New Fic: Calling the Moon
Title: Calling the Moon
Author: Mer
Characters: James Wilson, Greg House, Lisa Cuddy
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4100
Summary: Wilson has always kept secrets from House.
Author's Notes: Set in August 2001. Written for hannahrorlove, who generously supported the help_chile campaign. She wanted a particular universe, which she has already given her own brilliant stamp to in Blood Letting. Much thanks to elynittria and hannahrorlove for invaluable input. Any remaining problems are of my own making. Title and cutline from a song by Dar Williams.
Disclaimer: All rights belong to David Shore, Heel and Toe Films, and Bad Hat Harry Productions, in association with NBC Universal Television Studio
James Wilson was a careful man when it came to time. He might lose track of an hour or two during the day, but he had inherited an internal clock that was fine-tuned to the lunar month. He'd often resented his heritage, but he was grateful that it at least came with a built-in warning system. At least he never needed a calendar to know when the sun and moon were at opposite sides of the earth.
A day or so before the full moon, his senses heightened -- first smell, then hearing. He could hear conversations halfway across the Witherspoon wing or pick up the scent of someone he knew well. For a few days each month, keeping track of his troublesome best friend, Greg House, was much easier.
As the moon waxed full, he grew restless, his muscles twitching and aching for movement that no amount of casual stretching could quell. The night before the full moon, he would run until his lungs burned and his legs turned to rubber, but it was never enough to quiet the pull of the tide in his blood. On those nights, he curled on the floor and let the cool tiles soothe him into a restive sleep.
The shift itself was painless, but first year physiology had taught him more than he wanted to know about the process, and he couldn't stop himself from imagining the transformation in graphic detail. And while shifting was as natural as walking, he always needed a few minutes to regain his equilibrium, moments that left him shaky and disoriented.
His brother, who ran with a pack in the San Gabriels every weekend he could, told Wilson it would be easier if he shifted more than once a moon or stayed shifted for longer than a dozen hours at a time. "It's all about muscle memory," he said.
But Wilson knew that memories faded, even genetically programmed memories. Otherwise, he couldn't have screwed up his timing so badly.
He'd known the moon was almost full, but the antidepressants he'd been taking since his second marriage fell apart had dulled his instincts, and the series of patient crises that kept him at the hospital for 30 hours straight had thrown his internal clock out of whack. Still, he might have been safely at home long before dusk if House hadn't lost a patient and barricaded himself in the morgue with the body and a full bottle of Vicodin.
The answer was hidden somewhere beneath the surface. House hadn't discovered it while the patient was still alive -- he’d had too many symptoms, too many possible answers, and too little time -- but he wasn't going to let death defeat him. Now he had nothing but time. Or he would if Wilson left him alone.
Knuckles rapped impatiently against the door. "Let me in, House."
He couldn't turn off the knocking the way he'd turned off his cell phone and pager, and House knew that Wilson had a stubborn streak as wide as the Turnpike. He could be driven away, but not before he'd driven House crazy.
"What will you do if I don't?" House called back. "Will you huff and puff and blow my house in?" Silence at last, and House wondered if Wilson had given up, but then he heard an exasperated sigh.
"No, I'll leave that to security. The only reason they haven't dragged your sorry ass out of there already is because I told them to back off. How long do you think your straw will hold out if I leave?"
"Bricks and steel," House muttered to himself, but he stood up and limped over to the door. He told himself he was just stretching his leg out; he’d been sitting for too long and the muscles had seized up. He wouldn't want Wilson to get the idea that he actually listened to him. "Why should I let you in?"
"The parents signed off on the autopsy," Wilson replied. "You don't have to barricade yourself in here anymore. No one's going to drag your puzzle away to the crematorium."
That was a good enough reason. House moved the gurney away from the door and shot the bolt. "You'd better be alone," he said, cracking the door open just wide enough to let Wilson slip in.
"I'm a doctor, not a hostage negotiator," Wilson grumbled, but didn't protest when House slammed the door closed and locked it behind him again. "Security alerted Cuddy," he said, staring at the autopsy table. "She won't be as patient as I was when she gets here."
As if bruising his knuckles against solid steel qualified as patient. "Then make yourself useful and run some labs for me. The sooner I figure this out, the sooner everybody gets to go home."
Wilson rubbed his eyes. "I got you your permission and all the time you need. The rest is up to you." But he grabbed a lab coat off the rack and shrugged it on. "What are we testing for?"
"If I knew that, I wouldn't need to do the tests." House took a deep breath. Wilson wasn't the enemy. The enemy was within, in a microbe or defective gene or screwed-up cell. "Start with the blood work. We ruled out bacterial and viral infections before he started circling the drain. Look for protozoa or signs of systemic mycosis. Something that kills, and kills quickly."
