Chapter Ten

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why I would've avoided my family. It wasn't that I was still dependant on my parents or anything, but I'd never avoided them. Ever since Danny, I couldn't deny them a conversation. Even if I was busy or not in the mood, I couldn't hang up. I'd felt so guilty after Danny that I might even say I overcompensated when it came to what my family needed. To go from that to never calling, all because I wasn't friends with House? How did that make sense?

There was a time, after Danny first disappeared, that I felt guilty and tried not to talk to them often, but eventually I got over it. How had not knowing House changed that? It didn't make sense--how had some stranger bailing me out of jail changed so much and made my life back in my reality . . .

I must've called my parents to bail me out. Had that somehow . . . ?

I suppose I wouldn't have any way of knowing, but still, I couldn't help but wonder. How could things be so similar, and yet so different? How could we be working at the same hospital and not be friends? House had been the one to tell me about the position, and I'd taken it because I'd last seen Danny nearby . . . Had I somehow found the job on my own?

I opened my laptop and checked my history--nothing too different; I still had cancer research sites on my favourites list, but I didn't have anything to do with diagnostic medicine. I suppose that made sense, since I wouldn't have ever sent anything House's way he would've enjoyed reading. I hadn't been to youtube for the past two weeks, either. Then again, I didn't really visit that site unless House sent me a link.

I checked my email--a few notices that Cuddy sent out to everybody, a few emails regarding new cancer developments, but nothing else. No annoying chain emails; no inappropriate jokes; not long rambles House typed in a fit of boredom, either.

I checked my sent folder--nothing. Either I deleted my sent folder more than I did in my reality, or I didn't have anybody to send anything to. Since I didn't keep in contact with my family, and I wasn't friends with House, that made sense.

I found a Twilight parody on youtube and sent it to House.

It didn't take long for him for him to reply. A simple 'lol' was in the subject line, and when I opened it, it was a link to a World of Warcraft parody that he'd sent me before, but was still funny when I watched it. I sent him another link, and a few minutes later he sent another.

I spent the next two hours searching youtube for funny videos and sending them to him just as quickly as he sent them to me. His comments in his emails started getting longer, and I could hear him laughing through my walls, although the diagnostics room was in between us.

I remembered, in my reality, that I had a document where I kept the funniest links. I opened up my documents folder to find that I had saved some articles (the same ones I'd saved in my reality) but not the document where I kept the funny jokes and video links.

There was a document on this laptop that I didn't recognize, though. It wasn't named. Which was what caught my attention in the first place. I ignored the pop-up saying that House had sent me another email and clicked on the document, confused.

I read through it, realizing it was dated for New Year's Day, although it hadn't happened yet. Why would I post-date an unnamed document?

At first, I was confused, although I recognized that what was written was definitely typed by me. But a few sentences in, I realized what it was. What I had written. I knew why it was dated for a few days from now, and with words like 'nobody's fault but my own' and 'I just couldn't laugh anymore' I couldn't deny what I was seeing. I read about how I had stopped taking my prescription pills--that I had changed my will. That I couldn't handle dealing with death on a daily basis, and that I hadn't been happy since Amber died, and even before then, I hadn't been happy for a long while.

It was even signed by me.

It was like someone dumped a bucket of ice water over my head, or swallowing glass of milk just to find that it had been sour. I thought about how I'd cancelled my monthly appointment with my psychiatrist, and how none of my paperwork had been done . . . I thought of the cuts on my inner thighs, and although I knew that cutting oneself was an entirely different problem than suicide, it only showed how deep my depression was.

I was going to kill myself.

I was suicidal.

I had absolutely nothing in my life worth living for. Two divorces, a girlfriend I had assumed cheated on me with the one person I hated, and nothing else. No friends . . . I couldn't laugh anymore. That was what I'd said.

When I'd first thought about going to a psychiatrist, I'd felt like I was giving up. It felt like I had failed. That was why I'd hidden it from House--not only because I hadn't wanted him to shove it in my face that I was just as screwed up and unhappy as he was, but because it felt like I should've been able to deal with the pain on my own. That I shouldn't have had to rely on medication. But I couldn't deny that it worked.

Apparently, here, even that hadn't been enough.

