Fic: Which Way to Elysian Fields? (Part 2)
Title: Which Way to Elysian Fields? (Part 2/2)
Characters: House, Wilson
Rating: R
Summary: House and Wilson return to New Orleans.
Beta: the amazing srsly_yes
A/N: This is the final next installment in a series of post-finale road trip stories that began in Virginia. Despite the title, this is NOT a death fic.
Part 1 here
House found Wilson sitting on the sidewalk, his back against the cemetery wall.
“Idiot,” he muttered under his breath.
After House had waited among the tombs for a few minutes, it occurred to him that the cemetery likely had more than one entrance. So he’d wandered around the concrete maze a bit before he came across that tour group he’d been hearing so much about.
The tour leader-a real-deal Southern gent with a white beard and porkpie hat-pointed House in the direction of the “secondary” entrance.
“I’d use the main one, though, my friend,” the old guy warned. “The other one takes ya to a pretty rough street. Housing projects and such.”
Naturally, Wilson had found that street and decided to plonk his ass down on it.
House wanted to bash him on the head with his cane.
Rationally, he’d known that Wilson was nearby somewhere-that there was little chance anything bad had happened to him. And even less of a chance that he’d ditched House entirely.
But House’s rational mind wasn’t in charge right now. He gripped his cane tightly and limp-marched over to Wilson.
“Hey!” House called as he approached. “Nice move, making the cripple walk all over New Fucking Orleans looking for you.”
Wilson had his forearms folded over his knees and was staring at the housing projects across the street. He glanced at House. “Sorry,” he said, monotone. “I didn’t realize how long I’d been sitting here.”
“Did you realize your phone was ringing?”
Wilson felt around his pockets, then looked up at House. “I don’t have it with me.”
“That’s great.”
Wilson shook his head. “Well, it’s not like anyone calls.”
House paused, looking down at the top of Wilson’s disheveled head. An angsty hand had clearly been running through his hair.
“Is that why you’re moping? Because no one’s texting you?”
Wilson sighed. “Yeah, that’s it.” Then he looked up. “And I’m not moping. I just needed to get away from you for a while…Shocking, I know.”
House’s retort was cut off by the sound of breaking glass, followed by some male voices. Unhappy voices.
House turned around, toward the collection of bleak buildings across the street. He couldn’t see where the ruckus was coming from, but he decided it was best to move their conversation elsewhere.
“C’mon, let’s go back in,” he said, hooking a thumb toward the cemetery entrance.
Wilson didn’t budge.
“Come. On,” House repeated. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t the best hang-out for a guy with a cane. Or a guy who cries over Old Yeller.”
Wilson scowled at him. “You can stop with the clever ‘you’re a girl’ digs any time now. I get it. You think I’m a coward.”
House frowned. But before he could answer, there were a couple shouts from across the street, sounding closer now.
“Actually,” House said, “I think you’re a moron.” He reached down as if to grab Wilson’s arm. Wilson batted him away, but stood up a moment later.
“Fine,” he said.
Wilson proceeded to give House the silent treatment as they made their way back into and through the cemetery. That gave House time to think about Wilson’s phone, left behind in the room with Marlon Brando.
It was true, what Wilson said about no one calling. Before they’d taken off, Wilson had left his parents a message to say he’d be traveling for a while. During their first couple days on the road, his parents had called twice.
Wilson had actually let House listen to their messages, with the explanation that he didn’t feel like giving a play-by-play.
The second message had been about Danny. Wilson’s mom was worried because, who would visit Danny every week in the group home? It wasn’t right for Wilson to just leave his brother like that.
House had taken the liberty of deleting the messages. The last thing Wilson needed was a recorded guilt trip to torture himself with.
He knew Wilson had paid a quick visit to Danny before they’d hit the road. He’d told his brother he wouldn’t be able to see him for a long time. And Danny had understood. At least that’s what Wilson told House.
After that second message, Wilson’s parents stopped calling. And from what House knew, none of their old colleagues had called. Neither had Wilson’s ex-wives.
No one knew that Wilson had not set off alone-though Foreman might have figured it out, assuming he’d found House’s little gift. But all anybody else knew was that Wilson was gone. And nobody had called to check on him.
But then, House thought, Wilson hadn’t made any calls either.
The two of them really were in their own weird little world now. As good as dead, but not really.
Wilson stopped walking suddenly, in the middle of the tombs. “I thought the manipulations were over,” he said quietly, looking somewhere past House.
House worked his jaw for a moment. “Why?”
It was an honest question. Just a few days ago, he flat-out told Wilson he’d been trying to steer them toward every major cancer center on the Eastern seaboard. Why would Wilson think he’d just give up now?
Wilson exhaled a short, humorless laugh, then shook his head. “Yeah. Though I guess this isn’t even manipulation anymore. Taking me to a cemetery is not exactly subtle.”
House couldn’t argue with that, so he didn’t.
Wilson bit his lip before saying, “We were having a good day. Can we just have a good few days here? Let’s just…”
He trailed off and looked at the ground.
House hadn’t forgotten that back in Okefenokee, he’d agreed to leave the serious business for after New Orleans. Of course, to Wilson the serious business was what to do about House’s fake death, not his own impending real one.
But now as he looked at Wilson’s bowed head, and the way he was hiding his face, House felt uneasy. He’d seen Wilson get choked up or cry more times in recent weeks than he had in their entire relationship up till then. And he wasn’t getting used to it.
“All right,” House said. “No more cemeteries. We can just…Laissez les bons temps rouler.”
Wilson kept his head down, but he nodded. And when he mumbled, “Merci,” House knew they were OK.
He tapped his cane on the concrete. “So let’s get outta here.”
As they moved toward the main gates, House couldn’t help glancing around a couple more times, wondering if he’d catch a last look at Marie Laveau’s tomb. Just to see if there were any other saps marking their X’s on the wall, he told himself.
But he never managed to glimpse the tomb again.
*******
Back at the hotel, Wilson decided to take another shower. Walking around in the sweltering heat made him feel grimy, he said. House thought Wilson showered so much because it was his only alone time.
House didn’t mind the separation either. For one, he could get an unsupervised look at the iPad. Wilson routinely cleared his search history, of course, but House figured there was always a chance he’d forget.
And this was the day, House discovered.
He was quickly disappointed, though. It looked like Wilson just hadn’t bothered to cover his tracks; there was nothing in his history but searches for restaurants and “free New Orleans” and flea markets.
Christ.
Wilson’s bookmarks were as unhelpful as ever, too. Seemingly every major cancer center and professional society was represented, along with the NCI’s clinical trial database, but that was no surprise.
There was nothing there for House to see anyway.
As soon as Wilson’s attempt at superchemo failed, House had, naturally, checked out all the current clinical trials for thymoma. All five of them. Thymoma was too rare for anyone to really care about; no drug company was interested in sponsoring a pricey trial.
So the studies out there were of the lamest variety, to House’s mind. The “Let’s see what happens if we give thymoma patients this mediocre drug that sort of works for kidney cancer” variety.
Plus, the trials were either closed to new patients or had one tricky requirement: People had to have failed a round of the standard platinum-based drugs. Wilson had failed that, in spectacular fashion-but since it all played out on House’s couch, there was no official medical record.
They probably also require the patient to willingly submit to treatment, House assumed.
Hearing the water still running, and Wilson coughing, House looked again at the bookmark list. The folder marked “MD Anderson” caught his attention. He knew they were closing in on Houston; it was just a few more hours straight down I-10. And of course he knew it was home to MD Anderson, probably the best cancer center in the country.
House clicked on the folder and found just one bookmark inside. Clicking again, he landed on the page of a faculty member there: John Chiu, head of thoracic medical oncology.
Interesting.
House scrolled through Chiu’s CV to his list of publications, mostly on non-small cell lung cancer. But then he came to some abstracts that were presented at medical meetings.
Two of them were on treating inoperable thymoma that had not responded to conventional chemo. House had never seen them in his post-thymoma PubMed searches because the studies had not made it into a medical journal, at least not yet.
One abstract was on a small study, just twenty-two patients. But from the sound of it, Chiu had the oncology “balls” that Wilson had been looking for when he was diagnosed.
The study patients were first blasted with four different classes of chemo drug, then had surgery to get as much of the tumor as possible. Then came radiation and, finally, another round of the same four chemo drugs.
A few patients dropped out of the study-from side effects, House presumed. But seventeen had gotten through the whole thing, and sixteen of them were alive and cancer-free three years later.
Still cancer-free. That meant the chances of an actual cure were good.
There was no description of how bad the side effects were, or if there were long-term problems. And the regimen was pretty much a full-on assault. Still, House thought, sixteen of twenty-two.
The sound of Wilson’s cough became clearer, and House realized the shower was no longer running. He quickly shut down the iPad and hopped onto his bed.
He lay still, but his heart was pounding. Wilson had looked up Chiu for a reason.
But when? For all House knew, it was right after his diagnosis. Wilson hadn’t exactly given House the impression he was wavering on his decision.
Wilson emerged from the bathroom. “All yours.”
“’Kay,” House said, staring at the ceiling.
“Don’t go to sleep,” he heard Wilson say. “We have a long evening of eating ahead. And there’s a piano bar near here I thought we could try…Maybe you could even finagle a way to play.” He paused. “OK, maybe I can finagle a way for you.”
“Uh-huh.”
There was a pause before Wilson said, “You all right?”
“Yep,” House chirped, then swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Just need to get in the tub and give this thing a good rubdown,” he said as he limped toward the bathroom.
“Oh, and my leg, too,” he added, waggling his eyebrows.
Wilson offered an indulgent smile as he towel-dried his hair. “Your subtle charms fit so well in the Old South.”
House nodded in agreement before holing himself up in the bathroom. He started the water for a bath, then flipped the toilet lid down and took a seat. He let his head fall into his hands.
Wilson didn’t want to spend his possible final months in a hospital, made sick from trying to get better. But the longer they were on the road, the more House realized he couldn’t just let go. Whatever he’d said to Wilson about accepting his decision, he knew now he wasn’t strong enough to stand by his word.
House looked up to see the tub almost full, so he reached to turn off the faucet. Then he just sat, watching droplets continue to fall from the tap, listening to them hit the water.
A sudden whirring sound outside the door broke his meditation. For a second, he didn’t know what it was. Then he realized: Wilson had found the hair dryer.
House let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and sob.
*******
“Jambalayaaaa,” House proclaimed before even touching his menu.
Wilson smirked as he opened his. “I had a feeling…That’s what you made me buy for you after you bailed me out. The first in a long, long line of purchases.”
“I never made you buy me anything.” House put his elbows on the table and leaned in.
“Uh, except when you’d actually disappear before the check came.”
“OK, except then,” House conceded. “But you could’ve put your fancy loafered foot down anytime.”
Wilson rolled his eyes, but House could see he was fighting a smile before he dipped his head toward his menu.