They had ruled out fungi and parasites, and had moved on to autoimmune issues, when the door handle jiggled.
"Better let her in," Wilson advised, leaning against the table.
For the first time House realized how exhausted Wilson looked. Wilson, he remembered, had been coming off a double-shift when he'd been called back to help keep one of his own patients out of a body bag. Judging by his clothes, Wilson hadn't made it home since. Maybe it was time to call in reinforcements. Wilson's insistence that he hire fellows was beginning to make sense.
He unlocked the door and stood aside as Cuddy swept in. He had time for an administrative dressing down while he waited for the results of the latest set of labs. But Cuddy pushed right past him when she caught sight of his accomplice.
"What are you still doing here, Wilson?" she demanded, ignoring House entirely. "Isn't this your day off?"
Something in her voice caused Wilson to raise his head sharply, alarm blowing the pupils in his eyes wide. "Is it Friday? I thought it was still Thursday." His already pale face took on a grayish cast when he looked at his watch. "I've got to go."
"What's the matter?" House asked, amused by Wilson’s sudden panic. "Is the rabbi going to call you out for working on the Sabbath? Wait until I tell him some of the other things you get up to after sunset on Fridays."
"Let me give you a ride home," Cuddy said, ignoring House and leading Wilson to the door. "You're exhausted. It's not safe for you to drive."
"No, it's okay. I'll be okay." He pulled away from Cuddy. "You should stay here and make sure House doesn't tear the body apart in search of answers."
He gave her a significant look, and House was about to tell them to get a room, when she nodded and stepped back. "Be careful," she said.
"I'm always careful," Wilson replied, which was the truest thing House had ever heard him say.
He watched Wilson walk away, his stride jerkier than normal, as if he were having trouble controlling his limbs. Wilson was always a klutz when he was tired. He'd be better off with Cuddy's help, even if she wasn't a real doctor anymore. Something bothered him about the exchange between Wilson and Cuddy, though -- it was more than just a hospital administrator looking out for one of her rising stars -- but he would deal with that puzzle later. He had a killer to find first.
He made it just in time. Even as he sped down the back roads, knowing he might have to ditch his car at a moment’s notice, abandon it on the side of the road and melt into the night, he could feel the moon rising in his blood, burning through exhaustion and depression.
Safely home, he unlocked the sliding door and then hurried to the bedroom to change out of his work clothes. It was past time, but before the moon could take him unawares, he breathed in and out and let the change happen. He sank down on all fours, bones compressing, sinews stretching. He staggered once, as the unfamiliar became familiar again, but then padded out of the room, aware now of muscles rippling with each step, flowing with the tide.
Some months, he just curled on the couch and waited for the moon to set, but it had been a sad, frustrating day, and he needed a release. He wanted to run away from the empty house and forget the dying patients for just one night. Nothing would be changed in the morning, but for a few hours at least, nothing would matter.
It was easy to rear up and push the patio door open, even easier to nudge it closed again. He didn’t worry about someone stealing his stereo or finding the cash he kept for emergencies in his sock drawer; things could always be replaced. Changing back in the safety of his home was more important.
The sun had already set, but he could see better in the dark, and it was moonlight that guided him anyway. A quick dash across the back lawn, around the fence, and he was free and clear in the woods.
The moon shone through the forest canopy, and Wilson lifted his head and howled.
House found the answer in the heart biopsy, long after Cuddy had given up and gone home. Idiopathic giant cell myocarditis, which was just another way of saying they knew how he died, but not why. The associated colitis had kept them running in the wrong direction until it was too late for a heart transplant, though House suspected it had been too late before the man reached the ER. It didn't make the death any easier to accept, but at least he could close the file on the patient and go home.
He was parked in one of the handicapped slots not far from the park, and as he made his way to the car, a howl cut through the still night. House looked up at the full moon shining in the summer night sky. Werewolf, then, not a domestic dog acting on some ancestral urge. The Princeton area, he knew, was home to several families of werewolves, drawn by an understanding scheduling policy at the university and plenty of room to run along the reservoir. House knew of at least two or three werewolves at the hospital; all Jewish mothers wanted their babies to grow up to be doctors, even when the babies came in litters. Wilson’s mother must have wept with joy when he’d been accepted to medical school.
Another howl, and House's thoughts about Wilson took a detour. He remembered Wilson's panic when he realized what day it was, and the long conspiratorial look he'd shared with Cuddy. A dozen anomalies over the years suddenly made sense. He'd been suspicious since the first time Wilson had turned down chocolate, but now he was sure. Wilson was a werewolf.
His first instinct was to head to the closest bar and drink until the moon went down or the bartender cut him off. He'd grown up in the house of a man who'd lied about who he was. At least John House had pride to explain his deceit. Wilson was either desperate to conform or a coward; it was a toss-up which one disgusted House more.
