Every morning, the same thing. House makes his way grimly down the main road to work. It almost makes me laugh. Then I feel terrible, 'cause there's nothing remotely funny about how his face looks as if it has been roughly hewn from stone by a mason with more pressing matters to attend to. It's those deathly, flaming chips of ice he has for eyes that conceal his grimaces of pain, I'm sure. The only thing that's funny is how he still believes that if he walks, the pain will cease to exist. Though he knows it doesn't work like that.
He has no idea I watch him. But I've been watching him ever since I started here – three, four years ago? I forget. And I know I'd die if he ever found out. If anybody did. To most of them, I'm invisible. Resented, on occasion – though God knows why – and, at other times, helping them all to sort out their screwy love-lives. Most of the time, I'm in the background. But that's OK, 'cause it suits my purposes. I watch them.
I ramble, too. I'm good at that. I can go on for hours. But I won't here.
This morning's worse than most. It's raining. Not those huge great drops that soak you. Not a downpour. Not even a light shower. It's that crappy, in-between rain that gets into all the cracks. And even the rain seems depressed, slapping reluctantly onto the straight, smart paving slabs. This side of town's been done up. Very posh now. Looks great, actually.
And back to House. Needless to say, he looks soaked to the skin. I can only make out certain features – it's not properly light yet – but I can see his shoulders are hunched against the wind and the rain. I inch slowly closer (the traffic's bad, even at this time in the morning) then I slip past him, as I always do, and he shrinks to just another forlorn figure in the rear-view mirror. He scarcely glances at me, as always: there's nothing to mark my car out from the myriad others crawling along the wide road, slick with that interminable rain.
Having the benefit of automotive transport, I'm already halfway down my first cup of coffee by the time he arrives. The other two are having a fascinating argument about… oh, God, something or other. He looks astonishingly dry, sans his coat. The only telltale signs of his voyaging this morning are quickly-evaporating footprints and a slight darkening of his hair.
"Ah, good morning, friend." That brightness. Always that brightness, every morning. Why?
He deposits a manila wallet on the table, right in front of me.
"Care to see what scintillating plunge into the unknown we're taking today?"
And with that, the day begins.
There's nothing wrong with monotony. I love monotony; thrive on it. It makes the days so much shorter; so much easier when you split them into units. You always know where you are.
Wilson's on his way through to chat to House. I'm the only one in here – it's my lunch break, but it's too miserable to go out, and I'm not hungry, anyway. House is in his office, looking bored as hell, but he perks up as he sees Wilson.
Wilson gives me a cursory nod on his way through, then hesitates, and looks at me curiously.
"You alright, Forman?" I look up and nod, pretending that I had been engrossed in my magazine. Looking satisfied, he goes in to House.
The article I'm reading is boring, and I drift into a daydream. Cameron and Chase return after a while, and offer me an apple doughnut. I decline. Then House comes through and orders a revised differential, so we oblige. As usual, he rubbishes all our ideas. All the differentials are, really, are miniature platforms for him to fuel his narcissism. But hey, as long as no-one dies, we don't care. He sends us off to perform tests gesturing like he's conducting his three-piece orchestra.
Then there's nothing more we can do, so we may as well go home. I'm the last one out, and, unusually, House stops behind, waiting for me to click off the lights and straighten the chairs, like I do every night. I keep pace with him down the corridor. I'm guessing he wants to say something, but we're silent, even going down in the lift alone together.
The crisp autumnal air smells of damp as we step outside. I murmur a hasty 'night' and am about to make my way down to where my car's parked, when he calls me back.
"Forman." It's a command, not a request. Like it always is with House.
We stand just outside the entrance, away from the shimmering pool of light reflected on the still-wet pavement. His face is obscured by the cloak of darkness. Again, that granite, vulnerable face; those hunched shoulders. We've come full-circle since this morning. Except now I feel I'm the one being watched.
Finally, he speaks again.
"You watch me." Not a question. I can't reply. He nods thoughtfully, then turns on his heel, as sharply as he can, and strides out into the night.
It's not the end. It's never the end.