Thanks so much for all the encouragement and reviews, everyone! On to chapter three...
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"Horses are stupid anyway. I'd rather give them up than a bishop. Do you know how hard it is to capture anything when you have to be a L-shape away all the time?" House didn't bother to wait for Wilson to answer. "Of course, I'm talking to the chess champion, so I'm sure he knows the game inside-out."
"Stop stalling," Wilson smiled. "You're going to have to tell a story regardless."
"Well then, whenever you've got a question."
Wilson stretched his lips to the side, thinking momentarily, tapping a finger on his jeans. Then he looked back up at House, eyes settling on his face. "Tell me how you picked me for the internship."
"The board of Princeton-Plainsboro selected randomly as far as I know. Sure, they probably sorted out the amateur applicants, but everyone who passed the college final and submitted a photo that didn't look like a convict's mugshot had a chance."
"Come on, House. This last time you weeded through files for weeks before narrowing your choices down. And then it took even longer for you to finally decide on Chase, Cameron, and Foreman."
"What can I say? I'm more thorough now."
"The board didn't pick. They never pick. Besides, you're too much of a control freak to let them choose who gets the fellowship. These people will be working under you, after all." Wilson raised an eyebrow, trying a different route. "I was honest with you."
"That was your choice. No one forced you."
"Out of courtesy, then. I want the same honesty."
"Well, well, don't you have high demands?"
"This is your game, House. You made the rules."
"Don't I hold the right to un-make them?" He sighed, deciding that he'd annoyed Wilson enough for the moment. The oncologist watched him steadily. House's evasive attitude was nothing new. In fact, thanks to their tailspinning banter, House was convinced that Wilson would be able to withstand any cruel and unusual punishment should he ever be interrogated by some secret government agency—or grilled by Cuddy, for that matter. The older man smiled, tapping his cane against the wooden floorboards, letting the click resonate.
"Your internship…" House craned his neck back, squinting his eyes as if to clear up the dates in his head. "That was—what?—eight years ago?"
"When you first started working at the hospital," Wilson confirmed.
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House
What people don't realize is this: Everyone is born with a set amount of sanity. According to my experience and dedicated research—and by "dedicated," I mean "random and impulsive"—there must be a genetic component, since each individual seems to go about their lives with a differing amount. Like hair—in which a person is genetically predestined to go gray before thirty or bald by forty—a lack of the sanity gene ensures inevitable psychological issues.
Throughout a person's life, the well of sanity is used until eventually, like any perfect metaphor, the well runs dry. Then, snap, the person breaks like a rubber band.
See what I just did there? Three metaphors to explain one idea. Those who can't follow, take notes or ask the person aside you. I won't be repeating myself.
Now, what I didn't realize was this: Dr. Lisa Cuddy was drawing on a dangerously low water table.
She was happy enough that I'd accepted the diagnostic position at Princeton-Plainsboro. After years of teaching at a college level, it was refreshing to look at patients who were actually dying, and not just students looking lifeless in the middle of my lectures. The whole principle of a "teaching hospital," it turns out though, is to educate, or—as some might even say—"teach." Phenomenal. At any rate, Cuddy was so happy in fact that she informed me I could award fellowships to any student of my wish.
Yes. Extremely low on the water table.
She told me to pick three. I told her one. She told me three and I shut up, mainly because I figured I'd have plenty of opportunities down the road to irritate her. Another skillful deduction.
The application list was endless, and you know how much I hate filing to begin with. Everyone's grades were flawless, and everyone had apparently paid off their professors to compliment their "profound work ethic" and "tireless effort" to medicine. I wasn't sure if I was hiring doctors or drones.
Then I came across a particularly familiar face. It must have been a blustery day the time you took the photo, or maybe you hadn't mastered the blow-dryer yet, because your hair was like a tumbleweed. You had the same skinny frame, sharply-angled cheekbones, eyes that defaulted to that "open and ready for anything" look that unavoidably short-circuits after a couple years.
I'm still waiting on that to happen to you, though.
At any rate, I pulled out your file, thinking back to your time as a college student.
As a freshman, your final exam achieved the top five percentile level out of your graduating class, and the top ten percentile of highest scores ever received in the college's medical history. Not bad. I mentally gave you the remaining three years to somehow screw it up, get a big head, seduce some girl and run away to the Caribbean and throw out the idea of becoming a doctor. Shockingly, that never happened.
Should I still be waiting on that, too?
I never taught you again after your first year, but that didn't stop you from dropping into my lectures and forgoing you free time to spend in my company. When you graduated, you went off to some internship back home. I was there, shaking your hand and wishing you luck, when you told me that you'd miss my classes. It was the only time I could remember you avoiding my eyes.
I picked out your file because it was one I knew I wouldn't regret. Besides, I wanted to know what had happened to make you leave the internship you'd accepted after college. Was home too stifling for you after four years away? Was it different than you remembered? Did you feel too good for the people around you, or did you just simply grow out of them?
I didn't know about Ian back then. It makes sense now.
The other two interns, I could have sent their files to be selected by the lottery drawing. I did it myself, instead. I sprawled the applications across my floor in a haphazard spill of resumes, then tossed my baseball onto them and watched where it stopped. Some Harvard grad with a pair of glasses he most likely stole from his mother. Specialized in radiation therapy. Well, that would go interestingly with you as the oncologist. I rolled out the eight ball for my final selection, and it indecisively stopped between two applications: one, an aspiring pediatrician from Wyoming and the other, a cardiologist with an unpronounceable name.
I picked the cardiologist because I wanted to hear Cuddy stutter while greeting her every morning. It's the simple joys of life, really.
Within four months, the radiation doc had some sort of nervous breakdown, and the cardiologist was too busy being more annoying than her name to put in the required effort. They left, and you stayed.