He glanced at his watch. It was just before one in the morning, almost the exact moment of the full moon according to the day's paper. The moon wouldn’t set for another six hours, which meant Wilson would be slinking around the reservoir, or maybe the golf course -- his natural habitat -- or hiding away until the sun rose and he could pretend to be ordinary again.
House had always hated the amount of time and energy Wilson spent hiding who he was, and that was before he'd known just how much Wilson was hiding. He couldn't believe Wilson had kept something that basic to his existence from him. He'd known Wilson for nearly ten years, and while part of the time they'd been in different cities, for the past four years they'd both been in Princeton. Wilson had practically moved in with him after Stacy left. He had moved in with him for a week after Bonnie booted him out for good. He'd thought they were friends.
Instead of heading to a bar, he went directly to Wilson's new digs, a colonial split off Cherry Hill Road. House had thought it was too big for a man who didn’t have any furniture and spent most of his time at work, but now he realized that Wilson had been looking for location, not design. It was close enough to Witherspoon Woods that Wilson could easily melt into the darkness and run unobserved until dawn.
House let himself in through the front door with the key Wilson had hidden above the door jamb. He called out Wilson's name, just in case he'd jumped to the wrong conclusion, but no one answered. Wilson's car was in the driveway and his jacket was hanging by the front door, so Wilson had made it home. A quick investigation revealed Wilson's work clothes neatly folded on his bed and the patio door unlocked. Wilson was out for the night, which meant House could rummage through Wilson's post-separation life at his leisure. It would fill the hours until moonset.
It didn't look like the house of a werewolf -- not that House was an expert on interior design for homo sapiens lupus -- but then House assumed that Wilson spent very little time in wolf form. He noticed the bathroom door had a doorknob instead of levers, which didn't seem very wolf-friendly, but Wilson had only moved in a few weeks ago. Fixtures were probably low on his redecorating list; it wasn't as if Wilson needed a flush toilet when he was shifted.
It didn't take long for House to read all of Wilson's correspondence, search his photo albums for pictures of pups, and program his VCR to record repeats of Call of the Wild on Animal Planet. He had just settled down on the couch to mock infomercials when the patio door jerked open and a large grey-brown wolf padded into the living room. He raised his head and sniffed, his hackles rising at a familiar, but unexpected, scent. For a moment, House pondered the wisdom of invading Wilson's territory, but he'd been barging into Wilson's life since the day he'd bailed him out of jail a decade before.
"It's about time you got home," House said, relaxing when Wilson's tail dropped and his ears flattened. "I was just about to call the pound."
Wilson's eyes were the same dark brown, darker even than his fur, the pupils almost indistinguishable from the irises. But House could still see them widen with fear, before Wilson spun around and darted across the room, disappearing into the bathroom. The door slammed shut behind him.
House hadn't seen a litter box, so unless Wilson wanted a drink from the toilet, he had chosen an uncomfortable retreat. "Don't be an idiot, Wilson," he said, walking over and giving the door an experimental push. Wilson's wolf form couldn't be more than 100 pounds -- larger than the average canis lupus, but significantly lighter than his human form -- but all 100 of those pounds were stubbornly pressed against the door. "I know it's you, so there's no point in hiding away until morning."
The only answer was a low growl.
"Fine," House retorted, retreating to the couch. "But I'm not leaving, so I hope you have a robe in there, because I do not want to start my day looking at your scrawny chest."
This time House heard a sigh that resonated deeper than Wilson's usual prissy expression of frustration. He wondered what wolf eyes looked like when they rolled. He turned on the TV and looked for an old movie. The end of The Maltese Falcon was on, so he turned up the volume to tempt Wilson from his lair. A few minutes later, he heard a scrabble of claws on wood, a dull thump, and a frustrated whine.
Curious, House went back to the bathroom door. He heard another whine and a sharp yap. "What is your problem?" he demanded, as if Wilson could answer. Then he remembered that the door handle wasn't conducive to paws. "You are the worst wolf ever," he proclaimed as he opened the door, though even Wilson couldn't have anticipated the need to shut himself in his own bathroom to avoid his nosy best friend; in retrospect, it was uncharacteristically shortsighted.
Wilson stalked past him and jumped onto the couch, stretching out lengthwise. House considered shoving him aside, but he was wary of Wilson's claws even when they weren't literal. The armchair would do just as well. The sightlines to the TV weren't as good, but he was more interested in watching Wilson. He wondered what it was like, living in two different states of being, shifting from biped to quadriped, from hunter to gatherer at the waxing and waning of the moon. Wilson must resent it, he thought. He hated not being in control.
Ordinary wolves, he knew, could reach speeds of 40 miles per hour and leap nearly 60 feet in a single bound. He wondered what speed and power could do when combined with human consciousness. Wilson lifted his head and stared back at him, and while it was strange to see his friend's eyes set in a different face, it was familiar and comforting at the same time. "You should have told me," he said, and Wilson looked away. They watched the rest of the movie in silence, until House dozed off during the credits.
