Title: A Distorted Genius: House MD/Nero Wolfe crossover
Author: hwshipper
Spoilers: Set post 3.21 Family for House; post A Family Affair for Wolfe.
A/N: Written for the housebigbang challenge on LiveJournal. Fic can also be read there at housebigbang.panfandom.ca/fiction/distortedgenius.htm
Disclaimer: House, M.D. and all its characters belong to David Shore, Bad Hat Harry Productions, and FOX Broadcasting. This is an unofficial fansite and we make no profit. Nero Wolfe and all its characters belong to the estate of Rex Stout.

Part One: A House in the Brownstone

"All genius is distorted. Including my own." Nero Wolfe, The League of Frightened Men.

--

It was poker night at Saul Panzer's when I first heard about the case. Saul and Lon Cohen were pretty even until Lon got the phone call. Lon left the table to answer, and came back a few minutes later.

"A murder," he said, in answer to our enquiring looks. "Woman stabbed in the heart at her own engagement party, possible front page. Don't think so, though." There was a big city corruption scandal going on at the moment which was occupying most of the headlines.

"Suspects?" Fred Durkin asked.

"Ex-husband arrested as a material witness," Lon said, and we all nodded solemnly.

Lon never did get back into the swing of the game, and Saul cleaned us all out soon after midnight.

--

It was ten-thirty on Sunday morning, Wolfe was upstairs getting his first orchid fix of the day, and I was entering germination records onto the computer, when the phone rang. It was Nathaniel Parker, our friendly neighborhood lawyer.

"Archie, I'm calling to warn you, there's a prospective client on his way over," he said.

I swiveled in my chair to grab a pen and pad. This sounded promising: we hadn't had a case for a couple of weeks. The bank balance was reasonably healthy, but could always do with a boost, the operating costs of the brownstone being what they were. Fritz had just got to the point of starting to worry about the lack of work, and Wolfe was getting too comfortable spending all his time with orchids and books. A client was just what we needed.

"Shoot," I said.

"Dr. Gregory House. Actually the potential client is his friend, Dr. James Wilson. Dr. Wilson is currently in jail--he was arrested last night as a material witness in a homicide. You probably saw the story in the papers this morning--the woman stabbed at her own engagement party."

"Really." My eye flew to the Gazette on my desk. The story had made the front page, though only as a sidebar; it hadn't quite nudged the current political scandal from the main headline, at least not in the Gazette. "He's the ex-husband?"

"That's right. I'm working on bail at the moment. In the meantime, Dr. House thinks he needs a private detective."

"How did Dr. House get involved?" I asked.

"Actually, House involved me," Parker explained. "When Dr. Wilson got charged last night, he called House; House called his own lawyer, a guy called Howard. You won't know him, but if I needed a criminal attorney in Princeton, I'd call Howard. Except being in Princeton, Howard called me. House came up to New York and was in my office first thing this morning demanding to know what was happening. He's quite a--demanding character--eccentric."

Just what Wolfe needed; a demanding character. "In what way?"

"I hesitate to say this to you, Archie, but the man has the most monumental ego." Parker laughed and I laughed too. After all, I already shared an office with the most monumental ego in New York State, possibly the country, perhaps the world.

"Perhaps deservedly so," Parker carried on. "He's a very famous diagnostician. I recognized the name, and I looked him up after he left. Do you remember the story a while ago about that famous TB doctor who was ill himself? Dr. House correctly diagnosed him."

I did remember the story. I had seen the item on TV; Wolfe had taken an interest as Dr. Sebastian Charles had been on the cover of Newsweek. At that moment the doorbell rang; I shouldered the phone and headed into the hallway. There was a man standing on the stoop. I looked through the one-way glass.

"Is Dr. House about six-two, blue eyes, with stubble, walks with a cane?"

"That's him," Parker confirmed.

"He's at the door. I'll call you back." I hung up and opened the door.

Dr. House walked in, leaning on his cane. It wasn't a standard wooden walking stick like the ones Wolfe uses, on the rare occasions he leaves the brownstone; it was black and had flames painted up from the bottom. I figured this was part of the eccentricity Parker had mentioned. House was resting his weight properly on the cane too, not just using it for balance; the doctor was himself a cripple. He didn't look like a doctor; not that I expected him to be wearing a white coat and a stethoscope out on the street on a weekend, but our own doctor, Dr. Vollmer, was never seen in anything other than suit and tie, even off-duty. In contrast, House was wearing sneakers, jeans, a colorful T-shirt and a fitted jacket which had been stylish once upon a time, but now looked distinctly scruffy.

