." In his memory, the piano is the only constant. They traveled all over the world, and in every apartment, every new, crappy base housing project, his mother would find the piano. Usually, they were hidden away in the community rec rooms, the places set aside for wives to play cards on Tuesdays, the same rooms where they had covered-dish dinners when someone's husband would go missing. He can remember spending hours in rooms like this - white tile floors, dull green walls, every note a sharp echo - and if it's not exactly a fond memory, it's not a bad one, either. "Remember that piano you got when we were back in Ohio? I was thinking about that."
"Oh, the one from your aunt? Sure. What a beast that was to move in." What they are not saying, here, is that his mother is the only one who has ever thought the piano was a good undertaking for him. His father would've rather had a boy out in the yard, playing catch, messing with the car, running around raising hell with the townie girls by the base. House had been happy with his piano, with his books, and, when he turned 16, with a quick ticket out of base life and into an early-acceptance program at Johns Hopkins. "So how are you doing, Greg? We haven't heard from you for a while."
"Yeah, I've been kind of busy," he says, dodging the first question, because he can't think of a truthful answer. "Getting settled back in at work."
She hmms. She has never really understood what it is that he does. He sent her his first publication, back in his post-doc days, and it's still sitting on the bookshelf in the living room, the journal scrunched in between his father's Double Gun Journal editions and her yearbooks from Better Home and Garden. The accomplishments she understands are those that he's ruined - Stacy, in particular. "Do you think you might make it out this way sometime?" she asks. "We'd love to see you for Easter. Your cousin Carol and the boys are going to be in from London."
"I don't know, Mom. I have a lot of catching up to do." He tries to picture himself at his parents' house again. He hasn't been there in three years, since his Uncle Alfred died. And then, he'd gone only because his mother's news of the death had been so vague on the phone that he'd had to go, himself, to see what was going on. The house had been full of people, and that had been so strange that he'd stayed only for the day, driven back late at night after drinks with his remaining uncle and two cousins whose names he couldn't remember. He still can't remember precisely how he'd gotten home that night.
"Greg," she says, and he shifts on the couch and thinks please, please don't. Please. But he doesn't have these powers. "What was that all about, anyway?"
He can't lie to her. He can tell her the wrong truths, sometimes, but not now. Recovery is a process, he thinks, and almost laughs to hear Darien's voice in his head. "I'm a drug addict, Mom," he says. "We talked about this."
"Your pain medication," she says, her voice uncertain. "You said you were taking too much? But you were going to talk to your doctor about that."
"It wasn't - it wasn't his fault," House says. "I knew what I was doing. I got into some trouble. But it's fine now. It's going to be fine."
She is quiet for so long that he thinks she's going to say he's lying. He tries to figure out which part is untrue. It could be anything. "Son," she says, after a moment, "you know you can always come to us, if you're in trouble."
He laughs, and his face is wet when he rubs his hand across it. "OK, Mom," he says. His voice echoes up across the line, sounds too bright, too happy. "I should go."
"Well. All right. It's good to talk to you, though. Don't make me chase you down."
"All right."
"Your father says hello."
House nods, makes himself say, "Tell him hello."
"We love you, Greg."
He bites his lip. "I need to go, Mom. I'll talk to you soon." He hangs up and stares at the phone, at the base. He runs his thumb over the little switch that will silence its ring, and he clicks it to silent, then clicks it back. He picks it up again, wishes Stacy was still on speed dial, that she was still in the same area code. Then again, he thinks as the line rings, maybe it's better that she's not.
38. Touch
"James."
He looks up as he's locking his car and flinches at the sight of her. Stacy, in a black winter coat and hat, almost completely cocooned but still, clearly, Stacy, standing in the parking lot next to a silver Mercedes. "Stacy! Wow," he says, his voice bright, an attempt at recovery. He accepts her hug with a smile. She smells like cinnamon. When she pulls back, she keeps hold of his arm, and they don't move. "What are you doing here?"
Her lips thin into a line, a wry grin. "Greg called me last night," she says, and Wilson's stomach plummets. "I thought you said he was doing better."
Wilson shrugs. He did think things were getting better. He'd talked to Cuddy about House's pain last week, and he thinks she put pressure on Westin, because House has had his medication increased. He's doing better. He hasn't called for help in days - at least, he hasn't called Wilson. "He called you. You don't think that's a good sign?"