When he woke, Wilson was sitting on the couch, dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, watching him warily. "What are you going to do?" he asked.
House hadn't planned to do anything, other than asking Wilson to get him some fresh rabbit on the next full moon. His resentment at being deceived had faded; this was just another piece to fit into the Wilson-shaped puzzle that he'd been assembling for nearly a decade. "I considered putting an announcement in the hospital newsletter that you had a furry alter-ego, but then I realized -- nobody cares." Except Wilson, of course, who cared about everything people thought, or didn't think. "Though I will make sure you don't go to any conferences in Michigan during the full moon. Did you know they give out hunting licenses to people who are legally blind?"
"That's not funny, House," Wilson said, looking less apprehensive and more disapproving, which meant things were returning to normal.
"Really? Blind people shooting guns in the forest isn't just a little funny?" House closed his eyes and feigned aiming a shotgun, clasped hands outstretched and pointing at random unseen targets.
Wilson chuckled, though the wariness hadn't entirely disappeared. "So you're okay with this?"
"Hey, I'm not the one hiding who I am from the world. If I were you, I'd come to board meetings in wolf form and growl at that asshole Simpson every time he tries to vote down one of your proposals."
"Which is exactly why I choose to stay in human form. I have a career. I can't exactly carry a pager when I'm a wolf."
"Fair enough," House said, though Wilson's reasons for doing something were never as simple as he pretended. "But that doesn't explain why you've lied about it all these years. A lie of omission is still a lie," he said, anticipating Wilson's first argument. He held up a picture of a young boy with sandy brown hair, dark eyes and high cheekbones, flanked by two fluffy canids. It was one of the few personal items Wilson had displayed in his home. "You told me this was a picture of you."
"It is," Wilson replied, pointing to the pup on the left. "It's not my fault you can't tell the difference between a wolf and a dog. People see what they want to see."
"Or what they're led to believe." House could see it now, though. Even in a still photograph the two fluffy balls of fur had an awareness that wasn't present in even the most intelligent dog. "If that's you, who are Lassie and Jeff?"
Wilson looked away, which meant he was either about to lie or was pissed off that he couldn't avoid the truth. "My brothers."
Another strand in the tangled web Wilson had woven. House had met Wilson's brother, singular, at Wilson's wedding. "How come I've never met the other one?" he asked. "Black wolf of the family?" The other wolf actually had lighter fur than Wilson, but House never let details interfere with wordplay.
"The other wolf is Reuben. You'd approve of him. He never hides who he is." He took the photo from House and traced a finger over the face of the boy. "That's Danny."
"He's not shifted in the photo."
"He can't," Wilson replied. "He was born with his switch locked, so he was always in human form. It wasn't easy for him, especially as he got older and realized how different he really was. Not human, but not an expressing werewolf either."
House thought of the other photos he'd found scattered in Wilson's albums. Two wolves and a boy, and then two teenagers and a wolf. He'd assumed the other "dog" had died. Maybe something else had. "So because your brother couldn't shift, you decided you shouldn't either." It wasn't a question. He might not know all Wilson's secrets, but he knew Wilson.
"It wasn't fair to him," Wilson replied. "I couldn't do anything about the full moon, but I thought if I stayed in human form the rest of the time, he wouldn't be alone."
"But he was."
Wilson closed his eyes, as if it hurt too much to see his brother, even in an old photo. "He ran away when we were in college. I came back to the dorm one morning after the full moon, and he was gone. I don't even know if he's still alive."
A few more pieces slipped into place, though the image was still shifting. "Do you think if you keep denying who you are he'll come back to you? Or are you punishing yourself for being what he couldn't be?"
Wilson's hand tightened around the picture frame, but he held himself still, almost frozen. House knew from experience that it would take more than a couple of taunts to make him snap. He'd had half his life to build up his walls. House would need time to chip them away.
He imagined what it must be like to have a body unencumbered by human frailties. Three legs would be twice what he had now. "You're a fool," he said, taking out his chisel. "Danny had no choice, but you do, and you've deliberately chosen to cut part of yourself off."
Wilson turned his head and stared at him, his expression unreadable. "That's what Reuben used to tell me. He took me on a trip a couple of years back to help me 'actualize my inner self.' We went up to the mountains for a week and just ran free. No one to answer to, nothing to worry about, just our own needs and desires. And when I got back to Princeton, I had a dozen messages on my answering machine from Stacy, and you had part of your thigh muscle missing." He stood up. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed now. You let yourself in, you can let yourself out."
House sat in the living room, long after Wilson had left the room. Finally, he stood up and slipped out the patio door, but not before he set the photo on the mantel, where it would be safe from harm.
