AN- Sorry guys! I had this halfway done when my computer had an error and turned everything off on me! Then I searched for a temp file to no avail – it was gone! So I couldn't write for a while, the momentum was gone. But I'm better now!
One person asked that I update what the last thirty or so chappies covered, and I'll do it this time, but I don't think I'll do it every time, I just don't have the time to go back and reread everything I wrote to give a synopsis, every chapter. I had given one in my deleted chapter, and I had reread them, but it's been awhile now, so here goes nothing…
House gives Cameron his house keys. They both sulk awhile and then Cameron winds up there and they sleep together. A relationship forms out of that. Well, things were too happy so in walks Lisa, have my baby, Cuddy. Cameron is not happy with this development and considers leaving this one-sided romance till she discovers it's not so one-sided. Cameron losses a baby she didn't know she was carrying. House is wonderful about it. Cameron and House buy a House. Baby William is born. House has a major problem with the leg, and has it amputated. Almost a year of self pity and blaming go on and House realizes he doesn't want to lose either Cameron or Wilson. He asks Cameron to marry him. Pre-wedding fun. Wedding. Cuddy is hanging on the edge…will she or won't she…. you'll have to read to find out!
Chapter 36
Wilson sat in her room with William in his lap. The room was overflowing with equipment, crammed in all around the front of her bed. Wilson could squeeze his chair no closer then her right knee. He was even to far back to reach for her hand, in doing so; he would crush the baby, sleeping in his arms.
William was no longer a baby anymore, really. He had had his first birthday and was on his way to fifteen months. Wilson kissed the child on the forehead and snuggled him closer as he watched his mother.
Lisa was in a coma. She lay flat on her back, her breaths coming in and out with the aid of a respirator. The large apparatus attached to her mouth and nose stood up from her face, the tubes snaking out around her head. The clear blue color seemed to wash out her already pale face against even whiter sheets. A deep red welt that appeared like a Rorschach splashed across her left cheek. Second degree burns from the coffee she was drinking when the truck crushed her car. Heart monitors, respiratory, pulse-ox, every monitor one could think of beeped around him incessantly. Wilson wondered if a person in a coma could be driven insane by the rhythmic beeps that persisted day and night.
Outside in the hallway, the rest of the friends and family waited. Wilson resented them for waiting. Putting them in the category o waiting for her to die. Lisa was young and beautiful and was a force of nature. Those people didn't die. She had a son to raise and a relationship with him to pursue, those people didn't die. He watched as her numbers slowly, as the minutes ticked by, became worse, as her face became paler, as the chances got slimmer, and he realized that he too was waiting, because she wasn't going to get any better.
As a cancer doctor, he had seen many people beat the odds. He also knew when the disease was going to win.
"Lisa, I want you to know that I really enjoyed you as a friend, and more recently – as more than that." He paused adjusting William in his arms as his left hand started to go numb. "I, uhhh, I don't know what I would have turned into, but I was looking forward to finding out." He finally got William settled where he wanted him and focused everything on her. "Your parents are outside and they are going to take care of William so you don't have to worry about him." Wilson paused. He had loved her as a friend but he wasn't in love with her. The sparks didn't fly as they had with House and Cameron. Hell, the sparks hadn't flown with any of his wives the way that they did between those two. "I'll miss you Lisa. I'll miss not knowing what would happen." He rose, not knowing what more to say, if there was anything more to say.
He went into the hallway and down the hall to the waiting room. The place was packed with Lisa's friends and family. He handed off William to Lisa's father and walked over to Cameron, who was leaning against the other doorframe, across the room.
"Where's House?" He asked.
"In his office" she answered.
He headed up there and sat in House's guest chair facing the desk. House sat in his chair playing Donkey Kong. He sat the game down and folded his hands.
"Is she still alive?"
Wilson winced a bit at his friend's pointed question but nodded. "She's hanging in there, but not for long." He said sadly.
"Wow, you really dodged a bullet there, huh" House threw back the words Wilson had used on him almost two years previous.
Wilson saw red and grew indignant. "Excuse Me?!"
"You heard what I said." He leaned back in his chair and put up his legs on the desk. "And stop with your righteous anger. The family might buy it but I'm not gonna."
Wilson shook his head. "You are really unbelievable, you know that?" He sprung up from his seat to leave and was stopped but House's cane to his chest. Wilson looked at the cane with some surprise. House hardly ever used it anymore.
