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: none (House/Wilson strong friendship)
Spoilers: Spoilers for "Detox," "Sports Medicine," and "Control," with slight "DNR"
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. Please don't sue me, etc. The quote from Lermontov comes from the Modern Library edition released last year. Quotes from Modest Mouse, John Berryman, Martin Heideggar, R.E.M., Johnny Cash, Albert Camus, Robert Lowell, Nick Flynn, Radiohead, Jean-Paul Sartre, Hunter S. Thompson, Joe Wenderoth, Hugh Laurie, Theodore Roethke, Queens of the Stone Age, etc. belong to their respective owners and not to me. Please don't sue over that either.
Credits: To the FOX writers for the dialogue at the end, which I make no claim to, and to Auditrix for betaing this difficult chapter.

A/N: Hi again everyone! No, I didn't forget about this fic. It just got really hard to write all of sudden because I was leading up to the final two scenes of the episodes and I knew I couldn't do any better than what was aired, so I was a little nervous. The saying 'a picture is worth a thousand words' is true in the case of this chapter: words can't express what goes on in those two scenes; you just have to watch them. Nevertheless, I gave em a go and hopefully what came out fits with what's gone before in this fic. Thanks to everyone for being so patient with me. I never expected to get so stalled. And just to be clear, this isn't the end of the fic. More to come. :)

Also, just to be clear about this too, the dialogue starting with 'you made it a week' is FOX's and belongs to anyone but me. Damn fine dialogue, definitely not mine.

Finally, thanks for all the reviews. I really appreciate them. Seems that you guys have high expectations now, which I must admit freaks me out a little, but I hope I can come close to living up to them with this chapter. As always, please let me know what you think and thanks for reading.

Day Five: Life in a Glass House

Once again
I'm in trouble with my only friend
She is papering the window panes
She is putting on a smile
Living in a glass house

Once again
Packed like frozen food and battery hens
Think of all the starving millions
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones
Your royal highnesses

Once again
We are hungry for lynching
That's a strange mistake to make
You should turn the other cheek
Living in a glass house

But of course I'd like to sit around and chat
But of course I'd like to stay and chew the fat
But someone's listening in

—Radiohead, "Life in a Glass House"

"What did he say?" Wilson asked.

He'd gone back to Cuddy's office after talking to House about checking his hand. He and Cuddy had agreed that she'd try to talk to him first about his addiction. They both knew it wouldn't work, but he knew she had to try and he felt that it was better that House hear it from her first. It would hurt him less that way. So Wilson was here to see how it had gone, though he already knew from how House had acted earlier that it hadn't gone well.

She sighed heavily, standing behind her desk, hands planted on its top, leaning forward. "He said...nothing." She shook her head. "I don't think the significance of it even registered."

Wilson hadn't told her everything about how bad it had been for House. She knew he was keeping a lot back and she would never ask: to ask would be to ask Wilson to breach the trust he had with House and she didn't want to do that. But she knew it had been bad. The list of supplies Wilson had used told her all she needed to know. The physical addiction itself was very bad. Psychologically—well, she'd stopped trying to figure House out a long time ago, but she knew from the conversation she'd just had with him that he felt no compunction about what he did to treat the pain he had, both physical and emotional. And as much as having the department head who took the most risky cases in the entire hospital, had no interpersonal skills whatsoever, and was now a confirmed drug addict made her want to scream, she couldn't really blame him. She'd been there. They'd screwed up. Of all the things she could blame on him, his leg wasn't one of them. He did what he had to do to function and it had become apparent to her that his meds weren't really the problem—that it was his personality—but she still couldn't shake the fact that having him use narcotics to get through the day really bothered her on a personal level as well as a professional level. She still thought he could find something else that would work for him if he'd only try. He could at least admit that he was dependent on them. He was doing some pretty hard work in the denial department to refuse to admit he was addicted after this week. But he'd said it. This week had meant nothing to him.

She looked up at Wilson, eyes softening. "I couldn't push him," she said. "Not after this week."

