Chapter 2
Wilson sat at his desk, rifling mindlessly through half a dozen patient files. He looked up briefly, cursing himself for his actions the day prior on the bus. He was angry with himself for not getting up out of his seat and following House home. He was angry with himself for not saying anything, for not making the effort, for not forgiving, for not accepting that House would be unable to verbally apologize. He was angry that he didn't immediately recognize House's attempts at reconciliation upon sitting next to him on the bus. He was angry for not recognizing that House didn't need to apologize in the first place. He was angry at himself for allowing his friendship, the one true constant he could always rely on, to disintegrate. He was angry with himself for asking House to put his life at risk.
He glanced back at the files on his desk, when he heard a knock on the door. Immediately, he tensed, hoping it wasn't House. He felt foolish, knowing he should swallow his idiocy and just speak with him but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't know what to say.
"Come in," he said.
"Wilson, I'd like to have a word with you," Cuddy said, closing the door behind her.
Wilson eyed her skeptically, "I'm not interested in talking about him."
"I'm not interested in your excuses. We need to talk. Now."
"Now is not the time Cuddy."
"It's now, or I'm suspending you."
"You can't do that."
"No? Patient care has plummeted, you haven't processed files in nearly a month and your bedside manner is distant, bordering cold. You haven't taken the time to grieve properly Wilson."
"It's not your place. I was at the funeral. I was the one to turn the machines off. I was the one to pack up her things. I gave the eulogy. I'm the one who thinks about her each and every moment of each and every day. Don't tell me I haven't grieved."
"I wasn't talking about Amber." There was an audible pause, thick with unvoiced concern and laced with regret.
"He's not dead."
"He's dead to you. He nearly died. How many times does he need to apologize Wilson? How many?"
Wilson simply stared at her, not willing to acknowledge the truth to her words.
"House had no way of knowing that garbage truck would strike the bus. He didn't ask her to pick him up, he asked her to find you. Amber made the choice to pick him up all on her own. She chose to board that bus of her own free will."
"Don't you dare place blame on her."
"I'm not. It's happenchance. Circumstance. An accident. Nothing more."
Cuddy's voice steadily increased with each syllable, anger creeping into her tired voice, "You're killing him."
"He's killing himself."
"You've been in denial for a month, with anger thrown in there too. Has the bargaining started? Have you prayed for her return in exchange for his life yet?" Cuddy held nothing back, "You're not the only one experiencing grief, Wilson.
"He has no right to experience grief. I lost Amber, she meant nothing to him."
"Don't you see? Don't you get it? He lost you."
Wilson sighed, knowing what she said was true but not yet ready to admit it.
"Not only did he lose you, but you took his trust and shot it with a volt of electricity. He did it willingly; he gave it without question because of his devotion to you, because of his own guilt for Amber. And then you took that sacred trust and buried it alongside her. He proved his friendship Wilson, he sacrificed himself for you. This is House we're talking about here. House. The man who doesn't give anyone the time of day, yet he laid his life down for you and he did it without giving it a moment's thought. He gave you the truest act of friendship anyone could ever possibly give and in turn, you walked away."
Wilson buried his head into his hands, willing her to stop.
She continued, standing now, unable to control her anger, "Did you know that he sits and holds my hand, asks for it? House wants ME to hold HIS hand, like a child. Did you know he has some hearing loss in his right ear? Did you? It was aggravated by the seizure, which caused his cracked skull to worsen. How about the migraines, or his nightmares that keep him from sleeping? Never mind he isn't speaking. Did you know it's psychosomatic? He can physically talk but he's convinced himself that he can't."
Tears began to spill down Wilson's cheek.
Cuddy was in tears now too, "I am sorry for your loss. I really am. I know how much you loved her. But you love him too, and I know you still do even if you won't admit it. If you don't fix this now, you're going to lose him forever too." Cuddy took one last glance at him and walked out of his office, closing the door behind her.
And through his choking sobs, he whispered, "I know." Wilson gasped for air, clutching at the stitch in his chest, waiting for the palpitations to pass.
Wilson purposely left for lunch forty five minutes earlier than usual, hoping to catch House in the cafeteria. He grabbed his usual salad and iced tea, paid and scanned the tables for House. He held his breath briefly when he caught sight of him in the far corner, alone, sitting with his back to Wilson. He approached, gathering every ounce of courage he had.
Wilson cleared his throat upon his approach. House inhaled sharply in surprise, turned to look at the idiot who had interrupted his lunch and found Wilson standing there, looking pale, somewhat like a scared little kid who had been caught shoving a classmate down at recess.
"Can I join you?" Wilson asked.
House shrugged his shoulders.
Wilson sat opposite him and set his tray next to the mini whiteboard and marker already perched on the table top. He couldn't bring himself to say anything and House avoided his attempts at eye contact, so Wilson thought it best to simply eat his lunch. At least House permitted him to sit at the same table. It was a start.
Wilson took three or four bites of his salad and pushed it aside, focusing on his tea. It was an act that did not go unnoticed by House and he arched an eyebrow in response. It was the first time House had the chance to really look at Wilson. They had avoided one another since his return to work, and he hadn't seen Wilson during his recovery. Wilson's lab coat hung loosely, his face gaunt. He could clearly see Wilson had lost a considerable amount of weight and it was no wonder, if all he ate for lunch was three bites of lettuce and a sip of tea.
