Housefic: Northern Light
Title: Northern Light
Author: nightdog_barks
Characters: Wilson, House, various original characters
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: No
Spoilers: No
Summary: Everybody comes here for a reason, House says. What's Wilson's? 2,694 words.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Never will.
Author Notes: This is not the Riververse -- it's a new AU that wouldn't stop talking until I'd written it all down. Pretty obviously I've taken some ... liberties with the subject matter. *g* The cut-text is from Wallace Stevens' Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.
Beta: pwcorgigirl and blackmare.
Northern Light
Oddly enough, it's the leaves Wilson misses most. Specifically, he misses the colors of fall, the glorious reds and golds and orange of autumn, the Princeton campus filling up with color as the temperatures drop. He's been here three days and has yet to see a tree. And because there are no trees, there are no real leaves, no maple or oak or elm. Instead there are low scrubby plants that grow close to the ground, their leaves scarcely larger than a copper penny.
He hauls his woolen scarf more securely about his throat. In New Jersey this would be winter weather, the deep freeze of December or January. Here it's called September.
What am I doing here? he thinks.
"You're the new doc, right?" The woman was short, blonde, and aggressively friendly. The name plate on her lapel read Chrissy in bright blue letters, and under that, in curlicue script, Yukon Bend Air.
"I am," Wilson said. He wondered briefly if he should have worn his old Princeton-Plainsboro t-shirt.
You'd have to take off your jacket for people to see it, a small voice reminded him. And do you really want to do that?
No, Wilson didn't want to do that. It was cold, even here in the supposedly heated flight office. It was actually just a room with a long table and a few chairs at one end of a barn-like hangar, but everyone called it an office.
"Here," Chrissy chirped, and put a plate of something brown and leathery in front of him. He took one, cautiously. "It's bear jerky," she said. "It's good."
"Oh!" Wilson said, and immediately replaced the strip of dried meat on the plate. "Sorry."
Chrissy looked disappointed. "It really is good," she ventured. "Nobody's gotten sick yet."
"No, no. I mean, I'm sure it's very good. I just ... I can't eat it." Chrissy still looked disappointed, and for a moment Wilson was afraid tears were going to well in her eyes.
"I'm ... look, I'm Jewish," Wilson said. "Bears aren't kosher."
Chrissy's expression cleared. "Oh!" she said, and then "Oh!" again. "I get it!" she exclaimed. "You're just like that doctor on the TV show!"
"What -- " Wilson began, but Chrissy was off and running.
"Northern Exposure," she sang out. "Joel Fleischman! You're just like Joel Fleischman!" She leaned closer. "Your name's not Joel too, is it?"
"No," Wilson said. "It's James. It's right there on the -- "
"This is so interesting!" Chrissy purred. "Our new doc is just like Joel Fleischman, out here in the Alaskan wilds."
"Oh, Yukon Bend isn't really -- "
"Yes," Chrissy said. "It is." and at that moment there was the roar of an engine from the field, followed by an aeronautical buzz of propeller blades. Chrissy looked out the window.
"Aw," she said. "You've drawn House. I guess Vince isn't back from Minto yet." She turned the full force of her attention back on Wilson. "No worries, though, you'll be fine! House is just ... " She waved a hand in the direction of the jerky. " ... a big grouchy bear." She laughed at her own joke.
The cold was a physical force, smacking Wilson in the face, chilling his cheeks and flash-freezing the tiny hairs in his nose. He gripped his medical satchel more tightly, resisting the desire to hold it up to block out some of the wind. His pilot -- House, his brain helpfully reminded him -- was waiting by the side of the disturbingly small plane. The plane must've been painted a bright robin's-egg blue at one time, but it was weathered and faded now, except for the nose, where someone had replaced the livery with a custom design of red and yellow flames. House was dressed for the weather, in well-worn but sturdy gear. He was wearing a woolen watch cap and chewing on the butt of an unlit cigar. There was a hitch in his gait that Wilson filed away for future reference just in case they crashed.
"You're Wilson," House said, and Wilson had to agree. House nodded.
"Get in," he said. "Don't sit on this side, you're not the pilot. Other side." He plucked the cigar from his mouth, inspected it, then stuck it back in, butt end out. Wilson watched, fascinated, half-expecting to see an icicle sprout from the wet, shredded tobacco.
