Title: Intervention
By: Sy Dedalus
Rating: Somewhere between TV-14 and TV-MA. Contains naughty language, adult situations, adult themes, graphic grossness; no sex.
Paring: Gen (House/Wilson strong friendship)
Spoilers: Season One.
Summary: The missing scenes from "Detox" plus some. Wilson helps House as House faces himself and his addiction. Mostly hurt/comfort and angst.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to FOX and the producers of the show, etc. I'm not making any profit from this. All quotes belong to the people who are credited for them, not to me. Please don't sue me, etc.

A/N: Most of House's part of this update is lifted directly from Auditrix's wonderful blog. I've got House remembering very little from the early part of his infarction; she's got him remembering EVERYTHING. So, if you like this fic, especially the balance between h/c and humor/snark and House's interactions with Wilson, you'll LOVE the blog. Didja ever wonder what House's blog would read like if he wrote a blog? Well, you're in for a treat cause this is it. So set aside a few hours and get thee to the blog already!

I strongly suggest you start from the beginning or certain things won't make sense: (http colon slash slash housemd dot blogspot dot com/2005/01/ive-been-surfing-around-and-looking-at dot html - obviously, put dots, colons and slashes in the proper place; the section from "com" to "at" can be pasted into your browser as is; I don't know why ff dot net is such a punk about hyperlinks). Not to mention that the posts in themselves are all damn funny. But if you must skip ahead to the infarction part, I suggest you start here to get the whole backstory (which is quite good and you'll be sorry if you skip it): http colon slash slash housemd dot blogspot dot com/2005/01/im-slouched-in-back-row-of-auditorium dot html. If you're the utterly impatient type who must be sold on something in under two pages, start here: http colon slash slash housemd dot blogspot dot com/2005/02/stayed-up-playing-piano-well-just dot html (but you are so missing out if you do!). If you notice certain similarities between our fics, it's because I have no scruples. ;)

More notes at the end regarding the timeline of the series and some other stuff about last night's ep ("Control").

Night Three: Cartoon Physics

Children under, say, ten, shouldn't know
that the universe is ever-expanding,
inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies

swallowed by galaxies, whole

solar systems collapsing, all of it
acted out in silence. At ten we are still learning

the rules of cartoon animation,

that if a man draws a door on a rock
only he can pass through it.
Anyone else who tries

will crash into the rock. Ten-year-olds
should stick with burning houses, car wrecks,
ships going down—earthbound, tangible

disasters, arenas

where they can be heroes. You can run
back into a burning house, sinking ships

have lifeboats, the trucks will come
with their ladders, if you jump

you will be saved. A child

places her hand on the roof of a schoolbus,
& drives across a city of sand. She knows

the exact spot it will skid, at which point
the bridge will give, who will swim to safety
& who will be pulled under by sharks. She will learn

that if a man runs off the edge of a cliff
he will not fall

until he notices his mistake.

—Nick Flynn, "Cartoon Physics, part 1," Some Ether, Graywolf Press, 2000.

House kept up a steady gait walking into his building, doing his best not to arouse Wilson's curiosity now that he'd finally gotten it to retreat. He kept it up in the elevator, swallowing against the jerk of motion, and then digging around for his keys in the bag that held his clothes, which was difficult because he had to cradle the bag with his left arm and keep his balance. He got the door open and dropped the bag as soon as he was inside. He didn't stop then, though, despite the angry shouts from his muscles and nerves begging him to get into his bed and surrender to gravity.

He wanted to do a few things first.

Change his clothes, for one. He wasn't the biggest fan of scrubs, especially when they were new and itchy like this pair was. That would be complicated, though, and probably more trouble than it was worth.

Instead, he headed for the kitchen and filled a glass with ice, noticing that his cleaning lady had come. Which meant his booze was...where?

Turned out it was where it was supposed to be for once and that was, of course, the last place he thought to check because he would never put it there. He pinned the bottle and the glass between his left arm and his body and deposited them on the coffee table, for which he had to shift all of his weight onto his left leg so he could use his right hand. This one-handed bullshit was getting old fast.

Next he hobbled into the bathroom and retrieved the bottle of Ibuprofen Wilson had bought for some reason he couldn't remember now out of his medicine cabinet. His mind wanted to follow that thought, to make sense of the afternoon, but he cut it off, growling to himself and shuttling the bottle to the coffee table.

Next, a big, fat cigar. After the week he'd had, it was just what the doctor ordered. He rummaged around his living room until he came up with one. Now he was ready to relax.

But wait. He thought for a second and then went back to the kitchen. A glass of water and a box of cereal—Captain Crunch, that would do. He liked the Crunch Berries. If it came up later, then it came up later. Right now, he wanted something in his stomach. He was starting to miss food.

