Title: How Not To Be Boring
Author: FourLeggedFish
Fandom: House MD
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: Hard R due to subject matter and implications. Some blunt talk about child abuse that may be disturbing for some readers. Please be warned.
Disclaimer: I collected thirty-thousand cereal box tops, but they wouldn't let me redeem them for House MD. Now I have Cheerios coming out of my ears.
Comments are like House and Wilson snogging on the actual TV show; I need these things in order to survive.

Wilson knocked on Olivia's half-open door and then stuck his head around the edge of the jamb. "Do you have a minute? Oh!" He immediately held his hands up and winced when he noticed her holding the phone against her ear. "Sorry, I'll – "

Olivia emphatically shook her head and motioned him in, so he crept forward and lingered at the back of the room, hands clenched in his pockets, acting as if the still-life painting of a begonia were the most fascinating piece of art he had ever seen. It was a skill.

Less than a minute later, Olivia signed off and cradled the phone. "Well. You're only five and a half hours late."

Wilson rubbed at the permanent crick in his neck as he pivoted to peer at her from under his bangs, an apologetic smile expertly glued in place.

"Don't get cute with me," Olivia snapped. "That might work on House, but I'm a tougher nut to crack."

Wilson rolled his eyes off to one side and dropped his hand, though he still slouched where he stood. "You used to practice child psychiatry, right?"

Olivia quirked an eyebrow and gestured to the chair that Wilson usually occupied for sessions. "I could report you, you know. You were due for a med check at today's session."

"Olivia…" Wilson sighed and let most of his façade drop. "Please."

That seemed to do the trick. Olivia relented and left him standing there unbothered while she folded her hands over her desk blotter. "I got out of it."

"Why?"

She shrugged, anything but dismissive. "I couldn't deal with that every day."

"You specialized in abuse cases."

"Have you been perusing my dossier?" Olivia's glare warned him to get to his point fast.

Wilson nodded to indicate that he knew he was talking on borrowed time, and then moved to the potted plant, his fingers raised to caress a plastic leaf. "How do you bring it up?"

"Well…" Olivia itched her nose and gazed off at her pencil cup as if it resided on the far horizon rather than within arm's reach. "Usually, when they came to me, they had already come out with it, usually to a parent or relative, a teacher…sometimes straight to the police. I wasn't the outcry witness, so it was easy, in a way. I didn't have to coax them all that much, just work them through whatever was left." She risked a glance at Wilson, which he caught in his periphery. "Why? You have a patient you're concerned about? Don't be a hero; just call child services."

"It's about four decades too late for that." Wilson flared his nostrils and plucked his hand from the fake plant. "Olivia, I think…I don't even know how to say this. I think House's dad…did something to him."

"He was abusive," Olivia pointed out unnecessarily. "We both know that already."

"Something more than that."

Olivia shifted uneasily and picked up a glass paperweight shaped like a gnome. "Did you read that file?"

"I shredded it." Wilson leaned over and planted his palms on her desk. "Why? Did it say something?" He felt conflicted on whether or not her failure to disclose would constitute a form of betrayal.

"Nope." Olivia plunked the paperweight down and laced her fingers together as if to stop them from picking up any other trinkets. "It was just an incident report about the accidental discharge of a firearm by a minor in a residential section of the base. The neighbors filed it because John didn't want to implicate his son. He was trying to protect him. The neighbors were concerned about Blythe."

Wilson worked up enough saliva to swallow and then directed an appraising look at Olivia. "I'm starting to think that John let House stay in his room for two months because the longer he stayed away from the people, the less likely he would be to tell."

Olivia nodded abstractly, scrutinizing him the whole time with her head tilted back so that she was peering down her nose at him, and then she pointed to the chair again. "Sit down. We need to have a talk."

Her demeanor fanned an ember already burning deep in the pit of Wilson's stomach. He would have to chew some antacids before he went home tonight. "You know something."

"I don't know a damn thing," Olivia countered. "And neither do you. That's the problem right now. Sit." She paused in her launch to contemplate Wilson from a new angle for a moment. "How are you since this morning? Better?"

Wilson shrugged his entire body as he flopped into the chair. "I have no idea. Sure, why not; better sounds good in the file notes."

"Right." Olivia pulled what Wilson assumed was his file over in front of herself, and then sounded out, "W-o-r-s-e," as she scribbled.

Wilson rolled his eyes. "You know that doesn't help, right?"

"Sure it does," Olivia countered, stabbing a period into the paper with obscene relish. "It distracts you, which takes your mind off of all the crud piled up in your corner of the world, which eases the stress down a notch. Makes you more malleable to me." She cheeked a smile and then tilted her head, growing somber again. "What has he said?"

Wilson fidgeted with his pant leg, his face pulled into an involuntary grimace. "It's more what he hasn't said."

"So we're still in the repression stage?"

"This goes beyond repression," Wilson replied. He didn't even attempt to lighten the mood for once, discomfort or no. "He literally…seizes up when I try to get him to talk about it. He's said before that he can't. And this morning in the hospital room, when I forced him to talk about it, he got so upset he went tachycardic. We had to give him oxygen and knock him out."

