"The Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Chapter Twenty-One

"The Light Comes On …"

It's been three days.

Today is Wednesday; it's nine in the morning. I was up and showered, shaved and dressed by seven.

I'd just put a chicken in the crock-pot within the past fifteen minutes and cranked it up to "high".

Another follow-up call came from Cuddy a few minutes ago.

And House is still asleep. At least he was the last time I looked.

Cuddy was anxious for further information about his shoulder injury and the added damage to his leg. I kept my voice low and retreated to the kitchen where the electronic white noise of the refrigerator motor would blank out the sound of my voice and keep it from finding a path to his ears. He has the hearing of a Great Horned Owl!

All I could tell her was that the bruise on his shoulder was healing slowly, but I still would not let him use the cane in his right hand. His leg had taken a sudden twist to the side, and his knee had slammed into one of the end tables when the rehab patient with Delirium Tremens grabbed the cane and hit him across the shoulder with it. The damage was not to his ACL as I had first feared, but a pull in the internal lateral ligament when he'd tried to twist out of the way.

His injuries were annoying and painful, but not serious. Most of the swelling had already dissipated. I think Cuddy's biggest concern was whether both of us would be coming back to work next Monday. She asked if I'd seen any change in his drug usage.

I told her that House was making an honest effort to wean himself from his former excessive use of Vicodin, and as far as I could tell, he was doing okay on his own. I also told her that it was no longer up to me to tell him how to regulate himself. If the pain was worse, he would, of course use more meds. If it was not as bad, he would use less. He knew what he needed and I would continue to prescribe for him. I owed him that, I said, and she did not argue.

"House didn't think he was special," I added. "He thought he was justified. And he was. The police didn't get it. Or else they 'got it' all too well, and Tritter decided to make it personal anyway."

Cuddy agreed and thanked me for bringing her up to date on our favorite delinquent. We laughed together like conspirators. She assured me she had most of the info she needed to fill out an accident report for hospital insurance. The rest was up to "The Powers That Be" at Drug and Alcohol. She had just called to sound me out, and asked me to tell House she was thinking about him.

I did not mention what I thought he would probably do with that kind of information, and we rang off.

I laid my phone down on the butcher block and tiptoed back the hallway to check on his majesty. He'd been sleeping a lot during the daytime since leaving rehab, and I did not question it, or him. Ever since the infarction it had been difficult for him to get a full night's sleep. The pain and the cramping and the nerve spasms had a tendency to wake him at odd hours, and the only way he could compensate was to catnap during the day. It had taken me a long time to catch onto that and see it for what it was, rather than a sloughing off of his duties. Also, it's not as though he would actually condescend to tell me any of that straight out!

I stuck my head around the corner into his room and was greeted with glistening slits of barely opened eyes and a crooked smile. "Communing with Mother Superior, huh?"

"How did you know I was on the phone? I even went into the kitchen so I wouldn't disturb you …"

"Bull! I heard you answer your cell phone and then drift off into the wild blue yonder, never to be heard from again. Who else would you be talking to … that you wouldn't want me to overhear?"

"I thought you were asleep."

"You hoped I was asleep. There's a difference."

I sighed. "Would you like some help getting dressed?"

He opened his eyes wider and glared at me for a moment, deciding whether or not to take me up on the offer. "Yeah. Lying around here hasn't done anything to help the situation. I guess I need to move.

I searched his face. "You sore?"

"Some …."

Coming from him, that was a broad admission if I'd ever heard one. "Want me to work with it?"

"Yeah … could you?"

"Sure …"

It was very revealing when he leaned forward willingly, inviting me to pull the sling and his old threadbare tee shirt over his head. He was finally gathering a modicum of trust from somewhere inside himself, choosing to honor my integrity once again, in spite of the many months of suspicion we'd harbored against each other for most of the year.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and reached out to touch the spot on his sound shoulder where the arm sling fastened at the back of his neck. He allowed the contact without flinching and I worked slowly, drawing it off him. He let his hand fall into his lap and worked the fingers and wrist cautiously. "Try flexing your elbow," I told him, "while I get the liniment out of the bathroom." I rose again and left him to it.

When I came back, he was supporting his elbow with the palm of his left hand, moving the joint slowly back and forth. "Better?" I asked. I returned to my spot and laid the liniment bottle atop the blanket.

He nodded. "Yeah. Catches a little, but the flexion is better than yesterday and the day before. It's just the shoulder that doesn't work. It still hurts like hell, right at the spot where that bastard poleaxed me …"

I eased his shirt off over his head and dropped it in a heap beside him. The muscles of his back and rib cage lay tight and hard beneath his skin. The long, narrow mark where he had been hit with the cane was beginning to yellow out and turn dark around the edges. I concentrated on that spot, rubbing in slow gentle circles with the small amount of liniment I'd poured into my palm.

He rode with it, letting his body sway from side to side in rhythm with the movement of my hand. The evidence of his relief from tension wafted through the air around us, and as I worked, I wondered what he was thinking.

Even as that idea was cruising around inside my head, he risked a brief look into my face. "What'd ya do with my necktie?"

"Huh?" Like a hundred times before, he'd caught me unprepared for the workings of that bear trap mind.

"My necktie, Wilson. The 'gift' you brought me to wear to my court hearing … that red thing you had hanging around your neck for the past two days … looked like you dipped it in the toilet. That necktie?"

"Oh. Yeah … I think it's in the kitchen somewhere. You want it?"

"What's it doing in the kitchen?"