He settled into his favorite chair and clicked on the TV. What to watch? He found a sitcom rerun and left that on until he could find something better. First, he was going to have a nip of Scotch and a smoke.

He lit the cigar and got it going, then took a long drag and held it in. His head started to swim as he exhaled. He closed his eyes and savored it, feeling himself relax, the act dropping away. God yes, this was exactly what he needed. A cigarette would have been even better—quicker, though not as effective in the long run. But they'd been the cause of all this nonsense... Well, he liked to think that getting slammed into a pool table had had something to do with it too. Cigarettes had taken such a beating in recent years, he didn't want to add to it, being somewhat fond of them still. And there was the whole personal responsibility thing. The cigar was good, but he certainly wouldn't mind a cigarette right now. He hadn't had one in eight years. No, nine. Had it really been that long ago?

One of the few things he remembered with some degree of clarity from that awful time between arriving in the ER and getting his head back together from all the dope they'd given him before, during, and after surgery was coming to himself in a non-descript room, leg screaming in pain and the rest of him screaming for a cigarette.

Bright lights, the haze of drugs, confusion.

"Dr. House," a nurse said smiling at him, "welcome back." She looked way to cheery. He knew right off he wouldn't be getting a smoke from her. "We were getting worried. Do you know where you are?"

Hell, he wanted to say, but knew that wouldn't go over too well. "Hospital," he said instead. Whoa, he sounded bad, all scratchy and warbley.

She smiled again. "That's right," she said.

She looked at something he couldn't see. "Dr. Wilson, he's awake."

Then Wilson was there, smiling, but in a brave-faced way that made House's stomach sink.

"Hey," Wilson said. "How you feeling?"

"Could use a smoke," House said. It came out as a whisper and he realized how dry his throat was.

Wilson chuckled and gave him some ice chips. "Good," he said. "Good."

The ice chips melted in his mouth and wetted his throat. He licked his lips.

"What happened?" he asked, raspy this time. An improvement?

Wilson gave him some more ice chips and then put the cup away.

"Well..." he said, "what do you remember?"

He struggled to recall the last few...hours, days? He didn't know how much time had passed. It was like being in a supermarket or a casino: no windows, no outside world, no exit.

He remembered being subjected to a variety of tests, jostled awake by the transfer from the gurney to the table and back again, but what those tests were and what the results had been... He'd gathered somewhere along the way that they'd found a blood clot in his leg, but consciousness hadn't stuck around long enough for him to do much with that idea.

"Not a whole lot," he said. "What time is it? What day is it?"

Wilson chuckled again. He must have looked amusing. "Sunday," he said, "and it's about," he checked his watch, "2:30."

House stared at him stupidly until Wilson realized that that wasn't helpful.

"P.M." he added. "It's been about twelve hours since you got here. You picked a bad day to get sick."

House snorted. "If I'd known, I would've called ahead," he said.

Suddenly the pain in his leg ramped up a notch and he clamped his mouth shut to keep from screaming. Oh, so that was why he had a twelve hour gap in his memory.

"You okay?" Wilson asked worriedly.

House nodded jerkily, eyes shut against the pain.

"What happened?" he managed to choke out.

"They found a blood clot in your femoral artery," Wilson said, still looking worried. "They're trying to break the clot up with thromobolytics via catheter first. Don't move, by the way, they're leaving the catheter in for a few hours at least. Do you remember any of that?"

He remembered...lights...metal...voices...pain. He shook his head.

"Not too surprising," Wilson said. "You were pretty out of it."

"Tell me about it," House muttered. "Is it working?" he asked, wondering if he dared to hope.

"Too early to tell," Wilson said. "But they're hopeful." His brow furrowed again. "How's the pain?" he asked.

"Not great," House said. He'd just gotten used to the new level of pain he was experiencing and it wasn't knocking him out, so he figured he'd like to stay awake for a little while. "But okay."

Wilson still looked worried, glancing at the door like he was about to bolt after one of the nurses.

"It's okay for now," House said reassuringly. "I've been knocked out enough for one day."

Wilson snorted.

"What did the tests say?" he asked. "I remember...lots of tests."

"The X-ray, CT, and MRI didn't show anything conclusive," Wilson said, trying to edge away from the conversation.

"What about tissue damage?" House asked.

"They're...not sure yet," Wilson said. "Gotta break up the clot first." He tried to smile.

Damn but he was terrible at concealing his emotions. House knew that look. It's bad, it's bad, it's bad, he thought. But then, if he was throwing clots, odds were he'd end up with one in his lungs and that would be the end of that. After the pain he'd felt today, maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing. Quick, painless. As opposed to a life without his leg. Twelve hours...

"Don't worry," Wilson said, brave face back on. "It's looking...good."

"You're a terrible liar," House said, trying not to show how down he was getting.

"Yeah," Wilson said softly, "I guess so."

He looked at his feet for a moment, then looked up again, face more composed.

