He wonders if everyone knows they're going to die the day it happens.
As he lays there, breathing with concentrated effort (in, out; in, out), he realizes that within a handful of hours, he will die. The feeling comes without warning, without malice, without foreboding. It's just a feeling, and he accepts it (perhaps a little too easily) because the fight was already over. He's reached that age, the age where you're in a hospital bed because your body is too weak to sustain itself, the age where the clock is staring you right in the face.
He never thought he'd die like this. Spending time with House and his shamelessly ostentatious diseases and plagues and mutations had him under the impression he'd die of some elaborate, incurable, untreatable illness. Or maybe lupus.
But instead of going out with a bang like House did (even though the painkillers have numbed him within an inch of his humanity, his chest is suddenly laden at the mere thought of House's death), he's quietly twinkling out of life, like a star. He is fading into the vast, black nothingness so discreetly that he wonders if his doctors- if anyone- will even notice.
He is tired. He just wants to sleep. Wilson allows his eyes to slide closed, and his mind to slide to unconsciousness. He dies sixty-seven minutes later.
--------------------------------------
In death, Wilson is not surprised when the first thing he hears is House's voice, calling to him from an abyss of blinding whiteness.
"It's about time."
Wilson blinks (you can blink in death? he wonders), and suddenly it is all made clear before him. He is in a room, a perfectly white room (not an off-white, or pale white; this is pure, untainted white), and the walls and ceiling seem to not exist. He is standing on a solid floor, which feels odd, because he could have sworn he had been floating mere moments before. No doors, no windows, no nothing except for a stark black desk that appears fit for a business meeting.
And, also, House is standing beside him.
"Took you long enough," he continues in scolding manner, as if Wilson was late for an appointment or party. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever die. Though, I should thank you. God and I bet on how long you'd last, and I won."
Wilson turns to House, blinking (why can I blink in death?), noting that he looked years younger than he did when his liver finally gave up. With that realization, Wilson abruptly notices that he himself is decades younger, for he is not struggling to remain upright, and he does not feel like he is chained to the ground. He haltingly runs his hands over the dark blue suit he somehow was wearing, feeling its cool, smooth fabric graze his fingertips. His body is strong and firm, and he estimates that this is the body of someone in their late forties. His hair is silken and thick, and he enjoys the reassuring bulge of muscle under his skin again.
He can feel. He can see everything before him, hear the sound of House's haggard breathing, smell the welcoming aroma of cleanliness, and taste the acrid dryness on his tongue. He feels alive.
"You're dead," House assures him solemnly, for he saw the look in Wilson's eyes. He sounded almost regretful, but relief was predominant.
"Ok...then what am I doing here?" Wilson asks, wondering if this is a last hallucination his brain manifested as he died. He hopes not, because House is there. House, the seam that had been ripped from their lives far too early, was slouching on his cane before Wilson, looking as young as he ever did (as young as his gray hair and premature wrinkles could allow). Wilson does not know if he should hug him or show any sort of emotional response to his presence. House seems to read his thoughts, for he shifts his weight and looks away toward the black desk.
"We're waiting for God."
Wilson is reminded of the comment House made earlier. God and I bet on how long you'd last, and I won. This is the part where Wilson is expecting to have some sort of breakdown, or some sort of rational reaction to the nonsense occurring, but he does not. Instead, he feels relatively at ease, as if he was half-expecting all of this to happen anyway. And when that feeling itself does not make sense, he cannot even grow confused. He merely grows curious.
"For God."
"Yup."
"So...there's a God?"
"Yup."
"You don't sound bitter."
"There are some things you accept without whining about it."
"But, for you, God has never been one of those things."
"That was before He gave me hard evidence in support of His existence."
"Which was...?"
"He changed some water to wine. Any man who can create such good alcohol is God to me."
And then, suddenly, they are not alone.
Without a sound, a man had appeared in a shiny, black chair behind the black desk. He sits tall and impossibly straight, like he is balancing some immense weight on his shoulders and he has to bear it boldly. It would be an understatement to say that the man was handsome, because the man is indefinitely beyond handsome. He is beyond any possible superficial judgement. His jaw is just angular enough, his nose fits his face in just the right proportion, his grey eyes glisten with just the right amount of light. He is so surreal in his perfection that Wilson can not look directly at him and instead observes him in his peripheral vision. The man is wearing a stark white suit (a white so pure it blends in with the walls) and an amused, pleased expression. An open notebook manifested atop the desk along with a pencil that the man cradles in his hand with an unreal grace.
