Note to jj: Thanks for the review :D You are probably right, but this story required some suspension of disbelief :D

Recurrence

(For Wheelchair Wilson Picture Challenge on camp sick!wilson on LJ)

House swallowed hard as he clasped his hands on the sides of Wilson's wheelchair, holding his cane clumsily against it, trying in vain to come up with a way to process the events that had happened the week before. How had it even happened this quickly? Did Wilson just have that much bad luck?

"Here, I'll wheel you into the lounge," he said quietly, and Wilson nodded. There wasn't much to say to one another that could really change anything. He just had to wait to see if the antibiotics would take effect and hopefully knock this out, hopefully reverse the paralysis.

House felt guilty, even though he knew he shouldn't in some rational part of his brain. Cuddy had told him that it wasn't his fault, and he'd tried to believe her, but if he hadn't decided to have that damn reality show…

"House," Wilson cut into House's thoughts. "Stop blaming yourself. There was no way you could have known."

"Yeah, but if I hadn't… if I'd just chosen five to seven applicants like you said…"

"Then he still might have been one of them. You didn't know. And then you did, and you got him arrested. It's not your fault that they didn't tell you he had gotten released…" Wilson counseled. "And if you hadn't chosen forty applicants, you might not have your team…"

"And Amber would still be alive, and Kutner too..." House added quietly. "And you'd be able to walk."

"House," Wilson cut in, and if he'd been able to stand up he'd have pulled House by his shoulders to shake him and try and make him understand. He felt guilty – he'd planted the seed about Amber, hadn't he? But not Kutner and certainly not this. "If you hadn't walked in, this could have been so much worse. Brennan might have killed me instead of just infecting me with polio. And I can still work. I can still do a lot of things. I'll just… need you, a little more."

"Need me," House echoed quietly.

"I promise, it wasn't your fault."

"Tell me again, how it started?" House asked, afraid to hear the answer.

"I came into my office and Brennan was standing there, and I asked him what he wanted because at first I didn't recognize him. Then as he was walking towards me, I did, and I told him he ought to not be at the hospital. I moved to walk by him to go get security and he stabbed me with a needle and he started laughing…" Wilson shuddered against his wheelchair. "He told me that it was the fault of people like me that so many people were suffering overseas… He told me that he'd talked to… I can't remember his name… that immunologist you treated for TB and that he knew we didn't care about people in Africa, crazy stuff, he said that if a bigshot oncologist got polio then people would care about it, that the immunologist guy was right."

"That's when I walked in and beat him with my cane," House whispered as he pushed Wilson into the oncology lounge. He limped over to the DVD player and pressed the "open" button, before reaching into the pocket of his motorcycle jacket and pulling out a disc of Operation Desert Stormy, staring the buxom blonde Stormy Daniels. "So Wilson… Not all of your lower half is paralyzed… right?"

THE END