I wanted to puke. Bile rose and burned the back of my throat. I'd never been claustrophobic, but my office felt too small. I didn't want to read over it again--I wanted to pretend I'd never even found it. But how could I? How could I forget that I was suicidal?

I put my head in my hands and closed my eyes, trying to wash my mind free of those thoughts. I tried to think about anything else, but I couldn't. Everything that flitted across my mind made me nauseous. I thought of how I would do it--would I just down the rest of my depression medication and finish a bottle of vodka to myself? Would I take a bath and slice my wrists? Would I throw myself off the hospital or put a gun to my temple?

I was going to kill myself on New Years, and I had no idea how.

I heard a noise from my computer and I looked up, noticing it was a pop-up telling me House had sent another email. I reached for the touchpad on my laptop, my hand shaking. I opened the email and clicked on the link. It was funny, I guess, but I didn't laugh. I sent him an email with two links inside, and then deleted the document.

After that, I emptied the recycling bin.

"You're in a weird mood," House commented as he strode up beside me.

I smiled briefly at him, my heart not really into it. Various images of my dead body filled my mind and I shrugged. "I called my niece today. It's her birthday." I furrowed my brows, remembering that her name was Danielle, and not Jamie. "She didn't know who I was," I added.

"Guess that's what happens when you avoid your family for more than a decade," he pointed out reasonably as he prodded the elevator button.

I nodded, then furrowed my eyebrows. "Wait, how did you--"

"I did a background check, remember? What, you think you're the only one who can dig out all the skeletons in the closet? Called up your family and your ex-wives. Read your medical file. You know, the usual."

"Broke into my office, searched through all my drawers, taped together all my shredded files . . ." I added half-heartedly, looking at the doors as they opened, and imagining brain matter painting my apartment walls.

"You know me well," he revealed as he limped inside.

I followed him. "Did you find anything of interest?"

"Oh, a little of this, a little of that." He pressed the button of the floor we needed.

"So, in other words, nothing. You'd be mocking me if you did."

"Hang out with me tonight," he demanded.

Him demanding instead of asking was so much like my House that I couldn't help but smile. "All right."

His smile was so brief I could've imagined it. I don't think I did, though. "So, I know a little something about avoiding family. Why do you do it? You have a funny uncle? Or just general dislike?"

"I really don't know," I answered honestly, and when the doors dinged open, I thought of blood trickling across my wrist and staining my bathwater red.

House shrugged as we walked out of the elevator, his body swaying with his limp and bumping against mine. It actually seemed more persistent than usual--as if he were testing me. Knowing him, he probably was. I pushed back and he pushed even harder.

"My dad was an ass," he told me.

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," he brushed off, waving his hand dismissively. "Not your fault my mom hates me now, either. You gonna apologize for that, too?"

I opened my mouth to do just that, but closed it without speaking.

"Doctors House and Wilson, checking out at 5:30," he called to the nurse.

"House, I'm sure your mother doesn't--"

"I skipped my dad's funeral. She didn't give me a Christmas present. I think it's safe to say she hates me."

Of course he hadn't gone to the funeral. His mother would've never called me, Cuddy never would've drugged him, and I never would've dragged him to the funeral. I had never been pulled over, we'd never ruminated over how we met, and I wouldn't have thrown that bottle through the window. House would've been at the hospital, diagnosing his patient, and she had either died when he did the MRI, or lived when he realized (without my help) that she'd had a pin pushed through her skull as an infant.

It was snowing lightly outside, and I pulled my coat tighter around me to block off the cold. "You staying the night?" House asked casually, but if he was anything like my House, he was telling me he wanted me there.

"I'll need to stop by my apartment to grab some clothes," I told him, and met his eyes.

He nodded once. "I'll leave the door unlocked." He shuffled on the spot, almost awkwardly, then pushed off of the sidewalk.

I watched him leave for a moment, then moved off in the direction of my car.

Thai takeout boxes littered the coffee table (which he had cleaned off before I arrived) and The New Yankee Workshop played on the television, the sound muted. House was playing on the newly-tuned piano (had he hired someone to do it for him while he was at work?) and I just listened. He made a few mistakes that he wouldn't have made where I was from, but I pretended like I didn't hear them. After all, I only knew because I was used to hearing him play flawlessly--had I never heard him play before, I wouldn't have known.

