Thank you for all your nice comments! And a quick thank you to Brighid45 for inspiration on a certain detail ;)
3
Wilson wakes to silence. Silence is rare around here. House must still be downstairs, probably harassing the cafeteria staff because he doesn't like the coffee. He keeps his eyes closed for a while and runs through a quick assessment of his body. He is achy, but the nausea he felt immediately after lunch has subsided. He stretches his legs and delights in the fact that nothing cramps. His hands and feet are still a mess of tingling numbness, but as long as he stays still in bed he can pretend to ignore that fact. Finally, his chest. He can feel the scar through his shirt. It's healing well but Wilson suspects that ache will always remain, just as he will always wonder if Webber has not overlooked a minuscule piece of tumor which will one day awaken from its chemo stupor and decide to grow again. He knows full well this is utter lunacy, but he can't help himself.
And then he hears paper rustling. So House is not downstairs.
Reluctantly he opens his eyes to see House sitting in his recliner, reading glasses atop his nose and his brow furrowed. He could do with a haircut. Half his face is hidden behind what looks suspiciously like a medical file, but Wilson knows there's more than a week's scruff on House's face. While he has lost his hair, House is going native.
Wilson sighs. "You sticking your nose in my treatment again?" House's way of taking control of every detail of his treatment has been annoying as hell. He knows why he does it, and it is most likely to his benefit, but still.
"Nope." House doesn't even look up.
Wilson takes another look. True, this one is only about a quarter of the size of his own file. He waits but House doesn't volunteer anything, he is completely absorbed in whatever he is reading. Wilson isn't sure whether he really wants to know what this is. What he does know, though, is that he is glad to be spared House's incessant fidgeting.
House is bored. But Wilson knows that sending House home, or to what currently serves as their home, is no solution. He has tried. Not only did it not work, he didn't like it either. Even though House is annoying the shit out of him half the time, he is also currently his only distraction. Having a restless and bored – and therefore highly irritating – House with him is better than being alone. When there is no House, he is alone with his thoughts and that's not something he can tolerate for long at the moment.
The surgery to remove the tumor has been successful, but he is not out of the woods yet. Radiation and chemo as a follow up are a must. The success of the surgery should make him feel positive and yet, the fact that he is currently going through yet another round of chemo, that he is still in the hospital, that no oncologist in his right mind would give him the all clear yet, all this means that he can't give himself permission to feel relieved. He wishes he had more of that ignorance that's supposed to be so blissful. He knows too much, is too aware of the odds. So instead of everything looking brighter, it just looks the same old gray as before. He is waiting for that moment when he will be able to drop all the fear and anxiety and leave it all behind. And at the same time he worries that moment may never come.
House has closed the file and moved on to Wilson's laptop now. He is in work mode. The laptop, several medical journals (where they have come from is a mystery) and that strange file are spread out around the recliner. Wilson knows that he will never find out what House is up to, unless House tells him willingly. The laptop's browsing history is always squeaky clean – except for the things House wants him to find. During his second chemo, when Wilson could barely keep anything down, House had left several links to cooking sites in the history, and deleted everything else – knowing full well that Wilson would check up on him. 'Chemotherapy for Dummies' had been another gift left for him, as well as a music video to 'Stumbling Through The Dark' when his neuropathy began.
It has been three hours since lunch, and normally House would be grousing about getting some snacks by now. Today there isn't a peep out of him. Wilson is the last one to complain about it.
As comfortable as this bed is – not – he needs to leave it on occasion to take care of some necessary tasks. Chemo always makes him a bit wobbly, and the neuropathy in his feet doesn't help.
He makes his way across the room towards the bathroom, holding on to whatever comes in handy. He doesn't need to look up to know that House is keeping an eye on him, he always is.
"Feet still no better?"
Not too distracted by whatever he is reading then.
"What do you think? Does it look like it?" He really doesn't feel like discussing his symptoms with House.
House closes down the page he has been reading. "You'd think the Effexor would have some effect by now."
Webber had put him on an anti-depressant, hoping that it would also tackle some of the chemo side effects. It isn't exactly a long shot but it's not guaranteed to work either. Maybe it's still too soon.
He is so incredibly tired of all this.
"Yeah, you would. I'll mention it to Webber later. Will you be around?"
It's like asking if the sun will rise in the morning. House hasn't missed a single meeting with Webber. And, to be fair, he has made some good suggestions. If only it didn't feel like he was intruding, messing with his treatment.
House nods. "Sure, where else would I be?"
Where else indeed.
Wilson shuffling off to the bathroom is a sight as common as the rain. And yet, it's something House will never get used to. Wilson has never been the most athletic of men nor the nervous, fidgety type. But over the last year he has gone very quiet, as if he has retreated into himself. House has always known there is a lot more to Wilson than you can see on the outside. He knew from the moment that bottle hit the mirror. Wilson is like an iceberg; most of him is out of sight. But House had always been able to at least guess at what else was there, extrapolate from a look, sometimes just one word. After leaving Princeton, there had been a boyish, exuberant Wilson at times. For a while then he had turned pensive and thoughtful, until that morning in the diner when he requested to make Seattle their destination, because that's where Webber was. Ever since starting on Webber's treatment, Wilson has become smaller, thinner. The hair and weight loss makes him look older. Some of Wilson's boyish softness is gone; he is now all hard edges. House doesn't care that he not only looks harder but has also become more scathing and sarcastic. He can handle that. But Wilson now is at once more condensed and more fragile. Seeing his friend like this gives him an odd ache in his chest, somewhere around the area where Wilson's tumor was and now sits a big, knobby scar.
Maybe this is the real Wilson, the one who was covered in niceness and smiles all those years. Maybe the cancer has eaten away all the disguises and what he's left with now is pure, raw Wilson. If that's the case, House doesn't mind, he can take the cynicism and occasional bitterness. What he finds harder to handle is the fragility that has come to light with it. There are no more smiles to cover that up.
And then Wilson lets his stubbornness show again and wants to walk down to Webber's office instead of using the wheelchair.
"Yeah, because you can just walk off the neuropathy in your feet. Maybe you should give boxing a try, might get rid of the tingling and the pain in your hands."
Wilson doesn't even reply but shuffles out the door instead. House knows better than to offer support. Not that he could actually deliver it. Webber could come to their room, but he probably thinks a change of scenery would help get rid of the grump that's taken possession of Wilson lately.
They slowly make their way down the corridor and, not for the first time, House wonders what they look like to others. Two middle-aged men, one bereft of hair and moving like someone thirty years older, and the other limping along in a totally different rhythm. They're a fine pair.