He scowled at me. "This place is seriously cripple-unfriendly. Those seven steps up nearly killed me. Get a ramp."

I briefly considered tossing Dr. House down the seven steps, but remembered the prospective client, and decided to wait until I had at least heard about the case.

"You must be Dr. House. Parker just called."

"Well I didn't suppose you guessed," House said witheringly. "I want to see Nero Wolfe."

The man was a charmer. I ushered him into the office. House crossed the room and sat in the red leather chair as if by divine right.

"Mr. Wolfe is engaged until 11 o'clock," I explained, sitting behind my desk. "I'm Archie Goodwin, his confidential assistant. Why don't you explain what you want to me. I understand you're here on behalf of your friend, Dr. James Wilson?"

House didn't even look at me; he leaned back in the red leather chair and surveyed the room. His eyes flicked over Wolfe's desk, the bookcases, the globe. "I'm after the organ grinder, not his monkey."

I loved this man already. "Mr. Wolfe won't take your case unless I persuade him it will interest him. You want to get to the organ grinder, you have to get by the monkey." I picked up the Gazette and looked at the story. "For a start, this headline here. 'Murdered at her own engagement party! Ex-husband arrested.' It's not exactly Wolfe's favorite kind of case. He won't touch marital disputes."

House bristled immediately and swung round to look at me.

"For Christ's sake, I've never read such garbage! That rag implies they got divorced yesterday and Wilson was jealous of her engagement." House jabbed a finger in my direction. "When in fact they got married twenty years ago and divorced nineteen years ago. And he's been divorced twice more since then. The whole thing is ridiculous."

I noted House's correct use of imply, which would have gone down well with Wolfe, as well as the interesting facts about Dr. Wilson's matrimonial history.

"But the circumstantial evidence sounds fairly convincing," I suggested, flicking through the Gazette pages. "Discovered in the kitchen, stooped over her dead body, bloody knife in his hand--"

"He's a doctor. He would have been trying to help her." House gripped the arms of the red leather chair. "But that's the problem. It looks bad. The police have a nice handy suspect and they're not going to look at anyone else. That's why I need Nero Wolfe." He paused, then added, "I don't trust the cops."

I recalled that House apparently had a hotline to the best criminal attorney in Princeton. Presumably there was a reason for that.

There was no denying that Dr. House would be an interesting client. He would certainly wake Wolfe out of his current stupor. There was a danger he might drive me nuts in the process. Actually, I decided, I didn't really care if Wolfe took House's case or not; I just wanted to see them in the same room together. It was possible the room might spontaneously combust, or something equally entertaining.

I explained that Wolfe would be down from the plant rooms shortly, and asked House to wait in the front room while I talked to Wolfe. House didn't like it. He really didn't like it. Eventually, after I had assured him that Wolfe would undoubtedly just walk out of the office if he found House in there unannounced, House allowed me to propel him into the front room.

Wolfe appeared in the office at eleven on the dot, wished me a good morning, and took a few moments arranging an orchid on his desk and glancing through his mail. Recently emails had started to outnumber letters; he was still making me print them all out before he read them. I was hoping to break him of that habit soon.

"We have a prospective client in the front room," I ventured. "Dr. Gregory House."

Wolfe looked distinctly unenthusiastic. I was threatening him with work, after all.

I held up the Gazette and pointed at the story. "This is the case. Catherine Wilson, murdered at her own engagement party last night. Dr. James Wilson, her ex-husband, who's been arrested, is Dr. House's friend."

Wolfe scowled. "A marital dispute?"

"House says not. He says that the Wilsons were married twenty years ago and divorced nineteen years ago. Also that Dr. Wilson has been married and divorced twice since then."

Wolfe shuddered. "To be married not once, not twice, but three times--all unsuccessfully--the man must be an imbecile. I am not taking such a client."

"Shame. I thought you'd find it interesting to meet Dr. House," I said brightly. "Eccentric, demanding, and a world famous diagnostician, apparently. Other famous sick doctors go to him to get cured. Parker sent him to us; Parker thinks he may be the only person in the world with a bigger ego than you."

Wolfe grunted. "Other doctors consulting Dr. House may indicate his fame, or notoriety, or their desperation. It says nothing about his professional ability." But I had caught his interest. He frowned. "A diagnostician, you say?"

"Parker said."