Author: Mer
Characters: James Wilson, Greg House, Lisa Cuddy
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~4100
Summary: Wilson has always kept secrets from House.
Author's Notes: Set in August 2001. Written for hannahrorlove, who generously supported the help_chile campaign. She wanted a particular universe, which she has already given her own brilliant stamp to in Blood Letting. Much thanks to elynittria and hannahrorlove for invaluable input. Any remaining problems are of my own making. Title and cutline from a song by Dar Williams.
Disclaimer: All rights belong to David Shore, Heel and Toe Films, and Bad Hat Harry Productions, in association with NBC Universal Television Studio
James Wilson was a careful man when it came to time. He might lose track of an hour or two during the day, but he had inherited an internal clock that was fine-tuned to the lunar month. He'd often resented his heritage, but he was grateful that it at least came with a built-in warning system. At least he never needed a calendar to know when the sun and moon were at opposite sides of the earth.
A day or so before the full moon, his senses heightened -- first smell, then hearing. He could hear conversations halfway across the Witherspoon wing or pick up the scent of someone he knew well. For a few days each month, keeping track of his troublesome best friend, Greg House, was much easier.
As the moon waxed full, he grew restless, his muscles twitching and aching for movement that no amount of casual stretching could quell. The night before the full moon, he would run until his lungs burned and his legs turned to rubber, but it was never enough to quiet the pull of the tide in his blood. On those nights, he curled on the floor and let the cool tiles soothe him into a restive sleep.
The shift itself was painless, but first year physiology had taught him more than he wanted to know about the process, and he couldn't stop himself from imagining the transformation in graphic detail. And while shifting was as natural as walking, he always needed a few minutes to regain his equilibrium, moments that left him shaky and disoriented.
His brother, who ran with a pack in the San Gabriels every weekend he could, told Wilson it would be easier if he shifted more than once a moon or stayed shifted for longer than a dozen hours at a time. "It's all about muscle memory," he said.
But Wilson knew that memories faded, even genetically programmed memories. Otherwise, he couldn't have screwed up his timing so badly.
He'd known the moon was almost full, but the antidepressants he'd been taking since his second marriage fell apart had dulled his instincts, and the series of patient crises that kept him at the hospital for 30 hours straight had thrown his internal clock out of whack. Still, he might have been safely at home long before dusk if House hadn't lost a patient and barricaded himself in the morgue with the body and a full bottle of Vicodin.
The answer was hidden somewhere beneath the surface. House hadn't discovered it while the patient was still alive -- he’d had too many symptoms, too many possible answers, and too little time -- but he wasn't going to let death defeat him. Now he had nothing but time. Or he would if Wilson left him alone.
Knuckles rapped impatiently against the door. "Let me in, House."
He couldn't turn off the knocking the way he'd turned off his cell phone and pager, and House knew that Wilson had a stubborn streak as wide as the Turnpike. He could be driven away, but not before he'd driven House crazy.
"What will you do if I don't?" House called back. "Will you huff and puff and blow my house in?" Silence at last, and House wondered if Wilson had given up, but then he heard an exasperated sigh.
"No, I'll leave that to security. The only reason they haven't dragged your sorry ass out of there already is because I told them to back off. How long do you think your straw will hold out if I leave?"
"Bricks and steel," House muttered to himself, but he stood up and limped over to the door. He told himself he was just stretching his leg out; he’d been sitting for too long and the muscles had seized up. He wouldn't want Wilson to get the idea that he actually listened to him. "Why should I let you in?"
"The parents signed off on the autopsy," Wilson replied. "You don't have to barricade yourself in here anymore. No one's going to drag your puzzle away to the crematorium."
That was a good enough reason. House moved the gurney away from the door and shot the bolt. "You'd better be alone," he said, cracking the door open just wide enough to let Wilson slip in.
"I'm a doctor, not a hostage negotiator," Wilson grumbled, but didn't protest when House slammed the door closed and locked it behind him again. "Security alerted Cuddy," he said, staring at the autopsy table. "She won't be as patient as I was when she gets here."
As if bruising his knuckles against solid steel qualified as patient. "Then make yourself useful and run some labs for me. The sooner I figure this out, the sooner everybody gets to go home."
Wilson rubbed his eyes. "I got you your permission and all the time you need. The rest is up to you." But he grabbed a lab coat off the rack and shrugged it on. "What are we testing for?"
"If I knew that, I wouldn't need to do the tests." House took a deep breath. Wilson wasn't the enemy. The enemy was within, in a microbe or defective gene or screwed-up cell. "Start with the blood work. We ruled out bacterial and viral infections before he started circling the drain. Look for protozoa or signs of systemic mycosis. Something that kills, and kills quickly."
They had ruled out fungi and parasites, and had moved on to autoimmune issues, when the door handle jiggled.