"I don't know what to think," she says.
"Have you seen him?"
She shakes her head. "I wanted to talk to you first. Do you have time?"
"Now?" He's supposed to meet with a representative from GE at 8:30 about some new testing equipment. Stacy's eyes are dark and serious and a little scared. "Sure," he says. "Just let me make a call."
He cancels the meeting while Stacy drives them away from the hospital, a few blocks down to the nearest Starbucks. It's busy inside, but they get drinks and find a small table by the window. Wilson likes the professional hum of the place, all of these people in a hurry to somewhere, but none of them so tied down that they can't stop for overpriced, overflavored coffee. He sips his drink - nonfat cappuccino with an extra shot - and watches Stacy watching him. He can guess what's coming.
"He says you're with Lisa, now."
Wilson rolls his eyes. "That's not entirely true." He hasn't yet had to explain their relationship to anyone. He's not sure he wants to. "I'm staying at her place," he says.
"And she's pregnant."
He didn't know that House had figured that out, but he should've guessed. He sets the coffee down and looks at his hands on the table. His nails are short but neat, a habit formed from years of dealing directly with patients. No one wants a doctor with bitten-off finger nails, with any outward sign of nervousness or vulnerability. "Yes," he admits, and he hears Stacy gasp.
"James!" He looks up. He wonders how House found out, whether Cuddy already knows. It used to be that House would storm across the balcony at the slightest provocation. "You're - well. Well. Congratulations?"
He laughs. "Yeah, thanks. It's only the second month," he says. "So we haven't really told anyone." He doesn't like the way that sounds - the we is too formal. It implies too much. "We're really not involved. Not romantically. It's - complicated, I guess."
"It always is." She shakes her head. "You know, I always thought you'd be the one who'd get the whole picture. The wife, the kids, all of it."
"You didn't think you two would make it?"
She shrugs. "Maybe. We could've. But it never would've been all of that. Not with House. He doesn't have it in him. And, well, maybe I don't, either." She shakes her head. Wilson opens his mouth to ask about Mark, but Stacy says, "I'm happy, now, though. Happy enough." She tilts her head to the side. "He's not happy at all, is he?"
Wilson shrugs. Every doubt he's had for the past three months bubbles up. "Maybe it was a mistake," he says. "Maybe - I don't know. He's in pain, now. He was functioning, before. Maybe not in the way I would've picked for him, but now -" He picks up his drink, but he doesn't want to taste it, doesn't think he can bear it. "He's not even angry, right now."
Stacy shakes her head. "God. House, not angry. This, I have to see for myself." She reaches out and touches his hand, and he looks up at her, really looks. He thinks of all the ways that his life could've been different, if Stacy hadn't left, five years ago. If she'd stayed here, instead of staying in touch. He wants to pull away, to walk out into the cold, to run, to find someplace to hide. Instead he blinks and ducks his head.
"James," she says, and her voice is gentle.
"Does he know you're here?" he asks.
"Yes," she says, which is the worst possible answer, because it means she's going to see him, talk to him, probably tell him all of this. They have been friends and confidants for many years, now, but House has always come first. "I'm picking him up from physical therapy." Her hand tightens briefly over his. "You don't have to be the only one who cares," she says, and he laughs, a brief, hard, painful choke of a sound. "He called, when he was in rehab. He said he wants to be friends."
"He doesn't know how," Wilson manages. His voice is more bitter than he could've imagined.
"Well," she says, drawing back. "He's willing to try. And he's a fast learner."
Wilson snorts. There's an actual pain in his chest, an actual physical reaction to this idea that House is going to try and bring in Stacy, that he's turning to other people, that he's beyond Wilson's ability to help and save and care for. He rubs his face with one hand and looks up at Stacy. If there's anyone else in the world who can fix this, surely it's her.
Her frown is full of sympathy. "I never should have left you alone with him," she says. "I'm sorry."
Wilson shrugs. "I've done some pretty bad things," he says. "He's never going to forgive me."
She smiles as she leans in. "You think that in the beginning," she says, "but trust me, eventually, it works out."
39. Taste
Stacy takes him out to lunch after PT. It's early for food, and the grueling session with Geoffrey hasn't sparked his appetite, but House orders a burger and fries off the diner menu, anyway, and gets a chocolate shake. He sips his water and they chat carefully. She's the same as always, beautiful and direct and smart, and she asks right away about rehab and what it was like and whether it's working.