Olivia frowned. "Okay. Considering how long he's probably been keeping this to himself, that's understandable. What did he say?"

"Mostly, he just kept telling me that I didn't understand, that I had it wrong." Wilson bounced his foot a few times, his lower lip trapped inexorably between his teeth, and then he added, "He specified that there was no actual sex."

"We're talking penetrative sex?"

Wilson winced. "Please don't say that. But yeah."

"Okay." Olivia's agreement sounded cold, but Wilson doubted she actually felt that way. "I've noticed that House lies by omission quite a lot; he doesn't consider it a falsehood. That's what you're thinking? That he's hiding behind selective truths?"

Wilson nodded, his eyes skewed to the side.

"Is that what happened this morning? You confronted him about it in the car?"

"It didn't go so well."

"So I've already guessed. James, look here." She snapped her fingers to draw his attention and then leaned over her folded arms. "There's no instruction manual for this."

"But…Olivia." Wilson scooted to the edge of his chair and dropped his head to the edge of her desk.

"You can't force it. You can be there, you can poke it, but you can't just stick your hands in there and – "

"I know that!" Wilson hissed. He raised his head and did his best to glare at her through puffy, bloodshot eyes. "We sleep together."

Olivia's brows twitched as she sat back. "Oh. That's why you're here."

"He told me not to touch him earlier." Wilson pressed his lips together in a desperate bid not to emote any more than he already had. "Not that it's unusual for him to be weird about that, but…"

"We've discussed the casual contact before. Has it improved at all?"

Wilson shrugged and discovered a bashful smile eeking out the corners of his mouth. "He wrote me a hug prescription, and he keeps giving me my measured doses."

Olivia lifted an eyebrow, then plainly inquired, "Why?"

"He thought I needed it?" Wilson itched his nose and then gestured at random as his hand fell back to his lap. "It was while we weren't speaking. He stopped by my apartment and left it in my briefcase." A chuckle snuck out too; the thought of House writing that script warmed him in places he couldn't pinpoint. "He was trying to woo me, I think. Or reassure me. It was…romantic."

"It sounds pretty cheesy."

Wilson curtly corrected, "Romantic."

"Ah."

"How am I supposed to have sex with him now?" It just fell out without warning. "I'll spend the whole thing wondering if he's thinking about something else."

Olivia rolled her eyes, lips pursed. "Do you work at overreacting to the wrong issues, or is it inborn?"

Wilson set his jaw askew. "Were you born mad as a hatter, or did it come with the clientele?"

Olivia held up a hand and then cut right to the chase. "Has he ever expressed discomfort in bed with you before?"

Wilson twitched at the sudden subject change. "He used to, when we first got together. It was awkward. I figured it was just the two guys thing, and I backed off if he got weird."

"It probably was the two guys thing. He's had perfectly healthy relationships with women, right?"

"With woman," Wilson replied sardonically.

"And he wasn't 'weird' about it?"

Wilson shrugged. "Not that I know of. They met, shot each other, shagged, moved in, she betrayed him, and he gave her walking papers."

"Eh. Right – we've talked about Stacy before." Olivia shook herself at that succinct series of events, then said, "Okay, so. More or less healthy. How long did he go between her and you?"

"Almost a decade."

"Ah. So half of his problem could be self image. He's a cripple now."

Wilson's shrug fell south of his shoulders. "I suppose so. I'm not allowed to comment on the leg during sex."

"Did he ever say or imply that you had hurt him in any way?"

Wilson glanced away, faintly horrified. "Yeah. He did. It was months ago; we were having trust issues. I think we'd just started the bondage thing…I can't remember. Anyway, I asked him if I'd ever hurt him before. I was trying to get him to loosen up, to just…let me, you know? He was freaking out a little about something; I don't really remember what." Wilson felt his own hand snaking around to dig at his neckline, and gave a hampered shrug in spite of his awkward stance. "He said yes, actually, but not on purpose."

That obviously had not been what Olivia wanted to hear, but only because it left Wilson even more unhinged than before. "Okay, but he probably meant that the pain came because of his handicap, and he did tell you."

"After the fact!" Wilson shouted. "Way after the fact – months, for all I know!"

Olivia peered at him, the picture of infuriating sedation. "Calm, James. Inside voices."

Wilson scoffed but remained quiet.

"You obviously didn't do any lasting damage."

"He wouldn't tell me if I did," Wilson snapped, suddenly loathing himself for it. "He's been trying to get me to see that for months now. He can't fight back, not against me."

Olivia puckered her lips up to one side, speculative. "Be…cause…he equates you with his dad by virtue of you also being male?"

"How the fuck should I know?!"

"What did I just say about inside voices?"

"Oh, fuck you. This is not the time to belittle me!"

"Why do you think he does that? Are you an authority figure to him?"

Wilson twitched. "I'm seven years younger than he is."

"Irrelevant. Do you have power over him? Do you make him feel inferior?"

Wilson's gaze crawled off in shame. "Probably. No, definitely. Yes. I lecture him. And judge. I don't really let him explain when he does something idiotic. And I suppose he might…he said it matters what I think of him, so I guess he might not like disappointing me."