Wilson didn't see Cuddy vulnerable very often and it unnerved him. He knew Cuddy and House had had something once but he'd never been able to pry the details out of the man and in truth, he didn't really want to know. He had a healthy working relationship with Cuddy and the idea of his best friend boning his boss was the kind of thing that would stray into his mind during a meeting and make him do something totally inappropriate like burst into a laugh or stare at her chest. But past relationships aside, he knew Cuddy had been there for the infarction and he knew it weighed on her more than she admitted. So he understood. But they couldn't let House act like nothing had happened, and House would do exactly that if they let him.

Wilson rubbed the back of his neck. "He needs a push," he said.

Cuddy sighed again. "I know." She looked at him hopefully. This was his territory.

"Okay," Wilson said, "I'll talk to him later."

"Thanks," she said and smiled.

As Wilson turned to leave, he knew they were both thinking the same thing. It was so hard to watch him destroy himself. And it was so hard to intervene. But they had to at least try.

Back in his office, House dozed, drifting in and out: tired, content, and, in a word, happy. His leg still hurt—his leg would always hurt—but the sharp edge was gone. More than that, he didn't care any longer if his leg was even there or not. Narcotics made it so easy to sit back and not give a crap about anything. God, he'd missed this.

He felt so much better. And as soon as he came down from his extraordinary comfortable position on the ceiling, he'd be going home to food, drink, entertainment, and more of this. More hours of this. More days. More minutes. More of feeling normal again. More of freedom. More of being able to forget. He pretty well enjoyed it, especially that last part. He smiled in his half-sleep.

When he'd first settled into the chair and felt the high kicking in, he'd tried not to think. He'd tried simply to concentrate on feeling good again and relaxing. But the second his nerves stopping pressing pain on his brain, it started working in earnest again, trying to analyze the week, what had happened, what Wilson had done and not done, recalling unbidden the dim, surreal day or so he'd spent in a dark hospital room, hurting from his hair to his toenails, puking up everything he had ever eaten in his entire life, dazed and semi-drugged, Wilson hovering over him all the time.

What did it mean? What? What did it mean? Nothing? Anything?

He didn't know and he didn't care but he couldn't stop his thoughts, his goddamned high-powered surgically-precise brain. That had been the one good thing about this week of sheer hell: at least he hadn't been thinking so much.

But now, even with the Vicodin humming in his blood, tired as he was, he couldn't stop it.

His thoughts wandered back to something Wilson had said a few weeks ago. That the Vicodin had changed him. Well duh. Of course. Time had had a hand in it, too, though, and Stacy— knowing that he'd never have it that good again, not with anyone—that kind of knowledge didn't exactly incline him to try when it came to the opposite sex.

And Wilson should talk when it came to that. To be his age and on your third marriage. Yeah. That was a sign of a mature, well-adjusted adult. Wilson took young, vulnerable, often not-too-bright women the same way House took Vicodin. They were both treating an ailment. House felt that he had at least had shown that he could go without his chemical crutch. He didn't see Wilson swearing off extra-marital affairs. But what really mattered was that he didn't expect Wilson to do that, because it wasn't a problem for him, because House understood that. He accepted it. He didn't expect Wilson to change. He didn't ask him to. So what bug had crawled up Wilson's ass and died?

What House really didn't like was that Wilson was right. He'd tried all week to deny it. But he knew. How could he not know. He was capable of doing the math. He knew exactly how much more he'd been taking recently. Every day he had to do clinic hours, for instance, he was entitled to an extra twenty. And after a while, that extra twenty became part of his routine. The world, after all, was just one big clinic full of whiny, driveling idiots who couldn't be bothered to accept responsibility for themselves, so why should he have to pick up the slack? Why should he feel guilty about doing the best he could to deal with it?