"Better let her in," Wilson advised, leaning against the table.
For the first time House realized how exhausted Wilson looked. Wilson, he remembered, had been coming off a double-shift when he'd been called back to help keep one of his own patients out of a body bag. Judging by his clothes, Wilson hadn't made it home since. Maybe it was time to call in reinforcements. Wilson's insistence that he hire fellows was beginning to make sense.
He unlocked the door and stood aside as Cuddy swept in. He had time for an administrative dressing down while he waited for the results of the latest set of labs. But Cuddy pushed right past him when she caught sight of his accomplice.
"What are you still doing here, Wilson?" she demanded, ignoring House entirely. "Isn't this your day off?"
Something in her voice caused Wilson to raise his head sharply, alarm blowing the pupils in his eyes wide. "Is it Friday? I thought it was still Thursday." His already pale face took on a grayish cast when he looked at his watch. "I've got to go."
"What's the matter?" House asked, amused by Wilson’s sudden panic. "Is the rabbi going to call you out for working on the Sabbath? Wait until I tell him some of the other things you get up to after sunset on Fridays."
"Let me give you a ride home," Cuddy said, ignoring House and leading Wilson to the door. "You're exhausted. It's not safe for you to drive."
"No, it's okay. I'll be okay." He pulled away from Cuddy. "You should stay here and make sure House doesn't tear the body apart in search of answers."
He gave her a significant look, and House was about to tell them to get a room, when she nodded and stepped back. "Be careful," she said.
"I'm always careful," Wilson replied, which was the truest thing House had ever heard him say.
He watched Wilson walk away, his stride jerkier than normal, as if he were having trouble controlling his limbs. Wilson was always a klutz when he was tired. He'd be better off with Cuddy's help, even if she wasn't a real doctor anymore. Something bothered him about the exchange between Wilson and Cuddy, though -- it was more than just a hospital administrator looking out for one of her rising stars -- but he would deal with that puzzle later. He had a killer to find first.
He made it just in time. Even as he sped down the back roads, knowing he might have to ditch his car at a moment’s notice, abandon it on the side of the road and melt into the night, he could feel the moon rising in his blood, burning through exhaustion and depression.
Safely home, he unlocked the sliding door and then hurried to the bedroom to change out of his work clothes. It was past time, but before the moon could take him unawares, he breathed in and out and let the change happen. He sank down on all fours, bones compressing, sinews stretching. He staggered once, as the unfamiliar became familiar again, but then padded out of the room, aware now of muscles rippling with each step, flowing with the tide.
Some months, he just curled on the couch and waited for the moon to set, but it had been a sad, frustrating day, and he needed a release. He wanted to run away from the empty house and forget the dying patients for just one night. Nothing would be changed in the morning, but for a few hours at least, nothing would matter.
It was easy to rear up and push the patio door open, even easier to nudge it closed again. He didn’t worry about someone stealing his stereo or finding the cash he kept for emergencies in his sock drawer; things could always be replaced. Changing back in the safety of his home was more important.
The sun had already set, but he could see better in the dark, and it was moonlight that guided him anyway. A quick dash across the back lawn, around the fence, and he was free and clear in the woods.
The moon shone through the forest canopy, and Wilson lifted his head and howled.
House found the answer in the heart biopsy, long after Cuddy had given up and gone home. Idiopathic giant cell myocarditis, which was just another way of saying they knew how he died, but not why. The associated colitis had kept them running in the wrong direction until it was too late for a heart transplant, though House suspected it had been too late before the man reached the ER. It didn't make the death any easier to accept, but at least he could close the file on the patient and go home.
He was parked in one of the handicapped slots not far from the park, and as he made his way to the car, a howl cut through the still night. House looked up at the full moon shining in the summer night sky. Werewolf, then, not a domestic dog acting on some ancestral urge. The Princeton area, he knew, was home to several families of werewolves, drawn by an understanding scheduling policy at the university and plenty of room to run along the reservoir. House knew of at least two or three werewolves at the hospital; all Jewish mothers wanted their babies to grow up to be doctors, even when the babies came in litters. Wilson’s mother must have wept with joy when he’d been accepted to medical school.
Another howl, and House's thoughts about Wilson took a detour. He remembered Wilson's panic when he realized what day it was, and the long conspiratorial look he'd shared with Cuddy. A dozen anomalies over the years suddenly made sense. He'd been suspicious since the first time Wilson had turned down chocolate, but now he was sure. Wilson was a werewolf.
His first instinct was to head to the closest bar and drink until the moon went down or the bartender cut him off. He'd grown up in the house of a man who'd lied about who he was. At least John House had pride to explain his deceit. Wilson was either desperate to conform or a coward; it was a toss-up which one disgusted House more.