"But they really are optimistic," he said in his best 'I'm-not-bullshitting-you' tone.

"It's been twelve hours," House said miserably. You know what that means, his eyes said as he looked at Wilson.

"Yes...," Wilson said slowly, "...it has. But don't worry."

"How can you—oh, God," he said, squeezing his eyes shut as the pain ramped up several more notches at once. He tried to sit up, to grab his leg. He couldn't get nearly that far. Wilson pushed him back.

"Stay still," he said, voice tight with alarm, and was at the door in an instant, yelling something down the hall.

It was all he could do to keep breathing in the long seconds it took the nurses to draw the meds and get down the hall. He was aware of a hand gripping his. He squeezed it, jaw clenched, hearing voices and feeling hands checking him over. Then the morphine hit him. He opened his eyes to see Wilson' worried face looking down at his, felt Wilson squeeze his hand again though he couldn't squeeze back now, and heard him saying something like 'hold on' as he slipped off. Maybe this is it, he'd thought hazily, maybe this is it.

Not his favorite memory. Looking back, he was almost grateful for the pain knocking him out, keeping the burden of knowledge waiting in the wings a little while longer. That self—the one lying confused in a hospital bed, dying for a smoke, wondering if this was the end—that self had been so innocent. And all the selves before it. Couldn't have possibly known. And all because he started smoking on a dare at age fifteen? Innocent, pimply-faced fifteen-year old Gregory who resented his father and wished he knew how to talk to girls?

Not so innocent, maybe. After all, who's innocent at fifteen? But either way, it seemed that if he sat around just breathing long enough, time would kill him, so why not have a smoke? He couldn't see any reason why not, so he inhaled deeply, savoring the flavor. And he saw that it was good.

One upside to having only yourself to spend money on was that you could buy some really nice things. Some people got Ikea catalogues and went nuts and others collected pointless memorabilia from other pointless memorabilia collectors who'd fallen on hard times through the global bizarre that was eBay. They were usually gay or obsessive-compulsive; probably still living with their mothers either way.

Him? He went for pleasures of the flesh. He wasn't an epicurean in any sense—no five-hundred dollar tins of caviar for him—but if part of his flesh was going to limit everything he'd ever do for the rest of his life, why not reward the remaining flesh for being a good sport about the whole thing? Again, he couldn't think of a reason. So, bottoms up.

He drained the glass. There were more expensive bottles of booze out there than this one, certainly. Moderation—that's the key. Unless there's pain... Yep, he'd said it. Too bad she didn't listen to him.

He checked his watch: 6:58:26. Time for Wheel of Fortune. He changed the channel and did the math. Eighteen hours, seventeen minutes, thirty-four seconds and he'd be back on at least forty mills a day. The way this week had gone, he'd be up to eighty in no time. There were all those incidental injuries to consider; they were really adding up. Not his best week. His stomach was still burning, Scotch on top of the IB. Well, if it wanted to bitch, he'd give it something to bitch about.

He poured another glass and opened the Captain Crunch, wondering idly if it had exceeded its shelf-life. It was an old box—he didn't remember buying it—and the cereal inside certainly was stale. But it wasn't too bad and he really didn't care anyway. He should invest in Twinkies. With a seven year shelf-life how could he go wrong?

He laughed sadly to himself. He hadn't always been this way. Drinking alone at seven o'clock on a Thursday night, actually interested in Wheel of Fortune, speculating in the Twinkie market. Might as well be collecting pointless memorabilia or prissy European furniture.

He realized vaguely that he was wallowing. Oh well. He didn't really care. The alcohol was doing its work fast tonight; he figured he'd be asleep before Jeopardy! was over. Which meant he'd miss The OC. Damn.

He chewed another handful of cereal and took another drag on his cigar. Not the best combination of flavors and textures, but he'd take it. He exhaled the smoke.

Stacy had hated his smoking. She'd goaded him into trying to quit more times than he could remember and he always ended up sneaking cigarettes whenever he possibly could. She'd find out and they'd fight. He'd get restless, go to a bar, and chain smoke until he was sick. They'd make up, have great sex, and be back at square one.

In the beginning, he'd tried, he'd really tried to quit for her. Yes, he agreed, it was a nasty habit, very bad for him and everyone else on the planet, and yes, she recognized that it was his constitutional right to give himself cancer if he chose, but didn't he love her enough to think about her? Okay, yes, he wouldn't smoke in the apartment any longer, sure, that was reasonable. But then he came in smelling like smoke, tasting like smoke and she didn't like to kiss him when he tasted like he'd been licking an ashtray. This too was reasonable. He liked her kissing him—or didn't like her not kissing him—so that was a good motivator. He tried. He really, really tried. But to be frank, he liked it. It was five minutes when he could check out of work, go outside, and be by himself.