"A most unusual specialty, surely. There was an article a year or so ago by the journalist Fletcher Stone--he was ill, and also had aphasia, so he was unable to describe his symptoms. He was diagnosed by a doctor who was in another city and never even met him." Wolfe started to rummage around in a desk drawer. "A very interesting case. The doctor used word association to determine what Mr. Stone was trying to say. I'm sure I kept the article. --Ah, here it is."

"I'll google Dr. House, shall I?" I asked innocently.

Wolfe glared at me. "Don't goad me, Archie. You know perfectly well that word is not a verb in this house."

"Darn, forgot again." I turned to my computer and googled Dr. Gregory House, while Wolfe re-read his article. House featured a few times in the news for treating people, including a senator and a jazz musician. Although House didn't seem ever to have given a media interview himself, he clearly had some high-profile patients. I was intrigued to see he had treated Hank Wiggen, who had struck out Sammy Sosa on three pitches.

Wolfe finished reading the article and said, "Archie, get Dr. Vollmer on the phone."

Wolfe would always trust a personal opinion from someone he respected before any media report, even ones by Fletcher Stone, who had exposed three administrations. I dialed. Vollmer came on the line promptly.

"Dr. Vollmer. I am sorry to disturb your Sunday morning," Wolfe said courteously. "I would like to know if you have heard of a Dr. Gregory House, a diagnostic specialist from Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey."

"House? Everybody's heard of House," Vollmer's voice boomed down the line.

"Can you tell me anything about him, professionally or personally?"

"He knows his stuff, but is notoriously difficult to get along with. An eccentric genius, they say. I've never met him myself. But a colleague of mine once referred a patient to him. House doesn't take many referrals, so it was quite a coup. Patient was diagnosed and cured within a few days. Although I remember my colleague was somewhat upset afterwards to hear his patient had never even met House--House did all his work through his staff."

"Really." Two folds appeared in Wolfe's face, which meant he was smiling. "I would that I too could solve cases without meeting clients. Dr. Vollmer, I am much obliged. You must come round to dinner some time. In fact, if you are free tonight we are having shad roe in casserole."

Vollmer accepted with enthusiasm, and hung up. Wolfe sat back in his chair and said, "Get Dr. House."

I found Dr. House sitting in the front room with iPod ear buds in and his eyes shut. He opened his eyes when I came in and raised his eyebrows; I nodded and he heaved himself to his feet and followed me into the office.

"Good morning, Dr. House," Wolfe said cordially. "I am Nero Wolfe. Forgive me if I do not stand up or shake hands."

House plumped himself down in the red leather chair. "I don't like shaking hands either; and once I'm sitting down I try not to get up unless I have to." He propped his cane up against the side of the chair and eyed Wolfe's bulk. "Though for different reasons. What do you weigh? Three hundred pounds?"

"A little less." Wolfe's eyes narrowed at the direct question, but he chose not to take offence. Instead he too went straight for what interested him. "You're a diagnostician, I understand? I have not encountered this as a specialty before."

"There aren't many of us." House took his cue from Wolfe. "I'm double board certified in infectious diseases and nephrology, but the diagnosis has always been what I've been good at. I run a department created just for me at Princeton Plainsboro."

"All doctors diagnose, of course," Wolfe prodded.

"Of course," House agreed. "I get the difficult cases, the ones nobody else can solve." He paused, looked carefully at Wolfe, and went on. "I have tenure; I can do pretty much what I want. I pick and choose the patients that interest me. I'm habitually lazy and take as few cases as I can. And then I get my staff to do as much of the work as possible; they do the running around, I do the thinking."

All this sounded eerily familiar as a way of working to me. Wolfe was looking at House as if suspecting House was making fun of him, but House looked back with equanimity.

"Dr. House," Wolfe said, at length. "I understand you wish to engage me on behalf of your friend Dr. Wilson, who is suspected of murder."

The muscles bunched in House's jaw. "That's right."

"I will not commit to that, but I will agree to meet Dr. Wilson and hear what he has to say. If I decide to take his case, he will be the client, not you. Also I hope you know that my fees are large."

"Fine. Great. Agreed." House perked up considerably. "Wilson's got money--it's not like he pays alimony to any of his ex-wives any more. So--I'll tell you what we need to do first. We need to get Wilson the hell out of jail."

Wolfe looked at me. "Parker's working on bail," I said.

"Parker needs a kick up the ass," said House. "I gave him one this morning. He needs another from you."

The corner of Wolfe's mouth twitched. "Archie, call Mr. Parker and ask for a progress report."

I gave Wolfe a look and dialed. Parker came on the line.