"You see why this might be confusing for him?"

Wilson cast a sullen glare in her direction. "Yes. But I'm not John."

"He knows that," Olivia assured him, her manner gentling even as she kept speaking. "But on some level, he probably craves approval from you. You mean something to him. He holds you in esteem and he probably wants the same back. He sees you as someone whom other people look up to, and even though he'd never admit it, there's probably some part of him that envies that. He doesn't want to be like you because hero worship isn't his way, but he wants to matter to you. Because you count. Because what you think counts. You're selective in your friends, in who you genuinely care for and keep, like an exclusive club, and he wants in on that because if he matters to you, then he can matter to anyone."

Wilson blinked, uncomfortable with her backhanded praise and making no move to conceal it. "I think we got off topic."

"No," Olivia countered. "We didn't."

"Then…" Wilson scowled past the bewildered fold of his lips and then admitted, "I'm confused."

"You're the dominant half of the relationship," Olivia explained. "You hold everything House wants." She paused. "That's got to terrify him to some degree. He doesn't like to rely on people, because he's convinced that people will always let him down. If he acknowledges that he relies on you, then he has to acknowledge that you could do him serious damage."

Wilson nodded, his lips pressed in a wavering line as his eyes skittered off to commune with the plant. They were getting awfully well acquainted. Almost under his breath, Wilson said, "He already knows that. He refuses to admit that the DBS could have left him…I guess, brain damaged. A little. And I think that's why he hasn't tried to find a real diagnosis for whatever the hell has been going on with him. If it had a label, he'd know that I did it to him, and he said he doesn't want either of us blaming me."

Gently, Olivia told him, "That's a physical injury. He's used to people he cares for hurting him physically." Wilson started to sputter, completely incoherent since his brain hadn't yet caught up with his desire to refute that, but Olivia spoke over him. "He insulates himself emotionally. You, for one, should be able to relate to that." Then she fell silent and waited expectantly for Wilson to finish her train of thought. It was like being apprenticed in humanity. Now you try it.

Wilson blinked at her, glanced at the window past her chair, and then guessed, "I could break his heart."

Olivia gave a tiny nod, her face soft in a smile that carried no actual joy. "How much do you think it would hurt a boy to love his father, and yet grow up knowing that nothing he ever does will please him? He strives not to set himself up like that again, but he's human. He can't help himself."

Wilson exhaled a shaky breath, his head wavering as his eyes found the floor.

"There's a reason you warn other people to be careful of him. Not to lead him on. Like that thing you mentioned with the date with his fellow?"

"Well, yeah," Wilson replied. How could she think he didn't already know all of that?

At the transparent look on his face, Olivia said, "I know you know that. He doesn't know that, not consciously. He has better, more manly issues to hide behind."

Wilson peered back doubtfully. "Child abuse is a manly issue?"

"It's better to be messed up over latent daddy issues than over an icky girl. Or one's flighty gay partner. Could you actually picture him admitting that you hurt his feelings?"

"He does admit it," Wilson countered, then backpedalled. "In other, less frank terminology while pretending it doesn't matter."

Olivia smiled again, her nostrils flared with the huff she expelled. Then she shifted in her seat as if gathering thoughts that she wasn't sure she could accurately express. "I don't want to just say that House thinks pain equals love. That's too simplistic. But children, especially sons, seek to earn their father's approval. Their love, their affection, their pride. For some reason, House has come to want that from you too. It sort of makes sense, in a way. While he recovered from the infarction, I understand that you spent a lot of time caring for him? Helping him get back on his feet?"

"Dragging him kicking and screaming is more like it."

"You took on an almost parental sort of roll. Cooked for him, helped him to the toilet, parceled out his meds, made sure he kept occupied."

"I really think you're oversimplifying here," Wilson said, slightly uncomfortable at the sort of light she wanted to cast over that. "His girlfriend crippled him – went behind his back, ignored his express medical wishes, and crippled him. He would have taken anything at that point."

"While kicking and screaming?"

Wilson chuckled to himself. "Yeah."

"Irrelevant. You picked him up, kissed his booboos, and bought him new toys. Why do you think he bothered getting back on his feet at all? Coming back to work – was that his idea?"

Wilson frowned. "No. I spoke to Cuddy, she was eager to avoid him suing the hospital for the misdiagnosis and for sending him home labeled as a drug seeker. She found funding and created the Diagnostics Department for him."

"And how much cajoling did it take to get him to accept it?"

"Um. Quite a lot. He didn't really leave his apartment for three years, even after he could have." Funny, but even though Wilson had lived through that with House, he hadn't really looked at it. "He came to the courthouse to witness my second divorce, though. And he was best man at my third wedding. Planned the bachelor party." Wilson looked down again, his face falling. "I think I actually saw him there all of twice, though. I have no idea where he got to. And I was sort of too drunk…" Busy embarrassing myself with a duck…

He must have flushed because when he looked up, Olivia smirked at him. "It was still a good party, though, huh?" Not really a question, and she sobered right after asking it. "Somehow, he came to want your approval. Your encouragement. He wants to make you happy, make you proud. I would risk wagering that it hardly ever works, though."