I looked over at him and watched as he pressed down on the pedal every so often and how his arms flexed and his fingers danced. He stared at the keys--he wasn't reading any sheet music--as he played. He turned his head and looked at me. I almost blinked and looked away so that he wouldn't know I was staring, but I didn't. One side of his mouth quirked upward, then he looked back at the piano.

He finished up the song, then closed it before joining me on the couch. He was already in his pyjamas, socks and shoes somewhere on the floor beneath us and looking as relaxed and at home as I was used to him appearing. I was still wearing my work clothes, but my tie was gone and the top button of my shirt was undone. It almost felt like I was back home; the only reminder that I wasn't in my reality was his thinner-than-usual appearance and his more pronounced limp.

He turned the volume up a bit, so I could barely hear the saws and the faint mumbling of talking, but that was it. I knew House wasn't all that interested in the show itself, so much as the false hope that one day, there would be a horrible accident, despite the fact I'd reminded him on several occasions that it was pre-recorded and even if he decapitated himself, they wouldn't air it.

"Got any plans for New Year's Eve?"

"Not as such," I answered, an image of me splattered on the sidewalk in front of the hospital flashing across my mind. Would I wait until midnight? Would people be celebrating all around me while I killed myself, totally unaware of what I was planning?

"Huh. Neither do I. Imagine that." I smiled at him, and although he didn't return the sentiment, I could see the sparkle in his eyes. "You should stop by."

"All right," I agreed with a shrug. It was the only thing I'd want to do, anyway.

His knee was pressed against mine slightly, and I tried not to notice, but I couldn't help it. "Any plans for New Year's Day?"

I imagined hanging by my neck in my closet, eyes open and lifeless. "Not really," I muttered. Hell no. I don't care what I thought in this reality, I was not going to off myself. Life was not so horrible I couldn't fathom the idea of living.

"You didn't ask for it off. New Year's Day, I mean."

I sighed and leaned my head against the back of the couch. I guess I wouldn't have bothered, seeing as I was planning on dying that day, anyway. Had I planned someone coming to check on me and finding the note?

"Did you?" I asked.

"Nah. Cuddy wouldn't have given it to me if I did. Best day of my life--diagnosing hangovers when I've got my own to beat into submission. Guess you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?"

I really couldn't deny it, seeing as I had no clue, and so I just shrugged.

House plopped his arm on the back of the couch behind me. "Well, you've given up smoking and you only had two shots of whiskey--and unless you're the biggest lightweight in existence, I doubt that did much for you--and you've been all snuggly with me. You do know that you're supposed to save the resolutions for January right?"

"I'm an overachiever."

"You wanna get plastered on New Year's Eve with me? We could wear sunglasses and bitch at people together on the first. Could be fun." He waggled his eyebrows.

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, that is exactly what I consider a great time--a pulsing headache while at work. I make a point of doing it every year."

"And every Saturday morning you work, day after Christmas, middle of the week . . ." he trailed off, raising his eyebrows at me.

"Resolution, remember? I'm trying to become a better man."

"Then you've decided to be friends with the wrong person. It is my resolution to corrupt you."

"Oh, well, in that case, I'll bring the beer," I told him. I could drink on New Year's Eve, if I wanted. It was a holiday and I doubted I was that much of an alcoholic.

House nodded. "It's a date."

I smiled inwardly to myself, and his arm dropped onto my shoulders. I froze and his hand tensed. I halfway expected him to move it and play it off as a joke (which I also half-expected to be true) and then when I relaxed, so did he. I thought of how we'd played the piano together and how he'd held my hand, and found myself wondering if perhaps there was something between us that I'd always ignored in favour of assuming he just didn't reciprocate.

His thumb brushed my upper arm and I sunk into the cushions some more, leaning my head against his shoulder. He didn't shove me away or make a joke. He actually didn't do much of anything, except continue to brush my shirt with his thumb.

He used his free hand to change the channels, and left it on some comedy. I focused on it enough to know the plot and chuckle at a few of the jokes, but I didn't really know what was going on. I couldn't really think about much of anything other than the fact House had his arm around me, and that I had been planning to kill myself.

