Here's chapter 25. Thanks for all the great reviews. Somebody made the excellent point that I might consider putting an abuse content warning on this story, which I have done. It will only be physical, not sexual, and it will never get into what I would call graphic descriptions (although that definition varies person to person), because I also like to leave some details to the readers' imaginations in many other areas besides sex scenes. But it will be mentioned, and if you have any kind of imagination at all, you will be horrified on poor House's behalf. And yes, I will explain carpet glue, and you will probably wish that I hadn't and be further horrified. So be prepared for mentions of abuse through the rest of this one and also the sequel, which is at the moment building itself under the working title of "Desperado." Thanks again. Enjoy the rest of Pranks. It has several chapters left, but we're certainly well over halfway, I'd say. Hard to judge length until I actually write it down from mental version into paper/Word. Basically, Pranks covers his injury time out until he returns to work, ending with a nice world of possibility but not tied up neatness with everything solved, and Desperado will pick up from there and cover his continuing progress in both dealing with his abuse issues and with the wanting a relationship but afraid of failure with Cuddy.

(H/C)

Wilson opened the door to House's apartment and then extracted the key and stepped back, picking up the duffel bag from the entryway and letting his friend precede him. House slowly entered. After another extended hot soak today and keeping up the high-dose anti-inflammatories, he was walking on his own, although slowly and limping much more heavily than usual, and Wilson stayed close just in case.

House stopped just inside the door and looked around. It seemed a lifetime since he had been here. What was it? Five days ago, he concluded. He had left on Wednesday morning to go to work, and it was now Sunday night. He looked around almost as if it were the house of a stranger. The books. The TV and stereo equipment. The guitars. The piano. He turned to go to it, caressing the dark wood with the fingers that protruded from his cast. It alone seemed familiar and welcoming, but he was suddenly freshly aware of the stiffness and limitation imposed on his left hand. No, the piano was as it had been. He was the one returning wounded, limited, off balance, and unsure. Rather than feeling that skeletons had been let out of his closet, he felt like his two best friends had entered the closet and were conducting a differential on them. Part of him still wished to kick them out, slam the door, and pretend it never had happened. Couldn't things just go back to normal?

He turned, and only the enforced slowness of his leg kept him from banging into Wilson on his pivot. His friend had come up behind him unnoticed while House was lost in reverie. House jumped slightly at the near miss, and Wilson reached out to steady him as the leg protested. "You okay?"

"Fine," he replied tersely. "I just didn't hear you. Figured you were in the kitchen; you haven't cooked anything for at least two hours. You don't want to go into withdrawal, you know."

Wilson gave a feeble grin. "Right. I'll go start dinner; Cuddy should be here from the hospital in another half hour or so. Are you hungry?"

House dodged the question. "Think I'll go lie down for a while." He hobbled slowly toward the hall, then stopped. "And Wilson. . ." He turned and found his friend, as expected, about 2 feet behind him, not diverting to the kitchen yet. "Wake me up to eat when it's ready." The unspoken text was almost written in the air between them. He was giving in to his still healing body at the moment, but he didn't want to have time to pass the initial sound sleep of exhaustion and enter another nightmare.

"Sure," Wilson replied lightly. He started to follow House down the hall, then stopped at the impatient hunch of a shoulder.

"Go cook," House said without turning around this time. "If I fall, I'll call you. You'll probably hear it anyway."

Wilson spread his hands in a gesture of exasperated surrender that House couldn't see and turned away. House limped slowly on down the hall, sticking close to the wall just in case, and entered the bedroom, settling down into the bed with a sigh. At least the bed felt familiar. He propped up his leg and closed his eyes, trying to blank out his mind. Too much had happened in the last few days. Too much had happened in his lifetime. It was his gift and his curse, having a mind that ran only at one speed, full gallop, but right now, he wanted to stop the whole world and get off. For just a while, he needed to stop thinking. All of the unsolved issues, past and present, would still be there when he woke up. Slowly, he drifted off.

In the kitchen, Wilson pulled out vegetables and started dicing with quick, angry slices. The more he thought, the more furious at himself he became. House had been especially distant and withdrawn today at Cuddy's, and both of them had given their friend space, filling in the time with a movie and with Rachel. There hadn't been much opportunity for private discussion, but Cuddy had whispered to Wilson at one point that House had had a very hard discussion with her earlier that she would tell him about as soon as she could. No doubt he was reacting to that, scrambling to avoid loaded topics. Unfortunately, Wilson had had plenty of time for thought himself last night and this morning, replaying the whole drive to the funeral. He had noticed House's efforts to talk about his father but had ignored and totally misread them. He had even JOKED about it, had remarked with biting sarcasm how House clearly had no issues to work through, and had immediately followed that statement up with his own declaration of independence. "I've moved on," he had said firmly, metaphorically and literally leaving his friend sitting on the curb while he returned to the car. How could he have possibly been that blind? And how could House have possibly been that trusting, to even try to bring it up to the man who had told him he never was a friend, the man who had asked him to risk his life, left him afterwards, and then had kidnapped him? With roles reversed, Wilson's entire commentary to his captor on that trip would have been, "Go to hell." But House had honestly tried to talk, had been glad to see him, had wanted to reach out. It was Wilson who had failed to listen, had failed to understand what in retrospect seemed written in large neon lights. Wilson slammed the knife down and yelped as he hit his finger instead of a carrot. Perfect.