"Moose Point, right?" House said.
"That would be it, yes."
"You know it's not appendicitis, don't you?"
Wilson stopped in the act of stowing his satchel behind his seat. The plane was like a few others he'd seen -- two seats up front for the pilot and copilot, everything else in the back ripped out to provide room for a patient's stretcher. There was barely enough room to sit back there, let alone stand up. It was like being inside a flying MRI.
"Wait a minute," Wilson said. "How do you know what it is? I mean -- isn't?"
House ignored him; he'd settled a pair of earphones on his head and was flipping mysterious switches on the control panel. The propeller blades sped up again and the little plane shuddered, seeming to strain at the leash. Wilson sat down, slipped on his own set of earphones and felt around for a seatbelt.
"Alpha Baker Alpha eight twenty-two, medflight to Moose Point, clear for takeoff."
"Wait! I'm not buckled in!"
"Alpha Baker Alpha eight twenty-two, medflight to Moose Point, you are clear for takeoff." The radio burped, a staticky fizzing sound. "Be good, Greg."
"I'm always good," House said.
"But when I'm bad I'm better?" Wilson didn't realize he'd actually spoken the words into his mic until he saw House's startled glance. "Um," he said. "I ... uh ... movie. Last night."
House cocked an eyebrow at him but said nothing.
Wilson found the seatbelt at last and clicked it in place. The plane bumped along the tarmac, taxiing to the runway.
"How do you know?" Wilson asked again. "About the appendicitis?" The radio hiccuped with another burst of static. Wilson stared at it.
"Are you listening in?" he said. "Are you eavesdropping on the clinic communications?"
House didn't look at him. Without Wilson noticing, they'd turned onto the runway; the plane was accelerating, and with it, the noise level.
"Clinic's boring," House said, or, more accurately, shouted. He eased back on the throttle, and the little plane nosed into the air.
It was a while before Wilson realized he hadn't answered the question.
"Mesenteric lymphadenitis," Wilson said. "Stool sample confirms Yersinia enterocolitica."
"No wonder he felt like shit. Pseudoappendicitis. And that pun was intended."
"Family was in Oklahoma two days ago for a wedding," Wilson said. "Brother-in-law's a hunter, they had a cookout with a fire pit for the feral hog he shot."
"And the kid handled some raw pork, didn't wash his hands." House nodded. "Makes sense."
"But you knew all that already," Wilson said.
"Kids are stupid. They do stupid things."
"True as that may be, you still knew. Why didn't you say something?"
House took another sip of his coffee. "I'm not the doctor here," he said. "I'm not even the pilot until further notice."
"What?"
"Nobody told you? We're grounded until the storm's over."
"But it's -- "
"Snow and ice outside, and I don't fly through ice." House finished his coffee and leaned back in the chair, letting out a luxurious belch. "That's some bad coffee. You do have somewhere lined up to stay, right?"
"I don't even have a toothbrush."
"First rule of Bush Club," House said. "Be prepared. Or is that the Boy Scouts? I never can remember." He shook his head. "You can stay with me. Lucky for you there's two cots in the Pilot House. Unless we can stay ... here."
"You mean the clinic?"
"No, I mean the gas station. Of course I mean the clinic. Plague kid's only taking up one bed."
"The beds are for the patients," Wilson said firmly. "And it's enterocolitica, not pestis."
"Fine," House said. "The Pilot House it is. Although you know, I'd think having a stick up a person's ass would more than qualify as a medical condition."
Wilson decided to ignore the jab. The integrity of the clinic was what counted.
"The Pilot House? Is that the ... hotel?"
House snorted. "It's the radio shack at the airfield. I hope you like ramen and Campbell's soup."
The Pilot's House was about half the size of the master bedroom in Wilson's last condo back in New Jersey. A bank of radio equipment and shelves of mechanics' tools occupied one wall; a tiny Primus stove sat in one corner along with a couple of folding chairs and the aforementioned cots. A dusty, Army-surplus footlocker provided a makeshift table.
"It's ... better than sleeping on the plane?" Wilson ventured.
House tossed his pack on one of the cots.
