Before (Mega House/Wilson pre-show fic) Part 1

[triedunture]

Title: Before
Pairing: House/Wilson one-sided?
Warnings: possible dubcon, pre-show timeline twisting
Summary: It all starts with Wilson's first day at PPTH.

<><><>

The first time he walked through the doors of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, James Wilson couldn’t help but notice the floor was sticky. Not as gross as the kind of gooey cement that often served the hometown movie theatre, but still a little sticky.

Of course, these were the days before carpeted, stadium-seating movie theatres.

The point is, Dr. Wilson’s first day of residency at the PPTH Oncology Department began with that niggling feeling in the back of his mind that something, somehow, was about to go terribly wrong. After all, if the cleaning staff couldn’t keep the floors from grabbing at his loafers with every step, what would be the caliber of the rest of the hospital? It was a bad omen.

He clutched his newly-minted plastic nametag in his left hand and stared at the printed sheet of paper in his right. The professional font spelled out concise directions to report to his department head on the third floor.

Wilson paused at the elevator bay to scan the floor roster posted in a glass frame on the wall. Sure enough, Dr. Benson’s office was listed on Floor Three. He pressed the up button and rocked back on his heels to wait.

A shout came from the clinic. “Move it or lose it!”

Wilson turned around just in time to see a man, tall, clad in blue jeans and a tee, rollerblading towards him like he was being chased by the devil. The man might have been a doctor; he wore a white lab coat with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and had a stethoscope slung around his neck.

But then Wilson considered that the man was just insane. It seemed infinitely more likely.

A middle-aged woman in her own doctor’s coat ran out of an exam room, her face a livid red. “God damn you,” she screamed after the rollerblader, “get back here with that sample!”

The man indeed held a vial of something (Spinal fluid? Urine?) to his chest. He skated nimbly around nurses and patients, hollering, “You’ll have to catch me first!”

The elevator Wilson had been waiting for dinged open, and Wilson found himself shoved unceremoniously to the ground as the skating psychiatric patient made a break for freedom.

The floor stuck to his cheek. Wilson had just enough time to turn his head and glare up at the closing elevator doors.

Bright blue eyes gazed down at him, and the man waggled his fingers in greeting. “Sorry, buddy. I’m saving lives here.”

And then the doors clicked shut.

Wilson sighed before struggling to his feet. The sudden disruption had already been passed over, and the clinic was again busy with ringing telephones and the chatter of workers and patients. Apparently, this sort of thing was a regular occurrence at PPTH.

The soles of Wilson’s shoes felt gummy. He decided to take the stairs instead. When he came home that night, Bonnie was still unpacking their newly-mingled belongings.

“So how was it?” she asked.

Wilson kissed her forehead and told her it was great, even though it was a lie. When he went to bed, he dreamt he was being attacked by roller skating carhops.

<><><>

Months and months later, Wilson started to get into the groove of working in his department. The work was hard, the hours were crap, but he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. The oncology staff was one of the best in the country, and he didn’t feel stifled or looked-over like at his previous posts. And besides, as Bonnie kept pointing out, there was Ashley’s alimony to think about. Princeton paid well, and the cost of living was much less here than in Massachusetts.

Wilson got the feeling that Bonnie didn’t like it in Princeton, that she might bolt back to Boston at any moment. He often daydreamed of coming home to their empty two-bedroom, an unfinished lunch still on the counter perhaps, and a note saying no more, James. No more.

It was silly to consider. She was always there when he came home.

These are the sort of thoughts that drifted into his head while he sat charting his portion of the department’s current patients. It was mindless work; he could do it with his eyes closed. Wilson had some half-formed hope for something interesting to distract him in the empty oncology lounge.

A dusty brick fell on the open chart on the table before him, making him jump at the loud sound. Fine red dust coated the papers he had been writing on. Wilson looked up, his mouth open and his brow furrowed, to see the same set of bizarre blue eyes from his first day of work.

“My patient needs a CT scan,” the tall man growled, his arms crossed over his chest.