Cuddy knocked on the door, and Wilson hurried to open it before House woke up. She stared at his towel-wrapped hand. "What happened?"

"I tried dicing fingers instead of vegetables. It didn't work."

She entered, putting down the baby carrier with a sleeping Rachel on the floor and the large PPTH pharmacy bag on the table. "Let me see." She carefully unwrapped it, inspecting the digit. "Don't think you need stitches. Just keep pressure on it a minute. I'll finish with the vegetables."

Wilson followed her, hovering just over her shoulder, unable to stop supervising the continuation of his meal as she finished the vegetables and added them to the pot of water. "How on earth could I have been so blind?"

Her shoulders slumped. "I don't know. Believe me, I've been asking myself that question. It's so clear." She moved over to unwrap his finger again and inspect the stopped bleeding, then retreated to the bathroom for antibiotic ointment and Band-Aids and returned. "I actually made a joke about it, that time his parents were coming and he was trying to dodge out of dinner with them. He told me that day, flat out told me, that he hated his father. Without one hint of sarcasm. And I brushed it off."

Wilson nodded mournfully. "You should have heard him on that trip to the funeral. I didn't even notice. He WAS trying to talk, extendedly, kept bringing his father and their problems up. But if he hadn't told me himself yesterday that he'd been trying to lead up to talking to me about the abuse, I still wouldn't have realized it. He did everything but spell it out, and I treated him like a jerk who'd never been a good son to them." Cuddy finished bandaging his finger, and he moved over to the stove possessively, reclaiming control over the meal in progress.

"Is he asleep?" she asked.

"Yes. The trip over here wore him out. He did ask me to wake him up when it was ready, though. So what was the tough conversation this morning?"

"I asked him to tell me the triggers that reminded him, so we could try to avoid them without another repeat of the ice."

"And he did?" Wilson felt a quick stab of jealousy. He had been House's best friend for so long that it hurt in a way that more of his friend's revelations so far had been to Cuddy. You had your chance, Wilson, he reminded himself. You even had your chance first. Can you blame him? Cuddy had merely set a trip wire on House and badly injured him. Wilson on the funeral trip had slammed the door, not once but several consecutive times, in his face as House honestly tried to approach the subject of his most guarded secret. Nope, Cuddy was definitely ahead in compassion points, although both of them were making a pretty poor showing.

Cuddy heard the thought. "Give him time. Remember, Wilson, he didn't voluntarily open up to me about this whole subject. I just tripped over it." She heard the word and winced as soon as she said it. "He was very reluctant to talk this morning, but I think what made him tell me was the fact that he did hit you last night. He was worried for us. Both of us." Wilson fingered his bruised jaw. "Even then, he didn't want to give me any details at all, just the triggers. I was having to bite my tongue to keep from asking him for more. If I'd pushed him then, he would have totally frozen up. I'm not surprised he's had his walls up all day since then. Even without details, it was brutal. With his memories added on his side, I can't imagine how hard it was for him to come up with that list."

Wilson sighed. "So what are the triggers?" He inspected the contents of the stove.

"We already had two. Making him fall and ice. The others he gave me are horse whips . . ."

Wilson dropped the stirring spoon into the pot. "HORSE WHIPS?" Rachel stirred in her carrier, and they both dropped their voices.

"Horse whips," Cuddy repeated. "He didn't even have any shock or emotion in his voice when he said it. Any time I reacted at all, he threatened to shut down. Sitting there and listening to this as an almost detached list was harder than anything I've ever had to take from him on the job."

Wilson got another spoon out of the drawer and fished out the dropped one from the pot. "Maybe it's better he told you first, after all. I probably would have lost it right there. You've got more self-control. Go on. What else?"

"Uniforms. Rules about being on time. Matches. Camping." She paused. "And the smell of carpet glue."

Wilson dropped his spoon into the pot again. "Damn. Some kind of friends we've been."

She nodded sadly. "He was way over the top about that carpet, wouldn't even enter his office, not even the main room. I've never seen him that upset about anything trivial before. I should have known it wasn't trivial."

