Savored Clarity

By jayman

Part 1 of 3

"I'm sorry this will have to hurt so much," Wilson said, pulling on a pair of surgical gloves. He stood off to one side of the table; instruments lay spread out before him. "Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to write prescriptions at the moment."

He smirked as he looked down upon the tiny girl, struggling against her bonds. Tape covered her mouth, so it was impossible to hear her response. He doubted she was offering informed consent.

"It's lucky for both of us that inventory records aren't so sharp lately." Wilson said, pushing something into the IV line he'd hooked up to her arm. Her wrists and ankles were tied to the wooden table legs with stolen hospital restraints.

"I managed to score some opiates," he said. "But first I had to inject you with several types of anti-depressants. I want your mind alert."

Wilson picked up a micro recorder, which sat near the array of scalpels. "Patient is seventeen, healthy except for coccidioidomycosis caused by an earthquake during a recent trip to Fresno."

Ali screamed, but her muffled voice was barely audible.

Wilson stopped the recorder. "I'd really rather you didn't do that. Let me explain some things to you. First, I've just injected you with a fatal dose of heroin. I'm sorry, but you're dying."

Ali whimpered, tears streaming down her cheeks. The medication had already cleared up the milkiness. It had been a weak link for a diagnosis, anyway. As soon as she settled down, Wilson turned the recorder back on.

"Not the usual reaction I get from my patients," Wilson admitted. "I'm going to take the gag off your mouth. I want to make it very clear to you that there is no one who can hear you scream. And no one who would care if they did."

Wilson put his hand up to the white strip of tape across her mouth. "We're going to talk," he said, and ripped the tape free.

"Why should I talk to you?" Ali asked, licking her lips. The medical tape left no mark, no redness or swelling to indicate that anything had happened to her physically besides the puncture mark in her arm. That was a typical method for using heroin anyway. They'd figure that Ali came here with some boyfriend, tried something new, and overdosed.

"That spore in your brain means, even in this, you'll lack inhibition."

"So?" Ali practically spat the word.

"So, when I ask you a question, you're first response is to answer. Especially with all the drugs in your system."

"You're a cold bastard," Ali said, struggling against her bindings.

"You're actually one of the first people to notice," Wilson said, flashing his winning smile.

"Why are you doing this to me?" she asked.

"Because I'm empty inside." Wilson stood over her, looking down upon her. Something almost like compassion crossed his face. "I wish I could say this was the first time I've done this. But the truth is, the only way I feel something is if I create it in someone else."

Wilson had no reason to lie to her, she wouldn't be alive long enough to make a difference. He dragged a chair over near the table, and sat down on it backwards. "Right now, I feel like dying."

Ali's eyes started to roll back into her head.

"Oh no," Wilson said. "Not yet." He injected some more countermeasures into her IV and waited as the spasm passed. While the medicines took their course he flipped through House's notes in the file on Ali, which he'd stolen along with the calendar.

They were in a series of new homes being built, actually in the basement of one of the finished units. Ali's Hyundai was outside, but it would be days before it was reported stolen.

"Only seventeen more weeks," Wilson said, flipping through the pages of the novelty calendar. "What were you planning to do when you turned 18? Now that Doogie Howser is officially gay, I mean."

"I wasn't really going to do your friend," she said.

"I realize that. But you had some sort of plan for the big day?"

"Are you a shrink or a murderer?" Ali asked.

"Both," Wilson said, making a note of something on her chart. "Answer the question."

"I… I was going out with Brian. He was taking me to see Pan's Labyrinth in the city."

"And then?"

"Then what?" Ali asked, confused.

"You get a night in the bright lights, what does Brian get?" Wilson leaned in closer to her, trying to capture every breath on his tape recorder.

"I... I don't know. Why are you doing this?" Everything was fuzzy, the lights were leaving trails and the sound of his voice seemed to be coming from miles away.

"Are you a virgin?" Wilson asked bluntly.

"You think the only reason I went after Dr. House is because I knew that he wouldn't be willing to complete the act?"

"It's one theory," Wilson said, adjusting the tray. "I don't think you're taking this seriously enough."