You didn't need the internship. You were entirely capable of getting a job somewhere already, but I wanted you to find a place here. The hospital could've definitely used another bright mind to chisel out solutions for cases, especially one that was so specialized in an area as convoluted as oncology.
Cuddy offered you a job before your internship was even completed; you had your own office with shiny nameplate hardly a year later.
I picked you because you were smart, and if I'd botch any decisions I'd make, I could always point to you and say, "Hey, at least I did something right."
End
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Wilson chewed at his lower lip as he watched House down a sip of whiskey.
"That was the worst story I ever heard."
"What are you talking about?"
"That. I didn't ask for a chronological explanation. I know how it happened. I wanted to know how you felt when you picked me."
"It was my story. I could tell it how I wanted."
"You can't make it that simple."
"But it was that simple." House paused, his finger floating above a bishop. He glanced up at Wilson, adding quietly, "I knew I wanted you here. There was nothing more to consider."
"So… Did you… I mean…?"
"You have no idea what you mean, and I have no idea what you're suggesting," House said with forced coyness. He raised a brow and pushed his bishop diagonally forward three spaces. "Say what you mean, Jimmy."
Wordlessly, Wilson leaned over the chessboard and kissed House's lips. It had been an emotionally draining two days, between the birth of his daughter, some faint reconciliation with Julie, and awkwardly straining to include House, who just didn't seem to fit seamlessly into the middle of the new addition. Over the past few hours in particular, Wilson couldn't seem to articulate what he wanted. Actions were easier—and much more believable to House.
Wilson parted just barely, letting a nominal space exist between their mouths where breath and brief touches were exchanged.
"Did you pick me because you liked me?" Wilson asked, barely audible.
"I thought you were extremely qualified."
"Did you pick me because you liked me?"
The phone rang abruptly, and Wilson jumped, nearly knocking askew the chess pieces. House reached across the table and, wrapping his fingers in the cloth of Wilson's shirt, guided him around to sit beside him.
House ran a hand through Wilson's hair, still boyishly soft to the touch if less untamable than in years before. "What did you think then?"
"I told my story," Wilson replied as he fingered at House's shirt. "You're the one who took the shortcut on yours."
House wasn't paying attention. He trailed a fleeting path of biting kisses down Wilson's neck until he reached his collarbone, where he sighed, letting the heat dissipate and flood the younger man's chest. "Did you hope I did?"
"What are you two doing?"
House smacked the top of his head on Wilson's chin as he rapidly looked up. Wilson's startled expression faded into a grimace as he rubbed the spot that was soon to be adorned with a welt in a few minutes. The red light was blinking irritably on the telephone as the answering machine continued, Cuddy's voice streaming out of it:
"I called you two five hours ago and you're both still not here. House, lateness is expected from you, but Wilson? You're supposed to be the positive influence."
"That's debatable," House grinned as an aside. Wilson disregarded the message with a shrug and leaned back in to House.
"The patient has steadily declined since he's been admitted. Foreman, Chase, and Cameron have been running tests, but nothing's taken root yet. Paralysis, delusions, I don't know what else. We could really use your medical expertise."
"Hypochondria," House murmured offhandedly. Wilson smelled still smelled like soap and cologne; he moved so much more easily when he was tired.
Cuddy's voice,losing its cohesiveness in House's mind,was growing less serious and more sarcastic. "And now they're shutting down the Mets practice field, so if nothing else should concern you—"
House stopped, without warning breaking off from Wilson's kiss. "What?"
"—not sure if he picked it up there or brought it in, but they're literally yellow-taping the entire stadium until they figure out if it's something—"
"What the hell is she—?"
"—his agent tells me he was a promising rookie, and his athletic trainer has said he's shown no previous symptoms—"
"House," Wilson muttered, tugging at his friend's shirt collar impatiently.
"Wait, wait, this is interesting."
Wilson groaned in defeat as House stretched across him and snatched up the phone. The younger man could hear Cuddy rattling off a list of befuddling symptoms and demands as to where they'd been five hours ago when she'd dialed an emergency call to the apartment.
"Our life does not revolve around the hospital," House broke in loftily. "As you know, Dr. Wilson just welcomed his daughter into the world. He's very happy but very tired. And I think he misses her. Ever since he's got back here, he's been having a hard time—"
Wilson punched House in the arm at the double entendre, then grinned anyway and pulled himself to his feet. Cuddy was already sounding adamant about their diagonostic help, and House looked more than fascinated even just hearing the details.
"House."
The older man, who was quickly shuffling around the room for his jacket, looked up at Wilson. He allowed himself to be pulled into the oncologist's embrace for another lengthy kiss.
"Jimmy." House pushed lightly but firmly at his chest, finalizing the separation. He gave a small nod of his head and a slight smile. "You can wait. This patient can't."
Sighing, Wilson followed suit and changed into respectable clothes, then joined House at the door. He blinked under the stark brightness of the streetlights against the late night sky, bleeding blue-black. House hurriedly shoveled a spare motorcycle helmet into his friend's hands as they climbed on the bike.
"So. Is he really a Mets rookie, or is this some elaborate scheme to get us to the hospital?"
"Sounds like the real thing. I could hear some disgruntled guy griping about money issues in the background, so there's an agent there if nothing else. Small world, right?" House revved up the motorcycle, doing it one time too many just for show, Wilson knew. "I'm sure our rookie just planned on stopping by the hospital to sign autographs for us. Then that whole 'paralyzed' thing kind of made stuff complicated."
"And our chess game?"
"It'll be waiting when we get back."
Wilson held on to House's shoulders, steadying himself, and didn't get another word in until Princeton-Plainsboro loomed into view.