He wasn't good at this emotional stuff, at caring for another person. It took effort. He had to take time during the day to sort things out, to remember those niggling details. Was it her birthday? Her mother's birthday? Some kind of anniversary? Had she been angry with him this morning? If so, what did he do? What did he not do? Should he get his hopes up for tonight? Maybe he'd buy her some flowers on the way home. But then she'd think he'd done something. Or would she? Flowers just showed he cared—that was all, right? Or did flowers say 'I'm sorry' and chocolates show he cared? It was all so damn complicated.

By the time she started really bugging him about kicking his dirty little habit, they were living together and things were pretty serious. He needed a lot of time during the day to himself, to figure out what was going on and whether he liked it or not. And since his brain tended to get carried away with a case, he needed something else to remind him that it was time to stop for a few minutes and reflect. Nicotine worked well, he thought, a physical reminder he couldn't ignore for very long. He'd feel the tug in his blood and he'd push the criss-crossing lines of thought aside for a moment. His body would relax and he'd think about the part of his life that didn't come naturally to him for a little while. It was almost always a relief to get back to work after a smoke break, especially if they were at a place he didn't understand.

Sure, he loved her. He wanted to marry her. He was certain of those two things. But the amount of work he had to put in to keep things up was exhausting. Maybe he'd just lived by himself and for himself only too long: a permanent bachelor. But then he saw Wilson, the great times he'd had with his wives (only two then). There were bad times for him, too, and he came through it okay. So why not? Why not him too? He could make it work. It would just require more smoke breaks, that was all.

All that smoking he did. Now there was addiction. Coming off Vicodin was a walk in the park on a fine spring day compared to nicotine. And it was made better—or worse?—by the fact that he had to do it laid up in a hospital bed where he had no access to smokes and nowhere to smoke them even if he did. The heavy pain meds helped and they gave him nicotine patches and gum when he asked, but there were still times when he'd wake up in the middle of the night ready to crawl across the Sahara on broken glass for one smoke. No amount of hyperbole could adequately express the absolute need he had for a cigarette and five minutes alone to smoke it.

Because in the hospital, he was never really alone. Someone was always checking on him. He could hardly move at all without setting off alarms in the beginning. How was he feeling? How was the pain? Those questions got so old so fast that he was ready to jump out the window the day after he came out of surgery.

And then his mom was there, worried, helpless. The years he took off her life...

Wilson had been great about it. Probably kept her from dropping dead of shock on the spot. He loved her, he knew she only wanted to help, but there was nothing she could do. Patting him on the head got old real quick. And he had to worry about her. Could she get around town? Was she comfortable? Was she bored? Didn't she miss Florida, her friends there? Wilson had been great about that, too, seeing to her, letting him know she was in good hands.

But she refused to sneak smokes in for him. So did Wilson, the rat bastard son of a bitch. Didn't they realize that he was in prison and he needed something to bribe the guards with? It was a life sentence; they were going to let him burn in the fire of cravings while he lived it out, nothing to make it more bearable. He'd been pissed off, which was a good thing in the end, because it made him work harder.

So he was where he was now because no one would sneak him a cigarette when he first started to recover?

He laughed quietly. That was ludicrous. Even more ludicrous than a fat guy from Wisconsin winning a vacation in Bermuda because he landed on the right spot on the wheel and guessed 'T' in a twenty-two letter clue. And then he won a car because he knew 'Whisk' was a household item? Lucky bastard.

House sighed to himself. Two glasses of Scotch and half a cigar had gone a long, long way this evening. He felt better. Sleepy. Drunk. Good. Not as envious as usual of Sajak.

He took a sip of water, leaned back and closed his eyes, far away from himself.

He was asleep before the first round of Jeopardy! was over.

Across town, Wilson watched an accountant from Delaware win 16,301 dollars on a Final Jeopardy! question about mollusks. She didn't get it right—no one did—but she wagered only ninety-nine dollars. What was it with wagers of ninety-nine dollars? Why not just wager nothing? No risk, no gain, right? But he didn't follow that train of thought. He had other things on his mind.

Charlie was asleep at his feet. He'd recalled half-way through Wheel of Fortune that Julie had a "book club" meeting tonight. He'd have to feed himself. He got out a bottle of whisky and the phone and ordered a pizza. Sausage and pepperoni for Charlie. Seemed like a good idea.

He wanted to call House, make sure he'd made it into his apartment okay, that he had something to eat. Wilson had spent enough time there to know that he didn't always have something to eat that didn't have mold growing on it. But he had cash, checks, credit cards, a telephone, and the kind of memory that stored the number of every take out place in town, even the ones he didn't like. Besides, if he called him now, all he'd get, if House picked up at all, would be a sigh and some caustic remark like "You're such a woman, Jimmy. No wonder she's cheating on you. She's not gay." Har har har.

So he wouldn't call.

Yet.