I didn't realize how tired I was until I closed my eyes, but I told myself I wasn't going to fall asleep--I wanted to hold onto this moment for as long as possible, curling up beside my best friend while he breathily chuckled every few minutes and kept his arm around me.

Wilson stood on the balcony that he and House shared, feeling the cement against his elbows and forearms where he leaned. The cool air felt great on his overheated skin, and darkness was a blanket surrounding the hospital. It was peaceful; calm. Everything about the night suggested it was a relaxing end to a good day. Just like Wilson--a picture of relaxation and charm; he could take the world's problems on his shoulders and by the end of the day, he brushed them off with a casual smile and a friendly pat on the shoulder to people who could really care less about him.

Appearances could be deceiving.

Timothy had been in his early twenties; a few years ago, he'd been the star athlete of the university's track team, and he'd gotten in on scholarship due to his exemplary grades. He'd wanted to be a lawyer, and from the looks of it, it seemed that he would've been able to.

He'd been a little sick, but it was during the winter. He hadn't noticed it as being anything different than a nasty cold. The headaches he paid no mind to--stress from school, and occasional drinking binges with his buddies explained most of it. Blurred vision, vertigo, unexplained bloody noses--something Wilson supposed most people wouldn't have paid them any mind, either. By the time Timothy thought there could be something wrong with him--the cold persisted for a few months, the headaches only got worse, his grades were suffering from all of it--it had been too late. By then, all Wilson could do was offer to make him comfortable and watch the guilty expression on his face, knowing what he was thinking--that if he had just paid attention a little sooner he wouldn't have a death sentence. Maybe it was true, and maybe it wasn't, but either way, he'd had less than six months to live.

He'd died not a few hours ago, and Wilson hated himself for caring. He'd gotten attached to him, despite knowing that he was dying. In fact, most of the people Wilson got attached to were dying--relationships were a foreign concept to him, apparently, because all the people he seemed to have any sort of connection with were dying in a few months. He didn't have friends at all--merely acquaintances or colleagues who sat around and congratulated themselves on their successes as a doctor, while he agreed dully and politely, sipping his champagne at all the oncology benefits--which seemed to be the only time he had conversations with these people.

Bonnie and him were married only through technicality--they hardly saw one another, and the sex he was getting wasn't from her. He didn't know if she knew he was cheating on her, and honestly, he didn't care. It didn't seem that she did, either. She didn't ask why he was late getting home anymore, but he always told her it was because of work--usually that was true, but sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes he stayed late at the hospital because he'd rather be surrounded with people he was helping and seemed to truly like him, rather than go home to a wife he probably didn't love and only stayed with because he was on the wrong side of middle-aged with one divorce already under his belt and leaving her would mark him as a failure. Again.

How could a well-liked oncologist with his salary be a failure? He didn't know, but it certainly seemed he'd found a way.

And instead of being able to cope with death, as an oncologist should've been able to do, he found himself avoiding his house and standing on the balcony, briefly entertaining the idea of just hoisting himself over and spending the last two seconds of his life knowing what it was like to fly.

He stopped leaning against the ledge and reached into his pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. Each time felt like giving up, but nothing else seemed to calm him after a patient died, not even the bottle of Jack he kept in his drawer, or the fact his staff never acknowledged the fact his breath sometimes smelled of alcohol and nicotine although he knew it must've.

He sucked in the nicotine and felt the smoke fill his lungs, and his jittery nerves relaxed exponentially. Timothy was still dead, and his eyes still burned at the memory, but he could focus better, at least. Tonight when he went home to his wife, she wouldn't even be able to tell he'd had a bad day, and he could tell himself that eating her dinner made him a good husband. That all the nameless faces he went home with on the weekends didn't matter, and that when they finally managed to have sex in their cold bed they only shared because they were both too afraid to sleep on the couch and accept the fact it was all over, it was all he needed and that maybe he could stop the cheating and only have sex with her for the rest of his life.

House's door opened and Wilson nearly choked on the smoke that he still held in his lungs. For a moment he panicked, but then he realized it was too late to hide what he was doing. House walked to the edge of the balcony, a little half-wall separating them, and Wilson blew the smoke into the night in shame.