Wilson made a face and sighed at the plant. "That's both our faults."

"I'm sure it is. You're both impossible."

Wilson rolled his eyes and griped, "You're too kind."

A few tense moments passed, tense on Wilson's end anyway, and then Olivia wearily asked, "Is there anything at all that he's done to earn your respect?"

Wilson started, his eyes flying to her. "I respect him."

"Do you?"

"Yes!" Right?

"Have you ever told him that?"

Wilson floated around for a moment in his mind, then straightened in triumph. "I told him I envied how he always does the right thing, no matter the consequences." Olivia merely watched him, awaiting something more, and Wilson gradually wilted when he failed to find more examples.

"Did you ever express pride in the fact that he came back to work in spite of a handicap? How he ignores the staring? How he hardly ever misses work even though he's always in some level of pain?"

"He would take my head off," Wilson replied. "You don't say those things to House. You don't draw attention; his hackles go up."

"But have you ever said anything of the sort?"

"What are you getting at? House doesn't need me to pat him on the head. He doesn't want that."

"No, he probably doesn't."

"Then what's your point?" Wilson demanded, confused and pissed off by her cryptic little morality play lines. "He wants affirmation?"

"Maybe. How should I know?"

"This is your discussion!"

"I'm merely poking a sharp stick. It's your anthill. What are you gonna do with it?"

"Ughh." Wilson grabbed for his neck and shook his head as he stood up. "This is ridiculous. You are of no help to me."

"I know," Olivia acknowledged. "But I can't advise you here. House is too headstrong, and you're too much in denial. Until something changes, I can't help either one of you."

Wilson let his arms flop to his sides and hang limp. "Just tell me what to do. Tell me what the hell he wants from me."

"Interesting," Olivia drawled. "You can't even figure out that much on your own?"

Wilson balked and his voice tripped up an octave. "I'm your patient! I have never in my life had a successful long-term intimate relationship. You're supposed to help me with this crap!"

Olivia offered him a mischievous smirk. "Therapy helps those who help themselves."

Wilson blinked at her. "What, now you're a religion? You're just ticked off because I don't want to discuss a double homicide."

"No," Olivia replied sweetly. "I'm not ticked off at all. It's your loss. Interesting, though, how desperate you suddenly are to deflect." She broke eye contact to shuffle paperwork around on her desk. "And incidentally, the longer you stay fucked up, the longer I get to collect checks from your insurance carrier."

Wilson rolled his eyes and stalked to the door. "I don't need this from you."

"Is this supposed to be a dramatic exit? I don't quite think you've got it right. Not enough flare."

"Piss off."

* * *

"Wilson!"

Wilson spun in the hallway and nearly lost his footing, just to find Foreman barreling out from the Diagnostics conference room. "You're channeling House now? Good strategy."

Foreman merely looked at him, expressionless. "He's with Ngyen, getting the PET scan." Then he bounced on his feet in a blatant parody of anticipation. "And I get to swab your genitals!"

"Oh, goody." Wilson glared at him as he continued on his way to his own office. "You know, I think all my patients have forgotten what I look like." Foreman offered a tolerant chuckle and Wilson rolled his eyes. "Right, I forget sometimes. You guys can't relate to that whole long-term care thing."

"Sorry. Hazards of working for House." Foreman leaned in Wilson's doorway while Wilson shut down the computer he hadn't actually used all day, and then they made their way to the elevators.

"Where are we going?"

"Clinic," Foreman replied, back to his plain, uninteresting self. "It's closed. I borrowed the key from Brenda."

Wilson glanced at him sharply as the elevator dinged its arrival. "No one's supposed to know about this."

"Relax." Foreman rolled his eyes and boarded the carriage. "By 'borrowed,' I obviously meant 'lifted.' You've forgotten how House trained us to operate."

"I thought you didn't like how House operates."

"It grows on you."

As promised, the clinic was empty when they got there, and Foreman led him into exam room three, where the blinds were already pulled and supplies all laid out along the counter. "Efficient," Wilson remarked.

"Yes, I am. Now drop 'em; this is not how I want to spend my entire evening."

Doctors or no, there is a certain degree of embarrassment involved in dropping ones drawers for clinical purposes. Adam and Eve and the fig leaves, and all that. Everything went fine, initially. Foreman drew blood, Wilson peed in a cup just in case it was a UTI (please, please, ow, hiss, please, fucking ow, please, please), and then the gigantic q-tips came out and Wilson turned lobster red. So far, so good.

And then the door flew open, and House gimped two steps inside to find out what the hell was going on. "What are you doing in here? It's past dinner time, and I want wings." Then he blinked and his eyes tracked south to where Foreman sat on a wheeled stool at eye level with Wilson's penis. He back-stepped, face slack, and then grunted, "Huh. Not who I expected."

Wilson's hands shot out as if to hold him there and block every assumption that had to be darting about in House's mind. "It's not what you think."

House arched an eyebrow, his head canted to one side so that he looked at Wilson from the corners of his eyes. "Then you haven't convinced yourself that you have cancer?" A brief pause, and then House added a bland, "Again?"