They were sitting outside, in the cobblestone courtyard of the small café Wilson had found on Elysian Fields, just beyond the noise and crowds of the French Quarter. House had to give Wilson credit for picking a quiet spot with decent food, if the scents wafting by could be trusted.
By the time their waiter arrived, House’s interests had expanded beyond jambalaya.
“Oh my gawd,” he said, nose in his menu, as the waiter stood patiently by. “Crepes stuffed with crabmeat and roasted scallions? We’re getting those to start. The corn and sweet potato bisque, too…And then I’ll have the jambalaya, with chicken and andouille.”
“Good choices, sir. And you-”
“Wait,” House cut him off. “Jesus. Bacon-wrapped pineapple shrimp?”
“House,” Wilson said, in his soothing oncologist voice.
“OK, you get that so I can have some. Or most.”
“Weeell,” Wilson said, but then shook his head. “Actually,” he said to the waiter, “I’ll just have the baby spinach salad and the eggplant muffaletta. Please.”
House looked at him. “Spinach and eggplant? Seriously?”
“So sorry to shatter your bacon-wrapped dreams.”
Their waiter giggled softly and looked back and forth between them. House wasn’t sure if he was gay or just Southern.
“Fine,” House said, glaring at Wilson. He turned to the waiter. “I’ll take a Sazerac, too.”
The waiter nodded. “And you, sir?”
Wilson chose a cabernet sauvignon-for the antioxidants, House assumed.
After the waiter left, House pointed an index finger at Wilson. “What is with you and the vegetables?”
Wilson furrowed his brow. “I’ve been eating them since kindergarten.”
“No,” House wagged his finger. “You’re watching your diet.”
Wilson’s eyes widened a bit. “I guess,” he acknowledged.
House kept looking at him, until Wilson gave his patented sigh of resignation. “Yes, you’ve caught me. I just…wanna try to stay healthy for as long as I can.”
Wilson glanced at him, looking unsure. House had a feeling he should let this go. But instead he said, “You don’t treat thymoma with salads.”
Wilson pressed his lips together. “I’m well aware.” Then he paused and smiled a little, clearly shifting tactics. “C’mon. You’ve got copious amounts of meat, heavy cream and salt on the way. Enjoy it.”
House just nodded. He hated giving in to Wilson’s shameless use of his so-called charms.
“Aaand,” Wilson went on, holding up the dessert menu. “I see they have Creole cream cheesecake. Homemade biscotti crust, caramel sauce-”
“Sweet Jesus," House said, grabbing for the menu.
Wilson pulled it just out of reach, a gleam in his eyes. “Have you ever noticed how often you find the lord in menus?”
House shrugged. “Well, if life came wrapped in bacon and served on biscotti, I might even be a believer.”
Wilson’s smirk faded, just a little. “If only it did,” he said-sarcastically, on the surface, but House heard an undertone of something else. After twenty-one years, he could detect the subtlest shifts in Wilson’s many faces and voices. But he didn’t always know what they meant.
House decided to push a bit, because…why not?
“So,” he said briskly. “I have a question I’ve been dying to ask you.”
Wilson narrowed his eyes. “Oh-kay.”
“Back in Savannah. What did you see in that underground tunnel?”
Wilson looked a bit startled by the question. “What…Why?”
House gave a quick shrug. “Curious. As you may recall, I was busy having a panic attack, so I missed some stuff.”
“Oh, I recall,” Wilson assured him. Then he shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Nothing, what?”
“That’s what I saw. Nothing.”
House wasn’t buying it. “We paid for a tour of nothing?”
“Evidently.”
Their waiter came by with their drinks then. “The bisque will be right up,” he said, smiling brightly.
Once he was out of earshot, Wilson looked at House with faux curiosity. “Why haven’t you told him I have cancer yet?”
House rolled his eyes. “I’m waiting for the most dramatic moment. Let’s stay on topic. What do you mean by ‘nothing?’”
“Well, it’s a pronoun, which most people don’t know-”
At House’s look, Wilson stopped short and sighed. “It was only lighted near the stairs, so I couldn’t see that far in. But what I did see was just…some junk on the ground. There was a ratty quilt and some clothes, so I guess a homeless person had been in there. That’s all.”
House kept looking at him, waiting for Wilson’s eyes to reveal something. But Wilson just held his gaze. “There was nothing, House,” he said. “It was all crap, like you said it would be.”
Before House could respond, the waiter returned with his bisque and Wilson’s salad.
Which was just as well, because House felt lost for words. He wanted to say something standard like, Of course I was right. But he had this odd sensation that he should be consoling Wilson over finding nothing. And that made no sense.
So he said, “Want some bisque?”
Wilson let out a short, surprised laugh. “Uh, no. But thanks. I do think that’s the first time you’ve ever offered me non-drugged food, though.”
House feigned offense. “You are really getting old, you know that? After I bailed you out-immediately after-I gave you, like, half the Pringles I had in my glove compartment.”
Wilson looked thoughtful. “I’d forgotten about that. I guess I stand corrected.” He smiled softly.
“Damn right,” House said, then dipped his head so Wilson couldn’t see him smile back. “Now shut up so I can eat.”
*******
“I guess they couldn’t afford the electric bill,” House said. They were standing in front of the piano bar Wilson had discovered a few blocks from the café, just off of Elysian Fields.
The exterior reminded House of a barn, but Wilson said it had once been a blacksmith shop. The wide doorway and shuttered windows were open, and House could see that the interior was lit entirely by candles on the bar and tables. How romantic.
“Again, you’re missing the charm,” Wilson informed him. “But we can go somewhere else. There are one or two other bars in New Orleans.”
House shrugged. “We’re here.”
Inside, it became clear that the place was more of a dive than the candlelight and piano implied. House approved.
There was a baby grand in the back, where a black man in a fedora, rail-thin and hunched over, was getting ready to sit down. Some tall stools were set up in a circle around the piano, but there was no way House could be comfortable like that. So he grabbed a table while Wilson got their drinks.
Wilson soon joined him, carrying another Sazerac for House, and an insanely tall, insanely pink drink for himself.
“Shirley Temple?” House asked, eyeing Wilson’s glass as he set it down.
“Noooo,” Wilson said, plopping down on the chair opposite him. “It’s a Hurricane.”
House rolled his eyes, which he then realized was ineffective in this lighting. “It’s pink and fruity and sweet…Sooo, yeah, perfect for you.”
“It gets the job done,” Wilson said firmly. “The job, by the way, is making you tolerable.”
House raised his drink. “Cheers to that.”
They clinked glasses. House watched as Wilson began to down his Hurricane, seemingly going for the one-gulp finish.
“Hey, hey, slow down,” he urged.
Wilson did stop, but apparently only because he needed to breathe. Then he started coughing.
House sighed heavily. “Moron. What happened to staying healthy for as long as you can?”
Wilson took another moment to catch his breath. “Well,” he choked out. “As you pointed out…eating salad when you’re dying is just silly.”
“Should I call you a moron again, or is it getting old?”
Wilson took a deep breath, his coughing fit apparently over. “It’s getting old,” he confirmed, then took a sip from what remained of his drink.
House sighed again. “I can’t bodily drag you back to the hotel if you get wasted,” he complained, mostly to cover his concern over Wilson’s sudden shift toward debauchery. “Last time we were here, I was a lot younger and had two good legs. And you were a lot skinnier.”
“Hmmm,” was all Wilson said.
That was when the man at the piano announced that his name was Parker -- yes, after Charlie -- and he’d be attempting to entertain them this fine evening.
Wilson joined the sparse crowd in clapping for Parker, then turned back to House. “You ready for another?” he asked, pointing to House’s glass.
House looked down. “It’s half-full.”
“Half-empty,” Wilson corrected, then giggled.
Uh-oh.
Wilson hopped to his feet and took off toward the bar, already a bit unsteady. He came back with seconds for them both. “It’s OK if you don’t finish it,” he assured House. “I’ll drink it.”
“Are you sure? It’s not pink.”
Wilson giggled again.
House groaned softly. “Can we listen to the nice man on the piano now?”
Wilson obediently angled to face the piano and began to work on his drink.
Parker wasn’t bad. But not great, either. By the time he started playing My Melancholy Baby, House thought he should be feeling something. He should feel that pleasant ache in his chest he used to have when he played his own piano, or listened to old vinyl while he made dinner.
He missed it. His piano, his kitchen, his office, his team. The challenge of figuring out how to fix people he didn’t know; with them, he wasn’t afraid of getting it wrong-multiple times-before getting it right. He missed being fearless.
Or at least he knew, intellectually, that he missed it all. What House couldn’t do right now was feel much of anything.
He looked at Wilson’s profile in the candlelight; he had his eyes closed as he listened to the music and sipped his drink. Even in this light, Wilson looked like he did on so many nights at House’s place-when he’d sit on the couch while House played the piano, eyes closed and a hand wrapped around a beer.
And then House felt it, that ache in his chest. It wasn’t pleasant, though; it just hurt. He could miss home, and his work, and even those few people he cared about, and still get by. But this…
House leaned across the table. “C’mon,” he said, startling Wilson a bit. “Let’s get going.”
Wilson looked at House’s untouched second drink. “Dontcha-”
“No. Let’s go.”
House quickly limped out to the sidewalk and waited for Wilson to half-walk, half-stumble after him.
“House?” he said. “What’s wrong?”
House shrugged. “The guy sucked.”
Wilson squinted at him, before sighing and rubbing the back of his neck. “Oh,” he said. “I-I’m sorry. I thought you’d like that place…You really miss your piano and…everything, don’t you?”
“No,” House said evenly. “Parker sucked.”
“He did not.”
“You’re drunk on Shirley Temples.”
“I am not-House. It’s OK to say you miss home.”
“Is it OK to not say stupid shit, too? Is it OK to continue our good day, like you wanted?”
Wilson faltered. The Hurricanes had dulled his nagging skills. “Um, yeah,” he said, scratching at an eyebrow. “OK…Where to?”
House started to walk west, away from Elysian Fields. “Let’s just walk and see what we run into,” he said over his shoulder to Wilson, who hadn’t moved yet.
After a moment, Wilson jogged to catch up with him. They walked a couple blocks in silence, with Wilson tripping more than once. House kept his gaze straight ahead; he really wasn’t sure where to go. But he trusted what he’d said to Wilson; they’d run into the right place.
“Hey!” Wilson stopped suddenly and grabbed House’s arm. “Check that out.” He turned to House with a giddy look. “Mechanical bull.”
House looked across the street to the bar Wilson had spotted. Indeed. A large sign with a neon bull stood like a beacon to drunks everywhere.
“Are you kidding me?” House said.
“C’mon,” Wilson cajoled. “They opened a mechanical-bull place in Princeton, like, a year ago, and I always wanted to go.”
House screwed up his face. “Why?”
“It seemed like fun,” Wilson said defensively. “I’ve never done anything like that.”
“With good reason,” House replied. Then he paused. “Why didn’t you go to the one in Princeton?”
“Well, you wouldn’t have gone. And who else would I go with?” Wilson said offhandedly.
