If you're still here with me and remember what's going on in the story congratulations and thanks for sticking with it. I even had to re-read the entire story before writing this next bit because I couldn't remember everything that happened.
I know I'm not very regular about posting and I appreciate all the people who've reviewed and stuck with me so far. Let me know what you think. Please R&R.
House silently stewed over the fact that Cuddy seemed serious about her threats. He couldn't believe that she would carry through with the plan to remove him as the head of diagnostics until he spoke to someone. He didn't need to talk to anyone about anything. There wasn't anything wrong. He was fine.
His stomach growled and, perched on the edge of his bed, House glared back at it. The pasta had smelled delicious. Considering he had been living off of hospital food for more than a week now the thought of something with flavor set his stomach rumbling. Damn Wilson for bringing that up. He could have at least had the decency to wait until after House had gotten a good meal in him.
He wasn't willing to give in yet. Not after he had stormed out on Wilson like that. He couldn't. Resigning himself to an empty belly he swung his legs up into bed and grabbed the book off his night stand along with his reading glasses.
Forty-five minutes later Wilson found him laying on his bed glasses askew and book slipping precariously close to the edge of the bed. Wilson rescued the book from its uncertain perch and smoothed the crumpled pages. He glanced at the cover of the trashy romance novel and shook his head. He set it on the night stand and removed House's glasses to set them safely atop the book.
He sighed and looked at his friend. Even with his face relaxed in sleep it seemed as if he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Wilson made a mental note to put a couple of helpings from dinner into individually sized Tupperware and leave a note.
Reaching out his left hand he clicked off the bed side lamp and left the room. He'd try again tomorrow. Wilson was nothing if not persistent.
The next morning House awoke to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. For a miracle he had slept the whole night through and was fairly well rested.
"I'm starving." He announced his presence as he entered the kitchen.
Wilson jumped and spun around almost hitting his companion with a hot frying pan full of freshly sizzling French toast. "Jesus House! You scared the shit out of me."
Grinning the offending party grabbed a fork off the counter where it sat on a waiting plate and snagged one of the hot pieces of toast from the pan.
"Hey, that's not done yet."
Ignoring the protesting oncologist House grinned and bit into the steaming food. Then promptly spit it out rushing to the sink swearing.
"I told you."
"I think I burned my tongue." The words were muffled as House was leaned over the sink his tongue stuck out into the running water. "Your smugness is not appreciated." He scowled straightening up as water ran down his chin.
Wilson turned back to the stove to hide his grin. He dunked another piece of bread into the bowl of scrambled egg near his elbow and replaced the piece that was now sitting soggy in the sink. "It'll be ready in five minutes. Drink your orange juice. It'll make your tongue feel better."
"Thanks mom." House sneered back but obediently sat at the high stool near the butcher block in the center of his kitchen and gulped down the orange juice. "Looks like you've been here for a while."
"It's nearly 10:45 House. I didn't exactly spring out of bed to get here. I started breakfast about a half an hour ago."
Scrubbing his hair into further disarray House yawned then rubbed both hands over the bristle that covered the lower half of his face reveling in the scratchy sensation against the palms of his hands. It was getting a bit long maybe he'd trim it down today. He rubbed it again. Or tomorrow.
As if reading his thoughts Wilson commented on it. "You've almost got a full grown beard going there. Be careful or it might grow out of the scraggily homeless look and into a real beard. People might think you look like a doctor then. Can't let that happen."
House just glared back wrinkling up his face in distaste. A look which immediately turned around when Wilson deposited a full plate of French toast in front of him. The three thick slices were soon dripping in sugary syrup. A steaming cup of coffee soon joined the meal and House happily shoveled the first three bites into his mouth without breathing.
Wilson laughed and sat down across the table a few minutes later with his own plate. He carefully put syrup between each layer and then meticulously cut everything up into squares, a few of which disappeared miraculously when he got up to retrieve his coffee from by the stove.
"So."
