Birth of a Friendship
by Z.E. Grockle

Notes: A dramatization of the story of how House and Wilson met, as told in Birthmarks. Therefore, there are major spoilers for that episode. Right now, I'm thinking it'll be a two-shot, but I might add an epilogue as a third chapter. Anyway, this chapter is in House's point-of-view, the next will be Wilson's.

Disclaimer: Yeah, I wish...

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Greg House was beginning to doubt his career choice. Certainly, being a genius doctor was great for getting people to need you, but if he had to attend one more convention like this one, forget it. Monster truck drivers seem to have a lot of fun, he mused. Probably get laid more, too.

He had hoped that after a day of mind-blowingly dull lectures, the other doctors would want to cut loose a bit at this "cocktail mixer." Maybe someone would get drunk and sing karaoke. But no, instead they stood in pretentious groups and discussed the lectures they had attended. If this kept up, he might decide to sing himself. Well, at least there was alcohol.

He made his way through a gap in the crowd and found the punch table. There was a small line, and as he waited he noticed a guy standing against the wall a few feet away. He was young, probably still on his residency, and he was holding a large envelope, turning it over and over and studying it so carefully that it might have been a letter bomb. The look on his face was something close to despair. House's natural curiosity was raised. Finally, here was a puzzle to work on, something to take the edge off the boredom. He went to move closer, but a group walked between him and the kid, and when they cleared away, the younger man had gone. House quickly scanned the room with his eyes, trying to find him again, and when he couldn't, he sighed in frustration and turned back to the punch bowl. Dammit, he thought, resigning himself to a night of boredom.

The next afternoon, House walked into the only lecture he had any interest in attending, and to his delight spotted the kid from the mixer sitting next to the aisle on the end of the second row. The seats were filling up quickly, but there was still an open one on the left side of the young doctor, and House made a beeline for it. He sat down casually and pulled out his pad and pen to take notes, glancing at the other man's desk as he did so. Yep, there was the envelope again. The majority of it was covered by the kid's own notepad, but he could see the edge of it poking out from underneath. And here was something even more interesting: it wasn't opened. He's been carrying it around with him since yesterday, but he hasn't opened it yet?

The lecture started, and much as House had been looking forward to it, he found he couldn't give it his full attention. He wanted - no, needed - to know what was in that envelope. Time for some distraction. He picked up his pen and twirled it idly for a few moments before giving a little flick of his fingers, which sent it arching nicely out of his hand to land in the aisle on the other side of the kid. The younger man looked down at the writing implement that had just soared past him in some surprise, but obligingly bent over to pick it up, giving House just enough time to pull the edge of the envelope out far enough to read the return address, and push it back in before the other man straightened up and handed him the pen. House nodded his thanks and carefully wrote the address on his pad. It was a law firm in New York. Malpractice suit? he wondered. Well, a couple of phone calls and he could find out what the firm specialized in. With some skill, he might even be able to get details of the case.

Half an hour after the lecture had ended, House hung up his room phone with some disappointment. No juicy malpractice suit; the firm specialized in divorce cases. And while that explained the young doctor's behavior, it certainly wasn't nearly as interesting. Taking his own parents' marriage and the fact that he'd never even remotely had the urge to get hitched as examples, House naturally expected most, if not all, marriages to be miserable failures, even if neither party would admit to it. The kid's a little young to be ending his first one, he thought. Maybe he's hoping to fit a few more in before he dies. Smiling cynically at his own joke, he decided to skip the mixer tonight and go to the hotel's bar. He grabbed his wallet as he headed out the door, thinking perhaps things would be more lively there.

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Notes: Expect the next chapter tonight or sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, I'd really appriciate reviews. They make my day.