House looked at him. “What do you mean?” For some reason, he felt he needed to assure Wilson there were people in the world who would ride fake bulls with him.
“Chase would have gone with you,” House said confidently. “Taub, too. He wouldn’t have been able to actually get on the bull, due to height restrictions. But he would’ve cheered you on.”
Wilson shrugged. “Maybe,” he mumbled.
Then he looked at House in drunken earnest. “Listen, I know you can’t get on the thing. But we can stand around and watch people get tossed and make fun of them. And then after my turn, you can make fun of me.”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
Wilson grinned, and House got that feeling in his chest again.
The next thing he knew he was standing in the Bull Barn, surrounded by the twang of country music and more neon.
The bar was fairly crowded for a Tuesday night, mainly with tourists, House assumed. Everyone had that loud, overly excited manner of out-of-town visitors. Or it could have been mechanical-bull-induced euphoria.
The bull stood at far end-in the middle of a corral that was heavily padded to make for soft landings. House relaxed a little. Even drunk, Wilson was unlikely to hurt himself in that thing.
As had become their routine, House hunted for a table while Wilson gathered drinks. Near the corral there was a raised platform with tables and booths, for maximum viewing and mocking potential. House snagged a small table right by the platform’s wood railing.
“Ooo!” Wilson said when he arrived, obviously pleased with the vantage point.
House looked at Wilson’s drink. It was closer to red than pink; vodka and cranberry, he predicted, since that was Wilson’s girly choice back home. “No more Hurricanes?”
“No, they mess me up,” Wilson said, as if that point needed to be made. “I want to be in top bull-riding form.”
“Obviously.”
Wilson wagged an index finger at House. “You don’t think I can do it.”
House shrugged. “Depends what you mean by ‘do it.’ I believe you can get on the thing. Probably. But-”
House was suddenly distracted by a voluptuous dark-haired woman who’d just mounted the bull and was now beginning to undulate in time with the hunk of leather beneath her.
He turned to Wilson. “This is more interesting than I thought it would be.”
Wilson smirked, but it quickly morphed into a pout. “You really think I’d just be able to get on it?”
House pondered the question, trying to look at it scientifically. “Actually,” he had to admit, “you might be good at it. You’re all legs. You just have to really squeeze your legs around the thing…That’s possibly the dirtiest thing I’ve ever said to you.”
Wilson smiled a little, then ducked his head. A moment later, he grabbed his drink and downed half of it. “I hafta get in line,” he told House, standing up.
House watched Wilson carefully negotiate the few steps down to the main floor, then make his way to the line. It was fairly short; most of the bar patrons, apparently, were there to watch.
A sudden “Aww!” from the crowd brought House’s attention back to the corral, where the brunette was now sprawled on the mats, a good distance from the bull. House had missed her involuntary dismount. Damn.
He watched as a couple of morons came and went. One guy, clearly plastered, lasted five seconds, and his demise wasn’t particularly entertaining. House was disappointed. Besides, mocking people in his head wasn’t nearly as much fun as doing it out loud with Wilson.
Then he saw Wilson at the head of the line, handing over his five dollars and listening as the bull operator spoke in his ear.
House felt his heart rate pick up. He wasn’t actually afraid Wilson would get hurt, but for a reason he couldn’t identify he was getting nervous.
Wilson stumbled a little as he walked over to the bull, and House internally groaned. C’mon.
Wilson put his hands on the bull to steady himself, then gingerly swung a leg over it. The operator waited until Wilson had taken the standard position-one hand holding the handle on the bull’s “neck,” the other arm raised.
And then the bull began to move. At first, Wilson looked slightly shocked, and his legs flailed for a moment. “No,” House said out loud.
As if he heard, Wilson quickly hugged his legs into the bull, like his life depended on it.
About ten seconds later, the bull began to buck with more gusto, and a mass “ohhh” came from the onlookers. But Wilson was still holding on, and the deer-in-headlights expression had changed to something closer to determination.
The bull started going faster again. House could no longer clearly see Wilson’s expression, but he could see his grip on the bull tightening. He felt his own grip on his cane matching it.
Hang on. C’mon, hang on. In the back of his mind, House knew this was ridiculous. But his heart was pounding now, and it drown out his logic.
The bull suddenly bucked so hard its nose almost hit the mats, and House stopped breathing. But Wilson kept his legs glued to the thing and leaned his upper body back; the crowd cheered his obvious bull-riding skills.
“That’s it,” House found himself whispering. “Hang on. Hang on.”
And Wilson did, for about ten seconds more, before the bull finally flung him all the way to the padded side of the corral. The crowd let out a collective “Awww!” that quickly became a din of cheers and whoops.
House just kept his eyes on Wilson, watching him slowly get up. When he turned around, there was a dopey grin on his face. Then House joined in the whooping-feeling like an idiot but not really caring.
Wilson’s time went up on the digital display on the wall: one minute, twenty-two seconds. The crowd gave another cheer.
When Wilson stumbled back to the table, his hair was in disarray and his eyes were slightly wild. He collapsed in his chair and looked at House expectantly.
“You are an unbelievable dork,” House pronounced.
Wilson giggled, as if to confirm the statement. It quickly turned into a coughing fit, and Wilson reached for the water he’d actually had the foresight to get along with their drinks.
Once he caught his breath, Wilson said, with some excitement, “The guy said I had the best time this round. If these last couple people don’t beat it, I win.”
“Win what?”
Wilson paused, looking puzzled. “I dunno.” Then he shook his head. “Who cares?”
House felt a smile forming, so he smirked to head it off. “Yes. The glory itself is enough.”
Wilson snorted, then reached for his drink and held it aloft.
House looked Wilson in the eyes, then raised his glass. “L'chaim, Wilson.”
Wilson paused, blinking slowly as if to focus his drunken eyes on House’s. They touched their glasses together. “L’chaim, House.”
*******
House gazed at the cartoonishly large, felt cowboy hat perched atop Wilson’s head. It was yellow with a blue star on the front. And it was Wilson’s prize for staying on a fake bull longer than any other drunk had.
“It suits you,” House decided.
Wilson pushed the hat back from his eyes, where it kept slipping. “Thanks.”
They were sitting at a small table in the courtyard behind the bar; Wilson had wanted some air. Unlike the drinking holes back home, New Orleans bars allowed smoking, and the air inside had started to aggravate his cough.
House was glad to get away from the smoke and general idiocy, too. The courtyard was deserted, except for a couple making out on a bench at the opposite end. They were partly hidden by some banana tree leaves, so House could mostly ignore them.
“No, seriously,” House said. “You can actually pull off the cowboy look.”
Wilson smirked, as the hat slowly slid toward his eyes again.
“I was thinking,” House ventured, then paused to drink from his water glass. “We should hit Texas next. It’s right down the road. And you can show everybody your new hat.”
Wilson didn’t say anything, and House couldn’t quite see his eyes under the hat brim.
“I’ve heard Austin is actually a cool place, as Texas goes,” House forged on. “Good music scene.”
He took another sip of water. “But Houston is closer. We could go there first.”
Wilson pushed his hat back and looked at House for a long moment. His eyes were still a bit shiny from drinking and laughing and bull-riding.
“And should we visit Dr. Chiu?” he asked.
House felt his stomach twist a bit at getting caught. But he kept his poker face.
Wilson sighed. “You should learn to clear your search history,” he said calmly.
House nodded. “Guess so.”
He waited for Wilson to say something more, but he was just looking down at his hands, tapping the side of his latest vodka and cranberry. So House spoke up.
“Sixteen of twenty-two alive-”
“Those numbers don’t tell the whole story, House. You know that.”
“They say enough,” House said briskly.
Wilson sat back in his chair and took his hat off. He kept his eyes down as he spoke. “I called Chiu…We talked after I did the chemo, before the scan. I just had a feeling it-it didn’t work.”
He paused and glanced at House.
“And?” House prompted.
“Well, it’s not sixteen anymore. It’s fifteen-”
“Still sounds good.”
“Except for the other ones who died during treatment-because of treatment sometimes. Half of the patients in the study developed severe neutropenia and landed in the hospital. Two of them died from bacterial infections.”
House leaned over the table toward Wilson. “You keep forgetting to mention the fifteen who are fine.”
Wilson shook his head. “Well, they’re not fine, House. One of them has heart failure now. Probably from a combination of the doxorubicin and radiation. Another one has pulmonary fibrosis-”
“OK, that’s two. And people can live for years with heart failure. So yeah, I can see why you’d prefer to just die,” House sneered.
Wilson closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“No,” House said firmly. “Don’t shut down on me. I get that you don’t want to be the one who dies from neutropenia. But if you don’t try, you will definitely be the one who dies from thymoma.”
He leaned in again. “And then that’s it. There is nothing else after that.”
Wilson barked a laugh. “Yeah, House, so you’ve told me. There’s nothing. There are no ghosts, no Pig Men, no…psychic powers. There’s nothing, and it scares the shit out of me.”
Wilson scrubbed at his face. “I’m officially afraid to die,” he said through his hands. Then he looked up. “Are you happy now?”
“Thrilled,” House said bitterly.
Wilson shook his head and looked off to the side. House noticed that at some point the lovey-dovey couple must have hightailed it out of there. But he really couldn’t give a shit about making a scene.
He looked again at Wilson; his eyes were closed and his lips were pressed together in a tight line. He didn’t want Wilson to be scared; he just wanted him to live.
“Why,” House hesitated. “Why don’t you believe you can be one of the survivors?”
Wilson was silent for a few moments. “Because,” he said slowly. “Because…nothing good ever happens.”
House furrowed his brow. “What does that mean?”
Wilson reached for his drink and polished it off. Then he looked at House with a small, embarrassed smile.
“Everything always turns to shit,” he said simply. “I-I can’t remember the last time I felt like things were…right.”
Wilson laughed awkwardly. “When’s the last time something good happened, House?”
House didn’t know how to answer that. It didn’t matter, though, because Wilson kept talking. “You of all people know,” he insisted. “Stacy, Cuddy. Anytime you’ve thought you had something good, it just…And now you’re dead.”
Wilson laughed again, sounding like he was coming unhinged.
House felt a sharp pain in his gut. “What does any of that have to do with your cancer? What, you think we both have fate working against us?”
Wilson pressed his lips together, blinking back tears now.
“It’s not fate,” House said emphatically. “Bad things have happened to me. But I’ve also made a lot of shit choices.” He paused, letting his admission hang in the air.
Wilson looked at him, and House leaned forward. “You cannot afford to make a shit choice on this one, Wilson.”
Wilson wiped at his eyes. “Oh, I know,” he assured in a shaky voice. “I don’t wanna die doing chemo. Or from some fucking staph infection in the hospital. And-and miss out on actually living for a while.”
He glanced at House. “I don’t wanna choose wrong. Yet again.”
“What do you mean, again?”
Wilson shrugged. “Isn’t that what my whole life has been? One bad move after another?”