"So far," he says.
"One day at a time?" She looks over, the corner of her mouth lifted just slightly in a way that can turn to either teasing or sympathy.
"If I could find a way to take them faster, I'd do it," he says, "but this is the only option I know of."
She tells him she saw Wilson and he confirmed the baby, Cuddy, everything. "I almost made him cry," she says. "At Starbucks."
House barely holds off a laugh. He remembers lying in bed with Stacy, before the leg, before anything bad, and talking about Wilson, gossiping about his girlfriends and his bad taste in restaurants and his horrible golf game. They weren't always best friends. "Did you kick him?"
"I should've, maybe," she says. Her look turns serious, and he admires that she is able to do this, to go from satire to serious without even blinking. "He says you're never going to forgive him."
"Is this marriage counseling?" House asks. "Did you pick this up in therapy with Mark?"
"He sends his love, by the way," she says as the waitress sets down their drinks - diet soda for Stacy and the shake for House. "I would've brought it in with me, but I don't have a concealed carry license."
"Nice." He takes a sip of his milkshake, and he knows it should taste bad, bitter, wrong, but it doesn't. It's sweet and creamy and it makes him want to smile and never drink anything else but this. Nothing in life can really be so bad if a chocolate milkshake tastes this damn good. "I am a very bad person," he says, and Stacy rolls her eyes. "If Wilson is the great, perceptive friend that everyone, including Wilson, keeps telling me he is, why hasn't he picked up on that?"
"He's perceptive and hopeful?"
"He's an idiot," House says.
"Yeah," Stacy agrees, "but he's your idiot."
"Why are we even talking about Wilson?" House asks. "We know other people. Let's talk about pregnant Cuddy. Or - Chase and Cameron are getting it on, now. Don't you want to know how that makes me feel?"
"I'm going to guess it makes you a little hot," Stacy says, "because that's sort of what it does for me. And Lisa being pregnant isn't really something that's up for discussion by us. And we're talking about Wilson because you called me, last night, instead of him."
House stirs the whipped cream on the top of his shake into the ice cream, and starts to eat the top layer with a spoon. "I'm sorry I called you," he says, and Stacy sighs, her heavy, Greg-please-don't-be-such-a-bastard sigh. It's a sigh he knows well, a sigh that has mileage, history, a drawer reserved in his dresser. "He hasn't actually told me about Cuddy and the baby," House says.
"Do you want my advice about Wilson?" Stacy asks.
"No," he says, and he means it. "But I do want you to try this shake. It's amazing. In fact, you should get your own." He signals for the waitress, and Stacy catches his hand, brings it down to the table still cradled within her own. He looks only at that. "If I was better," he says, "if I wasn't a very bad person -"
"Fix things with Wilson," she says. Her voice is low and certain, and that's a relief, really, because he is a bad person, and he was looking for vulnerability. "Don't chase after me because you're fighting with him."
He manages a grin, just barely. "I like chasing after you."
She sits back, lets his hand loose. "You'd better finish your ice cream," she says, "or you won't ruin your meal."
40. Sight
Stacy pulls up to the staff entrance, leaves the car running. "Does Mark know where you are?" House asks.
"Yes," she says, and that answers the question he was really asking. "Which is why I should probably be getting home."
He turns away before there can be any awkward attempt at a good-bye. No kiss on the cheek, no too-brief hug, no sad Stacy smile. The pavement is a little slick, but he pushes himself up and out anyway. Someone has thrown down salt, and it's good for traction though it seems to be doing little to the ice. Stacy lowers the window.
House leans in and looks right past her, out the driver's window. "You don't have to come every time I call," he says.
"You will call again, though, right?"
He nods. "You could call, too." He's not sure whether she hears him. He pushes back from the car and she rolls the window up. The car glides out of the parking lot and away, and he blinks and wishes it was night, wishes the weather would match his mood. He walks inside, sees Cameron and Chase at the coffee kiosk. They're pretty far from the doors, and he doubts either of them knows off hand what kind of car Stacy drives. He wishes he could make things, people, entire situations invisible. "Oh, the powers I should have," he says to himself, heading toward them.