Ali watched helplessly as Wilson pushed up her sleeve. "It's very common for depressed young girls, especially ones on new drugs, to cut themselves." He held the scalpel right against her skin, a tiny drop of blood beading along its edge.

"You can scream now," Wilson said, as he made a single, quick slice across her wrist. Not deep enough to be dangerous, but there was some bleeding and a lot of pain.

"I had to shut down my practice today."

"So you decided to start killing little girls?" Ali asked.

"Not start. But do you have a better suggestion for where I can get my fix? I really would love to hear it."

"What sort of fix do you need?"

"I told you already, I'm empty inside." Wilson sighed.

"There has to be something besides murder that can make you feel."

"There used to be," Wilson said. "Greg had a wonderful way of making sure I stayed on an even keel. For almost an entire decade, not one single kill."

"Lucky me," Ali said. "I met you at just the right time."

"Yes," Wilson said. "Lucky for both of us. He wanted you as badly as you wanted him, you know."

"He has a funny way of showing it."

"Yes," Wilson said. "But that's House for you."

"How long do I have?" Ali asked.

"Heroin overdose usually comes in two parts, except the disassociative factor has been compensated for with the other meds. The respiratory depression will stop your breathing some time in the next half hour. When the police find you and run a tox screen, they're going to think you had a pretty wild night."

Ali cried, shaking slightly with her sobs. Wilson put his gloved hand on her shoulder.

"Is there anything you wished you'd done before you died?" he asked.

"Uh, tomorrow would have been a nice place to start."

"There's nothing either one of us can do about that now. I can't un-inject you."

"But you can give me something to counteract it, you already stopped half of it." Ali looked up at him pleadingly, praying that her words would get through.

But she didn't know James Wilson. No one did. You don't put up with someone like House as your best friend without serious damage of your own.

"Dreams, hopes, ambitions," he snapped. "Now that you're dying, what do you wish you'd done?"

"Never met you," she snapped back.

"You tried to take House away from me, you didn't expect there to be some sort of repercussions for that?"

"You're not killing me because I tried to date your friend."

"No," Wilson admitted. "There are so many more valid reasons for it. You're nothing, you exist for no purpose. You have no dreams, no ambitions beyond your next date." He slammed his hands on the table as he yelled at her. "That's why you're dying, you vapid, little whore."

Ali blinked, shocked. She wished one of her hands were free so she could slap him for his brutality.

"But you're lucky," Wilson continued. "It could be worse for you. I'm not interested in raping you; I'm not going to cut you up… much. Your parents will be able to see their little girl all pretty in the box before they put you in the ground. Not all families are so lucky."

"Please don't do this," Ali begged.

"It's already done," Wilson said, with a sigh. "Were you going to college?"

"Why do you care?" Ali said, raising her voice into a scream.

"I told you," Wilson said. "No one can hear you. And I care about the answers because I'm now responsible for your life. Whatever you were meant to be, whatever you were supposed to do, that now belongs to me."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Ali asked.

"Let's say you were going to be a doctor. I've just snuffed that out of existence. I want to make sure I keep my books straight, on a cosmic scale, so I know what I owe to the world."

"You're right about me, I'm nothing. That's got to make your mind rest a little easier."

"Actually, it doesn't," Wilson said. "It might, if you weren't lying to me. Obviously another lesson is in order." He picked up a different scalpel, taking his time slashing it across her arm.

Ali hissed, but knew somehow that screaming at this point would only satisfy the monster. She bit her tongue and kept it in, instead. Wilson made two more slashes after the first, then picked up his clipboard and made a few more notes.

"I…" Ali's voice was breaking, as her breathing slowly decreased. "I wanted to be a vet tech," she said. "I wanted to work with abused animals."

"Is that what drew you to House? That he's wounded?"

"Yes, and I saw it in you too," Ali said. "Of course, if I'd known just how bad I never would have picked up the phone."

After House had driven past, Wilson went back up to his office to call Ali for a ride. He knew she wouldn't ignore his number, and after she'd picked him up, he'd drugged her and brought her here.

"I'm ever so glad you did pick up," Wilson said. "It's a cold, lonely night for taking the bus."

"You're gonna burn," Ali said.

"You're number three," Wilson said. "Not counting ODs at the hospital. I was due for the flames long before I met you."