He was dressed much the same as before: casual clothing hidden beneath a lab coat with the sleeves rolled up jauntily, revealing a plastic children’s watch, the kind you might find in a Happy Meal, on his left wrist. His hair was dark and curly, cropped close to his skull. His forearms were tan, like he spent a lot of time outside, and his shoulders were broad but not bulky. He had the kind of expressive face that wasn’t particularly attractive, but fascinating to watch.

In fact, Wilson couldn’t look away from the angry tick in his jaw.

“Now,” the man insisted.

Wilson used the end of his pen to point at the brick in front of him. “And that’s for…?”

“Bashing you over the head if you don’t get your patient out of the scanner in five minutes,” he replied.

Wilson blinked and considered the rectangular object, cocking his head to the side in a show of confusion. “Did you walk all the way out to the parking lot, climb over a fence, sneak into the construction site for the new wing, steal a brick, and come all the way back here to threaten me with it?”

Hands were thrown up in frustration. “Yes. Now will you haul your patient out of there?”

“Hold on,” Wilson continued, eyeing the stranger but seeing no name tag pinned to his coat. “Why didn’t you just ask me first?”

Electric blue eyes blinked. “Would you have done it?”

“No.” Wilson shoved the brick to the other side of the table and bent over his charts again. “And I’m not doing it now. If you needed the scanner, you should have put it on the schedule.”

“If I had known my patient was going to need— You know what? It’ll be easier to knock you unconscious,” the man said, grabbing for the brick.

Wilson lunged across the table at the same moment and a scuffle ensued, both men grappling for a handhold on the grainy stone.

“You’re insane!” Wilson cried, half out of his chair, feeling the other man’s short fingernails digging into his hands.

“Stop complaining,” his adversary snapped. “Think of it as paid nap time.”

“Dr. Wilson?” an older woman in a white lab technician uniform asked from the doorway.

They both looked up at the sound and froze on either side of the charting table, still grasping the brick between them, stuck in a ridiculous tableau.

“Your patient is cleared to go back to his room,” the tech said without a trace of shock at the picture they presented. “The results should be ready by—”

Before she could finish, the tall man suddenly let go of the brick, letting Wilson stumble backwards with the force of his own pull. Without another glance at the other doctor, he raced past the woman in the doorway, the tails of his white coat flapping wildly. He shouted over his shoulder, “My guy’s next, and if I come back to see another chemo kid in the only working scanner…”

His threat faded as he ran down the hall, presumably to retrieve his own patient.

Wilson felt his face grow hot, and he threw the brick back onto the table with an angry grunt. “Who the hell does he think he is? Does he even work on this floor?”

The lab tech frowned at him, twisted in the doorway, ready to leave. “No one told you?” she asked.

Wilson perched his hands on his hips and took a few deep inhalations to calm his racing heart. “Who’s his department head?” he demanded. “That guy nearly assaulted me! I have half a mind to—”

“Dr. House doesn’t really have a department,” she answered with a shrug. “Technically, he’s listed on the ICU roster, but…”

Wilson dragged a hand through his bangs. They were getting too long. “But what?”

“He’s a floater. A freelancer.” Another shrug. “Other departments come to him when they run into a problem. He fixes it for them.”

Wilson stared at her. “That makes no sense,” he said.

A loud shout came from the hallway, accompanied by the squeak of a wheelchair. The lab tech glanced in that direction and sighed. “Look, if you have a problem with the guy, get in line. He’s a bit of a bastard.” She finally turned to leave, shouting down the hall, “I’m coming, House! Don’t break down the door!”

Wilson rolled his eyes and sat down again to brush red dust from his charts. “I’m going to talk to Dean Quick about this,” he mumbled to himself.

But his patients filled his day and he quickly forgot all about Dr. House. Although that night he dreamt he was being sealed behind a brick wall, a la the Cask of Amontillado. He couldn’t see his captor’s face in the dark, but he recognized the cackling laugh.

<><><>

The results he held in his hands were impossible. Wilson slammed the file shut, took a deep breath, and opened it once more. No, the tests were still negative.

“What the hell is happening to her?” Wilson mumbled to himself, scanning the patient’s chart once more.

It was late and he should have been on his way home, but Wilson couldn’t bring himself to leave the hospital when his case was in such a frustrating state of limbo. He had been sitting in the lounge for a while now, tapping his pen against his lips and staring at the same set of facts laid out before him.