He'd known then that he could get by without the extra twenty, but so much of his life was just getting by. Was it so wrong to want something more than that? And the pills, well, they were easy—easier than picking up some useless hobby—and they were at hand, and he enjoyed his life a little more with them. It wasn't as if he woke up every day and thought, 'Today, I'm going to get high.' It wasn't planned out. And he could survive without them. It was hell, sure, but he could do it. People with a problem, people who were really addicted deep down, they couldn't do that. So yeah, okay, he was addicted, fine, but he could control it. It wasn't a problem if you could control it. As long as it didn't control you—exactly what he'd said to Cuddy on Monday. The pills didn't run his life. His leg did and he wasn't the one who'd screwed that up. It was shit and it had happened to him. What was so wrong with trying to forget that annoying little fact every now and then? What was wrong with wanting something approximate to a normal life?

And besides, millions of people took drugs to have a normal life every day. Just because there was a stigma attached to the one drug that did him any good, he should be the one to blame? Take away their Prozac and Paxil and Zoloft and see how they liked it. They were treating a problem. He was treating a problem. It wasn't a problem to treat a problem, especially when you controlled the treatment. So all of this high and mighty 'you've changed' crap, well, if it made him an asshole for not wanting to put up with it, then fine, he was an asshole. He had no problem with that whatsoever…

He tried to turn off his brain, smother his thoughts. Feeling good, concentrating on feeling good, do that. He tried. Relaxing. Breathing in and out. Quiet. Quiet. Quiet. Quiet.

…no problem whatsoever. He was an addict. It was what he had to do to feel happiness, and since happiness was the absence of pain, he had to take a drug to feel it. It hadn't been his fucking fault that his leg got so screwed up and it wasn't his fucking fault now that he was addicted to the cure for his pain. He had control. He did. Not the pills. On Wednesday when he'd been so far gone and Foreman had slammed them down on the table and he'd, dammit, he'd given in and taken one—even then, even then, when he'd just broken his fingers to feel pain relief, he hadn't let them—the drugs, the pain, the circumstances, any of it—win. He'd recognized what was going on and he'd had the willpower to stop it. That pill had never entered his system. He'd been clean the whole week. Despite everything that had been working against him, he'd done it. And he'd be damned if he wasn't going to enjoy his reward.

Quiet. Quiet. Reward. Control. Resolution. Ending. Finished. Over. Done.

He sighed happily. He'd done it, it was over, he had a full bottle of Vicodin in his pocket, and that made him happy. Content. Not blissful—it would take another pill to get to blissful—but he was okay with that. Happy and content were fine.

He slept.

Wilson was tired and nervous and ready to go home by the time 4:45 rolled around and he saw his last clinic patient of the day out. That made five cases of the flu in a row. Normally he didn't mind putting in his clinic hours, but today he could see why House hated it so much.

He wasn't in the best mood. He really didn't want to go home tonight. Whether Julie was there or not didn't really matter. Well, no, it did matter. It mattered a lot actually. But even if he knew she wouldn't be there, he still didn't want to go home. He didn't want to face the evening alone in front of the TV.

It was Friday. He wanted to go out. Anywhere at all, it didn't matter. Ordinarily, he'd collect House and they'd go do something—bar, movie, strip club, poker with Wilson's friends (who didn't really like Wilson bringing House because House always cleaned them out), that steakhouse where they had the gigantic 'finish it and it's free' steak (for which House had a record of 3-5), the late-night put-put golf place (the only kind of golf House could stand), sometimes a trip to Atlantic City where House had gotten thrown out for card counting twice at almost every casino, or just rent whatever video game had just come out and play it for hours at House's place, either taking turns trying to play the levels or playing against each other (Wilson knew the code for these too—if it was a racing game or a sports game, House wanted to play against him; if it was a first-person-shooter, House wanted to play the game itself—and he personally preferred the former, since reflexes counted more there, and because House always memorized the layout of the level of a FPS game in no time flat and would sneak up behind him and kill him before he knew what was coming whenever they played FPSers in versus mode and his ego could only take so much abuse)—but he knew that House needed a night in and he didn't imagine House would want him hanging around tonight. They'd spent too much time together lately. Maybe he'd call up some of the guys from Onc or his golf buddies and see what they were getting into. Or maybe he'd just go out by himself and sulk over a few beers, finally going home with someone he'd never see or hear from again. But he didn't want to do that. He felt sleazy enough as it was.