House opened his mouth to argue, but Wilson cut him off. “I’ve managed to fuck up every relationship in my life.” Wilson laughed humorlessly again. “No one even…”
He trailed off, tensing his jaw and looking away. But House could tell where he’d been heading. He could almost see the self-flagellating wheels turning in that once perfectly coiffed head.
And everything became clearer: Wilson wasn’t just afraid of the treatment going horribly wrong. Even if he wouldn’t admit it out loud, he was also afraid of it working-and sending him back to a life he wasn’t sure he wanted.
Even now, House realized, there was some part of Wilson that thought everyone liked him, but no one loved him. And it pissed House off.
But he knew he had to speak carefully, which was not his forte.
“I know you’re afraid of…what could happen,” House said, trying to keep his voice even. “And it’s-it’s OK if you’re choosing this because you think it’s best.” He paused. “But I don’t think you’re really choosing.”
Wilson looked at him. “I think,” House said quickly. “I think you’re just accepting what’s happening to you. And that’s different.”
Wilson’s lip trembled a bit, and he darted his eyes to the cowboy hat on the table in front of him. House felt his heart pounding; he didn’t want Wilson to retreat from him now.
“You called Chiu for a reason,” he said, quiet but insistent. “You want to try.”
House’s throat tightened, and he couldn’t keep quashing the bitterness that wanted to escape. “And I don’t give a fuck what Kyle Calloway told me on that bus,” he said. “You do not just let everything go. You do not just quit.”
Wilson lifted his gaze. His eyes were softer now, but he shook his head. “That’s not even true,” Wilson said hoarsely. “You said it yourself. I’ve quit on every relationship I've ever had. I…”
House flinched slightly at the playback of his own words-said as an offhanded insult, before any of this. But he quickly corrected Wilson.
“I said you’ve bailed on every relationship except ours.” House paused. “And I was wrong about that anyway.”
Wilson looked at him warily. He was probably expecting House to accuse him of quitting on them, too.
“I was wrong,” House said again. “You never quit on your brother. Or Amber. Or your dying patients. Or your neighbor’s fucking diabetic cat…You lost them, but you didn’t quit.”
They looked at each other for a moment before Wilson ducked his head again. House could see him chewing his bottom lip.
House reached for that ridiculous cowboy hat, sitting on the table, and put it on Wilson’s head. “There. How can you say nothing good ever happens?” he asked.
Wilson looked up and the hat started to slide toward his eyes. He choked out a short laugh.
They sat then, in silence. House had no idea where to go from here. He couldn’t guilt Wilson into getting more treatment, as much as the selfish part of him wanted to.
Wilson didn’t seem to know what to do now, either. He was just tapping his fingers on the table, gazing down, with that stupid hat obscuring his face.
Then House suddenly knew exactly where to go. “Come on,” he said. “I wanna hit one more place tonight.”
“Oh,” Wilson shook his head. “House, it’s been a long day.”
“I know, I know,” House said impatiently. “I was gonna save this for our last day, but I think now is better. C’mon. It won’t take long.”
He stood up and led the way back into the bar and through the crowd. Behind him, he heard a few people cheer and congratulate Wilson as he passed. And House let himself smile a little.
*******
House was wrong about it not taking long. The walk to Decatur Street was more of a hike than he’d anticipated, with his bum leg and Wilson’s inebriation. And the longer they walked, the more House feared the place might have closed down-even though he’d checked on it, back when they’d decided to head to New Orleans.
It had started to rain, but he and Wilson were mostly shielded by the second-story balconies that extended to cover the sidewalks. And Wilson still had his hat; House thought he might have forgotten it was there.
House slowed down so he could peer more closely at the endless line of pubs and restaurants they were passing. He was starting to think he’d gotten the location wrong when he saw the sign, partway down the block and hanging from the balcony above.
Scarlett’s Pour House.
“Here,” he said to Wilson, who was trailing behind.
House stopped in front of the place and took in its battered wood door and equally worn shutters. Nothing’s changed, he thought, with some satisfaction. Not even Katrina got to it.
He turned to Wilson. “Recognize it?”
Wilson pushed his hat back, looking slightly dazed with alcohol and fatigue. “Um?”
House sighed. “Really?”
Wilson blinked slowly a couple times. “Is this…?”
“Yep,” House said. “Wanna go in and see if they ever replaced the mirror you assaulted?”
“I-” Wilson seemed to be frozen in his spot. “House, I don’t know.”
“Are you afraid the Billy Joel guy is still there?”
Wilson laughed a little, sounding nervous. “I’m just tired,” he said.
“Come on,” House tilted his head toward the door. “We’ll just pop in. Maybe break some shit and run.”
Wilson nodded mutely.
The inside of the bar was much as House remembered it, too. A lot nicer than the beat-up exterior suggested, but still just your basic bar. No candlelight or neon or mechanical bulls. Just a mahogany bar against one wall, scattered tables and a jukebox at the far end.
Completely nondescript, but House had never forgotten it.
“You wanna sit at the bar?” he asked, turning to Wilson.
Wilson shook his head. “Bad memories of sitting at the bar.”
“Right,” House said. “Table’s better anyway.”
He led the way to a table close to the bar and sat down. Wilson, though, just stood by his chair for a few moments-taking off his hat and staring at the bar. “They did get a new mirror,” he said quietly.
House turned to look at the large antique mirror centered on the wall behind the bar. “So they did.”
When Wilson kept staring, House added, “Why don’t you sit? I’ll get the drinks this time. They probably won’t ID me.”
Wilson just nodded and took a seat.
House came back with two diet Cokes; he decided they’d had enough alcohol for one night.
They sat in silence for a couple minutes, sipping their drinks before Wilson finally spoke. “I don’t think I ever knew the name of this place,” he admitted. “I…was kind of out of it the last time.”
“As I recall.”
Wilson looked at him. “I-I thought my life was over. That night, I mean,” he said, with an awkward little smile.
House stayed quiet; he knew when Wilson was on the verge of rambling.
“Ya know,” Wilson said, “it wasn’t even losing Sam so much. I knew we weren’t happy. It was the failing. So soon after Danny.”
He glanced at House, as if looking for the green light to continue. “I felt…alone. And then this weird guy I’d never even met bailed me out of jail.”
House tried to look affronted. “Weird?”
“Uh, yeah,” Wilson said. “You gotta admit it’s weird to bail out someone you don’t even know.”
House shrugged. “I’m a philanthropist.”
Wilson smiled softly, genuinely this time. “I was a little scared of you, actually. I mean, you said you were a doctor, but you were wearing a Ramones t-shirt, sooo…But then you gave me the Pringles.”
“Snack foods do build bridges,” House said. Then he wagged an index finger at Wilson. “You do remember.”
Wilson nodded. “I remember.”
They were quiet again for a few moments. House drummed his fingers on the table, then cleared his throat. “This isn’t manipulation, you know. This isn’t a con.”
Wilson looked at him, but House couldn’t read his expression. “I just,” House began. “I wanted you to remember that good things happen.”
He looked down at his fingers, still drumming, and mentally willed Wilson to get what he meant so he wouldn’t have to say it out loud.
Then he heard Wilson say, again, “I remember.”
House nodded. “OK, then.”
He reached for his drink. The jukebox was playing one of “today’s hits” that would be forgotten tomorrow, House figured. He knew, like Wilson said, that most good things crumble eventually. But once in a while they lasted.
*******
House woke to the sound of the shower running. His head felt heavy and his mouth tasted like something had crawled inside and died. It had been about 3 a.m. when they’d gotten back to their room, and House had simply collapsed into bed. He looked at the clock on the nightstand: 10 a.m.
Wilson had always been able to function on about five hours of sleep. Even when he’d been drinking, “sleeping in” meant spending about six or seven hours in bed. House defined the term differently.
He groaned and put his other pillow over his head. It seemed like only seconds passed before he heard Wilson’s voice. “House? You need to get up soon.”
“No!” House growled from beneath his pillow.
He could sense Wilson taking his hands-on-hips stance. “C’mon. We’re only here a couple more days. I don’t wanna spend it in a hotel room.”
House tore the pillow from his head. “Well, maybe I do.”
Wilson looked at him, not quite hiding his amusement. “Too bad. I’m the one with cancer. You’re just fake-dead.”
“Ooo, burn!” House said, turning onto his back.
A few seconds later, though, he sat up. House didn’t want to waste their time, either. But he would bitch as much as possible while not wasting it.
After a quick shower and desperately needed tooth-brushing, House came into the room to find Wilson on his iPad.
“So,” he said. “What flea markets do you have on our agenda today?”
Wilson just smiled, keeping his eyes on the screen.
House walked to his bed to put his shoes on. “I say we go for an obscenely huge brunch,” he proposed. “Maximum eating in one sitting. It’s a real time-saver.”
“OK,” Wilson said agreeably. He stood and began to fish around in his backpack. “And what about a couple days from now?” he asked casually. “Where do you think we should head?”
House looked at him. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Like you said, you’re the one with cancer.”
Wilson nodded, keeping his back toward House and apparently very interested in his backpack. “Riiight. I was wondering…What do you think of Houston?”
If House didn’t know better, he’d swear his heart stopped.
Wilson turned and looked at him, with some complicated mix of fear, hope and something else House couldn’t identify.
House swallowed. “Houston? That could be a good idea.”
He looked to the wall, past Wilson and toward Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, trying to appear as if he were mulling it over. “It is pretty close to the Mexican border. They probably have a place or two where I could get a fake ID.”
Wilson nodded. “True.”
“How long are you thinking of staying there?” House asked.
Wilson shook his head, then sighed. “Not sure…Are you OK with being there a while?”
House took a deep, steadying breath. “Fine,” he said. “But after that I need more temperate climes. Water, too.”
Wilson was clearly fighting a smile. “That…sounds good. Where are you thinking?”
House shrugged. “Maybe San Fran? No one’ll bat an eye at two middle-aged guys shacking up together. Well, they might bat their eyelashes at you…”
Wilson rolled his eyes. “Uh-huh…Actually, San Francisco is a good idea. I hear MC Hammer has a good shot of becoming their next mayor.”
“Then I’m sold.”
Wilson held House’s gaze for a moment. “OK,” he said, before turning back to his bag.
House turned his attention back to his shoes. He noticed his hands were trembling a bit as he laced his sneakers. But it was the kind of shakiness that wasn’t bad. It told him he was alive, that there were still things to feel.
So it was OK. He could take the shakiness and the not-knowing, as long as there was also something to hold on to.
He looked at Wilson. “You ready?”
Wilson shouldered his backpack, having freed it of everything he didn’t need. “Yeah.”
“C’mon,” House said, starting for the door. “I know a place with the best Creole Bloody Mary…and bananas Foster, oh my gawd. No dress code, either.”
Wilson shrugged, raising his hands. “Let the insanity begin.”
House nodded, allowing a small smile. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the New Orleans sun.
--End
Continue on to Houston
NOTES: I based the study in this fic on an actual study done at MD Anderson. It's several years old, but there aren't a ton of clinical trials on thymoma because it's so rare. An abstract of the study is here, if you like to read medical jargon.
