I don't own House or Wilson, or Cuddy, or Foreman, and this fiction is not intended to violate the owners' copyrights. This story is AU, just before the end of Season 8 and after. It is a prequel to my stories, 'To Err, To Forgive" and "Writer's Block."
Letters to Lisa
Lisa Cuddy smiled as she recognized James Wilson's address. He usually communicated with her in e-mail. A letter was a nice change. She put the letter on top of the bills and catalogs, shoved the lot into her tote, and climbed back into the car.
"We got a letter from Uncle James," she told Rachel, who was strapped into her child seat in the back of Lisa's Camry. Cuddy drove to the condominium she owned, deep in the gated community in Montgomery County, Maryland. The spacious, three-bedroom condo was on the second floor. Secure, covered parking adjoined the building in the back. No one who knew Cuddy could fail to notice that the second-story condo was also out of reach of invading automobiles.
The early evening was chilly. She lifted Rachel from her child seat, grabbed her purse, briefcase, and tote, and took Rachel by the hand. Mail was left on the kitchen counter while Lisa made dinner and spent time with her daughter.
By the time Rachel was bathed and in bed, Lisa was exhausted. She was too old to deal with a demanding full-time job at the National Institutes of Health and single-parenting such a young child, but Rachel was her joy and the focus of her life. It was too bad that she had had to move away from Princeton to keep her safe. Lisa remembered Wilson's letter. She climbed to her feet from the living room sofa and ambled into the kitchen. The catalogs went into the recycling bin. Bills went to the organizer on her desk. She poured a glass of white wine, turned on the radio to listen to the evening jazz program, and settled down again on the sofa.
She ran her finger under the flap of the envelope to open it, and recognized not Wilson's tidy handwriting, but House's scrawl. Her first impulse was to discard it unread. Her protection order against him had expired several months before, but she had made it clear that she did not want to have any contact with him, after two heartfelt letters from him apologizing for driving a car into her dining room. On top of the letter, in big letters, he had written, "Please read before tossing."
Well, Lisa Cuddy could not control her curiosity, any more than could Gregory House. Gritting her teeth, she unfolded the letter.
Instead of "Cuddy," it began, "Dear Lisa." Well, that was different. It went on, "I'm writing to you about Wilson. He never listens to me. I hope he will listen to you."
Well, House had Cuddy there. What was going on with Wilson? The next paragraph began, "I don't know if he told you about his cancer."
Cancer? Why the hell hadn't Wilson told her about that? She thought of him as one of her closest friends, and she thought that he felt the same about her. She read on, "It's a thymoma, one of the fifteen percent resistant to chemotherapy. The tumor is too large to resect." She rested the letter in her lap for a moment and realized that her hands were shaking. "He doesn't want to attempt any treatment, and wants to just let himself die of it. He estimates he has five months left."
"Oh, no," Cuddy said. And repeated it. "Oh no." Not Wilson. He was younger than she was, forty-three at his last birthday.
She returned to House's letter. "So this is why I'm writing. Could you please try to talk him into treatment? I don't think he's even looked for a clinical trial. He's just shut down about it."
Cuddy could hear House's baritone in her mind, could feel the frantic plea in it. And she knew that for House, Wilson's death would be the end of everything that mattered to him. She had taken herself out of his life. He only had Wilson left.
"I won't contact you again," he concluded. "Please just do what you can with Wilson." He ended with surprising formality, "Respectfully, House."
Cuddy rested the letter in her lap and leaned back against the sofa cushions. "Oh, God, not Wilson," she said to the living room. Her eyes filled with tears. It was too late to phone him. She walked to her office in an alcove off the living room. She opened the folding wooden doors and turned her computer on. She opened her e-mail and clicked on 'compose,' then stopped, at a loss on what to say. She was surprised that Foreman hadn't mentioned it, the last time she spoke with him. Well, maybe he was giving Wilson a chance to do it.
The phone rang. She didn't want it to wake Rachel, so Lisa grabbed it before the second ring. It was after ten o'clock. "Lisa?" It was Wilson's voice.
"Wilson, I was going to call you tomorrow…"
He interrupted her. "Lisa, House is dead."
"What?"
"He was in a burning building. Foreman and I followed him there. Lisa, we saw him, we saw him crushed by a burning beam. They identified the remains a few hours ago." Wilson's voice broke.