"Charlie," he said. The dog woke and looked at him. "What should I do?"

Charlie just looked at him, head cocked, slightly puzzled, and put his head back down.

"Thanks, you're a big help," Wilson said sarcastically even as he reached down to rub the dog's head. He was only a dog after all.

He took a long drink and watched a guy named Bud win a trip to Bermuda because he had such incredible powers of deduction that he called out 'T' as the first letter of a long clue. Someone alert Mensa, quick—a genius was on the loose.

Bermuda would be nice. There was a drug rep who'd been sniffing him up about a conference in Bermuda. She was hot, too. But she was also new and he felt too much like crap right now to think about going after her.

What to do, what to do...

Had he done the right thing today? Letting him leave like that? Go home when he only had one good hand and a litany of other problems? Anything could happen.

Sure, anything could happen at any time. One of those countries pissed at the US could drop a bomb on New York—they'd get some of the fallout for sure. There could be another Chernobyl. A butterfly flapping its wings in China could set off some bizarre reaction...

But that wasn't the point. The point was that House didn't know how sick he was. Or maybe that he refused to acknowledge it.

Wilson snorted. Like that had never happened before.

He remembered a few years ago, the first time he found out Julie was cheating on him—with some little twerp called Anton who used to clean their pool or something. He'd gone out first and gotten smashed in a hurry, then bought a six pack and headed over to House's place.

House hadn't been at work all week. He'd looked sick the week before, but Wilson didn't know if he was sick or just taking a week off from life. He did that sometimes—holed up in his apartment and didn't move for a week, finally crawling out Monday morning looking like he'd been living in a cave for months. So he was either still sick or on a soap opera bender. Whatever the case, they'd done the 'she left me'/'I fucked up' thing together for so long that no one else would really understand the gravity of the situation. And House might feel a little betrayed if he went to someone else.

He had to knock twice, drunk and impatient, before he heard movement from within.

House opened the door and saw him standing there.

"Better not come in," he said in a raspy voice. He cleared his throat. "I've got the plague. It's catching."

Wilson stared blankly at him until House noticed how he looked: no tie, shirt untucked, first three buttons of his shirt undone, wrinkled, hair mussed, pale, inebriated, hangdog. And he had a six pack with him.

"Oh," he said coughing, "it's that bad." He looked Wilson over again. "You better come in then."

Wilson started to step automatically over the threshold when House stopped him and said, "Wait a second, let me clean up a little. You don't wanna see the shit I've been hacking up. Tin cans, old boots, tires with busted tread, some sort of slime or algae. It's a minefield in there."

Wilson pushed passed him.

"Don't care," he muttered, sweeping aside the wads of kleenex that littered the coffee table and dropping the six pack so that the bottles rattled. He grabbed one and fell back into a chair in one motion.

House was still standing at the door. "Make yourself at home," he mumbled and closed the door.

He coughed hard into his right fist, clutching his chest with his left arm as he made his way across the room. If Wilson had been paying attention, he'd have noticed that House's cane was conspicuously absent, but he wasn't. Too wasted.

House sat carefully, still holding his chest and coughing. "What..." he said between coughs, "...happened?"

Wilson absently handed him a beer, staring at the television. He needed a little while to collect himself first.

House watched him for a moment, noticing how he was obviously in another place. He twisted the cap off the beer and said, basically to himself because Wilson wasn't listening, "Oh, it's that bad."

They both stared at the television, drinking their beers, not paying attention to the screen. House's coughing interrupted the narrator often and he kept hugging his chest. The entire week had been a nightmare. Having to take off work at all because he was sick was bad enough in itself but actually being too sick to work, that was intolerable.

Cuddy'd shooed him home the Wednesday before last after the parents of the kid he was treating and most of the fourth floor complained for the umpteenth time about having a sick doctor around. She'd poked her head into his office Wednesday afternoon. He was just sitting there, looking like crap, playing a video game. "House," she said, "go home before you infect the entire hospital."

She'd been a little surprised at his reaction. He merely shrugged. "You're the boss man," he said, flipping his Gameboy shut and beginning to gather his stuff.

She shook her head, wondering briefly if she'd been spirited into a parallel universe where Greg House was tractable. That was weird.

She just happened to be at the front desk when he walked in Thursday morning looking, if anything, worse than he had the day before. She took one look at him, noting the red lining his too-bright eyes, and said, "House, you've got a fever." He just stood there looking dazed. "Go home and don't come back until it's gone."

Again, he obeyed, turning around and exiting. That was really weird. And way too easy. Only he would ignore a hospital policy designed to protect patients and insist on coming in to do no work at all when he was sick. She shook her head again and thought nothing more about it.

He'd stopped calling in sick a few days ago. She knew how to use a phone. At least, he hoped she knew how to use a phone. It would be pretty hard to get where she was without phone skills. ...but then again, she did have boobs and they compensated for a lot of things.