"Wilson, this is God," House informs him. The man smiles, and there is an gentle sound that resonates poignantly in Wilson's head, a muffled monotone of a sound that he can only recognize as heavy, iron bells tolling. It takes Wilson a moment to realize that this is the man's voice.
"Not quite," the man says, speaking to House. "I am Metatron. You are not yet ready to be in His presence. I have been sent by Him to evaluate your sins."
"Can you turn water to wine?"
"No."
"Of course, the Big Guy would want all the cool abilities to himself. Selfless, my ass."
Wilson briefly wonders if House is supposed to be allowed to say such things in Metatron's company. Metatron smiles his ethereal smile and turns to Wilson.
"It is alright. Despite contrary belief, He has a good sense of humor," he says good-naturedly, writing something down on his notepad. House snorts derisively.
"He'd have to, since he's bothering to have you 'evaluate our sins'. Give me a break. I'm an atheist, Wilson is Jewish, we've both violated almost all of the Ten Commandments, and I killed myself to prove that He didn't exist. So bringing us here must be God's last joke at my expense," House points out, and Wilson cannot stop himself from nodding in agreement. Even though disbelief had been suspended (which Wilson realized must've been God's doing, to prevent him and House from going out of their minds from confusion), he was vaguely puzzled about their purpose there.
"I assure you, Greg, that this is not a joke," Metatron responds evenly, and Wilson no longer hears bells; instead, he has the vivid image of a crystalline pond surface, smooth as perfect glass, and he recognizes this as the Metatron's voice.
"Then why the Hell are we here?" House mutters irritably, not able to sound more incredulous. Wilson fights down the overpowering urge to break into a fit of laughter at House's question for his humorously-brash choice of words. Metatron clears his throat, and the sound is a flock of doves taking flight over a church steeple.
"God considers all His children for salvation. While you both have had your own moral and spiritual digressions, God offers you forgiveness."
"How magnanimous of him," quips House. Metatron smiles again, and its beauty is almost painful to witness.
"Let us begin."
-------------------
Soundlessly, a part of the floor beside Metatron slides open, and a small, old-fashioned television set rises from wherever it had been stored beneath the floor. It would have seemed like a technological feat if Metatron was not present. Wilson knew it was not magic or a miracle, and it took him a while to label it with the appropriate term- a twist of reality.
House's brow quirks, but he masks his confusion with a casual comment.
"If you're about to turn on General Hospital, then I know I'm in heaven."
Despite House's constant jibes, Wilson is watching with a fixated fascination. His mind is at a standstill, unable to think about anything other than House, Metatron, and the television. He feels as if the rest of his thoughts are being contained behind purposeful barricades, like how water is stored behind a dam. He cannot think about the devastating consequences of his dam of a mind springing a leak.
Metatron looks to the screen, and it crackles to life. A black-and-white picture of House appears, and it shows him in a college classroom, tapping his pencil impatiently on a table, staring out a window. Wilson is allowed to be amused and intrigued at the sight of a youthful House caught in a daydream. The real House watches silently for a moment, then huffs in agitation. Before he can say anything, Metatron stands, holding himself with a confidence and awareness that Wilson realizes no human could (should?) ever feel.
"You were on the right path in the beginning of your life, Greg, as many of His children are," he says, turning his full attention to him, and Wilson notices House suddenly cannot lift his eyes from the ground. "But you strayed as time went on. You harvested hatred and anger, and you fell to temptations. You fueled your irresponsible behavior instead of amending it. Bad habits turned to long-term choices. Normally, these sins would be forgiven, but you had lost your faith at an early age."
As he spoke, images of House's immoral acts light up the screen. House sticking needles into his arm, House getting into a bar fight, House having sex (luckily, it was a brief segment of the aftermath- God isn't an endorser of pornography, after all- where a woman is leaving House's apartment in the dead of night, but just the same Wilson looks away with a shuffle of feet), House fighting with his parents, House hiring a prostitute, stealing, gambling, and, finally, having an affair (this only needed an image of House and Stacy exchanging a look to get its point across). In all the scenes, House aged progressively, making Wilson feel as if he was watching a documentary of House's sins directed by an attentive and meticulous film-maker.