"You keep count?" she asked.

"Of course I do," Wilson said. "And I keep a recording of each one, too." He nodded towards the micro-recorder.

Ali tossed her head from side to side, and threw herself against the restraints. It was hard to work up the energy for such a struggle with so many sedatives in her system. Wilson slapped her across the face, hard, twice.

"We were having such a lovely conversation," he said.

"Fuck you," she said.

"Sodium pentothal it is," he said, picking up another syringe and pushing it into her IV. "It'll be a moment, but I have time."

Ali's struggles grew increasingly quiet. After several minutes, Wilson picked up the clipboard again.

"Have you ever been in love?" he asked. "Aside from the psychotic obsession you had for House, I mean."

"No," Ali said, her speech slurring slightly. "I was abused, I don't usually trust people."

"Your father?" Wilson asked.

"Friend of the family, called uncle." She rolled her head over to face him, her beautiful blue eyes bloodshot and streaked.

"So you're not a virgin?" he asked.

"Not since I was thirteen," she said, with a sigh. Her breathing was becoming more and more irregular. Wilson continued to jot notes on her file.

"What about you?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Wilson asked.

"You're killing me, don't I have a right to know about you?"

"Ask me whatever you like," he said. "Fair is fair, after all."

"How many people have you killed?" she asked.

"I already told you," he said.

"You said ODs at the hospital don't count," she said. "How many people have you killed?"

"Thirty seven terminal patients, who would have been dead anyway in a matter of days, maybe weeks at best."

"You killed them?"

"No one would bother to check their blood levels for opiates. The families knew they were dying; no one had any reason to suspect the friendly oncologist who sat with them for an hour the next day. But I had to be there for the death. I can't explain it."

"And so you went from waiting for someone to die to causing their deaths?"

"Eventually. My first experience with death was watching my uncle die from cancer. No one noticed me in the corner of the room, fascinated by the entire thing. So rather than leave it up to chance, I made sure that I was with the patients. My first real victim was a hooker I picked up in Tuscany, while I was there giving a lecture. I strangled her with a belt."

"The police didn't catch you?"

"I was the third or fourth john she'd taken into the hotel that day, and I'm a neat freak by nature. After that I found the websites I was really looking for. I realized that I didn't want sex and kink, I just wanted kink. I managed to hold it at bay by looking at stuff on Ogrish. But I couldn't control it, several years later I took another prostitute and faked an overdose in her."

"Where were you?"

"Another lecture. And while I was in Detroit my friend was nearly dying of an infarction in his leg."

"You weren't there for him?" she asked.

"No," Wilson said, sadness creasing his otherwise handsome face. "I was giving another medical lecture."

"Do you think things would have been different if you had been there?" she asked.

"I know they would have been. I wouldn't have been satisfied to let him lay there in agony for three days while antibiotics obviously weren't working. I wouldn't have betrayed him when he had to go into the coma. Because of what I did, because I killed her, my friend was taken away from me, And the world got House in his place."

"But every other time you've done this you've been far away from home. Why kill me here? So close to where you live, with phone records to tie us together, they're bound to catch you. If you let me go, I promise I won't tell anyone about this, I swear to God…"

"Those are all good points. I've tried to kill around New Jersey before, but I never had the nerve. There were three girls who were supposed to be victims that ended up my wives."

"How the fuck does that work?" Ali asked, too surprised to hide it.

"They needed protecting from something worse than me," Wilson said.

"Do you have anything I could drink?" she asked, suddenly changing the topic.

"It won't work," Wilson said. "I'll get you a drink, but you're definitely victim number three, not wife number four."

Ali collapsed back onto the table. Wilson brought a cup of ice chips over and placed several in her mouth.

"How does your stomach feel?" he asked. "Is the anti-nausea medicine working?"

"I'm fine," Ali said. "You know, this isn't really how I pictured dying."

"It never is. No one gets it right. Death doesn't fit into your day planner."

"Somehow you found a way to pencil it in."

"Yeah, but who knows what sort of dark, empty room I'll find myself in someday."

"I hope it hurts," Ali said, venom in her voice.

"I'm trying very hard to make sure that you're as comfortable as possible. There are worse ways to go, you know."