Characters: House, Wilson
Rating: R
Summary: House and Wilson return to New Orleans.
Beta: the amazing srsly_yes
A/N: This is the final next installment in a series of post-finale road trip stories that began in Virginia. Despite the title, this is NOT a death fic.
Part 1 here
House found Wilson sitting on the sidewalk, his back against the cemetery wall.
“Idiot,” he muttered under his breath.
After House had waited among the tombs for a few minutes, it occurred to him that the cemetery likely had more than one entrance. So he’d wandered around the concrete maze a bit before he came across that tour group he’d been hearing so much about.
The tour leader-a real-deal Southern gent with a white beard and porkpie hat-pointed House in the direction of the “secondary” entrance.
“I’d use the main one, though, my friend,” the old guy warned. “The other one takes ya to a pretty rough street. Housing projects and such.”
Naturally, Wilson had found that street and decided to plonk his ass down on it.
House wanted to bash him on the head with his cane.
Rationally, he’d known that Wilson was nearby somewhere-that there was little chance anything bad had happened to him. And even less of a chance that he’d ditched House entirely.
But House’s rational mind wasn’t in charge right now. He gripped his cane tightly and limp-marched over to Wilson.
“Hey!” House called as he approached. “Nice move, making the cripple walk all over New Fucking Orleans looking for you.”
Wilson had his forearms folded over his knees and was staring at the housing projects across the street. He glanced at House. “Sorry,” he said, monotone. “I didn’t realize how long I’d been sitting here.”
“Did you realize your phone was ringing?”
Wilson felt around his pockets, then looked up at House. “I don’t have it with me.”
“That’s great.”
Wilson shook his head. “Well, it’s not like anyone calls.”
House paused, looking down at the top of Wilson’s disheveled head. An angsty hand had clearly been running through his hair.
“Is that why you’re moping? Because no one’s texting you?”
Wilson sighed. “Yeah, that’s it.” Then he looked up. “And I’m not moping. I just needed to get away from you for a while…Shocking, I know.”
House’s retort was cut off by the sound of breaking glass, followed by some male voices. Unhappy voices.
House turned around, toward the collection of bleak buildings across the street. He couldn’t see where the ruckus was coming from, but he decided it was best to move their conversation elsewhere.
“C’mon, let’s go back in,” he said, hooking a thumb toward the cemetery entrance.
Wilson didn’t budge.
“Come. On,” House repeated. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t the best hang-out for a guy with a cane. Or a guy who cries over Old Yeller.”
Wilson scowled at him. “You can stop with the clever ‘you’re a girl’ digs any time now. I get it. You think I’m a coward.”
House frowned. But before he could answer, there were a couple shouts from across the street, sounding closer now.
“Actually,” House said, “I think you’re a moron.” He reached down as if to grab Wilson’s arm. Wilson batted him away, but stood up a moment later.
“Fine,” he said.
Wilson proceeded to give House the silent treatment as they made their way back into and through the cemetery. That gave House time to think about Wilson’s phone, left behind in the room with Marlon Brando.
It was true, what Wilson said about no one calling. Before they’d taken off, Wilson had left his parents a message to say he’d be traveling for a while. During their first couple days on the road, his parents had called twice.
Wilson had actually let House listen to their messages, with the explanation that he didn’t feel like giving a play-by-play.
The second message had been about Danny. Wilson’s mom was worried because, who would visit Danny every week in the group home? It wasn’t right for Wilson to just leave his brother like that.
House had taken the liberty of deleting the messages. The last thing Wilson needed was a recorded guilt trip to torture himself with.
He knew Wilson had paid a quick visit to Danny before they’d hit the road. He’d told his brother he wouldn’t be able to see him for a long time. And Danny had understood. At least that’s what Wilson told House.
After that second message, Wilson’s parents stopped calling. And from what House knew, none of their old colleagues had called. Neither had Wilson’s ex-wives.
No one knew that Wilson had not set off alone-though Foreman might have figured it out, assuming he’d found House’s little gift. But all anybody else knew was that Wilson was gone. And nobody had called to check on him.
But then, House thought, Wilson hadn’t made any calls either.
The two of them really were in their own weird little world now. As good as dead, but not really.
Wilson stopped walking suddenly, in the middle of the tombs. “I thought the manipulations were over,” he said quietly, looking somewhere past House.
House worked his jaw for a moment. “Why?”
It was an honest question. Just a few days ago, he flat-out told Wilson he’d been trying to steer them toward every major cancer center on the Eastern seaboard. Why would Wilson think he’d just give up now?
Wilson exhaled a short, humorless laugh, then shook his head. “Yeah. Though I guess this isn’t even manipulation anymore. Taking me to a cemetery is not exactly subtle.”
House couldn’t argue with that, so he didn’t.
Wilson bit his lip before saying, “We were having a good day. Can we just have a good few days here? Let’s just…”
He trailed off and looked at the ground.
House hadn’t forgotten that back in Okefenokee, he’d agreed to leave the serious business for after New Orleans. Of course, to Wilson the serious business was what to do about House’s fake death, not his own impending real one.
But now as he looked at Wilson’s bowed head, and the way he was hiding his face, House felt uneasy. He’d seen Wilson get choked up or cry more times in recent weeks than he had in their entire relationship up till then. And he wasn’t getting used to it.
“All right,” House said. “No more cemeteries. We can just…Laissez les bons temps rouler.”
Wilson kept his head down, but he nodded. And when he mumbled, “Merci,” House knew they were OK.
He tapped his cane on the concrete. “So let’s get outta here.”
As they moved toward the main gates, House couldn’t help glancing around a couple more times, wondering if he’d catch a last look at Marie Laveau’s tomb. Just to see if there were any other saps marking their X’s on the wall, he told himself.
But he never managed to glimpse the tomb again.
*******
Back at the hotel, Wilson decided to take another shower. Walking around in the sweltering heat made him feel grimy, he said. House thought Wilson showered so much because it was his only alone time.
House didn’t mind the separation either. For one, he could get an unsupervised look at the iPad. Wilson routinely cleared his search history, of course, but House figured there was always a chance he’d forget.
And this was the day, House discovered.
He was quickly disappointed, though. It looked like Wilson just hadn’t bothered to cover his tracks; there was nothing in his history but searches for restaurants and “free New Orleans” and flea markets.
Christ.
Wilson’s bookmarks were as unhelpful as ever, too. Seemingly every major cancer center and professional society was represented, along with the NCI’s clinical trial database, but that was no surprise.
There was nothing there for House to see anyway.
As soon as Wilson’s attempt at superchemo failed, House had, naturally, checked out all the current clinical trials for thymoma. All five of them. Thymoma was too rare for anyone to really care about; no drug company was interested in sponsoring a pricey trial.
So the studies out there were of the lamest variety, to House’s mind. The “Let’s see what happens if we give thymoma patients this mediocre drug that sort of works for kidney cancer” variety.
Plus, the trials were either closed to new patients or had one tricky requirement: People had to have failed a round of the standard platinum-based drugs. Wilson had failed that, in spectacular fashion-but since it all played out on House’s couch, there was no official medical record.
They probably also require the patient to willingly submit to treatment, House assumed.
Hearing the water still running, and Wilson coughing, House looked again at the bookmark list. The folder marked “MD Anderson” caught his attention. He knew they were closing in on Houston; it was just a few more hours straight down I-10. And of course he knew it was home to MD Anderson, probably the best cancer center in the country.
House clicked on the folder and found just one bookmark inside. Clicking again, he landed on the page of a faculty member there: John Chiu, head of thoracic medical oncology.
Interesting.
House scrolled through Chiu’s CV to his list of publications, mostly on non-small cell lung cancer. But then he came to some abstracts that were presented at medical meetings.
Two of them were on treating inoperable thymoma that had not responded to conventional chemo. House had never seen them in his post-thymoma PubMed searches because the studies had not made it into a medical journal, at least not yet.
One abstract was on a small study, just twenty-two patients. But from the sound of it, Chiu had the oncology “balls” that Wilson had been looking for when he was diagnosed.
The study patients were first blasted with four different classes of chemo drug, then had surgery to get as much of the tumor as possible. Then came radiation and, finally, another round of the same four chemo drugs.
A few patients dropped out of the study-from side effects, House presumed. But seventeen had gotten through the whole thing, and sixteen of them were alive and cancer-free three years later.
Still cancer-free. That meant the chances of an actual cure were good.
There was no description of how bad the side effects were, or if there were long-term problems. And the regimen was pretty much a full-on assault. Still, House thought, sixteen of twenty-two.
The sound of Wilson’s cough became clearer, and House realized the shower was no longer running. He quickly shut down the iPad and hopped onto his bed.
He lay still, but his heart was pounding. Wilson had looked up Chiu for a reason.
But when? For all House knew, it was right after his diagnosis. Wilson hadn’t exactly given House the impression he was wavering on his decision.
Wilson emerged from the bathroom. “All yours.”
“’Kay,” House said, staring at the ceiling.
“Don’t go to sleep,” he heard Wilson say. “We have a long evening of eating ahead. And there’s a piano bar near here I thought we could try…Maybe you could even finagle a way to play.” He paused. “OK, maybe I can finagle a way for you.”
“Uh-huh.”
There was a pause before Wilson said, “You all right?”
“Yep,” House chirped, then swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Just need to get in the tub and give this thing a good rubdown,” he said as he limped toward the bathroom.
“Oh, and my leg, too,” he added, waggling his eyebrows.
Wilson offered an indulgent smile as he towel-dried his hair. “Your subtle charms fit so well in the Old South.”
House nodded in agreement before holing himself up in the bathroom. He started the water for a bath, then flipped the toilet lid down and took a seat. He let his head fall into his hands.
Wilson didn’t want to spend his possible final months in a hospital, made sick from trying to get better. But the longer they were on the road, the more House realized he couldn’t just let go. Whatever he’d said to Wilson about accepting his decision, he knew now he wasn’t strong enough to stand by his word.
House looked up to see the tub almost full, so he reached to turn off the faucet. Then he just sat, watching droplets continue to fall from the tap, listening to them hit the water.
A sudden whirring sound outside the door broke his meditation. For a second, he didn’t know what it was. Then he realized: Wilson had found the hair dryer.
House let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and sob.
*******
“Jambalayaaaa,” House proclaimed before even touching his menu.
Wilson smirked as he opened his. “I had a feeling…That’s what you made me buy for you after you bailed me out. The first in a long, long line of purchases.”
“I never made you buy me anything.” House put his elbows on the table and leaned in.
“Uh, except when you’d actually disappear before the check came.”
“OK, except then,” House conceded. “But you could’ve put your fancy loafered foot down anytime.”
Wilson rolled his eyes, but House could see he was fighting a smile before he dipped his head toward his menu.
They were sitting outside, in the cobblestone courtyard of the small café Wilson had found on Elysian Fields, just beyond the noise and crowds of the French Quarter. House had to give Wilson credit for picking a quiet spot with decent food, if the scents wafting by could be trusted.