"But I just got a letter from him," she cried. "He wrote me," she insisted, as if it would change anything. As if anything could be changed.
"I'm sorry Lisa, but I thought you should know. I'll let you know about funeral arrangements."
She took a steadying breath. "I won't be there," she said, making her decision as she said it.
There was a long pause. "Well, I guess that's not surprising," Wilson said. She could hear disapproval in his voice.
"No, no, you don't understand. I'd just be a distraction. The focus has to be," she choked back a sob, "it has to be on House." She wanted to hang up so she could weep for him, for a man she never wanted to see again, and now never would see again. "Oh James, I'm so sorry." Cuddy remembered House's letter, but now was not the time to bring up Wilson's illness. "Are you okay?" she asked him.
"I don't know," he said, and added, "I don't think I can be." Another pause, then, "Well, I have other people to call. I'll send funeral information, in case you change your mind. 'Night, Lisa."
"Goodnight, James." She hit the off button and set the portable phone carefully into the cradle. The first sob shook her, then another, and she buried her face in her hands and wept for the man she had loved, and lost, and feared, and still loved, and now had lost forever. And she wept for their friend, who now would face his last few months of life alone.
The morning of the funeral, Cuddy took the day off from work. She left Rachel in daycare, poured a glass of wine, and sat at her computer going through photos. Her favorite was one taken at a hospital benefit, of herself, Wilson, and House, at a poker table. All were in formal wear. She had the same photograph in an album. It had been framed and on a shelf in her home in Princeton, but she had removed it from the frame when she fled her broken home and House. She couldn't bear to discard it, though, and it still rested in that album and in her computer picture file. Lisa had a box of Kleenex. She went through the pictures and through the tissues, laughing at some of the photographs, sobbing over others.
By one o'clock, the funeral must be over. She made herself a pot of coffee and when she felt composed enough, she went to pick up her daughter.
Wilson was kind, polite, but firm when she phoned to ask him to reconsider his decision concerning treatment. She told him about House's letter.
"I didn't know he'd written you," Wilson said. She thought his voice sounded much better than she had expected, for the day after his best friend was buried. "I'm going to do what House and I talked about. I'm going to take a leave of absence and go on a road trip. I'm going to ride a motorcycle."
"Alone?" she asked.
"House will be with me," he said. Lisa thought that sounded very poetic, then she wondered if Wilson were delusional.
"James," she began.
"I'm not crazy, Lisa. It's just what we were going to do."
"What about treatment? It's what he wanted you to do."
"I know, but I have to do what I think is right. It's right for me."
Cuddy realized she was crying again. She had wept more in the last two weeks than in forty years before that, except for the week when her father had died. She had not wept so much when House's car destroyed her dining room. "At least, stay in touch, okay?" she begged him.
"I will."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
Cuddy had to see her accountant in New Jersey. She could have had her records sent to her new accountant, but it was an excuse to go to the cemetery. She felt that she had to do it alone, so she didn't let Wilson know she was coming. She stopped in to see Foreman, in her old office. Wilson had already closed his practice. She could not bear to go by his vacant office. She did not want to think about House's empty office next to Wilson's. She stopped to say hello to a couple nurses, returned a few waves, noted many averted faces. Yeah, she didn't know what to say, either.
Foreman seemed happy to see her. His things filled the space. The furniture had been rearranged, except for the placement of the desk. His photographs were on the shelf where hers used to be. The office had been repainted to a different color scheme. Now she would never confuse the space with her memories.
He poured her a cup of coffee as she draped her coat over the back of the sofa and sat in the chair by the desk. There was a very long pause. Cuddy had the oddest sense that Foreman was hiding something. "So how is your new job?" he asked finally.
"It's great. I think we're really making a difference in medical education. I miss the patient contact, though." She stopped, realizing she would have asked him how he was doing managing House. And to her disgust, her eyes started to fill with tears again. She gulped it down. "Anything new here?" she asked, and thought it sounded lame as she asked it.
"We got a community block grant for the clinic. How's Rachel?"
"That's wonderful. She's wonderful." She started to comment that the hospital must be more peaceful, now, and stopped, horrified with herself. Everything was a pitfall. "Rachel can read a few words already. She's pretty bright. House would have…" Even talking about Rachel, Cuddy couldn't get away from the memory of House. Should she ask who had replaced House? Had Foreman replaced Wilson yet? "Oh God, Eric, how is everyone taking it?"