House finished the last bite of his sandwich and stood to deposit the tray at a nearby trash receptacle. He returned to the table for his whiteboard, all the while with Wilson's gaze following his every move.
House turned to leave and Wilson called out, "Bye House." To Wilson's surprise, House held up his whiteboard in an awkward sort of wave, and kept on walking without looking back.
Cuddy held the phone to her ear, in mid conversation with a potential donor when House barged into her office. She stopped speaking instantly, shocked at his abrupt arrival. She hadn't seen him enter her office in such a manner since before the accident and the very act made her heart leap.
"I, I…" she stammered, "I'm sorry, there's a hospital emergency. I will call you back. Thank you, bye-bye." By the time Cuddy had placed the receiver down, House was standing immediately in front of her desk.
"What is it? What's wrong?" She motioned for him to sit, purposely keeping her hands stretched out in front of her for him to take, should he want.
He shook his head and quickly scribbled, "How long has Wilson not been eating?"
"How long do you think?"
"He took 3 bites of salad at lunch."
"How do you know how much he ate?" She asked, wondering where this line of questioning was going.
House erased the whiteboard with his sleeve, having forgotten the sock upstairs, and wrote, "He sat at my table."
"Are you two speaking?"
"No."
"But you sat with him at lunch?"
"Does it matter? How long has it been since he's eaten?" House wrote this furiously, underlining the second question twice.
"I imagine a month."
"Has he had any other complaints?"
"I don't know House, why? What's going on?"
House shrugged before he wrote, "He's pale, looks tired."
Cuddy suddenly diverted her eyes, looking down at the blotter on her desk, wondering if her verbal attack that morning might have had something to do with Wilson's pale complexion. She wondered if she'd stressed him into sitting with House at lunch too.
House slammed his hand down on her desk to get her attention and it worked, she jumped.
"What was that for?" She asked, startled.
House motioned to the whiteboard, angrily. It read, "What did you do?"
Not wanting to let House know that she had talked to Wilson about mending his friendship with House, she told a half truth, "This morning, I told him that if his patient care, documentation and bedside manner didn't improve, I'd place him on suspension. He needs time to grieve."
House sat down with a sigh. He maintained her eye contact, not quite believing he was getting the full truth, but he had to agree with Cuddy. Wilson needed a break. Nodding, he placed the whiteboard and marker down on her desk, and picked up both of her hands. He gave them a gentle squeeze, leading Cuddy to believe it was a gesture of gratitude and just as quickly as he had entered her office, he was gone.
Cuddy leaned back in her seat, sighed deeply and wondered if House had perhaps, just maybe, turned a corner. He hadn't been passionate about anything in a month and now he had apparently found a puzzle that needed solving; she found it very interesting that the puzzle was Wilson.
"Did you hear?" Taub asked, looking down the hallway before entering the conference room.
"Hear what?" Kutner asked.
"Wilson and House ate lunch together."
"Don't read too much into it." Hadley replied from the small kitchen area.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kutner asked, defensively.
"It's probably just a rumor, and even if it was true, my guess is they aren't buddy, buddy."
Kutner looked at her and shook his head, "I don't care what you think. I have faith in House."
"Why do you trust him so much?" Taub asked from the seat nearest the book shelf.
Kutner looked at him in disbelief, "You're questioning House's motives? The man literally put his life on the line for his best friend. We should all be so lucky to have a friend like that."
"He did it out of guilt." Taub said, flippantly.
"I don't think so." Kutner replied.
"I don't either. I think that was part of it, but there's a lot more to it than that." Hadley said, joining them at the table.
Before she could explain what she meant, Taub shushed them at the sight of their boss approaching the conference room door.
House walked in, pointed at Hadley and motioned for her to follow him into his office. He then pointed at the other two, held up four fingers and then pointed towards the floor.
"What?" Taub asked, confused.
"We're supposed to join Foreman downstairs in the clinic," Kutner interpreted.
House pointed at Kutner with one index finger and tapped his nose with the other.
Inside House's office, he motioned for Hadley to sit down opposite him in his office. She complied, and he stared her straight in the eye, waiting for her to confess.
She looked at him, realizing he knew. "Did Dr. Cuddy mention it?"
House shook his head.
"Then how?"
House whipped out his mini whiteboard and wrote, "File."
She stared at him, mouth slightly agape, "You looked at my personal file?" House shrugged, not quite innocently.
She tipped her chin down, not sure how she felt about him knowing, "I'll be leaving at the end of the month."
As she was speaking, House continued to write on the whiteboard, "You don't have to leave."
"Yes, I think I do. Life's too short; I have things I want to do before I can't."
House nodded, giving his consent.
"Please don't say anything to the team; I'll tell them when I'm ready." He nodded once and she knew he would keep her secret.
House sat at his desk, deep in thought. His fellows were in the clinic, no current patient to work up. He grabbed his coat, the whiteboard and marker, and headed down to Cuddy's office.
For the second time that day, he barged in on her and he could have sworn he saw her wipe a smile from her face upon seeing him.
"Hey, you okay?" She asked. She indeed hid her smile from him, glad that some sense of normalcy, no matter how inconvenient his unannounced visits were, had returned.
He nodded and flashed the whiteboard, "Can you take me home?"
"Now? Are you feeling okay?"
"Patient research. Need to go home."
"Wilson's not your patient."
He half smiled and wrote, "You're smarter than you look." He scribbled almost illegibly, "Just get your keys."