"Better than freezing to death on the plane," he said. "Food's in the locker."
There had been more than food in the locker. "Every pilot stocks what he likes," House had said, so that explained the weird variety of snacks, soups, MREs and candy. Wilson held up a packet of Gummi Worms.
"Good, you found the appetizers," House said.
Wilson kept exploring. Forming a bottom layer for the cups of ramen and single-serve boxes of dry cereal were three six-packs of Olympia beer, and, next to them, lying on its side, a bottle of Wild Turkey.
Wilson eyed the bottle warily. "I thought most of the villages banned alcohol," he said.
"We're in a damp area. Besides, airfields are Federal territory."
There was something wrong with that argument, but Wilson was too tired to contest it, and so he popped one beer free of its plastic ring, and then another.
"So what are you doing here?"
"What do mean, what am I doing here?"
House drained his glass and poured another. "Everybody's got a story," he said. "If you weren't born here, why the hell did you come? So what was it? Bad divorce? Bad marriage?"
"I killed someone," Wilson said.
House looked at him for a long moment, a steady, level gaze.
"You killed someone," he said. "You killed someone."
"You say that like you don't believe me."
"Oh, I believe you," House said. "I'm just having a hard time ... picturing it." He picked up a cashew, put it back down. "You're not a surgeon, so ... over-prescribing? Misdiagnosis? You shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die?"
Wilson swiped at his face, dragging his shirtsleeve across his forehead. They'd switched from beer to the bourbon a half hour ago, and the warm glow in his stomach was making him feel as if he had a fever.
"His name was Tucker," Wilson said. "I was his oncologist for five years. I did everything in my power to keep him alive. Everything ... except give him a piece of my liver."
"He wanted you to be a live donor."
Wilson nodded. I must be drunk, he thought. Drunk to be telling him all this. He took another drink.
"He had a recurrence," he said. "I doubled his chemo dose. Killed the cancer, killed his liver in the process. I was a perfect match. Perfect match, and he had less than twenty-four hours to live."
"And you didn't do it."
"I couldn't!" Wilson swiped at his face again. This time his sleeve came away damp. "I couldn't go around giving ... giving pieces of myself to every patient that needed a transplant." His glass was empty. He wondered for a moment when that had happened.
"His family could've sued me. They signed all the papers, because they trusted me. I was ... ethically, I was responsible. They should've sued me."
"But they didn't, so you decided to martyr yourself."
"What? No. No, I didn't martyr myself." He looked around for the bottle, found it, and poured two more fingers of bourbon. "I just needed ... to get away. To think about things."
House rolled his eyes. "You're the on-call doctor for a bush service in Who-Gives-A-Fuck, Alaska. How is that not martyrdom?"
"I killed him." He could hear the hint of a whine in his own voice and decided to ignore it.
"That's a sad story," House said. "Fortunately, I don't care."
"Good. You shouldn't." Wilson drained his glass. "What happened to your leg?"
House's right hand, which had been massaging his thigh, stopped.
"What is this?" House snapped. "Tit for tat? You show me yours, I show you mine?"
Wilson let the silence stretch out.
"A building fell on me," House said. "It was a long time ago."
It was an answer Wilson hadn't expected, although truthfully, he wasn't sure what answer he had expected. He suspected it might have had something to do with a polar bear.
"You know," he ventured, "if you're in pain, I could prescribe -- "
"Shut up," House growled. He stood up from his chair; a Gummi Worm that had gotten caught in his jacket fell to the floor. "Good night, Wilson," he said, and stomped off to bed.
"Good night, House," Wilson said. He sat for a few more minutes, watching the red glow of the Primus stove. He thought about having another drink but decided he didn't want it.
The snow had stopped sometime during the night, and the airfield's Sno-Cat made quick work of the landing strip, rumbling back and forth to clear a path. The flight back to Yukon Bend was quiet; Wilson was concerned mainly with gritting his teeth and hoping his head didn't fall off and go sailing out the window. House kept his eyes on the controls, whistling to himself a tune that it took Wilson forever to identify as "St. James Infirmary."
They found the snow again, in Yukon Bend, a whirl of white flakes mixed with sleet. Wilson watched as House spoke to the mechanic, a guy in thermal coveralls with Boris stitched above the chest pocket. House said something, the mechanic laughed, and House walked away. He didn't look in Wilson's direction.