His tie was loosened around his throat, and the top two buttons of his shirt were undone. The starched white coat had been discarded and folded over the back of the lumpy couch. His sleeves were rolled halfway up his forearms. Wilson brought his right wrist up to check his watch, a wedding present from Bonnie’s mother.

Mrs. Frank liked Wilson very much. After Bonnie’s father had died, he had been there for her like no one else had. It was a little surprising how quickly they had become an item; one day Wilson was nodding politely to the MGH clerk, the next he was helping her wipe ruined mascara off her cheeks and telling her it was all going to be okay.

The courtship had not lasted long. Though Wilson had voiced his concerns about marriage (“I did it once before when I was just a stupid kid in med school.”) Bonnie had been adamant (“You’re not a stupid kid anymore, are you?”).

The silvery watch hands showed it was nearly seven. Wilson sighed and reached up for the staff phone attached to the wall behind the sofa. He dialed their house number and waited. After three rings, Bonnie picked up.

“I’m sorry,” Wilson told her, “but I’m probably not going to make it home for dinner.”

The crackle-static of her voice flowed through the line, high-pitched and wondering. Wilson switched the receiver to his other ear.

“It’s this patient,” he explained. “I thought I’d be done with her sooner, but she’s getting worse. I’m going to—”

Two things interrupted Wilson: one was Bonnie, her thready voice asking an unheard question, and the other was the lounge door slamming open to reveal the man Wilson had been happy to forget up to this point.

“ICU’s out of peanut butter,” House said loudly despite the fact that Wilson was on the phone.

Wilson scowled, but waved a hand in the direction of some cupboards. He tried to give his wife a mumbling response over the phone, making it clear to her that he really was sorry.

“This is smooth,” House complained, peering into the pilfered jar. “Don’t you have crunchy?”

Wilson rolled his eyes and pointedly turned away from the other doctor, cradling the phone against his ear and listening to Bonnie.

“I don’t know when I’ll be done,” he answered her. “I’m going to try a few more tests, and if those don’t work out, I’ll throw in the towel for the day.”

“Towel? Throw? The?” Dr. House was suddenly at his shoulder, eating out of the jar with a plastic spoon. “What’re the symptoms?” he asked around a mouthful of sticky peanut butter.

Blocking the other man with his shoulder, Wilson whispered into the phone. “I’ve got to go, okay? Love you.” House jostled him as he hung up the receiver. “What is your problem?” he finally said to the man.

“Low blood sugar,” he retorted. “Your patient’s problem, on the other hand, looks much more interesting.”

“This is my case,” Wilson said firmly. “I’m not letting you take it, even if you try to hit me with a brick.”

House looked up at the corner of the ceiling thoughtfully. “Oh, you’re the Brick Guy?” he said with sudden realization. “I knew you looked familiar. But with all these incompetent doctors running around, I get a little confused.”

Wilson felt his face flush with anger, and he opened his mouth to shout something hopefully witty back at his opponent, but the door opened again and a beautiful dark-haired woman poked her head into the room.

“Greg,” she said. “I’m heading out. You coming?”

House set his snack down on the coffee table and crossed the room to her. “Sorry, Stacy,” he said, pecking her on the lips. “But I’ve got some cool doctor stuff lined up right now.”

“No you—” Wilson began to protest.

“Well, you boys have fun then,” Stacy said with a smile, giving House a small kiss in return. “See you at home.”

The door swung shut behind her, and House turned with a grin. “So, where were we? Patient presents with…?”

“I am not an incompetent doctor!” Wilson cried. “I am not Brick Guy. And I’m not handing over this case to an utter lunatic.”

House swung himself onto the arm of a stuffed chair, leaning back with all the grace of a cat. “No,” he said like he was speaking to a child. “You’re James Wilson of Princeton-Plainsboro, formerly of Mass General, and the top in your class at U of Penn, specializing in oncology with an extra special specialty in surgical oncology.” He crossed his legs and cupped his hands around one knee. “You’re too young to be a normal resident, so my guess is that you really applied yourself, maybe skipped a few grades as a kid, maybe even had parents and teachers toying with the idea that you were a child prodigy. But you knew you weren’t a savant, you just learned things faster. Yet you still work hard to outshine your colleagues because it’s still expected of you.” House tapped his brown loafer on the table in front of him. “You’re not stupid. But you’re not perfect. And if you don’t want this kid to die, you’ll stop being the Golden Boy long enough to ask me for a goddamn consult.”