"I'm still working on it," Parker reported. "The judge is under pressure from the D.A. It's Coggin, he wants to hang onto Dr. Wilson, presumably thinks he'll be filing charges in a few days. He's arguing that Wilson might flee New York at the first opportunity. Ridiculous, as a respectable doctor--anyway, it won't hold water, it's nothing but delaying tactics. We'll get there. It might not be until tomorrow, though."

Assistant D.A. Daniel F. Coggin had caused us problems before. I relayed Parker's news to the room.

"That's not good enough!" House said sharply. He picked up his cane and brought the tip down to the floor for emphasis. "If he's in there another night they might move him from the police holding cell into the general prison population. We can't let that happen. He's too pretty for that."

Parker had heard what House had said, and had evidently heard it before. "Tell Dr. House that I've already instructed that Dr. Wilson not be moved. There's nothing more I can do."

Parker hung up. House glowered at Wolfe, who was observing House with quiet interest. Then House swung round and stabbed a finger in my direction.

"You. Come with me to the police station. Talk to the desk sergeant and tell him Wilson mustn't be moved. I told him that this morning, but he wouldn't take it from me. You must have police contacts, you can get the message across." House stopped, then added, "And I want to see Wilson. You can smuggle me in."

House clearly had had a busy morning. And what he was asking was preposterous. I opened my mouth to protest, but to my surprise, Wolfe cut in.

"Go with Dr. House, Archie, and see what you can do. Keep me informed."

He was looking at the clock, and I seethed. Wolfe was sending me out on this ridiculous errand because there was only a half hour to lunch, and he wanted to avoid having to start work himself before then. The fat lump. I gave him a look to show I knew exactly what he was doing, and stood with bad grace.

--

In the cab with House on the way to the police station, I reflected on what Dr. Vollmer had said; notoriously difficult to get along with. He hadn't been kidding. House raged about the stupidity of the cops, the rapaciousness of lawyers, and the arrogance of private detectives who preferred to play with plants rather than help innocent people get out of prison. I decided I would be interested to meet Dr. Wilson myself, if only to see what human being could possibly put up with House as a friend. I had started to notice that House's voice went up ever so slightly in tone when he mentioned Wilson. It was only very slight, and he spoke as harshly and critically as ever otherwise, but it was there.

I got House to hang back when we arrived at the station, and we caught a break; the desk sergeant was a different one from the one House had harassed that morning, and was also a guy I was on vaguely friendly terms with. I got an assurance that if Wilson got moved Parker would at least be phoned and informed in advance, and once the sergeant learned that bail was imminent, he gave me the nod to go through to the cells to see him.

Dr. Wilson wasn't difficult to spot; the cell was empty apart from him and a couple of drunks sleeping down the far end. He was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, hands resting on his knees, looking despondent. Although disheveled and grubby after a night in jail, he was wearing what had previously been a stylish suit jacket and pants, with a white dress shirt, and I would have bet money that the police had confiscated an expensive silk tie along with the shoelaces from his black patent leather shoes. I recalled that he had been a guest at the engagement party and had presumably been dressed for that. However I also thought it likely that he habitually dressed like this. This was good; if he ever had to take the stand in court, he would clean up nicely.

He looked up as I approached, then stood up.

"Dr Wilson? I'm Archie Goodwin." I proffered a hand through the bars, and he reached out and shook without hesitation. "I work for Nero Wolfe."

"Pleased to meet you," he said politely. "Parker said House went to see Nero Wolfe?"

"That's right. Wolfe hasn't decided whether to take your case, but he has agreed to see you, once you're out," I explained. "We're working on getting you out right now."

I stopped, because Wilson was looking over my shoulder. I looked round, and Dr. House was striding into the room. How he had conned his way past the desk sergeant I had no idea; but there he was. House paused next to me, leaning on his cane, looking at Wilson. I looked back and forth between them. The two of them stared at each other through the bars, a few feet apart. They didn't touch, nor did they need to. I wasn't there, the guard in the corner wasn't there, those bars weren't there. Hell, the whole world didn't exist any more.

"Wilson, you look like crap," House eventually rasped.

"Good to see you too, House," Wilson said, deadpan. "Funny to have you bailing me out for once."

House snorted. "Yeah, it's hilarious." There was a pause, then House said unexpectedly, "I should have come to the party with you."

"Then you'd have probably ended up in here with me," Wilson said lightly. "And then Cuddy would have had to bail us both out. Best to avoid that if possible, don't you think?"