Well, whatever he ended up doing, he'd have to deal with House first. He signed out and started for the stairs, wondering what he was going to say.

The blinds were closed and Wilson didn't see House immediately when he looked through the door. He tapped on it before he walked in. House was stretched out in the yellow lounge chair, eyes closed, looking less pained than he had in a long time.

"Hey," Wilson said loudly enough to wake him if he was asleep.

House started and looked around until he spotted Wilson. "What?" he said testily. Couldn't a guy catch a nap in his own office?

"Come on," Wilson said, motioning toward the door, "I want to take another look at your hand."

House grunted and held his left hand up, looking at it. "Looks fine to me," he said.

"It needs to be splinted," Wilson said. "You want a crooked ring finger or what?"

House shrugged. "Not like I'm ever going to use it," he said and relaxed back into the chair, making it clear that he wasn't going anywhere.

"You need it to heal correctly if you want to do this again," Wilson said and flipped him off, trying to grin despite the feeling of having a stone in his stomach.

"Good point," House said and got up out of the chair, stretching as he went. Some Sprite, a handful of candy, a Vicodin, and a nap had done wonders for him.

He limped along beside Wilson down the hall and to the elevator. He was sore and he felt like he could use another Vicodin. No, it wasn't time yet—it wasn't nearly time yet—but he thought he'd cut himself some slack until he got back on his feet. The second Wilson wasn't looking and he could slip one into his mouth...

They made it down to the clinic. House was happy enough with minor buzz he had going and the promise of buzzes to come that he didn't even gripe about having to return to the place he'd just sacrificed a week of good health to avoid.

Wilson ushered him into a room and started pulling the tape off as soon as House sat down.

House winced and complained, "Owww, geez, I thought you were gentle with patients, what happened to that?"

"My patients have all gone home for the night," Wilson said.

"What? You got a hot date?" House said, trying to hop off the table. "Far be it from me to keep you from your daily allowance of tail. I'll take my broken appendage and go home."

Wilson squeezed his hand and got another annoyed "oww!" out of him. "Stay still or you won't get a sticker and the other kids will laugh at you."

"Don't push it," House said, sitting back down. "So what are you doing tonight? Not going home to the little woman, I trust."

"I hadn't planned to, no," Wilson said. He positioned the machine over House's hand. "Wider than that," he said.

House grunted and used his right hand to spread his left fingers wider. Wilson pushed the button for the x-ray. House took his hand back as soon as the machine stopped whirring and flexed the fingers that would flex. Wilson took the film to be developed. House popped a Vicodin the second the door was closed, swallowing it this time, and lay back on the table, right hand behind his head, left hand against his stomach and stretched his leg out. Wilson came back as soon as he closed his eyes.

"Pizza and porn?" House suggested, hearing the door open and close. "Or porn and pizza if we're going to put them in the right order?"

"Maybe," Wilson said, leaning against the door. "You should take it easy tonight." He thought he'd let House rest for a little while. House looked comfortable. And he still didn't know what he was going to say.

"Pizza and porn's pretty easy if you ask me," House said. "We've got another disc of Family Guy to watch."

"I still don't see what you see in that show," Wilson said.

"You're just jealous because Brian's smarter than your dog," House teased.

"Brian's a cartoon character," Wilson pointed out.

"And?" House said. "That makes him less smart how?"

He heard the look Wilson gave him and smiled. Wilson pushed himself off from the door and pulled a splint and tape out of one of the drawers. He rolled a stool over. "Up," he said to House.

House cracked an eye open. "Is this because I insulted your dog?"

"Yes," Wilson said sarcastically, "it's exactly because you insulted my dog." He rolled his eyes. "C'mon."

House sighed and pulled himself up, offering his hand to Wilson. Wilson straightened the finger and House hissed. "Baby," Wilson muttered.