Wilson gaped. “You looked at my records?” He blinked. “You didn’t just waltz in here and stumble upon this case. You knew I had it, didn’t you?”

House picked up the peanut butter jar, scraped around in it with the spoon, and popped another bite in his mouth. “I may have heard something about a little girl presenting with distorted vision,” he admitted. “You may as well tell me the rest.”

The oncologist massaged the back of his neck, a nervous habit he’d had since he was small. With a heavy sigh, he tossed the patient’s folder on the low coffee table within House’s reach.

“Amy Holden. Nine-year-old female, admitted this morning complaining of blurred vision. Her parents noticed she was reaching for things and not grabbing them, walking into walls, ducking to make room for things that aren’t there. The symptoms seem to get worse at night, and the ophthalmologist couldn’t find any physical problem with her eyes, so naturally I thought…”

“But it wasn’t a tumor,” House finished, flipping through the pages of the file.

Wilson sighed and slid further down the cushions of the sofa. “Can’t even find a shadow on her scans,” he said.

“Says here she had to be sedated,” House noted.

“She was scared. She’s just a kid,” Wilson pointed out.

“She’s a liar.” House let the folder fall back onto the table, not bothering with replacing all the pages neatly. “I think she’s hallucinating but won’t tell us because she’s afraid we’ll ship her up to the seventh floor with the rest of the crazies.”

“Well, she’s completely lucid. But I was thinking about having Randal from Neurology come in to take a look,” Wilson suggested, shuffling the papers back into the file.

House let out a snort of a laugh. “I wouldn’t let Randal poke around in my dog’s brain,” he said, “and I don’t even own a dog.”

“Then what’s your plan?” Wilson snapped back.

House stood fluidly and cracked his back with a satisfied sigh. “Give me five minutes alone with the kid, and I’ll have our answer,” he promised.

So while Wilson distracted the worried parents with a serious talk about their daughter’s condition out in the hallway, House slipped into the girl’s private room. Wilson kept the parents’ backs to the glass walls of the room, and he watched House’s movements with a wary eye. He still didn’t trust the man, but if he could offer any help to this case, Wilson would take it.

“So I’d like to discuss a few options with you,” Wilson continued, dragging out the talk to buy some more time. “Because the CT scans revealed no tumors…”

House was approaching the bed, tossing a metal slinky back and forth in his hands. His mouth moved, speaking to Amy Holden in the hospital bed, but Wilson couldn’t hear the words through the glass.

“…which is a good sign, of course, we just…”

With a flick of his wrist, House closed the window shade, leaving the room in relative darkness. The little girl seemed to say something to him, her hands waving in the air.

“…now have to run some more tests…” Wilson couldn’t help his eyes widening at the sight just beyond the mother’s shoulder.

The little girl was cowering away from House, throwing her plastic water cup at him, then her pillow, then the entire contents of her bedside table. House ducked the projectiles and approached the bed, his voice raised to a dull shout behind the glass.

“Oh no,” Wilson said just before Amy started screaming at the top of her lungs.

<><><>

“I can’t believe a grown man like yourself,” Wilson drawled sarcastically, “would bully a nine year old like that.”

House pressed the ice pack to his split lip (Mrs. Holden had one hell of a left hook) and smiled. “Doesn’t matter. I think I know what’s wrong with her,” he said.

Wilson spun the wheeled stool so that he was once again facing House. Sitting on the exam table with spots of blood decorating his yellow tee, House looked like any other accident-prone clinic patient. Wilson reached forward and gently took away the ice pack to look at the damage on House’s face, placing a palm on his smooth cheek to keep him steady.

“You won’t need stitches, at least,” he said. “So what’s the diagnosis, doctor?”

“She’s gone through the looking glass,” House replied, sitting still long enough to let the other man probe his injured mouth. “Little Amy is actually little Alice. Very little, in fact.”