Figures. I die, and I see House's life flash before my eyes instead of my own.
The screen abruptly turns black. Metatron steps beside it.
"You never asked for forgiveness, Greg, and that was your downfall," he says with such a severity that Wilson resists that nigh overwhelming impulse to kneel and ask for forgiveness himself.
"And all this time I thought it was the Vicodin addiction that caused my liver failure. Well, thanks for clearing that up. I feel much better now," House replies with fake gratitude, but his gaze still remains low. Metatron smiles sympathetically, then turns to Wilson, who instantly straightens his posture, feeling as though he was a schoolboy about to be asked a question for which he had no answer. Metatron chuckles good-naturedly, and it translates as the sound of tides hugging the shore.
"Do not worry, James. God accepts all faith, and you have been devout." At this, Wilson's shoulders relax slightly, and he notes that centuries of religious conflict have been utterly pointless. "However, you have also committed your fair share of sins," Metatron turns to the television, which casts an impossibly luminous glow across the floor as it flickers on.
So I get to see my own life after all.
However, it is significantly shorter than House's. The first sequence is of him straightening his tie in a dormitory mirror then smoothing the wrinkles of his suit before sauntering out the door, and Wilson cannot remember the last time he carried himself with such pride. This fact causes a wave of sadness and wistfulness to rush through his system, but it is quickly doused in a suspiciously spontaneous way.
The next scenes play quickly, as if the Metatron's presentation has a time limit. Wilson succombing to peer pressure (a form of temptation, he decides) by smoking and drinking, Wilson lying (there were quite a few slides of this, of Wilson making innocuous statements that one would never know where lies under any other circumstance), and Wilson committing adultery (shown in a subtle way with a shot of Wilson hurrying out of an apartment and wearing ragged clothes that have clearly been worn the last evening). He felt unbearably vulnerable, his entire life being scrutinized for mistakes. He wished the focus would return to House.
"Your greatest sin, James, was the one you committed right before your death." An image of Wilson lying on a hospital bed appeared, and he feels heat rush to his face. An overwhelming rush of embarrassment floods him before Metatron intervenes and settles his nerves. Metratron stares directly at him, the force behind his eyes hitting Wilson like a punch to the gut. When he speaks, his voice is like lightning piercing a perfect night sky.
"You gave up on life."
The television shows the elderly Wilson take halting, staggering breaths, and his entire body convulses with the effort. He abruptly stops mid-breath, and for a moment, his eyes open. A light in them seems to fade. There is an impression that old Wilson made his decision, and with that, his eyelids slide closed for the last time. The video ends with the sound of a heart monitor echoing mournfully.
Wilson feels House looking at him, but he cannot bear to meet his stare. He wholly wishes he could feel anger then, anger at himself for being so weak, anger at Metatron for so callously denouncing his cowardice, and anger at House for daring to be judgemental. Guilt would be a relief as well, and the feeling of disappointment would be welcomed. He deserves to feel pain for what he did, but he cannot. All he is allowed to recognize is acceptance, and that fact would drive him crazy in any other circumstance.
An expression of sympathy spreads across Metatron's face, and for the first time, he approaches the pair. Wilson senses an enormous presence as Metatron moves closer, as if he was a giant instead. When he stands before Wilson, he places a hand on his shoulder, and suddenly Wilson's lungs are filled with the purest air, all his senses have intensified, and a feeling of profound intelligence and self-awareness envelopes his entire being. Metatron does not intimidate him now, and Wilson calmly realizes that the smallest amount of the Metatron's power is being shared between them. With his newly-awakened sense of sight, he can see a glow emanate from Metatron, a glow that is warming Wilson's shoulder as a strong flame would. In his peripherals, House appears distant and faint, and Wilson has the impression that if he reached out to touch him, his hand would pass through a mirage.