"Again?" Foreman echoed. He peered up at Wilson, trying to hide the grin. "How many cancer scares have you had?"

Wilson glared, hands on his hips, which he realized too late made him look ridiculous, what with his pants pooled around his ankles and his stuff just hanging there.

"Well," House said. He rubbed his hands together, warming up, and then planted himself firmly on his cane. "There was the sore throat."

"Throat cancer can present with swelling and redness," Wilson insisted defensively. "And I thought I saw lesions!"

"That turned out to be strep," House finished. "And then there was the itty bitty tummy ache – " He spoke as if to a toddler, though more obnoxious, his fingers pinched up near his eye to demonstrate just how eentsy it was – "that you made me scope you for."

Wilson left one hand on his waist, but he shielded his eyes with the other. "House…"

"And then there was the mole on your – "

"House!"

House feigned innocence and pointed to his own rump. "What? You tried to scrub it off with a loofa before you realized it was attached."

Foreman swiveled toward the counter, ostensibly to hide his snickering. He had also palmed the swab, and Wilson probably made too much of a point of not glancing over to see what Foreman was up to.

"Out," Wilson ordered, pointing at the door. He could feel his teeth itching to grind.

House fixed Wilson with a piercing and yet mischievous glare. "If you get off on the prostate exam, I'll know."

Wilson pulled a face. "I'm not getting a prostate exam!"

With a knowing smirk, House replied, "Then how can you be sure you don't have prostate cancer?"

Wilson rolled his eyes, his lips pressed into a thin line. "Do you have any shame?"

House's gaze sidled off to the ceiling, his tongue caught between his teeth. "Mm, no. Not really." Then he leered at Wilson. "I could check your prostate after dinner."

Over by the counter, Foreman groaned and pulled a disgusted face. "Please stop. I really don't need to know."

"Thanks, House. I knew I could count on you to sympathize with my baseless, irrational fears." Liar. How long are you going to let House run with that assumption? He's going to think you made him look like a chump on purpose.

"No problem." House stumped toward the door, then paused and cocked his head without looking at Wilson. "You know, I think I'm really starting to get the hang of this couple thing."

Wilson snorted, but given House's unusual, fervent attentions over the past month, Wilson sort of agreed. Which made knowing that he was about to ruin the whole relationship that much more depressing. "I'll put a gold star next to your name on the board."

House grinned, cheeky and impetuous, and pretty much most of what Wilson loved in him. "Shadow box, ten minutes. Scans are done."

After the door closed over his lopsided form, Wilson let out a long breath and bowed his head, eyes shut. "I'm going to hell for this."

"I thought Jews had no hell," Foreman offered.

"Which makes my going there even more significant."

Foreman stood up and indicated that Wilson could get dressed. "Look, I know I was sort of hard on you earlier, but I really think you're getting too worked up here." He stripped off his gloves and dumped them in the bin, then collected the samples. "House couldn't possibly stay away from you forever, assuming that this is an STD at all."

Wilson merely finished buckling his belt and shook his head. "You have no idea what House could do. I was actually hoping earlier for cancer."

"He loves you," Foreman insisted, and then waffled. "In a completely cracked, House sort of way."

"Yeah," Wilson snapped as he twisted to grab his lab coat. "He loved Stacy too. And I've never seen him be more cruel."

Foreman sighed as he opened the door, two parts annoyance and one part sympathy. "Stacy authorized surgery without his consent. All you did was get drunk."

"Maybe. I don't know anymore." Wilson ruffled his hair and then settled his lab coat on his shoulders. "Good thing the MRI films are ready. That'll be one thing down."

Foreman seemed glad for the return to casual topics. Well, casual per se. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Wilson was following, then mentioned, "House refuses to stay here overnight for the sleep study or the EEG read."

Wilson sighed and held the clinic doors open for Foreman, whose hands were occupied with test samples. "I gathered that from the wings reference."

"It might be overkill," Foreman admitted. "We can always try them later, if nothing comes out of the current scans or the blood work."

Wilson tried to sound anything but sick of dealing with all this; it didn't sound like it worked when he mumbled, "Yeah."

"So." Too nonchalant, Foreman asked, "Where are you two staying tonight?"

"Home. I called a service to clean up the apartment." Wilson pressed the up arrow and then crossed his arms, watching his toes shift beneath the supple leather of his loafers.

"Uh-huh." The elevator arrived and Foreman nearly ran into him, the samples held out in front of him, when they both moved to board. Wilson sidestepped and followed behind, glancing at the samples for no good reason. After the carriage started moving, Foreman glanced at Wilson, trained his eyes back on the door seam, and then said, "Syphilis might explain the sudden onset of being a dumbass."

Before he could stop himself, Wilson's hackles came up. "I am sick of that stupid fucking hotel room, okay? House is too; I can tell. It's a hell hole for dying relationships. If it's going to end, then I want one fucking night back at home, okay?"

Beside him, Foreman relented with a sigh and looked down. "House gave me advice once. About the drug trial I helped run."

Wilson glanced at him, bewildered. "That was nice of him."