Wilson shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“She sees things growing to gigantic proportions, or she feels herself shrinking. Her arms and legs sometimes feel like they’re too long or too short.” House touched his fingertips to his lip and pulled them away to check for blood, but the bleeding had stopped. “Alice in Wonderland syndrome. It gets worse at night when kids are looking for the monster under their bed.”

“What? What does that…?” Wilson sputtered.

“It means she has mono. Check her for Epstein-Barr,” House said. He hopped off the table. “Happens in a very small percentage of young patients. Instead of normal symptoms, their brains start giving them weird signals, like the nice doctor is really a giant who wants to step on you.” He gave the other doctor a nod and opened the door. “Thanks for the cold pack, Wilson,” he said, turning to leave.

“Wait,” Wilson called, swiveling around on the stool. “If you hadn’t known about this Wonderland syndrome, Randal might have drilled into her head for nothing.” He tilted his head and said, so slow and grudgingly that it sounded like pulling teeth, “You probably saved her life.”

House stared at him for a moment. “Yeah. Duh.” And with that, he left.

When Wilson finally got home around midnight, Bonnie was already in bed but not asleep, though she steadfastly ignored him as he crawled between the sheets.

Wilson fell asleep and dreamt that he was very small, about the size of a thimble. He tried to run across the gaping white expanse of the table in Exam Room Two, but House came and picked him up between his thumb and forefinger. He held Wilson’s tiny, wriggling body in the air and wrinkled his nose at the sight.

“Shrinking Genius syndrome,” his voice boomed loudly. “Good thing I’m here or someone might have squashed you.” And he slipped Wilson into the breast pocket of his white coat, where it was warm and safe. He stayed there and listened to House’s heartbeat thumping deep within his chest.

<><><>

More time went by, and before he knew it, Wilson had been at PPTH for over a year. He still loved the work, though it kept him very busy. Once in awhile, he’d see House stalking the halls or hear about the man’s latest adventure in pissing someone off, but he never had time to stop and chat with him.

He wasn’t actually sure if he wanted to. House wasn’t the sort of man you chatted with, was he? He was more like a bristly porcupine, snapping at the fingers of unsuspecting campers.

The resident lawyer, Stacy Dorn, didn’t seem to mind, though. Wilson wondered how House had managed to snag such a gorgeous woman. Maybe the old saying was true, he thought: Nice guys finish last. A cruel and honest part of this mind supplied Bonnie as evidence.

Things weren’t going so well at home. Small annoyances, things you didn’t notice before you started living with a person, were slowly coming to light. Bonnie didn’t work, so her only task in life was taking care of their house, though she wasn’t any good at it. She had shrunk laundry, burned dinners, and generally failed at keeping things tidy. Wilson had hired a maid, though he often wondered aloud what Bonnie would do with herself.

She had had goals once, dreams. But now she seemed content to do nothing with her days except flipping through home furnishing catalogs, looking for the perfect suite for the guest bedroom.

“Why don’t you finish up your RN certification?” Wilson would say.

Bonnie would scoff. “Just what we need: both of us spending all day at that damn hospital.”

Wilson leaned against the nurses’ station, idly signing off on a patient’s chart and thinking about their future.

There was a sudden flurry of activity behind him as three doctors rushed by, shouting directions at each other, which Wilson caught only in snippets.

But they all ran out into the hallway before he could ask what was happening. It seemed other staff members were also hurrying by, all going in the same direction: the ER. Wilson managed to grab a stout nurse by the elbow.

“Multiple-injury accident?” he asked.

“It’s House.” That was all she said before she took off.

Wilson followed, swept up in the river of doctors and nurses, until he reached the ER at the end of the hallway. In the middle of a sea of stone-faced orderlies and hurried doctors, House was laid out on a gurney, clutching his right leg with one hand and Stacy Dorn’s wrist with the other.

“Somebody help him!” Stacy was yelling.

“He’s maxed out on morphine,” one nurse intoned, nodding towards the machine that doled out the drug.

House was gritting his teeth, his back arching off the sheets. “I knew!” he shouted between waves of pain. “I knew all along that—”

His voice dissolved into a scream, and one of the nurses suddenly pulled the curtain closed, shutting Wilson out of the scene.