"I dunno … it just landed there. It kind of smells. Willya please be still so I can finish up here?"

"Ummm …" He pulled away from me and leaned back, rotating his shoulders cautiously as he did so. "Thanks," he said finally. "Feels better. I think I need to get up now. Get things moving again. Sick of doing nothing."

He was already tossing the bedcovers off his legs, pushing his reluctant right leg off the edge of the bed with the foot of his left one. He sat balanced for a moment, both feet planted on the floor, looking around the room as though he'd never seen it before. "Where's my cane?"

I stared at him and slid a little closer to his side. "It's still in the kitchen where you dropped it the other day. What about the chair?"

He scowled. "I'm sick of the chair. Need to walk. Move. Is all my stuff out in the kitchen? You been using my cane too?"

"Why would I want to use your cane?"

"You were wearing my necktie …"

I sighed. This was getting nowhere. "Stay put. I'll get it. Do you want to get dressed first?"

He looked down at his naked chest and then looked at me with disdain. "After you get my cane."

I left him. Walked to the kitchen and retrieved the cane from the corner by the doorway. The chicken in the crock-pot was beginning to smell pretty good. I hefted the cane over my shoulder like a musket and ambled back to the bedroom. Handed it across.

He grasped it … right-handed … and began to lever himself up. I watched, hitching a breath between my teeth, surprised when he didn't go on his ass on the floor. "House?"

He grinned. "Shut up, Wilson! It works." He moved around the bedroom cautiously, easing himself into it. The pulled ligament in his knee caused him to toe in with the right foot. The combination of that and the obvious pain in his shoulder had me poised to catch him any second. But he kept at it stubbornly until he'd worked out a way to move about with enough confidence to make it feasible. Once he had shoes on, he would probably have better control of the knee and the foot. I suggested … again … that he get dressed.

A half hour, a clean shirt, a clean pair of blue jeans, his heavy grey socks and a pair of sturdy Nikes later, he got up and tried it again. To my relief, it was better. But the subsequent trip to the couch tired him out.

When I returned to the kitchen, he was sprawled on the couch with the remote in his hand, happily channel surfing and oblivious to my presence. So I loaded the

dishwasher, added detergent and closed it up. I was slowly catching up with the backlog of dirty dishes and pots and pans. The kitchen was gradually becoming populated once more with pots hanging from the pot rack, mixing bowls on the counter and glasses in the cupboards.

I was about to flip the switch that would turn on the scalding water, but spied one more item crumpled near the edge of the butcher block. I scooped it up, lowered the door and placed it inside on the top rack. Then I flipped the switch and the machine activated its wash cycle.

I sat beside him on the couch while the dishwasher went through its entire little dog and pony show. We saw "SpongeBob", an ancient episode of "Hogan's Heroes", and another Godawful rerun of "The Munsters". I was bored out of my skull. House sat glued to the screen like a rapt six-year-old … which, sometimes, he was. I caught him working his thigh and knee with his fingers only once, but ignored him. He had not reached for the Vicodin bottle. I decided he would do so if he needed them.

When the dishwasher finally stopped, I went back to the kitchen, unloaded it and put everything away. All his plates and saucers and coffee cups were back in the cupboards where they belonged, and we would actually have enough utensils to keep from having to eat our dinner with our fingers.

I got out his ironing board and iron from their dusty corner when I heard the theme song from "Gunsmoke". Put them away again when I heard Doc Adams greet Matt Dillon and Kitty Russell in the bar of the Long Branch Saloon. When I heard Chester say, "Howdy, Mis-tur Dil-lon …" I walked back into the living room and sat down beside him on the couch.

I held out my arm directly across his field of vision.

From my fingertips dangled the red necktie, now the survivor of a trip through all the cycles of his dishwasher, and no longer looking like it had been … as House had accused: "dipped in the toilet". Actually, it looked pretty good. Good as new, even. I had ironed it with a damp tea towel lying on top, and you could not tell it had been mistreated by a negligent best friend.

That same best friend was doing his damndest to live up to his title, and had a silly smile on his face when Gregory House's jaw dropped in surprise and reached out his hand to accept "the only present I'd ever given him that he'd been able to use …"

Then he turned toward me with his opposite hand … the lame one … his eyes snapping blue sparks … and cuffed my chin gently with the backs of his fingers.

It was the best "thank you" I had ever received.

House chuckled, took the damned necktie and looped it back around my neck … in the same fashion as I'd had kept it hanging there for the past two days.

I got up and went to the kitchen to dish up our supper before I said something stupid.

We had chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and a salad for dinner. We didn't talk much. All the important things that needed to be said had been said. All the amends that needed to be made had been made. We could almost see the glimmer of light that awaited us at the end of the tunnel.

When we got ready to turn in for the night, I massaged his back and shoulder again and assisted him to lift his legs onto the mattress. He watched me wordlessly for long moments. Then: "Life is packed with irony sometimes … you know that, Wilson?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "It is. You don't fuck with it, because it finds a way to fuck ya back!"

He stared at me for using that word. Twice. Then he nodded. "Riight …"

That's when I reminded him: "Hey … you owe me a steak dinner, remember?"

I turned off the light on my way out and started to walk back toward the living room. The red necktie felt warm upon my shoulders.

The smile in his voice was obvious. I heard the bedclothes shift as he rolled over onto his side. "Yeah … I remember. Rather owe it to ya than cheat ya out of it though.

"Nite, Wilson …"

"'Nite, House."

I love you too …

But I didn't say it out loud.

The End

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