"Yeah. It was." Foreman shuffled to face him. "He stopped me from ruining my career too, by proving that Remi and I love each other. He cares, Wilson. And he's not going to give up on you just because you made a mistake. I believe that."

Wilson twiddled a finger back and forth between them. "I think we're talking about different Houses here."

"I'm talking about the one who still has faith in humanity."

Wilson blinked.

"Don't throw it away before he does, because he won't. Okay?"

A tiny lump formed in the back of Wilson's throat and he opened his mouth to breathe past it. "Okay."

"Good." Foreman faced the doors again, subtly shaking himself off as if to rid himself of the kind words he had just spewed.

"Foreman."

Foreman kept his gaze leveled on the doors. "Yeah?"

Wilson merely nodded a few times and swallowed, then turned toward the doors as well.

"You're welcome."

* * *

Wilson trailed Foreman to the labs even though he didn't have to. He felt like a big, clumsy, abandoned stray dog flopping after the one stranger who had smiled at him from a car window, furtively hoping for more kindness, maybe a scrap of sustenance. It wasn't something Wilson was used to, this almost pathetic sort of clinginess; it reminded him of being drawn to House, but not. Foreman wasn't a pleasant person, he usually wasn't even all that nice or considerate. Like House. But he did care – again like House – and out of all the people he could have shown that to, he showed it to Wilson. In some sad little way, Wilson felt flattered by it. Was he really that starved for affection that he would all but beg for more of it from one of House's underlings? Or had it just been that long since he'd had a plain old ordinary, no-strings friend? It was a role that House used to fill for him, but House was his significant other now. And yes, maybe House's words on the couch all those months ago had been prophetic; maybe they really had lost some intangible part of their friendship when they took off their pants for each other.

After Foreman signed the samples in under a pseudonym, they made their way to the film room in an amiable sort of silence. Wilson found himself sneaking covert glances at Foreman from under his eyelashes, trying to read the intent in his newfound companion, to find the reason he chose to give a damn. He had once done that with House, attempting to unravel the inner workings of the most contradictory man he had ever met. Foreman wasn't half as mysterious or interesting as House, but Wilson still couldn't figure him out. Why them? Why did Foreman suddenly decide to befriend his boss, who he didn't really like, and a department head he rarely exchanged two words with inside of a single week? Maybe everyone simply needed an outsider in their life to pull them from the bog when they couldn't see the straight paths anymore.

By the time they reached the MRI film room, where House already sat mired in his own head – literally – Wilson was still mulling it over, though he watched House too now. It was sort of strange, wandering around a room filled with the illuminated insides of House's head. Wilson was looking at the essence of one of the greatest minds in the country. In the world, even. House was more than just a diagnostic machine, especially to Wilson, but these films contained the secret inner workings of a medical wunderkind. They also contained the visible evidence of what Wilson and the bus crash had done to him; scarring, here, a hint of residual swelling there…the knitted bone of the skull fracture… But even with the obvious brain damage, they just looked so bland.

"We have a working theory," Foreman announced into the silence.

Wilson glanced at Foreman, then back to the right temporal lobe slices that he had been staring at. "Who's 'we'? I thought this was an under-the-table deal." On the other side of the room, House sat on a stool and proceeded to pick at the edges of the films lying on the lighted table. House shouldhave proceeded to make a lewd joke about that common euphemism. It was late, though, well past eight; he was probably exhausted from running about the hospital undergoing tedious tests all day, running on a modicum of sleep from the night before.

Foreman glanced at his boss, clearly expecting a much more heated objection than Wilson's bland observation, but House didn't say or do anything to indicate that he was even paying attention to the room outside of himself. Foreman's expression waxed curious, then dismissive; he turned back to Wilson and clasped his hands behind his back as if Wilson really might think he looked more doctorly like that. "Ngyen, for one. And I needed Chase's input since he was there for the DBS."

Wilson suppressed a wince and glanced at House; still no reaction there. "Okay," Wilson said, and then he made himself breathe. "Okay, then it's a complication of – of that? It's…what, post-concussive syndrome? A long-term effect of traumatic brain injury?"

"Yes," Foreman replied. "But no. It's more complicated than that."

Wilson swallowed, listing other, more dire possibilities on a notepad in his head. He almost didn't ask, "TBI-induced psychosis?" The timeline fit – emergence after six months to a year, dissociative episodes, reaction to persons and stimuli not in the room…

"No," Foreman replied, completely self-assured. "I thought that at first when House sent me his history, but the EEG classifies the episodes as seizural in origin. They're not hallucinations; they're anxiety attacks and flashbacks triggered by epileptiform activity."

Wilson tried not to be obvious about breathing a sigh of relief. He had honestly not considered some form of mental illness before, and it had frightened him for a split second there to think that House might be losing his mind, however temporary, however physical in origin. Psychosis was a terrifying word. Wilson glanced over at House yet again and tilted his head a bit, as if he could discern the reason for House's abnormal silence by changing the angle of his view; it wasn't like him to keep quiet in a differential, not even an ad hoc one such as this. No explanations presented themselves, so Wilson turned back to Foreman and frowned. "Okay, then what are we dealing with?"

