So, this is my first time writing for House MD. I have a tendency to dabble in various fandoms a lot. Therefore, I have never written these characters before and apologize in advance if they seem terribly out of character. The premise for this was I was listening to the RENT soundtrack, and couldn't help but realize how fitting certain characters were, they seemed almost like possible parallels. That and an awful day at college culminated in this little ditty of sorts, that I just needed to get out of my system. On that note, Disclaimer; I do not own House or any of the characters here mentioned, and nor do I own RENT or it's respective soundtrack. Both belong to their awesome creators and cast members :) Enjoy :)
House had been stood at the window of Wilson's office for a while. His cane was propped up against the pane as he watched the rain fall outside. An uncomfortable silence had fallen over the room, like the clouds that raged in the skies above; ominous, palpable. The two occupants had not spoken to one another for some time, it was a matter of which would break first. Wilson cracked.
"I hear there are great restaurants out west..." He commented quietly. Whether it had simply been offhand, an
attempt to deviate from the numbness, the void that grief wrought or perhaps a deeper meaning, a suggestion that he could not say outright...It was not possible to tell from the absence of emotion in his voice.
"Some of the best..." House responded absent-minded. Perhaps he had been to a few, maybe he could attest to that, but as of that moment Wilson would not know for sure. He feared his attempt at meager conversation had fallen flat for a moment, and that dreadful pressure of things unsaid would return. Apparently even House could not withstand the silence for so long. "How could she..." It was a murmur, nothing more, but Wilson heard it nonetheless. He did not know how that sentence may have ended, but in truth he did not want to. He felt something incense within him at the possibility of House placing the blame elsewhere, on someone other than himself. Wilson knew he was falling into the realms of assumption, and perhaps House had meant nothing by it, or at least nothing as personal as Wilson felt it bu nevertheless he could not deny that the ugly head of bitterness had begun to stir deep inside him; raise it's head a little.
"How could you let her go...?" Wilson asked. Ever since the beginning, since he had found out, he had wondered. It should have been him on the bus, him that House had called that night. Not her. She had no obligation to him to go out in the middle of the night like that. Not for his sake.
"You just don't know..." House sighed. He knew it would appear eventually. There was no mistaking the underlying meaning beneath Wilson's words. There was no mistaking the guilt that pawed at House's heart like some pathetic creature, pulling at tendons and ligaments, tearing valves and veins with unforgiving claws. Wounds more raw than any eye or scan could ever see. Besides his own. House knew that even Wilson could not keep his emotion quelled forever. "How could we lose Amber..." He asked himself aloud. Again and again he had asked the same question. It had nagged the forefront of his brain tirelessly. If there had been something he could have done differently perhaps...If the circumstances were different...Something...
"Maybe you'll see why when you stop escaping your pain, at least now if you try." Wilson stated. He had gotten up from his seat behind the desk, but retained the distance between them. "Amber's death won't be in vain..."
"Her death is in vain," House cut him off abruptly.
"Are you insane?" Wilson asked as he moved from behind the desk to take a few steps closer. He could no longer be sure if House were being his arrogant self, or wallowing in self-pity. Both were equally painful to observe. He refused to allow it to continue without intervention. Even if he would rather see House display some semblance of suffering that appealed to his own. He would become as bitter as the man who stood before him, and Wilson did not want that. Amber would not have wanted that. "There's so much to care about," He tried to appeal to House's humane side. If he still had one, he surmised. "There's me," He added. Sure, it had not seemed like it for the past few days, but they had been good friends for a long time. A part of Wilson did not want to lose that friendship, even if almost every other sense told him the opposite. As frustrating as House could be, he had been a part of his life for too long. Wilson saw the way he affected others, how much he helped them even if House himself denied it. Even those on his own 'team'. "There's Remy..." Wilson added tenderly. He had seen how the two of them were together. They were so alike, yet so different. He knew, by the way House had looked at her, there was something there. An unspoken bond, a friendship, perhaps something more? Whatever it was that they shared between them, there was sympathy. House would never admit it, but there was a tenderness there too; in some bizarre way, they looked out for each other. Complimented each other. Weren't afraid to speak their minds, even if they butt heads against one another.
"Thirteen's got her baggage too." House responded. Was there a hint of remorse Wilson could detect? Albeit the fact he didn't use her name, only her alias. He wasn't sure whether to find it irksome, or perhaps touching that the nickname had become so commonly attached. Since the night Amber had passed, Wilson had seen a change in Thirteen himself; a weight upon her shoulders, a weariness in her disposition, an altered demeanor. It couldn't have been Amber's death alone that had caused such a spiral, and what House had just said only served to increase Wilson's suspicions of an underlying cause, one that remained between House and herself. They were so alike.
"So do you." Wilson pointed out.
"Who are you to tell me what I know, what to do?" House ground out, having refused to look at Wilson even as he had gotten closer, until there was no more than a foot between them. Wilson was hesitant to respond, unsure of how to respond to such an unexpectedly venomous question.
"A friend." He admitted at last and reached out a hand to place upon House's shoulder only to have it knocked away by House's own as the latter turned upon him.
"But who Wilson, are you? Wilson's got his work". They say "Wilson lives for his work" and "Wilson's in love with his work"." House stated with as much sarcasm as to make the hairs on the back of Wilson's neck stand on end. "Wilson hides in his work." He added bitterly.
"From what?" Wilson exclaimed, incensed by House's sudden outburst against him when he had all but tried to remain civil in such a situation.