The oncologist stood there for a minute, knowing it wasn’t any of his business and there was nothing he could do; House already had half the ER staff working on him.

He listened to the mingled shouts, the beeping machinery, and the squeaking gurney for a long moment. Then he caught sight of Stacy, leaning against the wall with her head in her hands. She had obviously been cast aside so the doctors could do their jobs. Wilson could relate to the crushing feeling of uselessness.

“Come on, Ms. Dorn,” he said softly, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll get you some coffee.”

<><><>

Wilson took care in balancing the two paper coffee cups in his hands as he made his way down the hall. He had sat Stacy down in the lounge, a quiet place where she could wait comfortably. The coffee was crap, just the sludge from the vending machine, but it would have to do. He barely knew the woman, and he certainly didn’t like the man attached to her, but House had helped him with the Holden case a few months ago, so Wilson felt he owed them some courtesy.

As he passed the nurses’ station, he heard several staff members chatting about the new drama in the ER.

“So it turns out House was right about the infarction?” One man, a doctor from NICU, shook his head. “That figures.”

“Yeah, but I guess it’s too late now.” A neurologist sipped from her coffee mug. “I hear they’re going to have to take the leg off.”

Wilson paused beside a potted palm, frozen at the words.

“Wow,” another doctor said with a roll of his eyes. “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

The knot of doctors laughed heartily, and Wilson stood watching them, the coffee cooling in his hands, and felt bile rise in his throat.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” he shouted over the laughter. It promptly died. The men and women in white coats turned to stare at him.

“You’re doctors,” Wilson said. “You’re supposed to want to help patients. You shouldn’t wish amputation on anyone, no matter how much of an asshole they are.” He looked down at the tepid drinks in his hands and threw them into a nearby trashcan in disgust before stalking away. The silence of the other doctors pressed against his back.

He was nearly to the lounge, taking deep breaths to calm his racing heart, when a hand touched his elbow.

“Hey.” He turned to find a female doctor, dark curly hair piled on top of her head, looking up at him. “What you just said to those guys…” she started to say.

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I shouldn’t have yelled like that. I know everyone deals with the job in their own way, and I’m just out of residency, and—”

“No, I thought you were right,” she said with a small smile. “We’re doctors. We help people.” She shrugged. “I’m just glad someone said something. This hospital needs a real attitude adjustment. I wish more doctors would consider a patient’s feelings like you do.”

Wilson blinked. “Um, thank you.” He stuck out his hand. “James Wilson, oncology.”

“Lisa Cuddy.” She shook his hand firmly in return. “Dean Quick is putting me in charge of House’s case.” From her tone of voice and her confident poise, Wilson could tell she was meant for administration. Best to stay on her good side.

“Well, Dr. Cuddy, I’ve got to find some decent coffee,” he said, releasing her hand. “House’s, uh, partner, she’s in the lounge and….”

“Stacy’s here?” Cuddy said with a gasp. “Oh god, I’m sure no one’s told her anything. I’ll take care of her, don’t worry. We department heads know where all the good coffeemakers are in this place,” she said with a wink.

She walked past him, clicking down the hall in her impossible heels. Wilson stuck his hands in his pockets and asked her, “Is he really going to lose the leg?”

Cuddy turned and frowned, her face drawn into a mask of worry. “I’m not sure,” she said with a shake of her head. “But it doesn’t look good.” She paused for a moment. “He’s a good doctor,” she said finally. “The best we have.”

“Yeah, I know,” Wilson said. She gave him a tight smile and walked away to deal with everything.

“Rough day?” Bonnie asked when he came home that night.

Wilson kissed her on the forehead in greeting but didn’t answer. He went straight to bed and dreamt he was a POW in the Vietnam War, and the Vietcong was slowly sawing off his hands, leaving only bloody stumps. The gold watch from his mother-in-law slid off his arm and was lost in the dust.

<><><>

Nearly two months later, Wilson ran into Cuddy in the elevator. He smiled, but she didn’t. That wasn’t normal for her, and Wilson was instantly worried.

“I’m glad I caught you,” she said. “I need you to do me a favor.”

Naturally, Wilson’s first thought went somewhere along the lines of a consult. He eyed the folders Cuddy held under her arm.

“Sure,” he answered with a shrug.