"Wait! Wait a minute," Wilson said.
House stopped and turned around, squinting against the flying ice pellets.
"Back there -- you said everyone had a story."
"So?"
"So ... what's your story? Where are you from? Originally?"
For a moment he thought House wasn't going to answer. Then ... "Pensacola," he said.
Wilson shook his head. "Okay, then how did you end up here?"
House hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder.
"Maybe next time," he said, and with that he was gone, trudging through the swiftly-falling snow.
House kept going, past the community center, past the post office with its American flag dangling limply at the top of the staff, before turning right instead of left, down Second Street to the office of Yukon Bend Air. As he'd suspected, Chrissy was there, paging through a sheaf of papers on a clipboard.
"House!" she said, brightening. "Want some bear jerky?"
"No thanks," House said. He set his backpack on the counter. "What's up next?"
Chrissy let the papers fall, back to the first page.
"Nothing till tomorrow morning," she said. "Fishing party up the Porcupine to Camp Kaybee."
"Weather?"
"Snow's supposed to clear out, should be smooth sailing ahead."
House stood for a moment, gazing out the window at nothing in particular. Somewhere a truck motor blatted and a dog barked.
"I need a favor," he said finally.
Chrissy beamed. "Name it, big guy, and I'll see what I can do. You need Vince to take that flight?"
"No," House said. "You know the new clinic doctor?"
"Joel! No! Wait ... "
"James. Wilson."
"That's it. What do you need?"
"From now on, every field call he gets, call me first."
"Call you first." She looked doubtful. "Even if it's Vince's or Lauren's turn?"
"Call me first," House repeated firmly.
Chrissy shrugged. "You got it," she said. "Call you first." She took a pen from the counter and scrawled a quick notation on the clipboard. "I'll let Dispatch know."
"Thanks," House said. He slung his pack back over his shoulder. He wasn't sure why he'd just done what he'd done, exactly. It was just that ... Wilson was interesting. That was it.
Interesting.
~ fin
dancing around the four sides on dreamwidth ||
dancers || join the dance
Author: nightdog_barks
Characters: Wilson, House, various original characters
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: No
Spoilers: No
Summary: Everybody comes here for a reason, House says. What's Wilson's? 2,694 words.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Never will.
Author Notes: This is not the Riververse -- it's a new AU that wouldn't stop talking until I'd written it all down. Pretty obviously I've taken some ... liberties with the subject matter. *g* The cut-text is from Wallace Stevens' Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.
Beta: pwcorgigirl and blackmare.
Northern Light
Oddly enough, it's the leaves Wilson misses most. Specifically, he misses the colors of fall, the glorious reds and golds and orange of autumn, the Princeton campus filling up with color as the temperatures drop. He's been here three days and has yet to see a tree. And because there are no trees, there are no real leaves, no maple or oak or elm. Instead there are low scrubby plants that grow close to the ground, their leaves scarcely larger than a copper penny.
He hauls his woolen scarf more securely about his throat. In New Jersey this would be winter weather, the deep freeze of December or January. Here it's called September.
What am I doing here? he thinks.
"You're the new doc, right?" The woman was short, blonde, and aggressively friendly. The name plate on her lapel read Chrissy in bright blue letters, and under that, in curlicue script, Yukon Bend Air.
"I am," Wilson said. He wondered briefly if he should have worn his old Princeton-Plainsboro t-shirt.
You'd have to take off your jacket for people to see it, a small voice reminded him. And do you really want to do that?
No, Wilson didn't want to do that. It was cold, even here in the supposedly heated flight office. It was actually just a room with a long table and a few chairs at one end of a barn-like hangar, but everyone called it an office.
"Here," Chrissy chirped, and put a plate of something brown and leathery in front of him. He took one, cautiously. "It's bear jerky," she said. "It's good."
"Oh!" Wilson said, and immediately replaced the strip of dried meat on the plate. "Sorry."
Chrissy looked disappointed. "It really is good," she ventured. "Nobody's gotten sick yet."
"No, no. I mean, I'm sure it's very good. I just ... I can't eat it." Chrissy still looked disappointed, and for a moment Wilson was afraid tears were going to well in her eyes.