"Hand me a cig," he ordered, sticking out his palm expectantly.

Wilson could've told him to go to hell, realizing that was probably the one sentence he said the most to the diagnostician, but figured it was pointless. Sighing, he pulled out another cigarette and handed it to him.

House plopped it into his mouth and leaned forward a bit. It took Wilson a moment to realize what House wanted, and rolled his eyes. He lit it for House, who puffed expertly and blew the smoke away from his face. He turned to see the empty night.

"An oncologist who smokes," he stated with what sounded like pleasure.

"Should I allow you a moment to appreciate the irony?"

"Far more interesting than rain on your wedding day." He sucked in the smoke, then blew out little rings. Fascinated by the way his lips moved and his cheeks hollowed briefly, Wilson couldn't look away, and realized that House had obviously had more smoking experience than he did, despite the fact he'd never actually seen him near a pack of smokes. "Kinda like how I seem to know more about you than anyone else does," he added a second later, his blue eyes sliding away from the night and onto Wilson.

Wilson looked away. He tried to avoid the electric gaze of House, and told himself that it had nothing to do with the fact most of the women he slept with had blue eyes. He hated House; he was annoying, stubborn, a complete ass, and had no respect or concern for anyone other than himself. Of course he hated him. "I wouldn't necessarily consider that an achievement, House."

"Because nobody knows you," House stated.

Wilson didn't bother correcting him; it was true. Instead, he took a long drag off of his cigarette, and continued to look at the darkness that was Princeton. He wondered if one of the many lights shining in the distance was his own, or if Bonnie had already turned off the porch light and given up on waiting for him.

"So, you smoke, huh? All the ladies you screw like the taste of it on your tongue, or do they just forgo kissing entirely?"

Wilson bristled. "Unlike you, House, I don't sleep with hookers."

"And unlike you, I'm not married," House retaliated. Wilson pursed his lips together and continued smoking. He couldn't say anything to that, either.

"Why are you out here?" Wilson asked a moment later, when the silence began to drag on longer than a few seconds.

"Foreman's finally gone, and I fired Chase. I'm celebrating. And you?"

"I'm smoking," Wilson evaded.

"I can see that. You don't always smell like smoke, so you can't do it a lot, and you're not out in the smoking pit which means you don't want anyone to know."

"Has anyone ever told you how annoying you are?" He glanced at House long enough to see the smirk, then shook his head, wondering why he even bothered. "A patient of mine died today."

"If you smoked every time one of your patients died, you'd be one of them."

Wilson shook his head and stared at the ground. "I normally only do it when it's the kids, but . . ." He couldn't explain it, simply because even he didn't understand.

"You got attached. You crave human contact. It's a side effect of not having any. You make friends with the dying because your wife could care less about you, and nobody here gives a rat's ass. If they lived longer than a few months you'd just screw it up, and they'd leave you anyway."

"And you, being a master at human connection . . ."

"I never said that. I sleep with hookers. You sleep with sluts. We're not so different, you know."

"There is a world of difference between us, House," Wilson snapped, hating being reminded of his faults by someone who only ever seemed to do so. The only person who knew him at all, and he couldn't stand the sight of him. "You're a self-destructive egomaniacal addict who ruins everything he touches. You trap yourself in this little anti-social bubble and you feed off misery and just drag everybody down with you because you're selfish and alone."

An expression Wilson didn't recognize flashed across House's face, but it was so quick he couldn't decipher it. House took a long drag off of his cigarette and blew the smoke into his face. Wilson coughed and waved it away. House tossed his cigarette, red streaking through the black night, and then stuck his hand over the half-wall, as if wanting to shake his hand. "Hi, I'm Kettle," he greeted enthusiastically.

Wilson blinked and opened his mouth to tell him where he could go, but House turned on his heel and limped back into his office.

It didn't occur to him until he was at the bar, lighting some blue-eyed man's cigarette, that House had been trying to socialize.

A/N--I've seriously just had one of the worst days of my life. It's definitely on the top five worst days list of my life so far. And so I did not check over this before posting and so all mistakes are mine.