"God does not wish for His children to feel pain, especially in His domain. Your negative emotions are being suspended to protect you. He knows that they are part of what makes you human, but with the situation being as it is, they would do more harm than good," Metatron reasons, and Wilson nods. He understands completely now, in a way that he knows no human ever could, no matter how much the population evolved. Then everything- the absolute comprehension, the inhumanly perfect senses, the power- is taken from him so gently that he has the sensation of serenely floating back down to reality. He feels grounded and heavy now, with dizziness making his sight fuzzy, but otherwise he is at ease. Wilson knows he should have felt the transfer of power more distinctly, and if he had, his mind would not have been able to handle it. He marvels at how vast God's power is, to be able to prevent the very unraveling of his psyche, and how he hardly appreciated it enough while he was living.
House is clear and close to him again, looking startled. Wilson quirks an eyebrow at him, and House simply shakes his head in response, gaping at him. Metatron returns to standing behind the black desk, addressing both House and Wilson equally.
"Thank you," Wilson whispers with a bow of his head. Metatron smiles, grasping his hands behind his back.
"You are welcome, James," he replies, pausing, then sweeping an arm toward the television. "Now let us move on to the final matter of this visit. I am about to show your the reason why your sins will be absolved."
Wilson and House exchange glances, silently searching their memories for anything that could possibly redeem their sins. After a moment, House shrugs in defeat, and Wilson himself struggles to find one instance that made up for everything bad in his life. It does not seem possible, that one thing could save House and him from damnation. Eagerly, they both turn to the screen.
A picture of a beaming Cuddy flickers to life.
"Cuddy?!" House barks, then snorts in amusement. "Now I get it. This is God's last joke. Good one, Big Guy."
"Lisa loved you, Greg," Metatron says in a stern tone that brought to mind towering, resolute redwood trees. The statement shuts House up, leaving him with an indignant expression, as if Metatron accused him of loving Lisa instead. "And she loved you, Wilson," he adds, his emphasis proving the meaning of his words more innocent than either of them anticipated.
Scenes of the three of them together flash by, and a nostalgic atmosphere quietly settles over House and Wilson. Scenes of Cuddy laughing at House's outrageous comments, Cuddy grinning at a pleasantly embarrassed Wilson, Cuddy forcibly stopping an argument between House and Wilson, and Cuddy sitting next to House's grave. This final scene last longer than the others, and Wilson realizes that Cuddy is talking.
"...pathetic for talking to you like this," she says with a half-hearted chuckle. Age had worn away at Cuddy to the best of its ability, but Wilson had always felt that Cuddy bore the brunt of time with more resilience than any of them. She was still beautiful, still proud, still the most cunning businesswoman he ever knew (after all, she had to be, to find all the loopholes for House to slip through). Even though she was retired, she was still an active member of her community, running fundraisers and educational programs for the local schools. House once said that when she lost her baby (the hospital), she adopted an orphanage (the community) to compensate. Wilson felt that summarized her later years well. Sitting next to the headstone, Wilson saw the youth still shining within her, despite her thin gray hair and broken posture.
"I appreciate you sticking around for the birth of my daughter, at least. Even though you missed me becoming a grandmother, which I know you would've loved teasing me about. 'They don't allow grandmothers to be prostitutes, Cuddy, so stop dressing like one,'" she says, imitating House's voice remarkably well. Wilson glances to House, taken off guard by the genuine smile on his face. It is the first real smile he has seen House wear in twenty years, and he cannot look away, even when Cuddy's voice rises once more.
"I know Wilson lived a long life, and he was with us so much longer than you were, but his death hurts as much as yours did," Cuddy says, her mood suddenly solemn. "I have a family now, and a town to care of, but I can't help feeling so lonely. You're both gone, and it's just me, just me from the old days at the hospital. I feel like...like a war veteran whose comrades all passed on. We went through so much there, and now I'm the only one of us three to live. It's lonely. And you'd know all about that, House. You tried to be alone your entire life, in some way or another. I don't know how you did it. It's so damn hard."
Sometime in the middle of her speech, Wilson tore his eyes from House's smile to Cuddy, only to find her crying. Her voice never shook when she spoke, but tears fall steadily, easily. Wilson knows it wasn't the first time she cried that day, and it wouldn't be the last.