"Why are you splinting it?" House grumbled. "It's fine."

"How is it that, unlike everyone else in the universe, narcotics make you more difficult to deal with?" Wilson griped, trying to take House's hand.

House snatched his hand away. "I'm not difficult. I just disagree," he clarified, acting hurt.

"They're making you stupider, too," Wilson said, "but that's a normal reaction."

House gave him a look. "Wait for the x-ray," he said.

Wilson sighed heavily with annoyance.

"What?" House said. "Why get an x-ray if you're not going to read it before treating the patient? At the risk of sounding like I give a crap, it's a gross misuse of hospital services."

Wilson narrowed his eyes at him. "Are you sure you took a Vicodin?" he asked. "Cuddy could've swapped it with some miracle pill that's turned you into her."

"You wish," House muttered. Wilson gave him a look. "Ohh, touched a nerve did I? She didn't fall for the patented James Wilson Drawer-Dropping Two Step?"

"She likes baby blues and pit-bull personalities," Wilson said. "Which, needless to say, you've got in spades." He paused. "But wait—I'm forgetting something." He rubbed his chin as he was considering the matter, then snapped his fingers and pointed at House. "That's right—you've already got her feather in your cap. Y'know, you never told me whether it was good or not."

"I've told you that three times already," House said. "You've got to cut back on your drinking."

Wilson shrugged. "Maybe it's something I wanted to block out."

"Then stop asking," House said and in his best Jack Nicholson voice continued, "because you can't handle the truth."

Wilson chuckled. "It must have been really ugly if I couldn't handle it." He went to the door. "I'm going to go check on the x-ray," he said. He was half-way out when he stopped, turned, and said, "House." House looked up. "Stay."

House glared at him as he turned to go. "Wilson," House said. Wilson stopped though he knew what was coming and didn't turn around. "Go."

"Talk to the finger," Wilson said, flipping House off as he left.

The door swung shut and House sighed to himself. Ten minutes—twenty tops—and he could shake Wilson for the evening. There was no guarantee that Wilson wouldn't be banging on his door at three-thirty, out of his mind with despair, the second stage of 'She's Done It Again' syndrome, but at least he'd be gone most of the night.

Ah, despair. Yes. House knew all of the stages. He found he could predict the length and severity of each. There was Shock first, which he'd seen earlier today, followed by Despair, Anger, Plans for Retribution, Failure of Retribution and the subsequent relapse of Anger and Despair, Denial, and finally Acceptance. Despair could last anywhere from a few hours to a week depending on how many times the wife in question had done it, how blatant it was, how rough the realization was, when the realization came (if it came at the end of the week, despair gave way to anger more quickly because Wilson had more time to dwell), whether Wilson was worried about losing a patient or something else work-related, and all kinds of other things, down to the time of year (despair lasted longer in the winter) and the time of day he let it slip to House (the earlier he told, the sooner despair was over).

House weighed the factors of this most recent case. He'd give it…30 hours once it really kicked in tonight, which he imagined would be around 6:30. Because all offers of porn and pizza aside, he knew Wilson would go off alone and sulk tonight no matter what either of them said. Despair always started with sulking.

Before House could get any further with his predictions, Wilson came back with the x-ray. He put it on the board and flipped the light on and they both studied it.

"Definitely needs to be splinted," Wilson said. "Which I believe I said earlier." He smiled smugly, picked up the splint, and sat down in front of House.

"Omniscience doesn't suit you," House grumbled, holding out his hand. "Keep your day job."

House hissed as Wilson straightened the finger and splinted it, but with the second Vicodin cruising through his system, he did it more for show than anything else. Wilson would know something was up if he didn't feign some degree of hurt and after the week he'd had, the last thing he wanted was Wilson on his back about the narcs again, especially a wounded, despairing Wilson. The next person who said anything about them to him was going to be picking up pieces of himself from here to Detroit.

Wilson finished with House's finger and House hopped off the table while Wilson gathered up the x-ray and turned off the lights.