"I'm ... look, I'm Jewish," Wilson said. "Bears aren't kosher."
Chrissy's expression cleared. "Oh!" she said, and then "Oh!" again. "I get it!" she exclaimed. "You're just like that doctor on the TV show!"
"What -- " Wilson began, but Chrissy was off and running.
"Northern Exposure," she sang out. "Joel Fleischman! You're just like Joel Fleischman!" She leaned closer. "Your name's not Joel too, is it?"
"No," Wilson said. "It's James. It's right there on the -- "
"This is so interesting!" Chrissy purred. "Our new doc is just like Joel Fleischman, out here in the Alaskan wilds."
"Oh, Yukon Bend isn't really -- "
"Yes," Chrissy said. "It is." and at that moment there was the roar of an engine from the field, followed by an aeronautical buzz of propeller blades. Chrissy looked out the window.
"Aw," she said. "You've drawn House. I guess Vince isn't back from Minto yet." She turned the full force of her attention back on Wilson. "No worries, though, you'll be fine! House is just ... " She waved a hand in the direction of the jerky. " ... a big grouchy bear." She laughed at her own joke.
The cold was a physical force, smacking Wilson in the face, chilling his cheeks and flash-freezing the tiny hairs in his nose. He gripped his medical satchel more tightly, resisting the desire to hold it up to block out some of the wind. His pilot -- House, his brain helpfully reminded him -- was waiting by the side of the disturbingly small plane. The plane must've been painted a bright robin's-egg blue at one time, but it was weathered and faded now, except for the nose, where someone had replaced the livery with a custom design of red and yellow flames. House was dressed for the weather, in well-worn but sturdy gear. He was wearing a woolen watch cap and chewing on the butt of an unlit cigar. There was a hitch in his gait that Wilson filed away for future reference just in case they crashed.
"You're Wilson," House said, and Wilson had to agree. House nodded.
"Get in," he said. "Don't sit on this side, you're not the pilot. Other side." He plucked the cigar from his mouth, inspected it, then stuck it back in, butt end out. Wilson watched, fascinated, half-expecting to see an icicle sprout from the wet, shredded tobacco.
"Moose Point, right?" House said.
"That would be it, yes."
"You know it's not appendicitis, don't you?"
Wilson stopped in the act of stowing his satchel behind his seat. The plane was like a few others he'd seen -- two seats up front for the pilot and copilot, everything else in the back ripped out to provide room for a patient's stretcher. There was barely enough room to sit back there, let alone stand up. It was like being inside a flying MRI.
"Wait a minute," Wilson said. "How do you know what it is? I mean -- isn't?"
House ignored him; he'd settled a pair of earphones on his head and was flipping mysterious switches on the control panel. The propeller blades sped up again and the little plane shuddered, seeming to strain at the leash. Wilson sat down, slipped on his own set of earphones and felt around for a seatbelt.
"Alpha Baker Alpha eight twenty-two, medflight to Moose Point, clear for takeoff."
"Wait! I'm not buckled in!"
"Alpha Baker Alpha eight twenty-two, medflight to Moose Point, you are clear for takeoff." The radio burped, a staticky fizzing sound. "Be good, Greg."
"I'm always good," House said.
"But when I'm bad I'm better?" Wilson didn't realize he'd actually spoken the words into his mic until he saw House's startled glance. "Um," he said. "I ... uh ... movie. Last night."
House cocked an eyebrow at him but said nothing.
Wilson found the seatbelt at last and clicked it in place. The plane bumped along the tarmac, taxiing to the runway.
"How do you know?" Wilson asked again. "About the appendicitis?" The radio hiccuped with another burst of static. Wilson stared at it.
"Are you listening in?" he said. "Are you eavesdropping on the clinic communications?"
House didn't look at him. Without Wilson noticing, they'd turned onto the runway; the plane was accelerating, and with it, the noise level.
"Clinic's boring," House said, or, more accurately, shouted. He eased back on the throttle, and the little plane nosed into the air.
It was a while before Wilson realized he hadn't answered the question.
"Mesenteric lymphadenitis," Wilson said. "Stool sample confirms Yersinia enterocolitica."
