.

.
Dan Drobnik walks into Wilson's new office two days later, making Wilson pretend that the flash of annoyance in his expression is due to the paperwork on his desk and not the presence of a supercilious asshole.

"What can I do for you, Dan?"

"Just here to gossip," Drobnik replies, and that's when Wilson realizes the man is carrying two cups of coffee. Great. A gift is an obligation, and keeping Drobnik happy means that Drobnik won't give him shit about the tricky surgeries Wilson's patients sometimes need.

There's no House here to suggest shrinking the tumor. No House to put amphetamines in the coffee cup, either, he reminds himself, taking what Drobnik offers. "Thanks. I ... needed this today." It's the first truth he's told Drobnik all week. "So what's up?"

"You know I was in residency with House?"

"Oh, God."

"Crazy son of a bitch. Spalding, down in radiology --"

"Wait. Gary Spalding?" Radiology, formerly at PPTH, recently gone but Wilson never bothered asking where. Now he knows.

"The same." Drobnik smiles. "Look, I know you don't care to talk about this stuff, but I do have a point. Spalding tells me House gets crazier each year. Stuck a knife in a light socket?"

"Electrical outlet. You said you had a point?"

"Also said you were the guy's only friend." Drobnik smiles again, that creepy I-know-more-than-you-do smile that Wilson would sort of like to punch. "And I understand it didn't end well. House was always a vengeful bastard."

"Are you ... trying to say he might --"

"Take a guy like that, cripple him; give him a drug habit; he's suicidal anyway; think about it. You get any strange packages, better bring 'em in for x-rays."

He stares at Drobnik, stunned to see no trace of humor in the man's expression. It's like falling into the plot of a really bad movie.

"Nobody'd be surprised," Drobnik insists, "if that guy killed someone."

"House wouldn't hurt me." The words are out -- utterly certain, unwavering words -- before Wilson realizes what he's said. He checks his watch, claims to be running late for his next patient, and gets out before he can say anything else.

Drobnik's cup of coffee, Wilson forgets on his desk. Let it get cold.

.


.

House wouldn't hurt me.

His brain repeats his words back to him at the least opportune times for the rest of the day. House wouldn't hurt me, except that he did, time and time again; House wouldn't hurt me, not even if I plunged a knife into his chest and twisted the blade around.

House would lie there gasping, Are we okay?

Wilson knows this for certain, because he has done it.

.


.

Everyone here is nice to him. He is therefore nice in return, without fail.

Wilson stares across a cafeteria in which the only cane-wielding people are patients and the only long blonde hair belongs to that nurse whose name he can never remember.

Spalding sits down across from him, smiling as if they're confidants because they both worked at Princeton.

Nice, nice, nice. He's overheard some of the talk about himself, none of it particularly bad, none of it even that unusual. It's enough to make him wish they'd just say it to his face, though, or ask the questions outright instead of making shit up; he's used to that. She wasn't nice, and neither was House.

"Think it'll finally rain this weekend?" Spalding asks, between nice polite bites of his turkey sandwich.

"I, uh ... don't know. I really should be getting back." He leaves his tray on the table, his own roast beef half-eaten. Let someone else clean up after him for a change.

It strikes him, as he pushes past the cafeteria doors, that no one here is ever really going to know him.

.


.

Her ghost is as present here as it ever was in New Jersey.

The vending machine in the doctors' lounge sells those lousy Zagnut bars she loved so much. Salt-and-vinegar potato chips, too, the kind House always bought. Stole.

He sees her lab coat in the hall at least three times a day, and when it's too much, when he just wants fresh air, he walks halfway to his balcony before he remembers he doesn't have a balcony anymore.

Right about the start of the second month, at three-something on another morning when he isn't asleep, he begins to admit to himself that Cameron may have been right.

Damn shame there's no one he can call and tell this to. Not unless the midnight-phone-call accuser wants to become the midnight-phone-call sinner, and dial the one number he will never forget.

It's a Saturday; no alarm clock in the morning. He takes two sleeping pills and simply waits.

.