He glanced at his watch. It was just before one in the morning, almost the exact moment of the full moon according to the day's paper. The moon wouldn’t set for another six hours, which meant Wilson would be slinking around the reservoir, or maybe the golf course -- his natural habitat -- or hiding away until the sun rose and he could pretend to be ordinary again.
House had always hated the amount of time and energy Wilson spent hiding who he was, and that was before he'd known just how much Wilson was hiding. He couldn't believe Wilson had kept something that basic to his existence from him. He'd known Wilson for nearly ten years, and while part of the time they'd been in different cities, for the past four years they'd both been in Princeton. Wilson had practically moved in with him after Stacy left. He had moved in with him for a week after Bonnie booted him out for good. He'd thought they were friends.
Instead of heading to a bar, he went directly to Wilson's new digs, a colonial split off Cherry Hill Road. House had thought it was too big for a man who didn’t have any furniture and spent most of his time at work, but now he realized that Wilson had been looking for location, not design. It was close enough to Witherspoon Woods that Wilson could easily melt into the darkness and run unobserved until dawn.
House let himself in through the front door with the key Wilson had hidden above the door jamb. He called out Wilson's name, just in case he'd jumped to the wrong conclusion, but no one answered. Wilson's car was in the driveway and his jacket was hanging by the front door, so Wilson had made it home. A quick investigation revealed Wilson's work clothes neatly folded on his bed and the patio door unlocked. Wilson was out for the night, which meant House could rummage through Wilson's post-separation life at his leisure. It would fill the hours until moonset.
It didn't look like the house of a werewolf -- not that House was an expert on interior design for homo sapiens lupus -- but then House assumed that Wilson spent very little time in wolf form. He noticed the bathroom door had a doorknob instead of levers, which didn't seem very wolf-friendly, but Wilson had only moved in a few weeks ago. Fixtures were probably low on his redecorating list; it wasn't as if Wilson needed a flush toilet when he was shifted.
It didn't take long for House to read all of Wilson's correspondence, search his photo albums for pictures of pups, and program his VCR to record repeats of Call of the Wild on Animal Planet. He had just settled down on the couch to mock infomercials when the patio door jerked open and a large grey-brown wolf padded into the living room. He raised his head and sniffed, his hackles rising at a familiar, but unexpected, scent. For a moment, House pondered the wisdom of invading Wilson's territory, but he'd been barging into Wilson's life since the day he'd bailed him out of jail a decade before.
"It's about time you got home," House said, relaxing when Wilson's tail dropped and his ears flattened. "I was just about to call the pound."
Wilson's eyes were the same dark brown, darker even than his fur, the pupils almost indistinguishable from the irises. But House could still see them widen with fear, before Wilson spun around and darted across the room, disappearing into the bathroom. The door slammed shut behind him.
House hadn't seen a litter box, so unless Wilson wanted a drink from the toilet, he had chosen an uncomfortable retreat. "Don't be an idiot, Wilson," he said, walking over and giving the door an experimental push. Wilson's wolf form couldn't be more than 100 pounds -- larger than the average canis lupus, but significantly lighter than his human form -- but all 100 of those pounds were stubbornly pressed against the door. "I know it's you, so there's no point in hiding away until morning."
The only answer was a low growl.
"Fine," House retorted, retreating to the couch. "But I'm not leaving, so I hope you have a robe in there, because I do not want to start my day looking at your scrawny chest."
This time House heard a sigh that resonated deeper than Wilson's usual prissy expression of frustration. He wondered what wolf eyes looked like when they rolled. He turned on the TV and looked for an old movie. The end of The Maltese Falcon was on, so he turned up the volume to tempt Wilson from his lair. A few minutes later, he heard a scrabble of claws on wood, a dull thump, and a frustrated whine.
Curious, House went back to the bathroom door. He heard another whine and a sharp yap. "What is your problem?" he demanded, as if Wilson could answer. Then he remembered that the door handle wasn't conducive to paws. "You are the worst wolf ever," he proclaimed as he opened the door, though even Wilson couldn't have anticipated the need to shut himself in his own bathroom to avoid his nosy best friend; in retrospect, it was uncharacteristically shortsighted.
Wilson stalked past him and jumped onto the couch, stretching out lengthwise. House considered shoving him aside, but he was wary of Wilson's claws even when they weren't literal. The armchair would do just as well. The sightlines to the TV weren't as good, but he was more interested in watching Wilson. He wondered what it was like, living in two different states of being, shifting from biped to quadriped, from hunter to gatherer at the waxing and waning of the moon. Wilson must resent it, he thought. He hated not being in control.
Ordinary wolves, he knew, could reach speeds of 40 miles per hour and leap nearly 60 feet in a single bound. He wondered what speed and power could do when combined with human consciousness. Wilson lifted his head and stared back at him, and while it was strange to see his friend's eyes set in a different face, it was familiar and comforting at the same time. "You should have told me," he said, and Wilson looked away. They watched the rest of the movie in silence, until House dozed off during the credits.