By the time their waiter arrived, House’s interests had expanded beyond jambalaya.
“Oh my gawd,” he said, nose in his menu, as the waiter stood patiently by. “Crepes stuffed with crabmeat and roasted scallions? We’re getting those to start. The corn and sweet potato bisque, too…And then I’ll have the jambalaya, with chicken and andouille.”
“Good choices, sir. And you-”
“Wait,” House cut him off. “Jesus. Bacon-wrapped pineapple shrimp?”
“House,” Wilson said, in his soothing oncologist voice.
“OK, you get that so I can have some. Or most.”
“Weeell,” Wilson said, but then shook his head. “Actually,” he said to the waiter, “I’ll just have the baby spinach salad and the eggplant muffaletta. Please.”
House looked at him. “Spinach and eggplant? Seriously?”
“So sorry to shatter your bacon-wrapped dreams.”
Their waiter giggled softly and looked back and forth between them. House wasn’t sure if he was gay or just Southern.
“Fine,” House said, glaring at Wilson. He turned to the waiter. “I’ll take a Sazerac, too.”
The waiter nodded. “And you, sir?”
Wilson chose a cabernet sauvignon-for the antioxidants, House assumed.
After the waiter left, House pointed an index finger at Wilson. “What is with you and the vegetables?”
Wilson furrowed his brow. “I’ve been eating them since kindergarten.”
“No,” House wagged his finger. “You’re watching your diet.”
Wilson’s eyes widened a bit. “I guess,” he acknowledged.
House kept looking at him, until Wilson gave his patented sigh of resignation. “Yes, you’ve caught me. I just…wanna try to stay healthy for as long as I can.”
Wilson glanced at him, looking unsure. House had a feeling he should let this go. But instead he said, “You don’t treat thymoma with salads.”
Wilson pressed his lips together. “I’m well aware.” Then he paused and smiled a little, clearly shifting tactics. “C’mon. You’ve got copious amounts of meat, heavy cream and salt on the way. Enjoy it.”
House just nodded. He hated giving in to Wilson’s shameless use of his so-called charms.
“Aaand,” Wilson went on, holding up the dessert menu. “I see they have Creole cream cheesecake. Homemade biscotti crust, caramel sauce-”
“Sweet Jesus," House said, grabbing for the menu.
Wilson pulled it just out of reach, a gleam in his eyes. “Have you ever noticed how often you find the lord in menus?”
House shrugged. “Well, if life came wrapped in bacon and served on biscotti, I might even be a believer.”
Wilson’s smirk faded, just a little. “If only it did,” he said-sarcastically, on the surface, but House heard an undertone of something else. After twenty-one years, he could detect the subtlest shifts in Wilson’s many faces and voices. But he didn’t always know what they meant.
House decided to push a bit, because…why not?
“So,” he said briskly. “I have a question I’ve been dying to ask you.”
Wilson narrowed his eyes. “Oh-kay.”
“Back in Savannah. What did you see in that underground tunnel?”
Wilson looked a bit startled by the question. “What…Why?”
House gave a quick shrug. “Curious. As you may recall, I was busy having a panic attack, so I missed some stuff.”
“Oh, I recall,” Wilson assured him. Then he shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Nothing, what?”
“That’s what I saw. Nothing.”
House wasn’t buying it. “We paid for a tour of nothing?”
“Evidently.”
Their waiter came by with their drinks then. “The bisque will be right up,” he said, smiling brightly.
Once he was out of earshot, Wilson looked at House with faux curiosity. “Why haven’t you told him I have cancer yet?”
House rolled his eyes. “I’m waiting for the most dramatic moment. Let’s stay on topic. What do you mean by ‘nothing?’”
“Well, it’s a pronoun, which most people don’t know-”
At House’s look, Wilson stopped short and sighed. “It was only lighted near the stairs, so I couldn’t see that far in. But what I did see was just…some junk on the ground. There was a ratty quilt and some clothes, so I guess a homeless person had been in there. That’s all.”
House kept looking at him, waiting for Wilson’s eyes to reveal something. But Wilson just held his gaze. “There was nothing, House,” he said. “It was all crap, like you said it would be.”
Before House could respond, the waiter returned with his bisque and Wilson’s salad.
Which was just as well, because House felt lost for words. He wanted to say something standard like, Of course I was right. But he had this odd sensation that he should be consoling Wilson over finding nothing. And that made no sense.
So he said, “Want some bisque?”
Wilson let out a short, surprised laugh. “Uh, no. But thanks. I do think that’s the first time you’ve ever offered me non-drugged food, though.”
House feigned offense. “You are really getting old, you know that? After I bailed you out-immediately after-I gave you, like, half the Pringles I had in my glove compartment.”
Wilson looked thoughtful. “I’d forgotten about that. I guess I stand corrected.” He smiled softly.
“Damn right,” House said, then dipped his head so Wilson couldn’t see him smile back. “Now shut up so I can eat.”
*******
“I guess they couldn’t afford the electric bill,” House said. They were standing in front of the piano bar Wilson had discovered a few blocks from the café, just off of Elysian Fields.
The exterior reminded House of a barn, but Wilson said it had once been a blacksmith shop. The wide doorway and shuttered windows were open, and House could see that the interior was lit entirely by candles on the bar and tables. How romantic.
“Again, you’re missing the charm,” Wilson informed him. “But we can go somewhere else. There are one or two other bars in New Orleans.”
House shrugged. “We’re here.”
Inside, it became clear that the place was more of a dive than the candlelight and piano implied. House approved.
There was a baby grand in the back, where a black man in a fedora, rail-thin and hunched over, was getting ready to sit down. Some tall stools were set up in a circle around the piano, but there was no way House could be comfortable like that. So he grabbed a table while Wilson got their drinks.
Wilson soon joined him, carrying another Sazerac for House, and an insanely tall, insanely pink drink for himself.
“Shirley Temple?” House asked, eyeing Wilson’s glass as he set it down.
“Noooo,” Wilson said, plopping down on the chair opposite him. “It’s a Hurricane.”
House rolled his eyes, which he then realized was ineffective in this lighting. “It’s pink and fruity and sweet…Sooo, yeah, perfect for you.”
“It gets the job done,” Wilson said firmly. “The job, by the way, is making you tolerable.”
House raised his drink. “Cheers to that.”
They clinked glasses. House watched as Wilson began to down his Hurricane, seemingly going for the one-gulp finish.
“Hey, hey, slow down,” he urged.
Wilson did stop, but apparently only because he needed to breathe. Then he started coughing.
House sighed heavily. “Moron. What happened to staying healthy for as long as you can?”
Wilson took another moment to catch his breath. “Well,” he choked out. “As you pointed out…eating salad when you’re dying is just silly.”
“Should I call you a moron again, or is it getting old?”
Wilson took a deep breath, his coughing fit apparently over. “It’s getting old,” he confirmed, then took a sip from what remained of his drink.
House sighed again. “I can’t bodily drag you back to the hotel if you get wasted,” he complained, mostly to cover his concern over Wilson’s sudden shift toward debauchery. “Last time we were here, I was a lot younger and had two good legs. And you were a lot skinnier.”
“Hmmm,” was all Wilson said.
That was when the man at the piano announced that his name was Parker -- yes, after Charlie -- and he’d be attempting to entertain them this fine evening.
Wilson joined the sparse crowd in clapping for Parker, then turned back to House. “You ready for another?” he asked, pointing to House’s glass.
House looked down. “It’s half-full.”
“Half-empty,” Wilson corrected, then giggled.
Uh-oh.
Wilson hopped to his feet and took off toward the bar, already a bit unsteady. He came back with seconds for them both. “It’s OK if you don’t finish it,” he assured House. “I’ll drink it.”
“Are you sure? It’s not pink.”
Wilson giggled again.
House groaned softly. “Can we listen to the nice man on the piano now?”
Wilson obediently angled to face the piano and began to work on his drink.
Parker wasn’t bad. But not great, either. By the time he started playing My Melancholy Baby, House thought he should be feeling something. He should feel that pleasant ache in his chest he used to have when he played his own piano, or listened to old vinyl while he made dinner.
He missed it. His piano, his kitchen, his office, his team. The challenge of figuring out how to fix people he didn’t know; with them, he wasn’t afraid of getting it wrong-multiple times-before getting it right. He missed being fearless.
Or at least he knew, intellectually, that he missed it all. What House couldn’t do right now was feel much of anything.
He looked at Wilson’s profile in the candlelight; he had his eyes closed as he listened to the music and sipped his drink. Even in this light, Wilson looked like he did on so many nights at House’s place-when he’d sit on the couch while House played the piano, eyes closed and a hand wrapped around a beer.
And then House felt it, that ache in his chest. It wasn’t pleasant, though; it just hurt. He could miss home, and his work, and even those few people he cared about, and still get by. But this…
House leaned across the table. “C’mon,” he said, startling Wilson a bit. “Let’s get going.”
Wilson looked at House’s untouched second drink. “Dontcha-”
“No. Let’s go.”
House quickly limped out to the sidewalk and waited for Wilson to half-walk, half-stumble after him.
“House?” he said. “What’s wrong?”
House shrugged. “The guy sucked.”
Wilson squinted at him, before sighing and rubbing the back of his neck. “Oh,” he said. “I-I’m sorry. I thought you’d like that place…You really miss your piano and…everything, don’t you?”
“No,” House said evenly. “Parker sucked.”
“He did not.”
“You’re drunk on Shirley Temples.”
“I am not-House. It’s OK to say you miss home.”
“Is it OK to not say stupid shit, too? Is it OK to continue our good day, like you wanted?”
Wilson faltered. The Hurricanes had dulled his nagging skills. “Um, yeah,” he said, scratching at an eyebrow. “OK…Where to?”
House started to walk west, away from Elysian Fields. “Let’s just walk and see what we run into,” he said over his shoulder to Wilson, who hadn’t moved yet.
After a moment, Wilson jogged to catch up with him. They walked a couple blocks in silence, with Wilson tripping more than once. House kept his gaze straight ahead; he really wasn’t sure where to go. But he trusted what he’d said to Wilson; they’d run into the right place.
“Hey!” Wilson stopped suddenly and grabbed House’s arm. “Check that out.” He turned to House with a giddy look. “Mechanical bull.”
House looked across the street to the bar Wilson had spotted. Indeed. A large sign with a neon bull stood like a beacon to drunks everywhere.
“Are you kidding me?” House said.
“C’mon,” Wilson cajoled. “They opened a mechanical-bull place in Princeton, like, a year ago, and I always wanted to go.”
House screwed up his face. “Why?”
“It seemed like fun,” Wilson said defensively. “I’ve never done anything like that.”
“With good reason,” House replied. Then he paused. “Why didn’t you go to the one in Princeton?”
“Well, you wouldn’t have gone. And who else would I go with?” Wilson said offhandedly.
House looked at him. “What do you mean?” For some reason, he felt he needed to assure Wilson there were people in the world who would ride fake bulls with him.