House pretended not to hear and kept eating with a gusto.
"You need to breathe at some point."
Still not verbally acknowledging the oncologist House pointedly shoved a too large bite of toast into his mouth and grinned around it. Drops of syrup caught the light from the kitchen window and Wilson had a hard time reconciling this image with the drunken wreck he had retrieved from the park bench nearly a week before. House swallowed noisily and washed the huge mouthful down with coffee. Looking around for something to get the sticky mess out of his beard he snagged his friend's paper towel from under the edge of the half full plate across the table.
He swiped it through the stubble on his chin and came away with half a paper towel. Little chunks of paper were stuck to the syrup and strewn all throughout his facial hair. Wilson burst out laughing.
Grumbling and trying to wipe out the bits of paper only made a bigger mess as the scratchy hair on his chin tore up the makeshift napkin further.
"It makes you look like you have snow on your face."
This only caused House to scrub more furiously to no avail. The tiny shreds of paper were nearly impossible to get out at this point.
"Looks like you'll have to go respectable and shave it off. There's no way you're getting that out now."
Growling House pushed away from the table and stormed into the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later he emerged looking none too much better. Tiny pieces of paper were still stuck to his face. But now they each had a little red dot in the middle where he had nicked himself.
"Not much of an improvement what did you use to shave? A Porcupine?"
"The syrup and beard mix killed my trimmer. I found an old straight edge." He picked a few of the pieces off of his face. "You owe me a new beard trimmer."
"How do you figure."
"It's your fault that I had syrup and napkins. Both of which weren't here when you got here. Therefore you have to buy me a new trimmer."
"So you're saying because I made you a breakfast that involved syrup I owe you a new beard trimmer?"
"Yep." House grinned looking self satisfied and rather proud of his logic.
Wilson just shrugged. "At least you won't scare the children when you go back to work on Monday."
"Who said anything about going back to work?" Sputtering on his coffee Wilson looked up at his friend with wide eyes. "I told you. There's nothing wrong with me, I'm not talking to anyone about anything unless you want to discuss the relative merits of the thong versus the boy short on whomever you're dating at the moment."
"So you're serious. You're not going back to work."
"I'm serious about not pouring my soul out to some asshole who's being paid to judge whether I'm fit to work or not. We'll see if Cuddy is serious about her stupid threat."
"She's not going to cave this time House. You have to understand where she's coming from. You DIED on the table because of some stupid self righteous self destructive streak. You signed out of the hospital AMA and refused to take the antidepressants the psychiatrist gave you. She doesn't think you're fit to work. She's not going to cave and I agree with her."
"What! You can't be serious."
"She is and so am I. House I'm sick of picking up the pieces. I'm tired of getting phone calls about another damn stupid thing you've done. I'm tired of hoping that this time I won't be called to identify your body. What don't you get about this? Why can't you see that you're depressed and that you need help."
"Fuck you Wilson. Fuck you and fuck her for making me do this. You can leave at any time. No one said that you had to answer the phone. No one said that I need your sorry ass to rescue me. You want to talk. Fine. Go for it. What do you want to know. What do you and Cuddy need to hear so that I can do my job?"
Silence.
"What? Nothing? Then get the fuck out because I don't need this."
"House." Wilson's ire had died down.
"No. You tell me that talking about Stacy leaving will help. What will it change? Nothing. It won't change the fact that she's gone. It won't change the fact that she's better off without me and it sure as hell won't change the fact that I'm a good doctor. So what will it do?
You think that people need to talk about everything to deal with it. It's dealt with. It's out of my system. I can swear up and down that I won't do anything like this again but you know, you know that I'd be lying to your face and what would that help. So yes if you want me to talk to a shrink I'll go and I'll convince him that everything is fine and he'll believe me and we will have wasted your time, my time and my co-pay. It's up to you. The ball's in your court now." He reached up to rub the stubble on his face and tossed his hands away disgustedly as tiny bits of toilet paper fell from his hand.
