Fic: Evening of the Day, H/W
Fic: Evening of the Day
Author: Nakanna Lee
Pairing: House / Wilson, Wilson / Amber, some mention of House / Cuddy
Rating: Hard PG-13
Summary: Wilson narrowed his eyes, tilting his head. Bounced from House’s stare to just over House’s shoulder. “You mean,” Wilson said, “you can see her, too?”
Spoilers: For 5.23 and 5.24.
***
Wilson narrowed his eyes, tilting his head. Bounced from House’s stare to just over House’s shoulder.
“You mean,” Wilson said, “you can see her, too?”
House froze. His apartment moved too quickly, blurring and rolling. Ceilings jolted miles upward above his head. Floors dropped out, turned to liquid glass. He could look down and see the soles of his sneakers reflected back up at him, tiny, all the way down in the distance.
“Hmm.” Amber leaned up against House, her chin against his neck. She matched perfectly in the groove, a second head, a snug fit. “What do we think that means?”
“You tell me,” House said.
Amber smiled at Wilson. Sweet and bitter. After a critical pause, he nodded back.
“You tell you,” she said.
***
The mental hospital had no dark spaces. Despite its enormous size there was never a lack of light. From the outside it had appeared massive, stony, a grim rock, but within everything shone white, bright, and clear, illuminated as if by some hidden current that glowed beneath the cool floors and cool walls and cool-faced employees. No one sweated. Everyone was pressed, newly unfolded and secure in their steam-departed creases. House waited for cues of panic but found none. Behind him clicked Amber’s shoes.
***
In the apartment Wilson sat on the couch, an ankle crossed over a knee. No movement. Just watching.
Amber stood in the center of the room, arms crossed and simple. “He sees me because he sees through you.”
“That’s not possible,” House said.
“You’re arguing with yourself,” she said.
“She’s right.” Wilson paused, briefly gestured with his hand. “Or, well, you’re right.”
***
But the dark could be the best part. House liked the way it felt on his skin-cool, detached, hovering. It was like being dunked underwater and never getting wet.
There were places he could go in shadow. A few cut-off synapses, round-about turns through the corrugated lobes of the brain-immediate, dark, pleasant. The insular had dimness and no flashlights, answers with shortcuts, impulses that hopped-skipped-jumped proper questioning.
“We’re not really going to stay here, are we?”
Amber’s footsteps quickened. The echoes rattled around the hall-spare change and baby toys.
“Why isn’t he here?” she asked.
House watched the swooping motion of the doctors’ coats in front of him. White and feathery. Bird tails, dovetails.
“You scared him away,” House said.
***
“Are you scared? I think he’s scared.” Amber smiled again, almost giggled. Two long strides and she was seated on the arm of the couch. Legs crossed, foot moving from side to side, side to side, as Wilson stared at her.
“House…” Wilson said.
“Talk to us,” Amber said. “It’s okay, we promise.”
House, still standing in the middle of the room, nodded at her but spoke to Wilson.
“How long have you been seeing her?”
“Couple weeks,” Wilson said, looking at Amber but speaking to House. Wilson studied her hair, the wispy pieces at her forehead that she’d tame with spray mornings in the bathroom. “You?”
“Couple weeks.” House paused, curious. “Can you touch her?”
“We’re not a ghost,” Amber said.
“You’re not real,” House said.
“What do you think that says about you?” Amber drew herself up. Then, after a pause, she slipped off the arm of the sofa and sat down besides Wilson. She stretched out her legs and crossed one ankle over the other on the coffee table.
Wilson stared at her legs, her feet. “Wow.”
***
There would be tests, of course. The doctors explained it all clearly, but House had every reason to suspect that he was getting lies, or non-truths, or contorted truths. Not from the doctors, but from Amber. His critical thoughts were first hers. Everything had to filter through Amber.
“Is that right?” she’d ask. She’d walk around his room as they waited, her fingers tapping on the white edge of white dressers. “Is that true? They’re lying to us.”
“No,” House always said.
“Well everyone does it.” Amber would perch on the dresser or the edge of the bed. House could hear her move furniture, feel the dip of the mattress. The hospital light illuminated her from the inside, made her translucent and beautiful and ill.
“Everyone,” she once said, “even Wilson.”
***
“You really see her.” It wasn’t a question, just a statement said aloud. It needed to conform to the air, try to materialize. Pictures kept jumping.