But that was neither here nor there. For the first time in weeks, he wasn't in the worst shape among the people in his apartment. Wilson was definitely hurting more than he was with his a little head cold that had inconveniently migrated and refused to leave.

Wilson finished his beer and slammed the empty bottle on the table, knocking more kleenex off. He grabbed another and opened it, taking a long swig.

"Are you gonna tell me or do I have to guess?" House asked, trying not to cough so much. Wilson was risking his life being here. This was the cold from hell.

Wilson muttered something into his bottle.

"Come again?" House said, coughing. He couldn't hold it in.

"Shescheatingonme," he muttered again.

House was listening more closely this time and caught it. "Oh," he said. "Shit."

Wilson grunted and took another drink.

House waited until a fit of coughing subsided before he took as deep a breath as he could and said, "Why're you wasting your time on beer then?"

He got up and found two clean glasses—a minor miracle since his cleaning lady hadn't come that week—and a bottle of whisky.

Back in his chair, he poured the drinks and held one out to Wilson. "Drink at your own risk," he said, trying not to cough and spill it. "The bubonic's rough this season."

Wilson accepted it absently and downed it in one gulp then picked his beer up again. He was double-fisting tonight. So it was that bad. Shit. That was really bad.

Wilson put the glass on the table and House refilled it.

House left his untouched. He'd stick with the beer for now. With this kind of start, the evening might get ugly and he might need his wits about him.

He was about to ask another question to loosen Wilson into talking when he coughed hard and felt mucus coming up. He swore and got to the sink as fast as he could, wincing in disgust at the color of it. Gross.

He spat and ran the tap to get it down the drain.

"Tampon that time," he said. "Used." Maybe that'd rouse him out of his funk.

When he sat down again and took up his beer, Wilson was a little more aware of his surroundings.

"Have you seen a doctor?" he asked distantly.

"I'm looking at one right now," House answered, smirking. It didn't have the desired effect. Wilson ignored him.

"You should," he said, still absent.

"Doctors are idiots," House said.

Wilson shot him a glare and the corner of his mouth tugged upward slightly.

That got him. Finally. Which was good because there was a knock-knock joke on deck if the old 'doctors are idiots' gag failed.

"Present company excluded of course," House said, smirking his smirkiest smirk now that he had an audience.

Wilson smiled a little. He looked down into his beer and his smile faded.

"I don't know what to do," he said quietly. He picked up the second whisky and downed it in one go too. Then back to his beer. It was a bad night when you were using beer as a chaser.

"Well, you did the right thing coming to me," House said. He paused. "...but I don't know what you should do either," he said. "If it were me, I'd cheat right back, but that's just me and I'm a retributive son of a bitch. You're not really one of those."

Wilson looked at him, vaguely amused. "I'm not what? A retributive son of a bitch?" He sipped his beer. "Can I get you to put that in writing?"

"Why?" House asked. "I thought it was common knowledge."

"Oh, it is," Wilson said, grinning, "but your admitting to it isn't."

"So, what, you want to frame it and hang it on your wall?" He coughed and pressed his left hand against his ribs. This time Wilson saw him do it.

"That'd be kinda cool, actually," House said. "Lemme get a pen and some paper." He made to get up but then stopped. "Or," he said, excited now, "or we could get some fancy stationary and a calligrapher. Make it look nice." He coughed again and grimaced.

Wilson was interested now, concerned. His mind was off his troubles and onto those of his friend where they belonged. House looked like crap. Wilson could tell from where he was sitting, drunk as he was, that House had a fever. And that cough and the way he held his chest...

"Do you have a stethoscope?" he asked lightly. It came out kind of fumbled. Perfect time to be wasted. Just perfect.

House made a face. "How the hell would that fit in with calligraphy? Maybe if you got a shadow box, but..."

Wilson just looked at him.

House rolled his eyes. "Yes, of course," he said, "do you want the one in the bathroom, the bedroom, or the one hidden in the heel of my shoe? The last one requires some assembly but it's very James Bond, don't you think? I highly recommend it. The others are just for show, really. They don't even work. But the shoe model is made of whalebone. PETA's after my blood over it, but I personally find it rather life-affirming to live a little like 007. All I need now is a gun and an arch-nemesis." He paused. "Wait. Cross out that last one. I just need a gun."

"And an Astin Martin," Wilson said. He sniffed. "Good luck finding one."

House looked contemplative. "But can my arch-nemesis be female?" he asked. "Wouldn't that intimidate the other Bond girls?"

"Nah," Wilson said. "If anything, it'd make for a good three-way."

"Oooo, now you're talking," House said. "We should-"

A violent cough cut him off and spoiled the moment.

