Author's note – Credit (and apologies) to Judith Viorst for inspiring the title.

Wilson wasn't snooping. Really he wasn't. Just looking for a pen to write down a message.

"Hang on," he said to Cuddy, "I'll write that down. "

He found the back of an electricity bill to write on but no pen. He opened up the drawer to House's night table and found the photograph of Stacy. It was in a silver frame, untouched by dust or tarnish. Stacy when House first met her, at the Doctors vs. Lawyers paintball game, with a smear of purple paint on her chin and a wide happy smile.

Wilson shut the drawer immediately, and went to his own night table on the other side of the bed. He found a pen, wrote down Cuddy's message and put the message on House's night table, propped up next to the bottle of Vicodin he kept there, where House couldn't help but see it. Then he left the apartment and went for a drink.

Stacy had been – still was – the love of House's life. House hardly ever mentioned her anymore, but Wilson knew that he thought about her every day, probably still dreamed about her every night. She was a part of House in a way that Wilson was never going to be, and he had accepted that. He thought that he was used to the idea, anaesthetized to that particular pain, but every once in a while he was caught off guard, and he knew that he was kidding himself and that it hurt as much as it ever did.

When House and Stacy had been together, everything that they did was charged with the intensity of their feelings for each other. They argued passionately, not about bills or schedules and the mechanics of everyday life, but about philosophy, ethics, politics and ideas. They were capable of hurting each other deeply, but they could not stay away from each other. They had no other choice but to forgive since one could not live without the other. Wilson remembered the way that House looked at Stacy, as if she were the only person in the world that mattered. Stuck in a loveless marriage, Wilson had envied them. They were experiencing a passion that he knew that he would never have.

Wilson had heard the theory that there were a multitude of universes parallel to our own, in which all the choices and decisions and random events that have shaped our lives are played out differently. Stacy and House had been so perfect for each other – so obviously right – that Wilson was sure that in every other universe but this one, they were still together. In this one fluky, flawed universe, a single random event, House's infarction, had interfered with their destiny and torn them apart.

Wilson knew that House was happier with him than he had been when he had lived alone, but he was under no illusion that House loved him. House needed him and wanted him. That should have been enough for Wilson. Expecting love was too much.

Wilson gestured for the bartender to come over and ordered a vodka martini. He didn't really like the taste of martinis, but they were a quick way to get drunk.

---------

The cab driver dropped Wilson off in front of the apartment building. The lights to House's apartment were off, which meant that either House wasn't home yet, or he'd already gone to bed. Wilson checked his watch in the light of the streetlamp. It was one thirty in the morning. House was probably asleep. He let himself into the apartment as quietly as possible, and opened the door to the bedroom a crack, just enough to see the shape of House's body under the covers. Then he shut the bedroom door and went to sleep on the couch.

-------

Wilson awoke to the sound of House's electric guitar. He opened his eyes, squinting against the morning light, to see House looking down on him. House played another riff, opening new avenues of pain in Wilson's skull. He groaned.

"Damn it, House," Wilson said, "Stop that!"

House put down the guitar and whipped off the blankets covering Wilson, revealing that the oncologist had not bothered to get undressed before falling asleep on the couch. He was still wearing the shirt and tie he had worn to work the previous day.

"It's nine-thirty in the morning," House said. "We're both supposed to be at work right now."

"I'll phone Cuddy. I'll let her know we'll be late."

"I already phoned her. I told her you had the flu and wouldn't be coming in today."

"You didn't have to lie to her on my account."

"Yes, I did. You haven't been the world's most stable person lately. First you go on a leave of absence after Amber's death and quit your job. Then you decide you want it back. Then you start madly chasing after every woman with a sob story you can find, until I have to take you in just to protect you from yourself. Cuddy's pretty sick of your behaviour. She's concerned that you seem intent on destroying your life and your career. I don't think that she would take your graduation to full-fledged alcoholism as a positive step."

"One night does not make me an alcoholic. Besides if we're talking about self-destructive streaks, you have the world's record."

"Your boss is so worried about your performance and your mental and emotional heath that she came to me to talk about it. Cuddy knows I'm a diagnostic genius; she gives me leeway to go wild once in a while, because that's what geniuses do. You're not a genius, so if you go off the straight and narrow, you get fired. Is that clear enough?"

"Yes, crystal clear," Wilson said. "You shouldn't have to lie for me."

House nodded.