Foreman unclasped his hands and held them out at his sides in his stuff-shirted lecture pose. Under other circumstances, Wilson may have shared a wry smirk with House over the airs that Foreman put on, but even if House had made eye contact, there was nothing to laugh at here. "According to his history, House has been on over a dozen different medications, some short-term, others for a few months, for both pain management and anxiety. Then there's the brain injury itself, and the skull fracture to consider. And the later concussion, possible injuries sustained in the incident with Lyamone, withdrawal symptoms from medications, psychological stressors. Plus his overall health, long-term drug use, lifestyle – "

House broke in with, "What later concussion?"

Wilson turned halfway toward House to peer at him sidelong. Foreman did the same, but he pointed at one of the films as he did so. "Near the base of the parietal bone. It's recent; all the swelling's gone down, but there's some lingering evidence of it. I was going to ask you about it anyway; you didn't put it in your history, and it has to be less than six months old. Depending on timing, it could have something to do with your newest symptoms."

House gazed blankly at the film under Foreman's finger, then reached a hand back to paw at his skull, as if the lump might still be there.

"Oh!" The gesture jogged Wilson's memory and he snapped his fingers before jabbing them in House's direction. "You fell in the bathroom, remember? In, what, late February? I came over in a snow storm and you had just filled the bathtub. You told me you fell – it was probably vertigo from the gabapentin, but I didn't know you were taking it then. You didn't say anything about hitting your head on the way down, but in the morning, you couldn't remember calling me. You woke up and asked what I was doing there."

"The end of February?" Foreman asked.

Wilson gave a choppy nod in response, one eye trained on House, who was now staring off to one side with his fingers still pressed to the base of his skull. "Yeah. I brought him in the next morning, we got a CAT scan – it all looked good."

"Fuck."

Foreman and Wilson both stopped to stare at House.

House dropped his hand, made an irritated face at the table, then noticed the two of them watching him. Instead of addressing the staring, which obviously annoyed him, House barked, "You're saying I gave myself trauma-induced epilepsy."

Hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels, Foreman hedged, "I'm saying it's a strong possibility." He let a hint of smartass squeak out and added, "They say that seventy percent of household accidents occur in the bathroom."

Another obscenity mumbled its way out of House's mouth as he threw his glare in a random direction.

"You had a minor seizure problem right after the DBS," Foreman continued. "It resolved itself after a few months, and it probably would have stayed that way without any further injury. But the fracture made you susceptible to complications from future head trauma. The swelling from the second concussion probably caused a slight increase in intracranial pressure. In a healthy head, it wouldn't have much of a lasting effect, but in yours, with a barely-healed major fracture of the temporal bone…" Foreman trailed off with a shrug. "We should run the twenty-four EEG you refused to sit still for, and then get a sleep study just to be certain. Certain forms of temporal lobe seizures are nocturnal."

Wilson glanced between Foreman and House, who were both conspicuously silent all of a sudden. Some sort of staring contest had erupted between them and Wilson's cheek twitched at the odd expressions on each of their faces. Foreman appeared implacable, much like House, save for a hint of crinkling in his eyes; House had apparently latched onto a tell that Wilson couldn't decipher, and he gazed back at Foreman with a measure of hostility, challenging. Wilson shook his head and spoke just to break them away from each other. "Temporal lobe epilepsy can be difficult to diagnose. It doesn't always have classic triggers." Like flashing lights or oxygen deprivation, or low blood pressure.

"That's why I wanted a twenty-four hour read," Foreman said. He blinked one last time at House, daring him to refute…something. Then he addressed Wilson. "And even if we find epileptiform activity, considering how many medications House has been on lately, it won't be conclusive. The gabapentin, for instance; it's an anticonvulsant. It could cloud the readings, make him look normal when he's not."

Wilson shook his head. "He's been off of that for a month."

"Doesn't matter," House put in. "It has a lingering effect on the brain."

Foreman nodded in agreement. "Are you gonna let me have a twenty four hour read?"

Wilson clutched at the back of his neck as he wandered away from them both. He found himself walking up to a corner of the room and stopped before he stuck his nose in against the paint. Behind him, he heard the stool squeak, and then House said, "You should just start treatment." Something sounded off in the way he said it; he was hiding something, and ineffectually at that. "Stronger anticonvulsants – something to compliment the Depakote."

Foreman replied, "You should just go back on the gabapentin. It's often used in conjunction with Depakote to combat TLE. In fact, you probably only noticed the more severe symptoms this past month because you didn't realize you were medicating for it all this time. It masked the post-concussive syndrome, and then the emergent seizure disorder."

"Duh," House snarked. Then he sighed and Wilson glanced back to see him pressing his thumb knuckle into the crease between his eyebrows. "The seizure I had when I overdosed… It could have been the opiate toxicity or the low BP, or it could have been because I missed a dose of the gabapentin."

"I still think that was just the overdose," Foreman countered. "One missed pill shouldn't have that severe an – "

"Okay, fine," House snapped. "But it contributed."