"House," Wilson said, "how long have you-"

"I thought you came here to talk about you, not about me," House got out before Wilson could go any further. He cocked his head. "Well, maybe not about you, maybe more about Julie and her infidelity, but definitely not about me, that's for sure."

"You think you're so good at changing the subject," Wilson said, finishing his beer. "You're not."

"I'm not?" House echoed, acting affronted.

"No, you're not," Wilson said.

House stared at him, grinning.

Wilson realized belatedly that he had managed to change the subject on him. Again.

"You're a bastard," he said, smiling. Maybe House was okay despite the cough.

"My father begs to differ," House said. "My mother, too, and she should know, she kind of had a hand in things. More than you anyway."

House took a swig of his beer. It was getting warm. "So what is the nature, species, kingdom, phylum, genus, and whatever I left out of the infidelity?" he asked.

He'd have to work hard to keep up his act until Wilson passed out, but he didn't think that would take too much time, not at the rate Wilson was putting the booze away. Which was good because he couldn't keep it up much longer and he did not fancy a trip to the ER with his overcautious, totally skunked best friend at one in the morning. So he'd do his best to keep his lungs in one piece while he kept Wilson on the topic he came to talk about and off any other topics, most especially those having to do with his health. Because he was fine. Really. Just a bit sniffly. Bad weather, that was all.

Wilson sighed. "I don't know much," he said. "He's a plumber or an electrician or something."

"Jesus," House said, trying to breathe delicately. "She dumped you for that?"

"I know," Wilson said, picking up a third whisky and taking a gulp. "Sounds like a kid too."

"Sounds?" House asked.

"Answering machine," Wilson said. He finished the glass off. This was going well.

House snorted. "At the top of the evolutionary ladder, isn't he?"

"Yeah, a real Einstein," Wilson said, helping himself to another glass of whisky.

"Shit," House said. "Well, Julie's no Mrs. Robinson if it's any consolation," he said. "The actress, I mean. Hot like her." He was messing it up.

"Does it matter?" Wilson asked, suddenly very, very interested in the contents of his glass.

"I guess not," House said. "D'you know where he lives? I know where we can get some dog crap and a paper bag."

Wilson laughed sadly. "No," he said.

"Too bad," House said. "I haven't left a flaming dog turd on anyone's doorstep in at least six months."

"Six months?" Wilson asked. "Who'd you brown bag surprise then?"

House grinned wickedly. "A certain hospital administrator we all know and love."

Wilson snorted. "You did not."

House's grin got even more wicked. "Oh but I did."

Wilson laughed. "Did she see you?"

"No," House said, "I was cleverly concealed. But she might've heard me. She called the cops."

"And you stuck around long enough to find that out?" Wilson said. "What is it with you two?"

"It's simple, really," House said. "She's the anti-Christ and I'm the anti-anti-Christ."

Wilson shook his head. "Does that make you the good one or the bad one?" Wilson asked.

"The good one," House said incredulously. "Hello? Are we talking about the same person?" This was going well.

Wilson laughed again. "Did you ever chase girls you liked around the playground in first grade, hit them when you caught them, and then run away expecting them to chase you back?" he asked.

House's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, everyone did, why?"

Wilson shot him a devious look. "I don't believe you ever graduated from elementary school emotional maturity class."

"Oh no you don't," House said, knowing what was coming.

"No, I don't. You do," Wilson grinned. "Greg and Lisa sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-"

House threw a pillow at him before he could finish. "Shaddup you."

This was going better than he could have imagined. Just a regular night. Only problem was, he really needed to cough. Really, really, really badly.

Finally he couldn't help it. Wilson saw him, heard him, and wasn't too far gone to register the significance of it. No, he wasn't okay. Not at all.

"One of these days," Wilson said, finishing off the whisky, "it's literally going to kill you to see a doctor."

House coughed some more, holding his chest. "You do realize," he said between coughs, "that...that...doesn't make sense."

"Yes it does," Wilson said. It seemed to. "If you'd gone to the clinic—or come to me even, or figured it out yourself—a week ago, you'd be fine now. Some antibiotics, a little downtime over the weekend, good as new. Why's that so hard?"

"Antibiotics are grossly over-prescribed," House said.

"Not when you're about to hack up a lung," Wilson countered. "That's what they're for."

"Yes, thank you, Drunky McDrunk," House said, "I know that."

Wilson was starting to lose focus. "First thing tomorrow," he said, pointing an unsteady finger at House.

House looked at him, his best 'you're-an-idiot' face on. "...you'll...point your left index finger at me in a threatening yet totally tanked way?" House asked, watching Wilson start to fade. Wouldn't be long now. One advantage of drinking with the same person for so long was that you knew when he was ready to go down.

"You know what I mean," Wilson mumbled, head starting to loll.

"Sure I do," House said, taking the glass from Wilson's hand and starting to turn off the lights. He needed to lie down for a long time now, preferably in a dark, quiet place. This had been more tiring than he'd thought it would be. Wilson was out and snoring in the chair by the time he got to his bedroom.