"Chase is going to head up the Diagnostics department. Wilson has some suggestions for his replacement." He lowered his head for a moment. "I think everyone is still stunned." Cuddy had the oddest sense that Foreman had something really important to tell her, but wouldn't. Well, people always acted a little off after a sudden death.
"I'd like to see the… House's grave."
"Did Wilson send you directions?"
'Yeah. I'll stop before I head home this afternoon."
His voice got very gentle. "Did you call Wilson? Do you need someone to go with you?"
"No. No, I didn't want to bother him. I'll just go alone. It will just be for a minute. House wouldn't have expected me to do that, would he?"
Foreman smirked. "He would have mocked you."
"Yeah, he would have."
Cuddy gathered her coat and stood. "It's good to see you, Eric."
"Stay in touch, Lisa."
Wilson wasn't expecting her, but on the spur of the moment she decided to swing by his loft before going to the cemetery. When she knocked on the door, there was no answer. She thought she heard music inside. Perhaps he had left the radio on when he went out. She phoned and left a voice mail. With the need to get back on the road soon so she could miss rush hour traffic and pick Rachel up on time, she drove to the cemetery.
The freshly replaced sod and the new, brown granite headstone left her in tears, again. It was a simple inscription, 'Gregory House, M.D., 1959 – 2012.' She reached into her pocket and pulled out two pebbles from along the trail in Rock Creek Park, where she sometimes ran on weekends. Leaving pebbles on a grave was a Jewish custom. She had no idea what House would have thought of it, with his relentless logic. Nonetheless, she tucked them against the base of the stone. Would Wilson be buried near him in five months, she wondered. The sadness was becoming unbearable. She hurried back to her car to get back to I-95 and the nearly three-hour drive home.
A package from Wilson was waiting for Cuddy at the desk in the condominium office. She carried it up to her condo and opened it after Rachel went to bed. There were three items, a photograph of Rachel printed from House's phone, a rubber ducky, and in a plastic folder, some sheet music for beginning piano. There was a note from Wilson. "House wanted you to have these things. Please accept them. He hoped that Rachel can use the sheet music someday, if she learns to play the piano." House had already paid to repair Cuddy's house, considerably more than the court order. Frankly, it was nicer now than it had been before. She felt that their lives were still irretrievably tangled together.
The next evening she gave the ducky to Rachel in the bath and e-mailed Wilson. "It's all right. When the whole house-car thing happened, I didn't want to see him or hear his name again. Then you forwarded those letters of apology from him. That was nearly two years ago. He was too important to you to go on pretending he didn't exist, so you can mention his name to me. I don't mind. Thank you for sending the package."
A week later, Cuddy got her first e-mail from Wilson's road trip. "Lisa, I'm at Gettysburg. The preservation of the battlefield is perfect. You can really see how the battle progressed. Rachel might like to see it someday. Love, Wilson." An attached photo showed Wilson in leather jacket and jeans standing in front of the monument to the Twentieth Maine Regiment on Little Round Top.
Two days later brought the next message. "I'm in Johnstown. I went to a monster truck rally. House never talked you into going with him, did he? Cameron went with him once and had a good time. Anyhow, it's surprisingly entertaining. Love, Wilson." The attached photo showed Wilson by a historical plaque about the Johnstown Flood.
Later in the week, this message came: "I'm in Virginia. I've never seen the Luray caverns before. They're really beautiful. I rode on Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park. I'm getting the hang of the motorcycle. You should see me. I look like House, with three-day stubble and a leather jacket. Love, Wilson." A photograph of Wilson in his helmet leaning on a stone guardrail was attached to the e-mail. She wondered who took the picture.
Three days later, another e-mail came. "I'm in Nashville. It's surprisingly pretty, surrounded by the rolling Tennessee mountains. The music scene here is incredible. Love, Wilson." The attached photo showed Wilson, again in leather jacket, standing in front of the Grand Ole Opry.
The next message came from Charleston, South Carolina. "What a gorgeous city," Wilson said, "the parks, the architecture, the cemetery where they set that film, something about the garden of good and evil. I found a club with some good jazz and listened until it was time to go to back to the motel to bed. It's very historic. You should bring Rachel some time. Love, Wilson." A picture of Wilson in a sports jacket and slacks in front of the statue from the film was attached.