"You just can't wait until Monday?" Ali asked. "Can't get a fix from one of your patients?"

"I told you," Wilson said. "I shut down my practice today. I won't be seeing any more patients for a while."

"So you'll make do with me."

"I'll make do with you. It shouldn't be long now."

"You're not afraid of getting caught?"

"I hope I get caught. I hope to God someone stops me. I know I'm a monster. Greg would have seen this in an instant and helped me already. But House… House is distracted."

"Why don't you just call the police and turn yourself in?"

"That's not a bad idea, but I'm not sure where to start. I don't kid myself; I'm nowhere near House on the karmic scale. But I try to do good work, day in and day out. If this is

what it takes for me to get that job done, then it's no different than House and his Vicoden."

"What?" Ali asked. She didn't know much about House, or the family he'd built around himself. There was enough drama to fill a television show, but she'd only met the man a few times.

"He's addicted to painkillers," Wilson said. "But that's not important. What matters is right here, right now. I want you to know I'm going to be with you until the end."

"That's hardly comforting when you're the one who caused my end."

"Good, bad, or otherwise, it is what it is." Wilson scooted his chair a little bit closer. "So you wanted to work with animals, how come? Was it because you'd been betrayed by people?"

"I guess so," Ali said. "I never really thought about it like that. I just hated the idea of these little creatures, who want nothing more than to please us, being mistreated and having no one to stand up on their behalf."

"That's beautiful," Wilson said, glancing towards his tape recorder to make sure it was still working. "What about drugs? You ever experiment with any drugs?"

"I tried pot a couple times, but I didn't really get into it."

"So there were no major obstacles between you and your dream? No drama in your life?"

"My dad can be a pain in the ass, but my grades are good and I liked school."

Wilson sat quiet for a moment, contemplating.

"Why don't I deserve to grow up?" Ali asked. "Why shouldn't I be allowed to live out my dreams?"

"Because ours is a cruel God, who loves to see us suffer."

"I'm asking you why I have to die, and you're giving me platitudes?"

"If this were a just world, I wouldn't be able to do these things to you." Wilson picked up a scalpel, giving her arm a quick slash for emphasis. "God would stop evil men from doing wicked things. But your God has forsaken you, so that you're just another lamb left to me to do with as I please."

"Oh, no," Ali said. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

"I wish I had more to give you than that," Wilson said. "But that's all there is to it. I need this. You are a victim because you're helpless."

"There's nothing I can do to make you untie me?" she asked.

"You have nothing I want. If I were interested in sex, I'd just take it. If I wanted money, or drugs, or anything else, you don't have it."

"But you don't want any of that anyway?" Ali asked, but it didn't sound like a question.

"I want to be with you as you die," Wilson said. "I want you to tell me what you're feeling. These are your last thoughts on this mortal earth; I want to record them forever. That's another thing not many people get a chance to do."

"What about my parents? Will they know what happened to me?"

"I might be willing to let you scrawl a letter here in a little while."

"I don't want them to be sad," she said.

"Oh, they're going to be terribly upset. Their perfect daughter was snatched away from them in the prime of life. They make ABC specials out of stories like yours."

"And serial killers," Ali said.

"True," Wilson conceded. "But they've got to catch me first."

"My dad won't stop until he finds out who did this to me."

"Your dad is going to think you did this to yourself," Wilson said, flashing her a smile. "All the cool kids are doing heroin these days."

"I've never done drugs before," she said. "My dad will know I wouldn't do this."

"The police aren't going to care," Wilson said, turning around to pick up another syringe. "It's going to be an open and shut case, a good day's work and off to get some donuts."

He started pushing more meds into her IV. "We're in the home stretch," he said. "The final few minutes."

Wilson started untying the restraints, knowing that she was too far gone to be of much trouble now. He'd move her down onto the floor in a few minutes, but for now he wanted to make sure he didn't miss a thing.

"Are you seeing anything like a tunnel or a light?" Wilson asked.

"No," Ali said. "Everything's just gone fuzzy."

"No glimpse of the afterlife?" Wilson asked.

"All I see," Ali said, her voice fading.

"What?" Wilson asked. "What do you see?"

"All I see is the asshole who killed me."