“Chase would have gone with you,” House said confidently. “Taub, too. He wouldn’t have been able to actually get on the bull, due to height restrictions. But he would’ve cheered you on.”
Wilson shrugged. “Maybe,” he mumbled.
Then he looked at House in drunken earnest. “Listen, I know you can’t get on the thing. But we can stand around and watch people get tossed and make fun of them. And then after my turn, you can make fun of me.”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
Wilson grinned, and House got that feeling in his chest again.
The next thing he knew he was standing in the Bull Barn, surrounded by the twang of country music and more neon.
The bar was fairly crowded for a Tuesday night, mainly with tourists, House assumed. Everyone had that loud, overly excited manner of out-of-town visitors. Or it could have been mechanical-bull-induced euphoria.
The bull stood at far end-in the middle of a corral that was heavily padded to make for soft landings. House relaxed a little. Even drunk, Wilson was unlikely to hurt himself in that thing.
As had become their routine, House hunted for a table while Wilson gathered drinks. Near the corral there was a raised platform with tables and booths, for maximum viewing and mocking potential. House snagged a small table right by the platform’s wood railing.
“Ooo!” Wilson said when he arrived, obviously pleased with the vantage point.
House looked at Wilson’s drink. It was closer to red than pink; vodka and cranberry, he predicted, since that was Wilson’s girly choice back home. “No more Hurricanes?”
“No, they mess me up,” Wilson said, as if that point needed to be made. “I want to be in top bull-riding form.”
“Obviously.”
Wilson wagged an index finger at House. “You don’t think I can do it.”
House shrugged. “Depends what you mean by ‘do it.’ I believe you can get on the thing. Probably. But-”
House was suddenly distracted by a voluptuous dark-haired woman who’d just mounted the bull and was now beginning to undulate in time with the hunk of leather beneath her.
He turned to Wilson. “This is more interesting than I thought it would be.”
Wilson smirked, but it quickly morphed into a pout. “You really think I’d just be able to get on it?”
House pondered the question, trying to look at it scientifically. “Actually,” he had to admit, “you might be good at it. You’re all legs. You just have to really squeeze your legs around the thing…That’s possibly the dirtiest thing I’ve ever said to you.”
Wilson smiled a little, then ducked his head. A moment later, he grabbed his drink and downed half of it. “I hafta get in line,” he told House, standing up.
House watched Wilson carefully negotiate the few steps down to the main floor, then make his way to the line. It was fairly short; most of the bar patrons, apparently, were there to watch.
A sudden “Aww!” from the crowd brought House’s attention back to the corral, where the brunette was now sprawled on the mats, a good distance from the bull. House had missed her involuntary dismount. Damn.
He watched as a couple of morons came and went. One guy, clearly plastered, lasted five seconds, and his demise wasn’t particularly entertaining. House was disappointed. Besides, mocking people in his head wasn’t nearly as much fun as doing it out loud with Wilson.
Then he saw Wilson at the head of the line, handing over his five dollars and listening as the bull operator spoke in his ear.
House felt his heart rate pick up. He wasn’t actually afraid Wilson would get hurt, but for a reason he couldn’t identify he was getting nervous.
Wilson stumbled a little as he walked over to the bull, and House internally groaned. C’mon.
Wilson put his hands on the bull to steady himself, then gingerly swung a leg over it. The operator waited until Wilson had taken the standard position-one hand holding the handle on the bull’s “neck,” the other arm raised.
And then the bull began to move. At first, Wilson looked slightly shocked, and his legs flailed for a moment. “No,” House said out loud.
As if he heard, Wilson quickly hugged his legs into the bull, like his life depended on it.
About ten seconds later, the bull began to buck with more gusto, and a mass “ohhh” came from the onlookers. But Wilson was still holding on, and the deer-in-headlights expression had changed to something closer to determination.
The bull started going faster again. House could no longer clearly see Wilson’s expression, but he could see his grip on the bull tightening. He felt his own grip on his cane matching it.
Hang on. C’mon, hang on. In the back of his mind, House knew this was ridiculous. But his heart was pounding now, and it drown out his logic.
The bull suddenly bucked so hard its nose almost hit the mats, and House stopped breathing. But Wilson kept his legs glued to the thing and leaned his upper body back; the crowd cheered his obvious bull-riding skills.
“That’s it,” House found himself whispering. “Hang on. Hang on.”
And Wilson did, for about ten seconds more, before the bull finally flung him all the way to the padded side of the corral. The crowd let out a collective “Awww!” that quickly became a din of cheers and whoops.
House just kept his eyes on Wilson, watching him slowly get up. When he turned around, there was a dopey grin on his face. Then House joined in the whooping-feeling like an idiot but not really caring.
Wilson’s time went up on the digital display on the wall: one minute, twenty-two seconds. The crowd gave another cheer.
When Wilson stumbled back to the table, his hair was in disarray and his eyes were slightly wild. He collapsed in his chair and looked at House expectantly.
“You are an unbelievable dork,” House pronounced.
Wilson giggled, as if to confirm the statement. It quickly turned into a coughing fit, and Wilson reached for the water he’d actually had the foresight to get along with their drinks.
Once he caught his breath, Wilson said, with some excitement, “The guy said I had the best time this round. If these last couple people don’t beat it, I win.”
“Win what?”
Wilson paused, looking puzzled. “I dunno.” Then he shook his head. “Who cares?”
House felt a smile forming, so he smirked to head it off. “Yes. The glory itself is enough.”
Wilson snorted, then reached for his drink and held it aloft.
House looked Wilson in the eyes, then raised his glass. “L'chaim, Wilson.”
Wilson paused, blinking slowly as if to focus his drunken eyes on House’s. They touched their glasses together. “L’chaim, House.”
*******
House gazed at the cartoonishly large, felt cowboy hat perched atop Wilson’s head. It was yellow with a blue star on the front. And it was Wilson’s prize for staying on a fake bull longer than any other drunk had.
“It suits you,” House decided.
Wilson pushed the hat back from his eyes, where it kept slipping. “Thanks.”
They were sitting at a small table in the courtyard behind the bar; Wilson had wanted some air. Unlike the drinking holes back home, New Orleans bars allowed smoking, and the air inside had started to aggravate his cough.
House was glad to get away from the smoke and general idiocy, too. The courtyard was deserted, except for a couple making out on a bench at the opposite end. They were partly hidden by some banana tree leaves, so House could mostly ignore them.
“No, seriously,” House said. “You can actually pull off the cowboy look.”
Wilson smirked, as the hat slowly slid toward his eyes again.
“I was thinking,” House ventured, then paused to drink from his water glass. “We should hit Texas next. It’s right down the road. And you can show everybody your new hat.”
Wilson didn’t say anything, and House couldn’t quite see his eyes under the hat brim.
“I’ve heard Austin is actually a cool place, as Texas goes,” House forged on. “Good music scene.”
He took another sip of water. “But Houston is closer. We could go there first.”
Wilson pushed his hat back and looked at House for a long moment. His eyes were still a bit shiny from drinking and laughing and bull-riding.
“And should we visit Dr. Chiu?” he asked.
House felt his stomach twist a bit at getting caught. But he kept his poker face.
Wilson sighed. “You should learn to clear your search history,” he said calmly.
House nodded. “Guess so.”
He waited for Wilson to say something more, but he was just looking down at his hands, tapping the side of his latest vodka and cranberry. So House spoke up.
“Sixteen of twenty-two alive-”
“Those numbers don’t tell the whole story, House. You know that.”
“They say enough,” House said briskly.
Wilson sat back in his chair and took his hat off. He kept his eyes down as he spoke. “I called Chiu…We talked after I did the chemo, before the scan. I just had a feeling it-it didn’t work.”
He paused and glanced at House.
“And?” House prompted.
“Well, it’s not sixteen anymore. It’s fifteen-”
“Still sounds good.”
“Except for the other ones who died during treatment-because of treatment sometimes. Half of the patients in the study developed severe neutropenia and landed in the hospital. Two of them died from bacterial infections.”
House leaned over the table toward Wilson. “You keep forgetting to mention the fifteen who are fine.”
Wilson shook his head. “Well, they’re not fine, House. One of them has heart failure now. Probably from a combination of the doxorubicin and radiation. Another one has pulmonary fibrosis-”
“OK, that’s two. And people can live for years with heart failure. So yeah, I can see why you’d prefer to just die,” House sneered.
Wilson closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“No,” House said firmly. “Don’t shut down on me. I get that you don’t want to be the one who dies from neutropenia. But if you don’t try, you will definitely be the one who dies from thymoma.”
He leaned in again. “And then that’s it. There is nothing else after that.”
Wilson barked a laugh. “Yeah, House, so you’ve told me. There’s nothing. There are no ghosts, no Pig Men, no…psychic powers. There’s nothing, and it scares the shit out of me.”
Wilson scrubbed at his face. “I’m officially afraid to die,” he said through his hands. Then he looked up. “Are you happy now?”
“Thrilled,” House said bitterly.
Wilson shook his head and looked off to the side. House noticed that at some point the lovey-dovey couple must have hightailed it out of there. But he really couldn’t give a shit about making a scene.
He looked again at Wilson; his eyes were closed and his lips were pressed together in a tight line. He didn’t want Wilson to be scared; he just wanted him to live.
“Why,” House hesitated. “Why don’t you believe you can be one of the survivors?”
Wilson was silent for a few moments. “Because,” he said slowly. “Because…nothing good ever happens.”
House furrowed his brow. “What does that mean?”
Wilson reached for his drink and polished it off. Then he looked at House with a small, embarrassed smile.
“Everything always turns to shit,” he said simply. “I-I can’t remember the last time I felt like things were…right.”
Wilson laughed awkwardly. “When’s the last time something good happened, House?”
House didn’t know how to answer that. It didn’t matter, though, because Wilson kept talking. “You of all people know,” he insisted. “Stacy, Cuddy. Anytime you’ve thought you had something good, it just…And now you’re dead.”
Wilson laughed again, sounding like he was coming unhinged.
House felt a sharp pain in his gut. “What does any of that have to do with your cancer? What, you think we both have fate working against us?”
Wilson pressed his lips together, blinking back tears now.
“It’s not fate,” House said emphatically. “Bad things have happened to me. But I’ve also made a lot of shit choices.” He paused, letting his admission hang in the air.
Wilson looked at him, and House leaned forward. “You cannot afford to make a shit choice on this one, Wilson.”
Wilson wiped at his eyes. “Oh, I know,” he assured in a shaky voice. “I don’t wanna die doing chemo. Or from some fucking staph infection in the hospital. And-and miss out on actually living for a while.”
He glanced at House. “I don’t wanna choose wrong. Yet again.”
“What do you mean, again?”
Wilson shrugged. “Isn’t that what my whole life has been? One bad move after another?”