"From facing your failure, facing your loneliness. Facing the fact you live a lie. Yes, you live a lie. I'll tell
you why; you're always preaching not to be numb when that's how you thrive. You pretend to create and observe when you really detach from feeling alive..." House drawled.
"Perhaps its because I'm the one of us to survive!" It had been an unexpected response, even for Wilson. The words had left his mouth before he could retrace his steps, and yet, he did not regret them.
"Poor baby." House belittled which lapsed the two of them into quiet once more. That is until Wilson decided to appeal to House's softer side once more.
"Thirteen still admires you House...Are you really jealous...?" Although what there was to be jealous of, Wilson
had no ideas. "Or are you afraid that she's weak...?" Wilson asked. He had seen the way they had become lately. The both of them. For whatever separate reasons they harbored...
"Thirteen did look pale..." House murmured under his breath, as though he remembered having seen her so before. If the two of them were as alike as Wilson suspected, then she too had not been eating, at least as well as one was supposed to. Especially after all that had happened. It was hard enough for himself to maintain an appetite at times, for those two it may as well have been non-existent. For whatever reason, Wilson's argument appeared to be work. Or so he thought.
"She's gotten thin..." Wilson added, and he couldn't help but ponder himself how the already slender girl had
drifted to all but bone as of late, when he had seen her at all. Like House, she seemed to skulk the halls of the
hospital like an apparition, out of sight more often than not.
"She's running out of time..." House said to himself, almost like a revelation, which confused Wilson somewhat. He had little time to dwell on the statement however as House picked up his cane and began to head for the door. "I have to go." Was his only form of emotionless explanation.
"Hey! For someone who's always been let down, who's heading out of town?" Wilson called after him abruptly.
"For someone who longs for a community of his own, who's stuck in his office alone?" House bit back but he stopped nonetheless for a second and turned his gaze back to the window. "I'll call." He amended, before he shook his head at the rain that had continued to fall relentlessly. "I hate the fall." He muttered as he went to pull open the door.
Much to the surprise of both men, the door opened of it's own accord, or so it seemed. Thirteen entered the room, her eyes rimmed red. It was clear to see from where House stood just a few feet before her that she had been crying. Sadness, no, despair, was not something he had been accustomed to seeing upon the young woman's face; never would he have imagined that she would have displayed it so openly. All it took was one glance and House knew he did not like what he saw, the sheer anguish in her eyes that challenged him so often. Even without a word, House knew she had been stood there for some time.
"You heard?" He asked quietly, unsure he wanted to know the answer.
"Every word..." She admitted. She looked exhausted to the point of collapse, as though she were physically
unstable upon her feet. As Wilson had said, she looked a lot thinner than he had previously realized; her cheeks seemed hollow, her bones a little more pronounced. A hand that clutched the door frame for support did not escape his notice. Wilson stood off to the side, and she continued as though he were not there at all. "You don't want baggage without lifetime guarantees...You don't want to watch me die..." She stated, with such a forlorn tone. House almost wished he had never entered Wilson's office in the first place, or had left before the entire conversation could have taken place. But it was too late. "I just came to say goodbye..." She finished. House expressed no emotion.
It could be said that Cuddy chose the wrong time to enter the room, but nevertheless she did, just as House pushed past Thirteen and herself and through the doorway, with no more than a vague murmur of something akin to "I have to find the team..." as he limped away out of sight. Lisa Cuddy faced the exhausted figure of Dr Hadley intent on finding out what had just happened but the distraught look she found upon the younger doctor's face tore at her heartstrings. Something had certainly shook the girl. She recalled a day or two ago Cameron had come forth, insisting that there was something off with the poor girl, something that went deeper than Amber's death which had affected all of them in one way or another. It was no secret to Cuddy about Thirteen's family history. Of course she did not pry into the unnecessary and private details, but she knew of her mother's condition, and the chances of such an illness having passed down. She also knew of the late nights, the 'experiments' with drugs, the downward spiral that the young doctor had thrust herself into that left unattended would only become worse in future. Once known, it did no take a genius to put two and two together and Cuddy berated herself for not having seen it sooner. She took the girl, so uncharacteristically fragile - she had never seen her so vulnerable before - and led her by the hand to the nearest chair.
"Please don't touch me..." Thirteen murmured, although it was too late for her to say so. "I'm scared..." To hear
those words from the usually impenetrable Remy Hadley shook Lisa to the core. "I need to go away...Just for a
little while..." Thirteen added quietly. Cuddy wasn't sure if it sounded like such a good idea, if anything she
would have preferred the girl were supervised lest she do anything more rash than she had already.
"I know a place, a clinic" Wilson spoke up. Lisa had forgotten that he was still there, that they had been in his
office the entire time, as absorbed as she had been.
"A rehab?" Cuddy asked.
"Maybe...could you...?" Thirteen began tentatively, but Cuddy cut her off before she could protest.
"I'll pay." The older woman said softly, before she drew herself to a stand. A silent nod to Wilson conveyed all
the words needed before she left the room and the two of them were left alone. Wilson was tempted to say
something, to offer some advice or comfort, but found he had none appropriately to give. She probably would not have heard him anyway, as engrossed as she was.
"Just came to say goodbye love..." He observed silently as Thirteen looked down at her hands, which trembled. It
was only subtle, would not have been noticeable if he had not been watching her so keenly. If he hadn't, he may
have just missed her whispers. He felt a lump had formed within his throat that hadn't been there moments before.
"Hello, disease..."