The last picture shows Cuddy standing, on the verge of sobbing. With a defiant inhale to prevent her from doing so, she tilts her head upward, closing her eyes.
"I will miss you both so much," she whispers.
The screen went black. There was nothing either of them could say.
"Your friendship is strong. Your love for each other is absolute and unwavering. Sometimes, you were convinced you hated each other because of heated arguments, but you never did, otherwise you never would have stayed bound together as long as you did," Metatron pauses, assessing House and Wilson's sheepish expressions, then continues. "Your friendship is what saved you in the end. It represented your faith in each other and yourselves, your trust, your respect, your loyalty, your devotion. The only tragedy is that none of you seemed to realize this, but maybe now you do. God himself thinks of your friendship as something beautiful, something to be revered. All the goodness in both of you- in all three of you- can be seen in this friendship."
Wilson's eyes drift to House. He is refusing to look at anyone, stubbornly staring down at the floor, his breathing uneven and heavy. Wilson tries to read his expression, and he cannot understand it, but House looks almost...angry. Angry at himself? Wilson wonders. All those years of taking their friendship for granted, all those times House chose his addiction over his friends, all those instances where House hurt those he cared about most because he was too screwed up to react any other way...
Wilson supposes there was a lot to be angry about.
"House," Wilson says, causing House's eyes to briefly meet his. He opens his mouth to say something further, but nothing seems right to say. He wants to tell House that he forgave him, that none of his past mistakes matter now, that he is not alone in a lack of appreciation of their relationship. No words form properly to express all these thoughts. Only four syllables come to mind, and Wilson can not shake the feeling that they have been sent from Metatron himself.
"Forgive yourself," he finally says, and somehow he knows that it was the perfect thing to say. House blinks at Wilson for a moment then turned and slowly nods. Metatron smiles.
"Yeah," House mutters, shuffling his feet. Metatron picks up his notebook and writes something down with exceedingly fluid movements. A silence stretches between all of them for a while, and Wilson feels as if they are waiting for an event to occur or for a decision to be made. Eventually, Metatron stops writing and looks up at the two of them.
"Your sins are evaluated," he announces. Wilson is aware of a faraway feeling of shock, for he would have thought sin evaluation was a longer process. Metatron puts down his notebook and approaches them, hands clasped behind his back.
"God deems you both ready to join him in Heaven."
Wilson cannot help but notice his word choice. They were 'ready', not 'worthy'. They never even had to be 'worthy'. For a millisecond, Wilson desires nothing more than to rush back to Earth and boldly announce his newfound knowledge, to inform the human population that religion never has to be, never had to be, a cause of war, that they can stop trying to make themselves 'worthy' because God understands the faults in human nature (for crying out loud, He put them there), and all they need to do is live their life the best way they could. This desire flees him because he knows it cannot come to pass, but he appreciates the moment of fantasy.
"Any questions?" Metatron asks.
There is a pause in which Wilson and House try to search for the right inquiries. Wilson knows there should be a million things he should ask, a million of life's mysteries that ought to be solved, but he does not find the need to bring them up. He is at peace with his current intelligence and does not want to muddle his inner serenity.
House, however, speaks.
"I want to know something," he says, having the strength to look at Metatron's face (but not his eyes). "Why do I still have my cane?"
Wilson feels somewhat startled. He had accepted the existence of House's cane without question, but he now realizes that its presence made no sense. Surely, House's leg was healed in this realm, for Wilson saw no indication otherwise in House's demeanor.
"Do you feel pain, Greg?" Metatron replies, his face aglow with the pride of a teacher that just taught their student how to fish.
"No."
"Then you should ask yourself, not me, that question."
Wilson watches as House looks down at the wooden crutch. He scrutinizes it for long seconds, then, with a deep inhale, he releases the handle. The moment the cane clatters to the floor, everything goes white.
And now Wilson hears bells again, only this time they are lighter, jingling and tinkling in his ears.
END
Author's Note: I worked long and hard on this. I'm probably prouder of this piece than any other. The writing was inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's poem 'The Bells'. I have a few allusions to said poem; see if you can find them. Also, I hope no one ends up offended by my interpretation of religion. It's not meant to offend anyone. That's kind of the whole point. I hope that came across clearly enough. Hope you all like it, too!