Cuddy was beginning to wonder if this trip was Wilson's or House's bucket list. She decided to bug him again about getting treatment for his cancer.
Wilson wrote back, "I know House wanted me to try more chemotherapy, but it's my life. I don't want to spend what's left of it in a hospital room, and have the same, miserable outcome, maybe slower, but not better. Let's not talk about it, okay? Anyhow, the South is very beautiful, this time of the year. I'm heading for New Orleans. It's where I met House. I'll send you a picture when I get there."
The next post was from Gulfport, Mississippi. "Lisa, I've driven along the area wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. It's been cleaned up, but you can see how close to the water the whole city is. They said the storm surge was thirty feet! House said that we should just look at the name of the city: 'Gulfport.' Kind of implies that it might be a little too close to the water. Anyway, it's pretty here with a sea breeze. Tomorrow, on to New Orleans. I fell off the bike today, but I was going slow and the only damage was a scrape on me and on the bike. Remember House's orange bike, with the big scrape on the side? Love, Wilson." The picture showed Wilson, his jacket scratched on one arm, gesturing to the scratched paint on his motorcycle.
Cuddy stared at the screen for a while. Rachel was quiet in her bedroom. Lisa felt she could hear her heart beat. Something was nagging at the edge of her consciousness. She remembered Foreman, looking like there was something to tell her, and not telling her. Something.
One more try, Wilson was worth risking getting him mad at her. She e-mailed him again. "You are worth more than your cancer. You are worth more than some time in a hospital room. Please try treatment. I want to keep you in my life. I want to keep you in my daughter's life. You are loved. James, please." She felt that as Wilson slipped away from her, so House slipped even further.
In his next message, Wilson said, "New Orleans is amazing. It is everything I hoped to see. Or should I say, hear. The music is so wonderful I hardly know where to begin. I was up half the night, going from club to club. I've attached a picture for you to show Rachel, of a barge above the levee, above me, as I was having beignets for breakfast. Lisa, thank you for saying I am loved. House wouldn't say it unless I agreed to get treatment, but he showed me how he felt. Let it alone. I am happy. I think I'll stay here for a few days. I haven't decided where I'm going to head next, maybe the Alamo. I'll let you know. Love, James." The attached picture showed Wilson standing by his outdoor table, in a polo shirt and slacks, gesturing at the barge.
And then Cuddy knew. Somehow, House wasn't dead. Well that sounded completely crazy. Maybe Wilson was crazy, trying to keep House alive a little while longer, at least in his heart, his soon to stop beating heart. You could always find some passer-by to take a picture for you.
There was nothing for nearly a week and the next was a tweet. "in cincinnati. house right as always. going to roswell park new thymoma protocol. Traded bike for car. lol. wilson."
There was nothing for a week. Cuddy was getting very worried. The worry niggled at the back of her mind and didn't let go. She kept checking her phone for texts and her e-mail for messages. She tore into her mail every evening when she got home. At last, on a Saturday afternoon, she received a post card from Niagara Falls, in Wilson's small and nearly illegible handwriting. "The Falls are amazing. I'd never seen them before. There's a clinical protocol on thymomas at Roswell Park, past the experimental stage so I know I'm in not stuck in the control group. I was on the outside edge of qualifying, but Ted Rosenberg let me in. Ted and I went to McGill together, and we've stayed in touch. Hope is a little thin, here, in Buffalo, but it's hope. My room number is E 526 in Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Feel free to call. Love, Wilson."
How could she get Wilson to admit House was alive? How could she support Wilson? "are you alone? you shouldnt be alone," she tweeted.
And he answered almost immediately, "have a friend here." How do you disguise a six-foot-two-inch-tall man with a cane? House was well-known in medical circles, though since he had avoided conferences since the infarction, his physical appearance might not be. Well, maybe Buffalo was far enough from New Jersey.
She felt at peace. The world had righted itself. She had no proof that House was alive, but somehow, she knew that he was. And she hoped he would let her back into his life some day, because she knew that her world had gotten too narrow without him. "Let me know if I can do anything," she e-mailed Wilson.