House opened his mouth to argue, but Wilson cut him off. “I’ve managed to fuck up every relationship in my life.” Wilson laughed humorlessly again. “No one even…”
He trailed off, tensing his jaw and looking away. But House could tell where he’d been heading. He could almost see the self-flagellating wheels turning in that once perfectly coiffed head.
And everything became clearer: Wilson wasn’t just afraid of the treatment going horribly wrong. Even if he wouldn’t admit it out loud, he was also afraid of it working-and sending him back to a life he wasn’t sure he wanted.
Even now, House realized, there was some part of Wilson that thought everyone liked him, but no one loved him. And it pissed House off.
But he knew he had to speak carefully, which was not his forte.
“I know you’re afraid of…what could happen,” House said, trying to keep his voice even. “And it’s-it’s OK if you’re choosing this because you think it’s best.” He paused. “But I don’t think you’re really choosing.”
Wilson looked at him. “I think,” House said quickly. “I think you’re just accepting what’s happening to you. And that’s different.”
Wilson’s lip trembled a bit, and he darted his eyes to the cowboy hat on the table in front of him. House felt his heart pounding; he didn’t want Wilson to retreat from him now.
“You called Chiu for a reason,” he said, quiet but insistent. “You want to try.”
House’s throat tightened, and he couldn’t keep quashing the bitterness that wanted to escape. “And I don’t give a fuck what Kyle Calloway told me on that bus,” he said. “You do not just let everything go. You do not just quit.”
Wilson lifted his gaze. His eyes were softer now, but he shook his head. “That’s not even true,” Wilson said hoarsely. “You said it yourself. I’ve quit on every relationship I've ever had. I…”
House flinched slightly at the playback of his own words-said as an offhanded insult, before any of this. But he quickly corrected Wilson.
“I said you’ve bailed on every relationship except ours.” House paused. “And I was wrong about that anyway.”
Wilson looked at him warily. He was probably expecting House to accuse him of quitting on them, too.
“I was wrong,” House said again. “You never quit on your brother. Or Amber. Or your dying patients. Or your neighbor’s fucking diabetic cat…You lost them, but you didn’t quit.”
They looked at each other for a moment before Wilson ducked his head again. House could see him chewing his bottom lip.
House reached for that ridiculous cowboy hat, sitting on the table, and put it on Wilson’s head. “There. How can you say nothing good ever happens?” he asked.
Wilson looked up and the hat started to slide toward his eyes. He choked out a short laugh.
They sat then, in silence. House had no idea where to go from here. He couldn’t guilt Wilson into getting more treatment, as much as the selfish part of him wanted to.
Wilson didn’t seem to know what to do now, either. He was just tapping his fingers on the table, gazing down, with that stupid hat obscuring his face.
Then House suddenly knew exactly where to go. “Come on,” he said. “I wanna hit one more place tonight.”
“Oh,” Wilson shook his head. “House, it’s been a long day.”
“I know, I know,” House said impatiently. “I was gonna save this for our last day, but I think now is better. C’mon. It won’t take long.”
He stood up and led the way back into the bar and through the crowd. Behind him, he heard a few people cheer and congratulate Wilson as he passed. And House let himself smile a little.
*******
House was wrong about it not taking long. The walk to Decatur Street was more of a hike than he’d anticipated, with his bum leg and Wilson’s inebriation. And the longer they walked, the more House feared the place might have closed down-even though he’d checked on it, back when they’d decided to head to New Orleans.
It had started to rain, but he and Wilson were mostly shielded by the second-story balconies that extended to cover the sidewalks. And Wilson still had his hat; House thought he might have forgotten it was there.
House slowed down so he could peer more closely at the endless line of pubs and restaurants they were passing. He was starting to think he’d gotten the location wrong when he saw the sign, partway down the block and hanging from the balcony above.
Scarlett’s Pour House.
“Here,” he said to Wilson, who was trailing behind.
House stopped in front of the place and took in its battered wood door and equally worn shutters. Nothing’s changed, he thought, with some satisfaction. Not even Katrina got to it.
He turned to Wilson. “Recognize it?”
Wilson pushed his hat back, looking slightly dazed with alcohol and fatigue. “Um?”
House sighed. “Really?”
Wilson blinked slowly a couple times. “Is this…?”
“Yep,” House said. “Wanna go in and see if they ever replaced the mirror you assaulted?”
“I-” Wilson seemed to be frozen in his spot. “House, I don’t know.”
“Are you afraid the Billy Joel guy is still there?”
Wilson laughed a little, sounding nervous. “I’m just tired,” he said.
“Come on,” House tilted his head toward the door. “We’ll just pop in. Maybe break some shit and run.”
Wilson nodded mutely.
The inside of the bar was much as House remembered it, too. A lot nicer than the beat-up exterior suggested, but still just your basic bar. No candlelight or neon or mechanical bulls. Just a mahogany bar against one wall, scattered tables and a jukebox at the far end.
Completely nondescript, but House had never forgotten it.
“You wanna sit at the bar?” he asked, turning to Wilson.
Wilson shook his head. “Bad memories of sitting at the bar.”
“Right,” House said. “Table’s better anyway.”
He led the way to a table close to the bar and sat down. Wilson, though, just stood by his chair for a few moments-taking off his hat and staring at the bar. “They did get a new mirror,” he said quietly.
House turned to look at the large antique mirror centered on the wall behind the bar. “So they did.”
When Wilson kept staring, House added, “Why don’t you sit? I’ll get the drinks this time. They probably won’t ID me.”
Wilson just nodded and took a seat.
House came back with two diet Cokes; he decided they’d had enough alcohol for one night.
They sat in silence for a couple minutes, sipping their drinks before Wilson finally spoke. “I don’t think I ever knew the name of this place,” he admitted. “I…was kind of out of it the last time.”
“As I recall.”
Wilson looked at him. “I-I thought my life was over. That night, I mean,” he said, with an awkward little smile.
House stayed quiet; he knew when Wilson was on the verge of rambling.
“Ya know,” Wilson said, “it wasn’t even losing Sam so much. I knew we weren’t happy. It was the failing. So soon after Danny.”
He glanced at House, as if looking for the green light to continue. “I felt…alone. And then this weird guy I’d never even met bailed me out of jail.”
House tried to look affronted. “Weird?”
“Uh, yeah,” Wilson said. “You gotta admit it’s weird to bail out someone you don’t even know.”
House shrugged. “I’m a philanthropist.”
Wilson smiled softly, genuinely this time. “I was a little scared of you, actually. I mean, you said you were a doctor, but you were wearing a Ramones t-shirt, sooo…But then you gave me the Pringles.”
“Snack foods do build bridges,” House said. Then he wagged an index finger at Wilson. “You do remember.”
Wilson nodded. “I remember.”
They were quiet again for a few moments. House drummed his fingers on the table, then cleared his throat. “This isn’t manipulation, you know. This isn’t a con.”
Wilson looked at him, but House couldn’t read his expression. “I just,” House began. “I wanted you to remember that good things happen.”
He looked down at his fingers, still drumming, and mentally willed Wilson to get what he meant so he wouldn’t have to say it out loud.
Then he heard Wilson say, again, “I remember.”
House nodded. “OK, then.”
He reached for his drink. The jukebox was playing one of “today’s hits” that would be forgotten tomorrow, House figured. He knew, like Wilson said, that most good things crumble eventually. But once in a while they lasted.
*******
House woke to the sound of the shower running. His head felt heavy and his mouth tasted like something had crawled inside and died. It had been about 3 a.m. when they’d gotten back to their room, and House had simply collapsed into bed. He looked at the clock on the nightstand: 10 a.m.
Wilson had always been able to function on about five hours of sleep. Even when he’d been drinking, “sleeping in” meant spending about six or seven hours in bed. House defined the term differently.
He groaned and put his other pillow over his head. It seemed like only seconds passed before he heard Wilson’s voice. “House? You need to get up soon.”
“No!” House growled from beneath his pillow.
He could sense Wilson taking his hands-on-hips stance. “C’mon. We’re only here a couple more days. I don’t wanna spend it in a hotel room.”
House tore the pillow from his head. “Well, maybe I do.”
Wilson looked at him, not quite hiding his amusement. “Too bad. I’m the one with cancer. You’re just fake-dead.”
“Ooo, burn!” House said, turning onto his back.
A few seconds later, though, he sat up. House didn’t want to waste their time, either. But he would bitch as much as possible while not wasting it.
After a quick shower and desperately needed tooth-brushing, House came into the room to find Wilson on his iPad.
“So,” he said. “What flea markets do you have on our agenda today?”
Wilson just smiled, keeping his eyes on the screen.
House walked to his bed to put his shoes on. “I say we go for an obscenely huge brunch,” he proposed. “Maximum eating in one sitting. It’s a real time-saver.”
“OK,” Wilson said agreeably. He stood and began to fish around in his backpack. “And what about a couple days from now?” he asked casually. “Where do you think we should head?”
House looked at him. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Like you said, you’re the one with cancer.”
Wilson nodded, keeping his back toward House and apparently very interested in his backpack. “Riiight. I was wondering…What do you think of Houston?”
If House didn’t know better, he’d swear his heart stopped.
Wilson turned and looked at him, with some complicated mix of fear, hope and something else House couldn’t identify.
House swallowed. “Houston? That could be a good idea.”
He looked to the wall, past Wilson and toward Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, trying to appear as if he were mulling it over. “It is pretty close to the Mexican border. They probably have a place or two where I could get a fake ID.”
Wilson nodded. “True.”
“How long are you thinking of staying there?” House asked.
Wilson shook his head, then sighed. “Not sure…Are you OK with being there a while?”
House took a deep, steadying breath. “Fine,” he said. “But after that I need more temperate climes. Water, too.”
Wilson was clearly fighting a smile. “That…sounds good. Where are you thinking?”
House shrugged. “Maybe San Fran? No one’ll bat an eye at two middle-aged guys shacking up together. Well, they might bat their eyelashes at you…”
Wilson rolled his eyes. “Uh-huh…Actually, San Francisco is a good idea. I hear MC Hammer has a good shot of becoming their next mayor.”
“Then I’m sold.”
Wilson held House’s gaze for a moment. “OK,” he said, before turning back to his bag.
House turned his attention back to his shoes. He noticed his hands were trembling a bit as he laced his sneakers. But it was the kind of shakiness that wasn’t bad. It told him he was alive, that there were still things to feel.
So it was OK. He could take the shakiness and the not-knowing, as long as there was also something to hold on to.
He looked at Wilson. “You ready?”
Wilson shouldered his backpack, having freed it of everything he didn’t need. “Yeah.”
“C’mon,” House said, starting for the door. “I know a place with the best Creole Bloody Mary…and bananas Foster, oh my gawd. No dress code, either.”
Wilson shrugged, raising his hands. “Let the insanity begin.”
House nodded, allowing a small smile. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the New Orleans sun.
--End
Continue on to Houston
NOTES: I based the study in this fic on an actual study done at MD Anderson. It's several years old, but there aren't a ton of clinical trials on thymoma because it's so rare. An abstract of the study is here, if you like to read medical jargon.