Wilson dropped the x-ray off to be added to House's ever-growing file and the desk clerk handed House a letter. House looked at the return address and stuffed the letter into his coat pocket. Wilson watched him curiously.

"What does JAMA want with you now?" he asked.

"It's obviously not important," House said, "or they would've sent flowers and a singing telegram."

"I thought you were going to let Foreman write up Tapeworm Lady," Wilson said.

"You mean your cousin?" House jabbed. Wilson smiled wryly. "Foreman didn't want it. Felt it was beneath his dignity."

"So you did it instead?" Wilson asked.

"Who said I did anything with it?" House said. "When did you develop x-ray vision? And why didn't you tell me? I've been dying to know whether Cuddy still wears those stringy little crotchless panties."

"I have it on good authority that she's switched to thongs," Wilson said as they left the clinic and headed for the elevator.

"Crotchless thongs?" House asked hopefully.

"No," Wilson replied, pushing the button for four. "But they were leopard skin."

"Ooo, wedgie," House said. "Who's your authority?"

"I know a guy," Wilson said evasively. "Actually, she's a girl. Ah, a woman. Cuddy's doubles partner."

House's eyebrows shot up. "Lesbian locker room secrets?" he said. "I like. You have done well, grasshopper. The Force is strong in you."

"You're gonna mix your movies now?" Wilson said.

"You're gonna bitch about it?" House replied as the elevator arrived.

Wilson let him have that one.

They stepped onto the elevator with a clinic patient Wilson recognized from earlier who promptly started sneezing and coughing behind them. They exchanged a look. The elevator stopped on two and the patient got out. Wilson pushed the 'close door' button.

"I finally understand why you don't like the clinic," he said.

"Took you long enough," House mumbled. "Was Sneezy Magee on your shortlist today?"

"He came in around four," Wilson said. "Flu. I don't know why he's still here."

"Obviously he wants a second opinion," House said. "The famous Dr. Wilson can't be right when he says go home, drink lots of fluids, and stay in bed. He's only a renowned cancer doctor and everyone knows cancer doctors don't know the first thing about colds." House shook his head. "No one has any patience any more."

The door opened on three and no one got on or off. House stabbed the button for four again with his thumb. Wilson raised his eyebrows at House and House gave him a dirty look in return.

"You really lucked out on the timing," Wilson said. He wasn't sure if this was the best way to bring the subject up, if it would get him where he wanted to go. God forbid anyone other than Cuddy ask House a direct question and come away with all four limbs intact.

"Just goes to show you that ass-kissing only gets you so far," House said. "You should give betting a try. You stake your new golf clubs, she puts up a few clinic hours, and all you have to do is go a week without looking at or thinking about another woman." Wilson cringed beside him. "So basically, you don't think about sex for a week and you get time off later to think about sex all you want."

"You make it sound so cruel," Wilson said. House gave him a knowing look.

The elevator stopped on their floor and they got off.

That hadn't gone in the direction Wilson had hoped it would. He tried to think of something else as they walked down the hall. Why couldn't he just come out and say it? Why did House have to make everything so hard?

They were nearing House's office. It was now or never.

He still didn't know what to say, so he'd go back to where they'd been: the bet.

"You made it a week," he said.

"And won my prize," House finished, smug smile on his face.

"Congratulations," Wilson said.

"Cuddy's a sucker," House added, grinning, "I would have done it for two weeks off."

"Yeah, it was a piece of cake," he said. It was now. He hoped House remembered their talk from two weeks ago or what Cuddy had said to him on Monday. "You learn anything?" he asked.

House pushed open his office door. "Yeah," he said, as if it wasn't anything at all, "I'm an addict." He turned and went in, leaving Wilson in the hall by himself, floored by how easy that had been and not sure that House realized what he was saying.

He opened the door and went in. "Ah," he said, hands going to his hips, "okay."

House pulled the letter out of his coat, tossing it onto his desk. "I'm not stopping," he said.