They are surprised to see him, which makes House feel a little better about everything. It's still weird, catching the subtle changes between them. Cameron is standing a bit too close to Chase before she sees House, but by the time he reaches them, she's moved well outside of even friendly distance. Chase's eyes track both her and House like he expects one of them to start yelling or shooting. It's kind of funny, in a sick way, and it makes House briefly happy to know that other people in the world have just as much trouble navigating romance and relationships as he does.
Chase offers to buy him a coffee, and House accepts. He gets a triple shot latte and dumps four packets of real sugar into it. "There's a guy who just came in with transverse myelitis," Cameron says.
"He's got diagnosed MS," Chase murmurs, handing over House's coffee. "It's just a new symptom off of that."
"So far, I'm with Ken on this one, Barbie," House says. "But you keep chasing, see what you can find. I've got clinic patients waiting." He makes it a few feet before he realizes both Chase and Cameron are still staring at him. "What?"
"You don't have clinic hours this afternoon."
"And I also don't have a patient. Down here - lots of patients."
"You're willingly going to the clinic? To see patients?" Cameron asks. Her eyes are wide. "Are you feeling all right?"
The clinic is safe. No Cuddy, not on a Wednesday and not while she's avoiding him. And probably no Wilson, either, if Stacy really made him cry. Out of sight, out of mind, he thinks, but he can't say that to Cameron. He leans in. "I like the clinic. They keep all the good drugs over there," he says, and Cameron's cheeks get a little pink. It's either annoyance or embarrassment. House has never been able to tell the difference on her, and he's not sure he's supposed to.
"But seriously," Chase says, "the last time you were looking forward to clinic, Foreman was dying."
"Where is Foreman?" House looks around, as though maybe Foreman will simply appear out of thin air, carrying his too-serious briefcase and wearing his too-serious face.
Random Foreman apparition, actually, is a scary thought, and it almost derails House completely, until Cameron says, "He's still at lunch," and Chase mutters, "unless you've killed him."
House snorts. "You check on that. Cameron's got her myelitis guy. And I'm going to go hunting for mysteries in the fertile grounds of the free clinic. Let's see who turns up some real work first."
He turns and walks through the doors, and he isn't followed. At the desk, he asks, "Is Dr. Wilson working this afternoon?" and when he gets a no, he says, "I'll take whoever's next. And I want one of the PA's."
The nurse looks at him, looks over at the schedule, and then looks back. Her mouth actually falls open. "But Dr. Cuttler is -"
"Tell Cuttler he's got a day off."
"She."
"Even better. Equal pay for equal work. Give me a damn chart and a patient and let's get this started."
He sees sixteen people in four hours. The PA assisting him is a quick study named Brian who doesn't argue any of the prescriptions and generally hangs out in the background while House bullies people into revealing their problems. He might even be doing Sudoku puzzles while House is diagnosing people. House likes him right away. "You ever want to become a real doctor, look me up," he says, limping out at 4.
"Yeah, you make it look so glamorous," Brian says, signing the last prescription. He hands it to the patient and offers House a funny salute with his stethoscope before he walks out. House turns and finds the surprised nurse from before. "Any way I can get him scheduled to assist me from now on?"
Her eyes narrow. "Are you going to turn him into another little you?"
"He's found that track already," House assures her. "I'm just honing his skills." She grumbles something he's not meant to hear - he catches most of it, and it ends in "jackass," - and starts to turn back to her paperwork. "Ah ah ah," House says. "When are Dr. Wilson's clinic hours?"
"None until Friday," she says, without looking at the schedule.
House rolls his eyes. "He's off the market, you know," he says. "Just because you have his schedule memorized doesn't mean he's going to make out with you after homeroom."
"I remember it," she says, and it sounds like she's talking through clenched teeth, "because half the girls don't want to be on his schedule, having had their precious little hearts broken already."
House laughs. "Any way I can get you scheduled to work with me from now on?"
"No, but if you stay here much longer you're going to need someone scheduled to put back in your front teeth."
"And they're my best feature." He taps the countertop, and the nurse actually smiles, and he pushes away and limps toward the staff elevator. It's time for 4:00 pain meds. After that, he can probably round up the troops and toss the ball around and find enough stuff to do until the meeting. After that, it'll be a cab ride home, maybe some time with the piano, and then a shot and then sleep, and it's another day down.
Part 1. Part 2 : Part 3 : Part 4 : Part 5