"No wonder he felt like shit. Pseudoappendicitis. And that pun was intended."
"Family was in Oklahoma two days ago for a wedding," Wilson said. "Brother-in-law's a hunter, they had a cookout with a fire pit for the feral hog he shot."
"And the kid handled some raw pork, didn't wash his hands." House nodded. "Makes sense."
"But you knew all that already," Wilson said.
"Kids are stupid. They do stupid things."
"True as that may be, you still knew. Why didn't you say something?"
House took another sip of his coffee. "I'm not the doctor here," he said. "I'm not even the pilot until further notice."
"What?"
"Nobody told you? We're grounded until the storm's over."
"But it's -- "
"Snow and ice outside, and I don't fly through ice." House finished his coffee and leaned back in the chair, letting out a luxurious belch. "That's some bad coffee. You do have somewhere lined up to stay, right?"
"I don't even have a toothbrush."
"First rule of Bush Club," House said. "Be prepared. Or is that the Boy Scouts? I never can remember." He shook his head. "You can stay with me. Lucky for you there's two cots in the Pilot House. Unless we can stay ... here."
"You mean the clinic?"
"No, I mean the gas station. Of course I mean the clinic. Plague kid's only taking up one bed."
"The beds are for the patients," Wilson said firmly. "And it's enterocolitica, not pestis."
"Fine," House said. "The Pilot House it is. Although you know, I'd think having a stick up a person's ass would more than qualify as a medical condition."
Wilson decided to ignore the jab. The integrity of the clinic was what counted.
"The Pilot House? Is that the ... hotel?"
House snorted. "It's the radio shack at the airfield. I hope you like ramen and Campbell's soup."
The Pilot's House was about half the size of the master bedroom in Wilson's last condo back in New Jersey. A bank of radio equipment and shelves of mechanics' tools occupied one wall; a tiny Primus stove sat in one corner along with a couple of folding chairs and the aforementioned cots. A dusty, Army-surplus footlocker provided a makeshift table.
"It's ... better than sleeping on the plane?" Wilson ventured.
House tossed his pack on one of the cots.
"Better than freezing to death on the plane," he said. "Food's in the locker."
There had been more than food in the locker. "Every pilot stocks what he likes," House had said, so that explained the weird variety of snacks, soups, MREs and candy. Wilson held up a packet of Gummi Worms.
"Good, you found the appetizers," House said.
Wilson kept exploring. Forming a bottom layer for the cups of ramen and single-serve boxes of dry cereal were three six-packs of Olympia beer, and, next to them, lying on its side, a bottle of Wild Turkey.
Wilson eyed the bottle warily. "I thought most of the villages banned alcohol," he said.
"We're in a damp area. Besides, airfields are Federal territory."
There was something wrong with that argument, but Wilson was too tired to contest it, and so he popped one beer free of its plastic ring, and then another.
"So what are you doing here?"
"What do mean, what am I doing here?"
House drained his glass and poured another. "Everybody's got a story," he said. "If you weren't born here, why the hell did you come? So what was it? Bad divorce? Bad marriage?"
"I killed someone," Wilson said.
House looked at him for a long moment, a steady, level gaze.
"You killed someone," he said. "You killed someone."
"You say that like you don't believe me."
"Oh, I believe you," House said. "I'm just having a hard time ... picturing it." He picked up a cashew, put it back down. "You're not a surgeon, so ... over-prescribing? Misdiagnosis? You shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die?"
Wilson swiped at his face, dragging his shirtsleeve across his forehead. They'd switched from beer to the bourbon a half hour ago, and the warm glow in his stomach was making him feel as if he had a fever.
"His name was Tucker," Wilson said. "I was his oncologist for five years. I did everything in my power to keep him alive. Everything ... except give him a piece of my liver."
"He wanted you to be a live donor."
Wilson nodded. I must be drunk, he thought. Drunk to be telling him all this. He took another drink.
"He had a recurrence," he said. "I doubled his chemo dose. Killed the cancer, killed his liver in the process. I was a perfect match. Perfect match, and he had less than twenty-four hours to live."
"And you didn't do it."