Much of this, of course, Wilson either didn't know or didn't remember. But what House didn't know was how Wilson had come to a few hours later feeling like shit and wondering what had happened, why House wasn't passed out in the chair next to him as per their usual arrangement. It took him a while to remember the night's events in their proper sequence.

Julie. That snot-nosed punk. The bar. Showing up at House's.

And then something was off, something he couldn't put his finger on immediately. Then he had it. House had been dumb enough to get himself a nice case of pneumonia.

He went to check on him on his way to the bathroom in the dim hope that House had miraculously bought an OTC pain killer between now and the last time he'd gotten completely trashed and stayed over.

No luck on the pain killers. He left the bathroom light on so he could have some light in the bedroom.

"House," he whispered.

The sound of wet, labored breathing, but no luck.

He tried again. "House."

Nothing.

Then aloud, "House."

Nothing. No "go'way leavemealone."

Funny, cause House was a light sleeper.

He tripped over a few things on his way to the light switch so that by the time he found it, he should've made more than enough noise to wake his friend up and piss him off royally.

He turned the light on.

Nothing.

Weird.

This definitely wasn't the guy he'd roomed with.

"House, wake up," he said, stepping closer to the bed. He looked bad. Pale, tips of his ears flushed, not resting comfortably, and...what was that? Wilson dug around under the covers and found House's hand to get a look at his fingernails. Yep. Cyanotic. Only slightly, but slightly was more than enough. And his hand was burning up: he'd spiked a fever. It was like standing next to a furnace. All this because he didn't like doctors or antibiotics or some stupid crap like that?

Wilson shook him and called his name again.

Nothing.

Shook him again.

Nothing again.

Knuckles to the sternum.

That got a muddled "go'way" and set off some coughing, but he was pretty well non-responsive.

House later claimed that he remembered all of it, that he'd even tried to talk Wilson out of calling the paramedics.

Wilson let him talk because he didn't want to force him deal with the alternative.

Truth was that he'd come to in the ER after they'd gotten his temperature down a few degrees and given him some oxygen. He was pissed all right but not in any shape to put up a fight.

Wilson was almost grateful to have something to take his mind off his marriage, especially when it was something he could monitor and solve, some place he could be where he was needed. House would never admit to that, that he needed anyone at all. But that was okay. Because House was okay.

That hadn't been the first time and it certainly wasn't the last time, but it was one of the worst times. One of the closest shaves. His O2 sats were downright scary when the paramedics arrived. Wilson shuddered a little thinking about it.

Wilson sighed. Had he let him do it again tonight?

He looked down at the dog. "Charlie," he said, "should I call him?"

Charlie just sighed in his sleep. The doorbell rang. Pizza, right.

He paid for it and sat down in front of the television to eat. Charlie perked up and begged for some scraps.

"Oh, now I've got your attention," Wilson said.

The dog whined.

"Okay, okay, here," he said and started tossing bits of sausage into the dog's mouth.

Would he call him?

Maybe.

Maybe.

A/N con't: I'm going to go back and modify the timeline of this fic since we now know that House has been through three "regime changes" at PPTH, which means he's probably spent most of his 20 years of doctoring there. I'm also modifying the 'everything happened six years ago' thing that I let slip in here.

So, modified timeline: leg gets messed up eight/nine years ago (this would be 1996-7 and he'd be thirty-six or thirty-seven), takes him two years to get his shit together (I'm leaving in the short-lived job in Cali), Cuddy hires him about six years ago and lets him off clinic duty at first, then it becomes a habit, then it gets out of control, then we find ourselves at the Pilot. Make sense? I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.

(Little incidental note: I know the Crocodile Hunter wasn't on national TV yet in 96/97, but by golly, I'm not changing it.)

Did Cuddy and House have an affair? I think yes but I don't think Wilson knows (see the line in one of the earlier episodes about there being "A Great Wall of China between love and hate with armed sentries posted every twenty feet"—the fact that Wilson asked if he was sleeping with her proves he doesn't know about the earlier affair, imo, if there was an affair at all). Either way, it probably won't come up here. I had the 'Greg and Lisa sitting in a tree' banter written well before this ep aired so I left it in because it fit the moment. :)

Finally, sorry for taking till now to get this up! I'd planned to have it up on Monday but it proved a little more difficult to write than I'd expected. And I know there's not any plot in it. Sorry! But I promise at least some of it is going to come back in later. :)

Oh and the epigraph? Nick Flynn rocks. Some Ether is one of those rare books of poetry you can read in an hour, understand, and yet still return to over and over again. I highly recommend it.

And the pizza from last chapter—I just put down the first things that came to mind, one overtly disgusting and the other two relatively normal as per the rule of three in comedy. ;)