"Stop right there. Sit down." House glared at him. Wilson glared right back but sighed and lowed himself back into his seat. "Let's not go down the wounded lover path, ok? We both know it wasn't that serious with Cuddy. We both know it wasn't that serious with anybody you were ever with." House pulled his cane to his side and started to twirl it with his hand.
Wilson focused on the twirling cane, as if mesmerized. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"You know what Jimmy? After all these years of you giving me advice about relationships, and moral dilemmas I'm starting to see that your even more broken than I am. I –" he emphasized the 'I' by pointing with his free hand at himself. "Have never cheated on anybody I've remotely cared about. I've never cheated." He set the can down across the desk. "You however, not only spit out the word love every five minutes like you're trying to prove something, but cheat before they can get the white dress off."
Wilson sat in silence, wanting to get pissed off, wanting to deny it, but found he couldn't.
Just then the phone rang and House answered it. James was oblivious to the phone call trying to work out his problems while House prattled on to whomever was on the other end. Could House be right? As much as he preached to House about opening up and letting somebody in, maybe he had the opposite problem, way to willing to let someone in. House hung up the phone, startling Wilson out of his thoughts.
"You better get the grieving husband routine going again, cause seems the wicked witch is dead." House said with bitterness.
"Why are you so-" Wilson fumbled around for words. "YOU today!?" He finally spit out.
"I am being ME today because I actually loved Cuddy. I loved her like a sister. She was always on my side, always willing to put up with my shit, and because she –" He trailed off then, not knowing how to part with the secret Cameron, Cuddy and he had kept for over two years.
"She what? Wilson demanded.
"Never mind! My point is that I actually felt something for her and now she's dead, gone. She'll never snark again at me and I'll actually miss her a lot. You on the other hand are going to play it up, just like you did during all your divorces."
"This is different, the woman is dead." Wilson started but was interrupted by House.
"You're right, this is different! You should grow up!"
Wilson left the room, nearly knocking over Cameron in his haste to get away from House. Cameron came into the room staring back at the disheveled doctor, who ran for the stairs. She walked up to House's desk and leaned a hip to it, facing him.
"You do have a way with people." Cameron was surprised when she was left a second later in an empty room.
"Huh." She said and followed the limping doctor down the hall. He had a good couple of minutes on her, he was running and she simply strolled after him, letting him get whatever it was out of his system.
She finally caught up to him in the men's changing rooms. Her first clue was the several smashed in lockers at the entrance to the room. She heard water running and saw a broken sink, water leaking onto the floor and into the drain on the floor. She turned a corner and saw legs sticking out from under a changing room door.
She stood on the outside and pushed gently on the door. He was sitting calmly on the floor breathing hard.
"Come on. It's been a shitty day. Let's go home." She held her hand out to him and he, after a moment of looking at it, reached out with a bloody hand and grabbed on. She helped him to his feet and looked at his hand.
"Let's stop by the clinic first and look at that hand." She said calmly as he simply nodded at her. "When we get home, I can run a hot bath, we can eat some Chinese and go to bed. The next couple of days will be long, hard ones." Cameron said as she reached out a hand to smooth his hair down. Again he nodded and followed her to the clinic, hand in hand.
Author's note – SO many of you wanted the poor woman dead! Geez! Around nine of you, if I counted right, and about an equal number who didn't care one way or another so I decided to finish what I'd started. She gone. That's it! The two people who wanted Foreman dead surprised me! Geez, I didn't even ask about him! LOL! He drives me nuts too, that whole thing with the article, I would knocked him flat. They have hundreds of cases a year, I'm sure he could have found something to write about, that wasn't Cam's. Plus his attitude, aaarrgggghhh! Anyway, I'm not writing a death scene yet but I'll come up with something to make his day go very badly. I did set his pants on fire awhile back if you all recall. LOL.
Anyway, my original plot was to somehow give the baby to House and Cameron. I have since nixed the idea, because so many of you figured out my devious plan. I haven't necessarily given up on it, just put it on the back burner to flame up later. I agree that Cameron having to put up with the care of a baby that isn't hers when she has so many problems isn't fair or right. House and her have enough issues to deal with.
One last thing, I used this as a way to get Wilson to grow up. He gives all this advice but his own house of Cards is constantly coming down. His brother is homeless, and his best friend is House, and he can't have a relationship without it involving cheating or it being morally wrong (Cancer girl, House vs. God). He has some serious flaws. Actually I really like Cuddy in the show, and I wouldn't want my dog to become involved with Wilson. He has a good front but there is only a front and nothing beneath it. So, this is a character developing thing, hopefully Wilson will learn what real love is and not this suedo-love/need thing he has going.