“I’m on the board, and an emergency meeting is being called tonight.” She licked her lips. “Dean Quick had a heart attack this morning.”

“Oh my god.” Wilson furrowed his brow. He didn’t know Quick that well; the Dean was a busy man, and their paths rarely crossed. But when he’d last seen him in the halls, the older man had seemed fine. “Is he okay?”

Cuddy made a so-so gesture with her palm. “He’ll recover, but he told his attending he wants to retire. Says the stress of the job is too much for him.” She dug around in the pocket of her lab coat and fished out a slip of paper. “This is House’s address,” she said, pressing it into his hand. “I told him I’d stop by tonight to check on him, but I just won’t have the time. Do you think you could…?”

Wilson went wide-eyed, his mouth opening and closing before he could speak. “I’m not so sure I’d be…I mean, I hardly know the guy, and I don’t think he likes me much.”

“Wilson, I’m sorry. I know it’s the last thing you want to do after work,” Cuddy sighed. “But without Stacy, he’s a wreck. Just make sure he’s not dead on the bathroom floor, heat up some food, and let him yell about something for awhile.” She checked her watch and groaned. “Please? I wouldn’t ask except you’re one of the few people who’s ever spoken up for him. And I can’t miss this meeting.”

“Stacy left him?” Wilson asked, though a tiny part of his brain said finally.

“Actually, House threw her out.” The elevator stopped and Cuddy stepped out, walking briskly and calling over her shoulder. “I wouldn’t bring it up. Thank you, I owe you one!” And she disappeared around the corner.

Wilson considered the address on the scrap of paper as he exited the elevator. It sounded familiar, a neighborhood not far from campus. A visit would only take a few moments, and for all his talk about helping others in their time of need, Wilson knew he’d have to go.

He found a staff phone and called Bonnie to tell her he’d be late. Again.

<><><>

Wilson consulted Cuddy’s note once more and glanced at the street sign outside his Volvo’s windshield. Baker Street…this was the place. He got out of the car and approached a tidy row of townhouses, the kind that nicely-settled professors might occupy. The neighborhood was close to campus, but secluded in a tree-lined boulevard. It looked very homey.

He counted off the numbers on the dark green doors until he came to 221. The vestibule door was open, and apartment B was there on the right, just like Cuddy’s neat script had promised. Wilson took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

There was nothing. Silence. Wilson knocked again.

“Dr. House?” he called. “It’s Dr. Wilson. Lisa Cuddy told me to come.” A shuffling noise floated through the door. “Dr. House, are you there?” Wilson tried again.

A loud bang followed by the sound of breaking glass made Wilson jerk his ear from the cool wood and grab for the brass doorknob. The door wasn’t locked, and he stepped inside.

The remains of a shattered water glass lay scattered on the threshold, and Wilson stepped over them gingerly.

House stretched across a brown leather sofa in the middle of the living room, wearing a tee shirt with a mustard stain and a pair of plaid boxers. A white bandage covered most of his affected thigh, the low depression barely noticeable beneath the gauze. A pair of metal crutches leaned in a messy X against the low coffee table. It wasn’t a large place by any means: there was a kitchen off to the left, and Wilson could see a bedroom down the hall and a bathroom after that. But this room was big enough to hold all sorts of heavy, dark furniture as well as a piano.

Everything seemed to be in disarray. The broken glass was mingling with chipped china and shreds of papers on the wooden floor. Walls of bookcases had gaps where Stacy’s things had been removed. Dusty shadows decorated on the walls where frames had once hung. So House really had been stupid enough to send her away.

“You live in a nice area,” Wilson commented as if acquaintances threw projectiles at him all the time.

“You’re not Cuddy,” House said, his voice slow and scratchy. He lifted his head off the cushions as if it weighed a hundred pounds and glared up at the other man. “Oh god, she sent in the second-string do-gooder.”

Wilson approached the couch with his hands in the pockets of his slacks, but didn’t say anything. He just let House talk.

“I don’t want you here. Go away and tell Cuddy you held my hand and helped me through a dark time,” House muttered, burrowing his face back into the slick leather. “I’ll lie for you. Don’t worry, I’m good at it,” he said. He seemed to have tired himself with that small outburst, and his body molded into the cushions like a wilted plant.