Wilson nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
House paused for a moment. “I’m thinking of a number…” he said.
Amber grinned, lips tight together, held up three fingers.
“Three,” Wilson said.
“And for my next trick.” House rubbed a hand over his mouth, his beard. A bristling sound sparked in the silence between those gathered in the room, triangle-shaped, two on the couch and one standing in front.
“He should stay,” Amber said. “It’s nice when he’s here.”
“Thank you…House,” Wilson said.
“I didn’t say anything,” House said.
“Basically.” Wilson kept his stare situated on House. He wasn’t looking at Amber anymore. “She’s not real. She’s not here. She’s you. I’m going to talk to you until you’re one person again.”
“He can’t do that,” Amber said. “That’s not fair to us!”
“House?”
“Don’t you think there’s a reason why part of you is out here, is me?”
“House-” Wilson tried.
“That if we’re like this, we can do more. We can accomplish more. Things are clearer.”
House glanced between them, Amber with her legs crossed on the coffee table and Wilson sitting beside her on the couch. Wilson raised his brows. Amber opened her mouth, scrambling.
“Okay,” House said, dropping his chin. “Let’s try this.”
***
To go along with the tests, the doctors had plenty of theories. That House had tried to escape from his own mind, and so made it a separate identity. That House had placed so much emphasis on his mind’s importance that it became its own self. Then, for seven days straight, they tested and talked and tried to determine why Amber, why not someone else.
“This is stupid,” Amber told House later. Even in the evenings the room was filled with light-it was pervasive, almost static, it made the walls twitch.
“That’s a bad attitude,” House quoted Dr. Tartt, who’d held picture cards up to him for an hour after breakfast. The cards showed animals or objects, and they played word association. Amber hovered by House’s shoulder and whispered obscenities in his ear. He resisted initially, then developed a screeching headache, one that dug deep grooves into his skull.
“Greg?” the doctor had said. In his hand was a card, and on the card was a slice and toast with butter.
“Some things are just better spread,” Amber whispered. “Butter. Legs.” She smiled. House could see her eyes close. “Please, if he stays we’ll promise-we’ll try-”
For brief, scattered instances, House remembered flailing. His arms moved through the air in jagged motions. First quick, then slowly, then paused completely: he could stand outside of himself and see him frozen in mid-swing, and hear the brittle pieces of Amber’s laughing taken in those individual seconds, on hold, entirely in and of themselves, detached from the greater whole.
“Stop!” House saw himself yelling. “Get away!”
The light around him increased, matched the soaring, screeching, wheeling in his brain. He could travel the grooves. When he looked around he was back in his room, in new clothes, feeling numb and exposed. Amber was pouting on the dresser.
“We hate this,” she said, “we hate when they do this to us.”
House didn’t raise his head from his pillow. If anything he sank down further. “Then stop.”
“We don’t want to.”
“Yes, I do.”
Amber scoffed. “You? Who are you without me?”
***
“I need you to talk,” Wilson said. “I need you to beat her to the words.”
“Not going to happen,” Amber interrupted. “We live in our head, remember? This is it, this is why we’re him and why we’re me. We’re perfect! We’re a process. We’re a necessity.”
“House, I need you to focus.”
“I am,” House said.
“Talk to me. Hospital business, Cuddy, bad stripper experiences. Kutner’s suicide, any guilt, misplaced or vulnerable, just-anything.“
“I know.”
“Okay. So let’s try this.”
The room grew still. Wilson frowned, remaining reclined while Amber fidgeted beside him.
“So are you cooking or what?” House finally asked.
Wilson blinked. “Am I what?”
“Cooking. Making me dinner. I’m sick, you know, don’t you have some maternal switch that gets flipped?”
“I’m seeing your hallucinations and you want me to make you stir-fry.”
“Not when I have steak in the freezer.”
“Mmm, steak,” Amber added. “With potatoes, and oregano or whatever the hell you used to put on them.”
Wilson couldn’t help it. He glanced between House and Amber, gauging their identical expressions. Eager, expectant, directed at him. A merger-small, but of some kind.
“Well,” Wilson said, getting to his feet, “it’s a start.”
***
“Why do you think we imagined Cuddy?” Amber asked.