So he did remember. So he did know what Wilson wanted to talk about. And from what Wilson could tell, he resented having it brought up at all. "There are programs," Wilson said. "Cuddy would give you the time. You could get on a different pain management regimen—"

"I don't need to stop," House said, the edge of carefully controlled anger slipping into his voice as he shuffled papers on his desk, trying to find something that he knew wasn't there. He didn't realize that it was a nervous habit—that this conversation scared the hell out of him.

Wilson continued, confused and anxious. "You…just…said…" he began.

"I said I was an addict," House said, angry that Wilson had brought this up at all. "I didn't say I had a problem." He paused, then added, "I pay my bills, I make my meals. I function." He tried not to think about how pathetic that sounded, but it was true and it was all he wanted. He only needed to get through the day. It was all he asked for and it was all he expected.

Wilson knew what he wanted to say next. He knew it was a push—that it would bring up an issue House had never been comfortable with and one they never talked about—but it had to be said. It simply had to be said. And he was getting angry himself. House would admit that he was addicted, but he wouldn't admit that his life was shit because of the addiction, that he wasn't dealing with his real problem in a healthy way? That was no admission.

"Is that all you want?" he said. "You have no relationships."

"I don't want any relationships," House spat. Wilson would go there. Bring it—her—up and think he could get away with it.

"You alienate people," Wilson said. It wasn't an accusation. It was a statement of fact. They both knew it. But it came out meaner and angrier than Wilson really meant it to be and he knew that though House would never let it show, it stung him.

"I've been alienating people since I was three," House retorted flippantly.

"Oh, come on!" Wilson shouted. He'd had enough of this stupid denial that only made things worse. "Drop it! You don't think you've changed in the last few years?"

House sighed. What did he have to do to get Mr. Infidelity out of his office and into the bars crying into a beer where he belonged? Simple: give him a blanket admission that allowed him a way out and would let both of them stop this before it exploded.

"Well, of course I have," he said. "I've gotten older. My hair's gotten thinner. Sometimes I'm bored, sometimes I'm lonely, sometimes I wonder what it all means." He couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Wilson had hit him and he needed to hit back.

Wilson was shaking his head as House went through the standard litany. House was denying it again.

"No, I was there!" Wilson said, stepping forward as House turned his back to him and faced the bookshelf. "You are not just a regular guy who's getting older. You've changed. You're miserable, and you're afraid to face yourself—"

"Of course I've changed!" House shouted, seething, and slammed his cane down on the bookshelf to punctuate his point. He looked at Wilson as if to say, How could you do this? You know as well as I do that things aren't the same. Why do you have to bring it up? After everything that's happened this week, this year, these last six years, how could you? You have no right.

"And everything's the leg?" Wilson said incredulously, softer, not wanting to believe it, not wanting House to believe it. "Nothing's the pills? They haven't done a thing to you?" Bitterness crept into his voice and he didn't try to stop it.

House was cold with rage. How could Wilson do this? How did he have the balls to bring this up? Where did he get off? Yeah, he had been there, so he knew what it was—exactly what it was. Of course it wasn't just the leg. They both knew it, but dammit, it didn't have to be said. There were things they just didn't say and this was one of them. Wilson knew it and he'd done it anyway. Dammit! this was why they didn't fight. It never got anyone anywhere and it always left House feeling like he never wanted to see Wilson again. All this because his slut wife was whoring herself out again? Here he was accusing House of not being able to handle his problems when he was redirecting his anger onto an undeserving target.

"They let me do my job," House said lowly, "and they take away my pain." He looked at Wilson, challenging him, daring him to push one more inch.

Wilson looked back at him. He could tell House couldn't take any more; he couldn't take any more himself. And the truth was, he had nothing else to say.

He looked down and rubbed the back of his neck.

They'd skirted the issue. Again. He knew exactly what House meant when he said 'my pain.' It was as close as he'd get to an admission that he wasn't just using the drugs for his leg. It was never just his leg. It was years of quiet anger, bitterness, being alone, hating himself and everyone around him and right now Wilson had no idea what to do. How could you make a person snap out of a six year emotional coma? He knew one thing now: yelling wasn't the way it was going to get done.