"Next time I won't. You'll have to explain to Cuddy why you chose a bottle of vodka over your patients."

"Considering what happened to Amber, a lecture from you about the evils of demon drink is really hard to take."

"I'm getting really sick of you bringing up Amber whenever her death helps you score a point in an argument. If she really mattered to you, you wouldn't use her that way. You're pretending to be grief-stricken, when all you are really is full of self-pity."

"If I'm such a self-pitying pathetic mess, why do you bother with me anyway! "

"Lately I've been asking myself that question a lot," House said.

He left the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

------------------------------------------

After House left, Wilson took a couple of aspirin and tried to go back to sleep. He dozed fitfully for a while and then got up and took a shower. He looked at himself in the mirror, bleary-eyed, unshaven (a pathetic mess) and wondered what he should do next.

Should he leave House? It would hurt less, he thought, to go on his accord rather than wait until House had to kick him out. Or was he over-reacting? He didn't want to throw away another relationship just because he was too afraid of being hurt to give it a real chance. If he walked away from House, he would have no one in his life at all.

Wilson shook his head to banish these morbid thoughts, then winced at the pain the sudden movement caused him. He took the vitamin bottle from the cabinet and took one of the pills from inside. He didn't want House to know that he was back on anti-depressants. (He had copied this excellent trick for hiding prescription medicine from Amber. He'd always admired her cunning.)

------------------------

House had calmed down by the time he returned home that evening. He'd even picked up pizza for dinner, knowing that Wilson, who usually did the cooking, wouldn't feel up to the task. The lights were dim in the apartment. Wilson was on the sofa, watching one of the sad movies he loved. Terms of Endearment was playing, and copies of Brian's Song, Bang the Drum Slowly, and Dark Victory were piled on the coffee table. House knew that Wilson went on binges in which he watched one sad movie after another, usually after one of his favourite patients passed away. He couldn't cry over his patient's death – he'd lost too many and besides doctors have to maintain a professional objectivity – but he allowed himself to respond to the sufferings of imaginary characters. They weren't up to the hospital bed scene yet, Wilson's favourite and a real tear-jerker, so House thought he could safely interrupt.

"I got a meat lovers special with twisty cinnamon sticks," he said. "Want a slice?"

"Yes, please.' Wilson said, looking up. His eyes were still dry, so this was the first movie of Wilson's sad movie binge.

House put the pizza box on the coffee table and sat down next to Wilson. He opened the box and they both took slices of pizza.

"I heard Raymond Schillinger died yesterday. He was one of your patients, wasn't he?"

"I never liked him, you know," Wilson said.

"You didn't?"

"He was a horrible person. He was a racist, and he had a long prison record. All of the nurses hated him. He rated all the female nurses on their sexual attractiveness. He'd say, 'I'll do you, but you have to put a sack over your head first.' He wouldn't let the male ones touch him. He said they were all faggots and he wasn't going to give them a thrill."

House laughed humourlessly.

"Some of his friends used to visit him. They intimidated the other patients and insulted the staff, so I asked security throw them out. None of them came back after that. I think it gave them an excuse not to visit him anymore. Watching someone die slowly from leukemia is pretty depressing. It doesn't have the glamour of a gunshot wound."

"I can see that," House said. "It's more a civilian disease, even a child's disease. No self-respecting hoodlum would want to die that way."

"He died alone. I keep thinking that if I hadn't kicked out his friends, they might have been there with him. Nobody noticed he was dead for hours. I yelled at the nurse on duty, even though it wasn't her fault. I'll have to apologize to her tomorrow."

"Was that why you went out drinking last night?"

"No," Wilson said. "Well, maybe partly. I know you think I'm milking Amber's death for sympathy, but everything hurts so much more now than it used to. It's like when you get a sunburn, you're so sensitive that the slightest touch causes you pain."

"You could ask Cuddy for some more time off."

"No, I think you were right about Cuddy. She's cut me enough slack already. I just have to toughen up. I'm sorry about last night. It won't happen again."

House nodded. "You know there's a hockey game on ESPN in fifteen minutes. The Devils are playing the Pittsburgh Penguins. If we skip right to the hospital scene with Debra Winger and her son, we'll have time to watch it before the opening face-off. The rest of the movie is just Jack Nicholson mugging for the camera anyway."

"Jack Nicholson is a great actor," Wilson said, picking up the remote.

House was ready to argue the point, but Wilson shushed him. The best scene of the movie was about to begin.