And he replied, "I'm coming back to Princeton in three weeks. Might as well have the comforts of home and watch cable while I'm sick to my stomach and losing my hair."
Cuddy read the message with joy that evening. "Uncle James is coming home," she told Rachel. She didn't know how much exposure she should give her daughter. If the protocol was unsuccessful and he died, she would have to explain it to her. But she had always felt that Wilson was family. And House, if it was indeed House, was, well, she didn't know what he was to her any more, but she knew that she wanted that 'friend' of Wilson's to be him.
Cuddy gave Wilson a chance to settle in. She called him. "Are you back to work?"
"Leave of absence, still, but I think I'll start half time in a couple weeks. But House was right about treatment: it's good news on the cancer front. The tumor is shrinking and we've scheduled surgery to remove it in a few weeks. I'm immuno-compromised so I can't see patients, but I can run my department. Of course, I've lost my hair and a lot of weight. I'm sorry I can't put you up when you visit. My guest bedroom is too much of a mess right now." Lisa smiled in quiet confirmation of her suspicions.
"I'll stay in a hotel. My house is leased so I can't very well stay there."
"Lisa, there's something I need to tell you, before you come to Princeton."
And there it was. "I think I know what, James."
The elephant in the room. He was silent for a very long moment. "Tell me what you think you know."
Suddenly, Cuddy was afraid she would sound crazy. "James," she said softly. "How did he do it? Everyone thought he was dead."
"It's a long story and I'd rather he told you himself. He's going to go to prison for it," Wilson said, still not verifying her suspicion directly. "You have a protection order against him. He can't get near you."
Well, that was an admission if she'd ever heard one. "It's expired. Remember, I thought he was dead. How is he?"
"Are you going to get another one? A protection order?"
She took a very deep breath. "I've thought about it and thought about it. He was never violent. Never. Domestic violence has a pattern. There was no pattern. He should have been in the hospital that day. He'd been acting like he was crazy. When he checked himself out AMA, I shouldn't have argued with him about our break-up, or whether he still had any of my stuff. I should have seen that he was out of his mind on anesthetic and vicodin and liquor. He was in agony and pretending he could function. I could have had him committed at least on a seventy-two hour hold. He might never have forgiven me, but he was out of control. He was acting crazy."
"Remember, he still saved his patient," Wilson said. "But we both should have seen it and done something."
"After he drove into my house, he went missing," Cuddy said, almost crying, "and I was more angry about that, I think, than what he did to my house. He ran away and wouldn't talk to me. Then he came back and before I could decide whether to testify for him or against him, he was in prison. He didn't even offer a defense. James, how could you let him do that?"
"I couldn't stop him. He wouldn't let me. He wouldn't let me visit him in prison. He didn't let anyone visit."
"Foreman told me what happened, why they were going to send him back to prison. James, we have to make it right. They should never have tried him, much less convicted him." Cuddy leaned back with her eyes closed. House was alive. He was alive. And she didn't know what to do about it, except, perhaps, to try to make the last two years right. And to try to help Wilson stay alive.
"Tell me how he is, really."
"He's doing surprisingly well. At peace, if you can believe it. It's very complicated, being dead and then not dead. Just the tax and estate situations are as tangled as a plate of spaghetti. He left his condo to me and I didn't put his condo on the market right after the funeral, so he still has it, even though he's living with me. You'll have to let him tell you about it. You may have forgotten how funny he can be when he tells a story."
Cuddy smiled. "Funny and obscene. I look forward to it. Tell him I'll come up this weekend. James, I'm so glad you changed your mind on treatment. But why did you?"
"House gave up his entire life, his career, everything, for me, for our friendship. Trying to stay alive was the least I could do for him."
"Well, I am very, very glad you did. I want to see you, too. You are precious to me."
"Thank you. Lisa, we can't go back, but I am grateful the three of us will be friends again. Let me know when you're coming and where you are staying."
"I will." Cuddy disconnected the call and sat back again, breathing as if she had been running. House was alive. The world, that had been askew ever since he drove his car into her dining room, righted itself. She allowed herself one giant whoop for joy. Then she turned out the living room lights and stopped to see if she had disturbed Rachel. The little girl was still fast asleep. As Cuddy brushed her teeth and put on her pajamas, she was still smiling, and looking forward to the best night's sleep she had had in two years.
End