He nodded to himself, anger and disappointment fading to numbness. He didn't know what else to do, so he turned and walked out, feeling dead and leaving House behind him.

Because that was what he did: he walked out. Things got too heavy for him and he ran away. He knew it just like House knew he used Vicodin to medicate his loneliness: it was only ever a gut feeling that he tried to push away or drown in alcohol or outrun or punch until his knuckles bleed.

Because he couldn't deal with it. It was too much. He just wanted things to go back to the way they were. He wanted it desperately—to go back to when he was happy and newly married to Julie and he knew he'd get it right this time, when House was calling him late at night so nervous and excited about popping the question that he could hear his hands shaking over the phone, back when House teased him for taking bass fishing seriously and they'd play a grueling set of singles or one-on-one to forty points to decide who'd buy the beer that afternoon before the four of them went bowling. None of it was the same. None of it would ever be the same, ever.

But this—this fight he'd just had with House—it would blow over. And he wanted it to, as badly as he wanted anything else, and at the same time, he knew that meant nothing had changed and that the whole week had been for naught. So House now had irrefutable proof that he was physically addicted and he'd admitted to that, but that wasn't what this thing had been about. It had never been about whether he was physically dependent.

House was denying the real problem as strongly as ever and now that he'd proven he could go off the drug and still work—that it wasn't inferring in the quality of his work—he'd never let them broach the subject again. He'd never listen again. And as much as Wilson felt like a failure, he knew he'd done all he could, that at some point it was no longer in anyone's hands but House's. You couldn't just force a person to change. It had to be his choice and House had made it abundantly clear that he was happy with the way things were. If he wouldn't admit to the problem, then there was no problem in his mind. Wilson knew that. House had become a master of evasion; perhaps he'd always been a master of evasion. And no amount of proof was going to change his mind until he was ready to change it himself.

Wilson sighed as he reached his office. It had to be House's decision. That was it. He couldn't do anything else.

He mechanically changed out of his lab coat and put on his overcoat and scarf, grabbing his briefcase. He went down to the front desk and read through the last few charts he had to sign off on before he left for the day.

Cuddy saw him and went through the clinic doors, noting his posture. She'd been waiting for him, nervous and hopeful. He didn't look jubilant. If anything he looked defeated. But she would wait until she asked him to draw conclusions.

"How'd it go?" she asked, coming up behind him as he looked over the last chart he had and signed off on it.

Wilson glanced at her and went back to signing his name. "He admitted he's addicted to the narcotics—" Wilson began soberly.

Cuddy nodded to herself. "Well, admitting you have a problem is the first—"

"—and he says it's not a problem," he said and finished signing the chart, tossing it on the desk. "Maybe it's not," he said. He didn't know what to believe anymore. "What do I know?" He picked up his briefcase to leave.

"What are you going to do?" Cuddy asked, walking out with him.

"Nothing," he said. "I've done enough damage." He felt like such a dog.

"Better hope he never finds out that that was your idea," Cuddy said.

"He'd never believe it," Wilson said.

They walked toward their cars in silence.

That was one thing he liked about having Cuddy on his side: he always got to be the good guy. He'd feel bad about it, but being the bad guy all the time didn't seem to bother her. It was the way she communicated with House, nudging him in the right direction with annoyance and exasperation where Wilson used playful, joking banter. When either of them broke that form of communication, as they both had today with Cuddy expressing real concern and Wilson expressing anger, House got edgy and closed himself off. But the system they used that had worked so well for so long was breaking down. House was breaking down. Wilson knew something was coming. He could feel it. And it was going to be big, bad, and ugly and they might not all make it through.

He laughed sadly to himself. House was right: he was developing woman's intuition. He wondered if Cuddy could sense it too, but he didn't want to talk anymore tonight to anyone.

They reached her car and he said goodnight to her and kept walking.

Away.

Always away.