Once again, no own.....
"You need to go pack up House's apartment." Cuddy declared, slamming a stack of boxes on Wilson's desk. "His sick leave has run out and his rent hasn't been paid in two months. The landlord wants his stuff out yesterday."
"I didn't realize that the word for oncologist and the word for moving boy were the same in Latin." Wilson replied sarcastically. "Make one of House's drones go do it for him."
"House's fellows now work for Foreman." Cuddy relied crisply. "And they never once claimed to be the man's best friend."
"Note the once claimed." Wilson pretended to be interested in a file on his desk.
"Look." Cuddy snapped. "We get it. You could care less about House. You have moved on in your life and have become an even bigger ass than he ever was. You don't miss him at all even though you have spent the last three months stalking around his office, hoping he will be back so you can catch a glimpse of him. You spend all of your time snarking at people how you don't want to talk about House but you told my secretary to page you if he calls. Will you please just go to his apartment and shove his crap in these boxes?"
Wilson sat there looking taken aback for a minute then finally replied. "He is not my problem anymore."
"Maybe he isn't, but I am. If you won't pack House's stuff for House, you're going to do it because I am your boss and I am telling you that you will." Wilson nodded numbly. "Good. Oh and you might want to bring along your rain boots. Apparently there is some water damage at the back of the apartment."
"Great. House is locked up in an institution and his still manages to dictate my life." Wilson grabbed the boxes off of his desk and stomped his way out to the parking lot. As he reached his car he realized he was behaving childishly, almost as badly as House often did but he didn't care. He had spent the last three months failing at shoving someone who wasn't even present anymore out of his life. Now he was going to be faced with a flooded apartment full of reminders of this person. Wilson wondered if House had any Vicodin left his apartment. It might make the evening a bit more bearable.
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When Wilson opened the apartment door he was faced with the smell of rot. The living room floor was covered in about two inches of water and all manner of junk seemed to be floating just off of the hardwood. Wilson nearly gagged as he sat the boxes down on the couch and caught a whiff of the moldy food sitting on the coffee table.
"Water damage at the back of the apartment." Wilson muttered to himself out loud. He wondered morbidly if House had broken the pipe when he tried to hang himself in the bathroom. As he made his way into the kitchen he was he hit with an even riper aroma. Wilson eyeballed the counters to find the source of the stench. "Fucking landlord. Why can't he…." Wilson stopped in his tracks as he realized where the smell was coming from. It was House's rat Steve.
Wilson picked up the cage that had once housed House's only other friend. The little creature lay dead in a ball of misery in a corner of his habitat. Wilson felt tears start to run down the side of cheek. "Oh Steve, buddy. I am so sorry." All this time spent trying to block out House and Wilson had forgotten all about the other creature who had once called this apartment home. The rat had starved and died because…no wait. This was House's fault, clearly. He should have told someone to come and feed the rat. The rat was House's responsibility. But who would he have asked if not you? A little voice in the back of his head gnawed at Wilson's conscious.
"He had no one." Wilson said to himself. Looking at the dead rat in the cage Wilson was suddenly hit by a wall of realization. House had no one. Like the little the rat he was locked up alone, probably scared. "He laughed at you when your mom died." Wilson repeated. Or did he? House had made jokes. But was that just his way for trying to make him feel better? Wilson tried pull up all of the angry feelings he had felt towards the other doctor during that time period to stamp out his guilt over the rat. House had come over and bugged him all night. He had made jokes….he had come over.
"Wilson, you idiot!" Wilson took the rat's cage and made his way to his car. Tears flowed freely down his face as he headed to a nearby park. He parked the car and pulled a small shovel leftover from a camping trip he had taken with House the past summer from his trunk. He stopped in a small wooded area and started digging. By the time he was done his shoulders and back were killing him and his head hurt from crying. "Goodnight Steve."
He carefully placed the rat, cage and all, into the hole. He had a fleeting thought about what a police officer might think if one found him like this, caked in dirt, tears and snot filling a hole in a dark wooded area. "I might have killed you but I am not losing House." He said to the rat as he covered him with dirt. Suddenly Wilson paused. Did House even want to hear from him anymore? It had been three months and Wilson had heard nothing from House. No phone call demanding to know where he was, not even one of his lackey's telling Wilson House had asked about him during their last visit. Wilson felt confused. He had gone from being furious at House to feigned apathy to an overwhelming sense of guilt to wondering him House still wanted to be his friend…damn it! This is why they weren't friends anymore. Wilson hadn't seen House in almost four months and yet the man was still toying with his emotions.
Wilson pulled out his cell phone and dialed Cuddy's number to tell her that everything in House's apartment was too water damaged to be saved. He left a message on her machine, brushed the dirt from his hands and started the drive home.
Author's note: please don't hate me for killing off Steve. In real life I am a huge fan of pet rats. No rats were harmed in the writing of this fan fic.