House looked down and smiled, and it was the first time I'd seen him smile, a real smile that lit up his craggy face. "Wilson, you're an idiot."

"House, do me a favor," Wilson said. "My stuff is at the hotel I was supposed to be staying at, and I should have checked out of there by now. Would you mind going and seeing what's happened to my things? Also I guess they might want to be paid. They have my credit card, so they can take it off that."

House threw up his free hand in exasperation.

"Wilson, only you would be worried about your hotel bill when you're in jail suspected of murder. You might as well let them toss whatever crap you left there anyway."

"Thanks, House," Wilson said, straight-faced.

At that moment the desk sergeant appeared, red-faced and sweating. "You shouldn't be here."

"Okay, okay, we're going." House sighed theatrically, and turned towards the door. He looked back at Wilson. "Don't let them move you before you get bailed out. Throw a fit and sue them first."

Wilson nodded solemnly, and seeing the sergeant's expression, I hastened to usher House out of the door.

--

Out on the sidewalk, I gave House a piece of my mind for following me to the cell, but it was like water off a duck's back. He let me rage for a moment, then said, as if I hadn't said anything, "I'm starving. I never had any breakfast. Is there a place to eat around here?"

Wolfe would never have let House leave the brownstone if he'd known about the breakfast. It was well past lunchtime by now and I was hungry too, so we went and ate ham and eggs at a diner on the corner.

"Why don't you trust cops?" I asked, as we ate, to make conversation. Also I thought it might be advisable to know.

"I was persecuted by a bent cop in Jersey," House squirted ketchup on his fries. "Arrogant son-of-a-bitch stopped me on my motorcycle and took me in for possession." He took a pill bottle from his pocket, opened it and shook out a pill. "Vicodin. Legal. Prescribed. For the leg. I'm a cripple, in case you haven't noticed." He swallowed the pill with a mouthful of coffee.

"What happened?"

"Spent a night in jail before Wilson bailed me out. And another night for contempt of court later on, but the judge threw out the charges." House gobbled fries.

Somehow I wasn't the slightest bit surprised to hear about the contempt of court. I thought about the prospect of a trial where House got called for some reason, any reason, say as a character witness for Wilson. It was obviously a situation to be avoided if at all possible. I could only hope that House didn't turn out to be involved in this murder.

At that moment my cell phone rang. It was Parker. "Archie, is Dr. House with you?"

"Yes, he's right here." I looked at House and mouthed Parker. House reached out for the phone with a gimme gimme action. I ignored this but shifted closer so he could hear Parker speak.

"We have bail. But there are two issues we need to settle. Firstly, Dr. House ought to know that the bail was set very high." Parker named a figure which was certainly the highest I'd ever heard for a material witness.

House blanched slightly, but leaned forward and barked into the phone as I held it, "Fine. What's the other problem?"

"He can't go back to New Jersey. There's a strict condition that Dr. Wilson has to stay at a named address in New York, and he mustn't leave it without informing the police. They won't release him until I give them an address. What should I say?"

Without missing a beat, House leaned forward again and said clearly into the phone, "Tell them West 35th Street. Nero Wolfe's house."

"Now hold on a second," I said indignantly.

House fixed me with a steely glare. "What's the problem, Goodwin? You've got a spare room somewhere in that big brownstone, haven't you?"

"You can't just--"

"Then find another address. Now," House snapped.

House had me on the spot. Parker was waiting on the line for an answer. Wilson was waiting forlornly in his cell. I zipped through various possibilities in my mind. None were ideal.

"Parker, can we change the address later?" I asked.

"Sure. But I need to tell them something now, if you want him out now."

"Okay then. Tell them Nero Wolfe's house. For now." I shut the phone.

I looked at House. "You're way out of line and you're lucky I don't hit cripples. Don't you ever do anything like that again."

"Oh, lighten up, Goodwin," House sneered. "It's probably for, what, one night until you find somewhere else. Or until you solve the case. Hey, maybe it'll encourage you and Wolfe to get on and actually do some work." He stood up, and leaned ostentatiously on the cane. "I'm going to the bank to transfer some money around to cover this extortion Wilson has landed me with. And then I'm going to Wilson's hotel to tell them to throw his stupid stuff out and charge his card. And to get a room there myself for tonight. You're going back to that police station to get Wilson; I'll see you back at Wolfe's." Seeing me rendered temporarily speechless, he added, "You might want to reconsider that not hitting cripples thing," and left.

I reconsidered, and decided that at the next possible opportunity I would knock House out with his own cane and toss him down those seven steps.

END OF PART ONE