When he woke, Wilson was sitting on the couch, dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, watching him warily. "What are you going to do?" he asked.
House hadn't planned to do anything, other than asking Wilson to get him some fresh rabbit on the next full moon. His resentment at being deceived had faded; this was just another piece to fit into the Wilson-shaped puzzle that he'd been assembling for nearly a decade. "I considered putting an announcement in the hospital newsletter that you had a furry alter-ego, but then I realized -- nobody cares." Except Wilson, of course, who cared about everything people thought, or didn't think. "Though I will make sure you don't go to any conferences in Michigan during the full moon. Did you know they give out hunting licenses to people who are legally blind?"
"That's not funny, House," Wilson said, looking less apprehensive and more disapproving, which meant things were returning to normal.
"Really? Blind people shooting guns in the forest isn't just a little funny?" House closed his eyes and feigned aiming a shotgun, clasped hands outstretched and pointing at random unseen targets.
Wilson chuckled, though the wariness hadn't entirely disappeared. "So you're okay with this?"
"Hey, I'm not the one hiding who I am from the world. If I were you, I'd come to board meetings in wolf form and growl at that asshole Simpson every time he tries to vote down one of your proposals."
"Which is exactly why I choose to stay in human form. I have a career. I can't exactly carry a pager when I'm a wolf."
"Fair enough," House said, though Wilson's reasons for doing something were never as simple as he pretended. "But that doesn't explain why you've lied about it all these years. A lie of omission is still a lie," he said, anticipating Wilson's first argument. He held up a picture of a young boy with sandy brown hair, dark eyes and high cheekbones, flanked by two fluffy canids. It was one of the few personal items Wilson had displayed in his home. "You told me this was a picture of you."
"It is," Wilson replied, pointing to the pup on the left. "It's not my fault you can't tell the difference between a wolf and a dog. People see what they want to see."
"Or what they're led to believe." House could see it now, though. Even in a still photograph the two fluffy balls of fur had an awareness that wasn't present in even the most intelligent dog. "If that's you, who are Lassie and Jeff?"
Wilson looked away, which meant he was either about to lie or was pissed off that he couldn't avoid the truth. "My brothers."
Another strand in the tangled web Wilson had woven. House had met Wilson's brother, singular, at Wilson's wedding. "How come I've never met the other one?" he asked. "Black wolf of the family?" The other wolf actually had lighter fur than Wilson, but House never let details interfere with wordplay.
"The other wolf is Reuben. You'd approve of him. He never hides who he is." He took the photo from House and traced a finger over the face of the boy. "That's Danny."
"He's not shifted in the photo."
"He can't," Wilson replied. "He was born with his switch locked, so he was always in human form. It wasn't easy for him, especially as he got older and realized how different he really was. Not human, but not an expressing werewolf either."
House thought of the other photos he'd found scattered in Wilson's albums. Two wolves and a boy, and then two teenagers and a wolf. He'd assumed the other "dog" had died. Maybe something else had. "So because your brother couldn't shift, you decided you shouldn't either." It wasn't a question. He might not know all Wilson's secrets, but he knew Wilson.
"It wasn't fair to him," Wilson replied. "I couldn't do anything about the full moon, but I thought if I stayed in human form the rest of the time, he wouldn't be alone."
"But he was."
Wilson closed his eyes, as if it hurt too much to see his brother, even in an old photo. "He ran away when we were in college. I came back to the dorm one morning after the full moon, and he was gone. I don't even know if he's still alive."
A few more pieces slipped into place, though the image was still shifting. "Do you think if you keep denying who you are he'll come back to you? Or are you punishing yourself for being what he couldn't be?"
Wilson's hand tightened around the picture frame, but he held himself still, almost frozen. House knew from experience that it would take more than a couple of taunts to make him snap. He'd had half his life to build up his walls. House would need time to chip them away.
He imagined what it must be like to have a body unencumbered by human frailties. Three legs would be twice what he had now. "You're a fool," he said, taking out his chisel. "Danny had no choice, but you do, and you've deliberately chosen to cut part of yourself off."
Wilson turned his head and stared at him, his expression unreadable. "That's what Reuben used to tell me. He took me on a trip a couple of years back to help me 'actualize my inner self.' We went up to the mountains for a week and just ran free. No one to answer to, nothing to worry about, just our own needs and desires. And when I got back to Princeton, I had a dozen messages on my answering machine from Stacy, and you had part of your thigh muscle missing." He stood up. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed now. You let yourself in, you can let yourself out."
House sat in the living room, long after Wilson had left the room. Finally, he stood up and slipped out the patio door, but not before he set the photo on the mantel, where it would be safe from harm.