"He didn't give you details?"

"No. What on earth do you do to someone with carpet glue?"

Wilson fished out his spoon again. "I can't imagine."

Cuddy shuddered. This was like seeing a shadow in a horror movie, not yet knowing what exactly it represents but knowing that it will be terrible. "And you know what he said then? I asked him if that was all after he'd been quiet for a minute. He said he couldn't think of any more at the moment, but he didn't always remember events until he ran into the trigger he had associated with them."

Wilson barely kept his spoon from going down for the third time. "Oh, damn. He SERIOUSLY needs help."

She nodded. "How on earth are we going to get him to accept it, though? He'll barely talk to us, and I'm sure he'd rather just go back to deflection and pretending if we hadn't found out his secret accidentally."

Rachel stirred again in the carrier, waking up, and Cuddy went over to her. "I'd better give her a bottle now while you're finishing cooking. I'll go check on him, too, make sure he isn't locked in another dream yet." She cuddled Rachel while heating the bottle, then headed back to House's bedroom. He was flat out and sound asleep, and she sat down carefully on the other side, feeding the baby and watching him. How could they help him deal with this? Her mind was running on a hamster wheel, getting nowhere.

Wilson came down the hall just as she finished burping Rachel. "Almost ready, and he's been asleep about an hour. We'd better go ahead and wake him up before . . ." He didn't bother finishing the sentence, just walked over to House's side of the bed as Cuddy stood up. "House?" He shook his friend's shoulder gently. "House? Time for food and meds."

House opened his eyes, and they both saw the gratitude, quickly shielded. He hadn't had to go through another dream. He slowly sat up and looked around, noticing Cuddy. "Hospital still there?"

"It was when I left, anyway," she parried. "Marco got a bit of a shock, though. It's all on the table, but I brought you a refill on Vicodin, oral antibiotics, oral diazepam, zolpidem, prescription-strength ibuprofen, omeprazole to go along with it as a precaution, and morphine and syringes, just in case."

House chuckled. "I would have liked to see his expression." He heaved himself up to his feet, testing the leg. Wilson's hands flexed, but he managed to keep himself from automatically reaching out to help. They had to know exactly how mobile House was before deciding whether one of them skipped work tomorrow.

The slow trek down the hall seemed to take forever, but House made it unassisted. The meal passed in the same shielded discussion they'd had all day, as if House had hit his quota of revelations first thing in the morning and had nothing left to give. Cuddy and Wilson tried to give him space, but they were both silently working frantically on strategies at the same time, to the point that House finally stood up with his plate only two-thirds finished. "I'll leave you to plotters to it. When you've worked out all the details of my upcoming life, send me a memo." He hobbled slowly to the piano and sat down on the bench, staring at his hands, the casted left one and the whole right.

Wilson picked up the plates and headed into the kitchen, and Cuddy helped him carry them in, then went back out to sit on the couch. "We won't do anything you don't agree to, House," she assured him again. "You won't be forced into anything. It's okay." Unwanted therapy would have no chance of succeeding anyway. The challenge would be getting him to want it.

He was playing odd pieces of melodies one-handed, using only his right, his left arm folded across his lap. Cuddy had always marveled at how much sensitivity and emotion he could put into the notes, even now when he was operating under a handicap. "How did you learn to play?" she asked. Surely that at least wasn't a negative memory for him. Music was the only place where he seemed truly whole.

He half-smiled, changing to another melody. "Mom had a friend who taught piano. She signed me up for lessons, and it was just there, like something I'd always wanted but never knew how to reach for until then." His eyes flickered to Cuddy, then back to his hand. The music changed again. Contemplative, sad, then with life entering it, ripples of possibilities, melding to almost-recognized tunes that hovered just beyond the ear.

Cuddy was mesmerized, following the notes, trying to decide what it almost reminded her of. "What song is that?"

He stopped instantly, as if catching himself. "I was making it up."

"Just then?" He nodded. "Well don't stop, House. It's beautiful. So reaching. Does it have a name?"

"Not yet," he replied. He resumed playing, right hand leading, left fingers twitching in his lap, and Cuddy realized that in his mind, he was hearing it whole.

"You'll have to play it for me when the cast comes off, so I can hear all of it like you can."

He nodded, more relaxed now with the music than he had felt all day. He worked through another phrase, thoughts flowing directly into his fingers. Here he could express himself. All the uncertainty, all the excitement, all the hesitance and changefulness. Music alone was a fortress in his soul, one that his father had never been able to breach. Cuddy sat there on the couch, staring into the fire, listening to the melody.

He had lied, but everybody lies. From the first moment, the piece had had a name. He would call it Cuddy's Serenade.