"I couldn't!" Wilson swiped at his face again. This time his sleeve came away damp. "I couldn't go around giving ... giving pieces of myself to every patient that needed a transplant." His glass was empty. He wondered for a moment when that had happened.
"His family could've sued me. They signed all the papers, because they trusted me. I was ... ethically, I was responsible. They should've sued me."
"But they didn't, so you decided to martyr yourself."
"What? No. No, I didn't martyr myself." He looked around for the bottle, found it, and poured two more fingers of bourbon. "I just needed ... to get away. To think about things."
House rolled his eyes. "You're the on-call doctor for a bush service in Who-Gives-A-Fuck, Alaska. How is that not martyrdom?"
"I killed him." He could hear the hint of a whine in his own voice and decided to ignore it.
"That's a sad story," House said. "Fortunately, I don't care."
"Good. You shouldn't." Wilson drained his glass. "What happened to your leg?"
House's right hand, which had been massaging his thigh, stopped.
"What is this?" House snapped. "Tit for tat? You show me yours, I show you mine?"
Wilson let the silence stretch out.
"A building fell on me," House said. "It was a long time ago."
It was an answer Wilson hadn't expected, although truthfully, he wasn't sure what answer he had expected. He suspected it might have had something to do with a polar bear.
"You know," he ventured, "if you're in pain, I could prescribe -- "
"Shut up," House growled. He stood up from his chair; a Gummi Worm that had gotten caught in his jacket fell to the floor. "Good night, Wilson," he said, and stomped off to bed.
"Good night, House," Wilson said. He sat for a few more minutes, watching the red glow of the Primus stove. He thought about having another drink but decided he didn't want it.
The snow had stopped sometime during the night, and the airfield's Sno-Cat made quick work of the landing strip, rumbling back and forth to clear a path. The flight back to Yukon Bend was quiet; Wilson was concerned mainly with gritting his teeth and hoping his head didn't fall off and go sailing out the window. House kept his eyes on the controls, whistling to himself a tune that it took Wilson forever to identify as "St. James Infirmary."
They found the snow again, in Yukon Bend, a whirl of white flakes mixed with sleet. Wilson watched as House spoke to the mechanic, a guy in thermal coveralls with Boris stitched above the chest pocket. House said something, the mechanic laughed, and House walked away. He didn't look in Wilson's direction.
"Wait! Wait a minute," Wilson said.
House stopped and turned around, squinting against the flying ice pellets.
"Back there -- you said everyone had a story."
"So?"
"So ... what's your story? Where are you from? Originally?"
For a moment he thought House wasn't going to answer. Then ... "Pensacola," he said.
Wilson shook his head. "Okay, then how did you end up here?"
House hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder.
"Maybe next time," he said, and with that he was gone, trudging through the swiftly-falling snow.
House kept going, past the community center, past the post office with its American flag dangling limply at the top of the staff, before turning right instead of left, down Second Street to the office of Yukon Bend Air. As he'd suspected, Chrissy was there, paging through a sheaf of papers on a clipboard.
"House!" she said, brightening. "Want some bear jerky?"
"No thanks," House said. He set his backpack on the counter. "What's up next?"
Chrissy let the papers fall, back to the first page.
"Nothing till tomorrow morning," she said. "Fishing party up the Porcupine to Camp Kaybee."
"Weather?"
"Snow's supposed to clear out, should be smooth sailing ahead."
House stood for a moment, gazing out the window at nothing in particular. Somewhere a truck motor blatted and a dog barked.
"I need a favor," he said finally.
Chrissy beamed. "Name it, big guy, and I'll see what I can do. You need Vince to take that flight?"
"No," House said. "You know the new clinic doctor?"
"Joel! No! Wait ... "
"James. Wilson."
"That's it. What do you need?"
"From now on, every field call he gets, call me first."
"Call you first." She looked doubtful. "Even if it's Vince's or Lauren's turn?"
"Call me first," House repeated firmly.
Chrissy shrugged. "You got it," she said. "Call you first." She took a pen from the counter and scrawled a quick notation on the clipboard. "I'll let Dispatch know."
"Thanks," House said. He slung his pack back over his shoulder. He wasn't sure why he'd just done what he'd done, exactly. It was just that ... Wilson was interesting. That was it.
Interesting.
~ fin
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