They were seated at a picnic table just outside of the hospital. It was shockingly dim beneath the trees. Fresh air and sun was recommended, but the air had turned still and the sun was wrapped away in gray, low stratus. House blinked, his eyes adjusting to a space without frantic illumination.
“We’ve seen that ass.”
“…And?”
“You’re asking me?” House said.
“Asking us.” Amber stretched out on top of the wooden table, calm and detached, as if etherized. “Thanks for leaving me out of that moment, by the way.”
“Your tone.”
“Our tone. So you replaced pills with lipstick, me with Cuddy. Just for a couple hours.” She smiled, sharp. “Because you know if I touch you, it’s just you touching yourself.”
“Stop it.”
“And that’s not good enough anymore.”
“I said-”
“But you don’t want to. We don’t want to.”
House closed his eyes. He could see the sky against his eyelids, the low clouds that rolled in patterns of gray. He could see it because Amber could see it. A cool drop hit his nose, startled him. Several more splattered on the back of his neck. He could feel the thinning spots of his hair.
“You know you’re really not making this any easier,” House said.
“Why would we?” asked Amber. “Didn’t you notice? We’re starting to like it here.”
When he opened his eyes again Amber was soaked to the bone, shining so brightly she could have been a coin sinking towards the bottom of a fountain.
***
“Rain’s coming in,” Wilson called.
The smell of barbecue and dish soap wafted around the apartment as people moved and windows were shut. From the hallway, Amber watched them block the rain and wind.
“Stop it, Wilson,” she said.
“Ignore her,” House said.
“And ignore him,” Amber continued, “it only follows. Based on your logic, ignoring me means ignoring House. You’re here to help him. So you’re here to help me.”
“You’re not being helpful,” House retorted.
Wilson glanced at House, his forearms wet from the rain as the last window closed. But his ears were on Amber’s voice, the cadence he’d rediscovered over the past weeks.
“I’m always helpful. And stop separating us like that.” Amber frowned, stepping forward into the light of the living room. Her outfit had changed. The lab coat was gone. In its place was the McGill sweatshirt, tugged just to her thighs, no pants.
“House?” Wilson asked.
“I forbid you to leave the house like that, young lady,” House said.
Amber shrugged, reasonably. “It’s important to you that we wear this. So we wear it.” She smiled. “What’s wrong, Wilson? Did I do something to offend you?”
“House,” Wilson said. His voice was low, severe.
“It’s not me,” House said.
“Of course it’s you!”
Amber laughed. She walked over to Wilson, who refused to meet her eyes. She curled one hand around his neck, her fingertips cool as raindrops, the rest of her body slowly leaning in to him, soaking through.
“I’m just as significant to Wilson as I am to you, House,” she said, whispering against Wilson’s parted mouth. “Or, more accurately, we’re just as significant to him as we are to us.”
“House,” Wilson hissed, unmoving.
“I know.” House watched her slowly close in, fit their mouths together. The floor dropped out. He could see the soles of his sneakers way below, he was outside of himself now, the picture jolted. He could watch disappearing hands and disappearing tongues.
He stretched, suddenly panicked, realizing the sweatshirt fit awkwardly.
Amber stared down at him, grinning, asking permission.
“Please,” Wilson said, eyes dark and unfocused. “Please, you have to talk to me.”
***
In the room it was too bright to see clearly. Sometimes House waited for visitors, other times he was allowed a supervised hour outside at the picnic benches. Amber moved across the lawn, her feet disrupting grass and dead leaves.
“If any of it really happened,” she said, “then what are you hoping for?”
“I’m just waiting,” House said.
“That doesn’t sound like us.”
“It doesn’t?”
“We don’t wait. We do something.”
In the room it was too bright. Sometimes House waited anyway, answered cards with pictures. Amber moved through the room saying locked-away things in House’s head, because she had the key and had hidden it from him. She was Pandora, running with it.
“That time it wasn’t Cuddy,” she said, “you know it could have been Wilson.”
House blinked against the light.
“On the bus when you killed me you killed you, too. And now if you kill me you kill you again. For good.”
In the room it was too bright. They were pennies never wet sinking in fountains.
“You hope Wilson dropped us off here,” Amber said, “because you hope he’ll be back. You hope he saw something. You hope he can understand.”
There were dark places somewhere in the light, reassuring because there nothing could be seen.
Content in her sweatshirt, Amber stretched her legs and rubbed out the growing pain in her thigh.
end