Wilson ignored him and began picking up the refuse from where it was cluttered around the baseboards and along the fringe of the rug. Torn photographs and small, handwritten notes rolled into balls. Some of them contained Stacy in some way, but others were a mystery. Why had House saved this old grocery list printed in his masculine hand? And what was it about this photograph of a field that had inspired such rage as to tear it apart?

“Keep your hands off my trash,” House growled. “I told Cuddy, and I’ll tell you, just leave it alone.”

“You can’t have all this stuff on the floor.” Wilson found a small trashcan behind a guitar case and started filling it. “Obstacles and crutches do not mix.”

“You know what else doesn’t mix? You in my house, so—” He was cut off by a pained gasp, and he fumbled for an amber bottle on the floor. “Damn these things,” House cursed. “I can never get the fucking tops…”

“Here, let me.” Wilson reached out and took the prescription bottle. He glanced at the label. “Do these help?” he asked, pushing the lid down hard and twisting it off.

“For a few hours,” House said, breathing heavily. His forehead was covered with a thin sheen of sweat as he held his hand out for a pill. Wilson dropped it in his palm and closed the bottle again.

“Let me get you some more water,” Wilson murmured, heading to the unfamiliar kitchen and opening cabinets until he found glasses. “You can ask the pharmacy to use non-childproof caps from now on,” Wilson suggested as he filled a glass at the sink. He set the cool tumbler of water on the table within easy reach of the injured man.

House scoffed and swallowed the pill with two big gulps of water. He grimaced at the taste and said, “That’ll save me some time.” He glanced up at Wilson, and Wilson could see the dark circles under his blue eyes, the oiliness of his unwashed hair, and the stubble on his cheeks. “I’m going to be on these things till the day I die,” he said in a rough voice.

Wilson fished the television remote from under a pile of yellow Wendy’s napkins and set it on the table. “Look, Dr. House, maybe it’s not my place to say, but it looks like Dr. Cuddy has let you sit around doing nothing and…”

“Damn right, she has!” House suddenly exploded, his face red and sweaty. “I worked at that hospital for seven years! I solved hundreds of cases that no one else could. And what did I get in return?” He twisted the hem of his thin white shirt in his hands. “Was anybody there to help me when I needed a diagnosis? No, fuck that asshole, he just wants the drugs.”

Wilson took a step back, but House only leaned forward more, heaving his broken body into a sitting position.

“Of course I wanted the drugs. I was in pain. It was my body, my leg, and I knew something was wrong with it. Why wouldn’t anyone listen to me for one goddamned second?” House panted for breath and clutched his right thigh. “One…fucking…second.”

Wilson sat down carefully on the lip of the coffee table so he was eye to eye with the other man. Only a foot of space separated them. “The doctors were doing their—”

“Their best wasn’t good enough!” House shouted.

Wilson kept his voice even. He held his hand up in a calming gesture. “You have a rare gift, House. You can’t expect everyone to have your talent for diagnoses.” He tilted his head in thought. “Maybe you could teach incoming students. Have a new generation of doctors working cases like you do.”

“I can’t just, just teach some snot-nosed brats how to work a case,” House stuttered, gesturing wildly with his hand. “I’d have to show them. And they wouldn’t get it, they wouldn’t be able to see…” He slumped back again, his face wracked with lines of weariness. “I’m not going to be holed up in a classroom for the rest of my career,” he said after a long pause.

“Fine.” Wilson stood and grabbed the TV remote. “If you want to keep practicing medicine, you’ll have to recover. So stop feeling sorry for yourself and focus on healing.” He clicked the power button, and the large screen slowly came to life. “Watch something mindless while I clean up in here.”

House groaned and swiveled his head to watch Wilson pick up the large pieces of broken glass on the floor. The flickering lights of the television washed over the room, and they didn’t talk for awhile.

When Wilson got home, Bonnie asked him, “Who is this guy again?”

Wilson left his briefcase by the door. “An acquaintance from work,” he said. “He’s recovering from surgery.”

Bonnie’s brow furrowed. “Is he your patient?”

“Yeah,” Wilson lied. That night, he didn’t dream of anything.


Part 2