Foreman hesitated before gesturing in agreement; he probably knew better after all these years than to bother arguing when neither of them could be proven right or wrong. "And you overdosed right before the shooting too, then missed another dose of the gabapentin. That may have helped cause the flashback you had in the hallway. On the plus side…" He bounced on the balls of his feet and looked smug for some reason. "Your Vicodin intake has gone down by nearly half since the bus crash. I checked the pharmacy logs. You're down to an average of sixty milligrams a day."

Wilson lit up like a Christmas tree and turned an expansive gesture on House. "That's great!"

"Yeah," House grumbled. "Woo-hoo."

Wilson frowned. "House, that's good news. Great, even." He didn't want to say outright that it meant House was dealing with his addiction, albeit at a snail's pace, but he thought it all over the place.

House merely grunted and turned his attention to a different set of scans than the ones he had been visually taking apart for the past five minutes.

Wilson bowed his head and trained his eyes on the floor, his hand tugging his neck down. He wanted House to be happy about this too, but that obviously wasn't about to happen any time soon; Wilson changed the subject instead of pushing it. "What about the anxiety disorder?" He turned to face House again, but discovered him absorbed in pushing dust motes around on the floor with his cane. Wilson looked at Foreman instead. "The Xanax, I could understand; things were shit in September and October. But he got the Depakote in December. If your theory is right, then the seizures started off as anxiety attacks and progressed to flashbacks after he stopped taking the gabapentin. That would mean he was having seizures months before the second concussion."

Neither of them said anything for a few seconds, and then House tentatively offered, "Maybe they weren't seizures at first. Maybe I was just anxious." He gave a self-conscious shrug and bounced his cane a few times, then mumbled to his own shoes, "Maybe I was just anxious." He pressed his lips into a thin line a contemplated the floor with far too much intensity for anyone to think that he actually saw the tiles in front of his eyes. "It did manage…you know…me. Until after I bashed my head in the bathroom."

Foreman moved his shoulders to indicate his support for that theory. "It makes sense. Based on the existence of a conversion disorder, we can postulate that you had a predisposition to anxiety-related disorders. Under the right circumstances, it was bound to come out."

House grunted, noncommittal in every way, then glared at Foreman for some inscrutable House-ish reason as he shoved himself to his feet, awkward on a damaged leg that he nonetheless managed to appear graceful on, most of the time. Not so much, now; House hobbled over to a set of scans displayed on the wall, glanced again at Foreman to make a point that Wilson couldn't follow, and then proceeded to ignore them both, as if he were punishing them for an unseen infraction.

Wilson sighed and then abruptly snapped, "Look, we can't know any of this." He made himself walk a few steps farther away from the center of the room where Foreman and House sat discussing the trivialities of a diagnosis as if it really mattered. With his back to his colleagues, Wilson planted one hand on his hip and flung the other out to the side. "His medical history's like something out of a junior stunt man summer camp, and he's taken more drugs in the past six months than most street addicts. There's no way to know if you're right anymore. The drug interactions, the injuries, the whole state of mind thing – there are too many extenuating – "

Foreman cut into his tirade with a deceptively bland, "We could know for sure if he were clean."

Wilson dribbled off at that, his arms still raised in mid rant, fingers contracting to touch index fingers to his thumbs. When neither of them answered right away, Foreman chanced a quick bout of eye contact with Wilson. He attempted the same with House, but House was picking his lip, his weight oscillating almost imperceptibly between his cane and his good leg, as if he were standing in neck-deep water.

Foreman went on in spite of House's apparent distraction. "One hundred percent drug and alcohol free. Everything. And then we start clean, so to speak. Re-run the brain scans, the EEG, retest your leg and log the pain levels... You probably shouldn't continue taking opiate pain medication with a diagnosed seizure disorder, anyway; they lower the threshold."

Wilson blinked. A medical excuse to push House to give up the Vicodin? That was like finding the Loch Ness Monster. Something House couldn't argue with – he would have to find alternative treatments. If even one good thing could come from this hellish experience –

House was out the door before Wilson even registered movement. "House?" Wilson groaned under his breath, chagrined. Of course, House would notice his ill-timed glee. Why couldn't Wilson have saved it for a private moment in a dark corner somewhere, away from House's touchy ego? "God dammit."

Foreman had raised an eyebrow, peering with his head cocked at the doorway that House had just passed through, pensive. Almost as if he couldn't believe it, Foreman said, "I don't think he was listening anyway."

"What, like another seizure?" Wilson spun to regard the door, then whirled back to Foreman. "We have to go find him!" House could wander anywhere in that state, get lost, leave the grounds, not to mention what might happen if the automatisms pass and he goes into a generalized seizure again.

"No, not like that," Foreman assured him. "Just a 'him' moment."

Wilson took a breath, his hands going to his hips as if they belonged there by a decree of nature, and then he jittered into motion. "I have to go find him."

Foreman called after him, "Maybe you should let him be for a little while." But Wilson was already out the door.

It took what felt like forever to find him. For a man with a cane, House had always been adept at disappearing into thin air; the speed with which he moved often seemed uncanny. All of the usual hiding places were empty, along with the roof and any areas on the grounds where smokers congregated. Wilson checked the parking lot last to make sure that both their cars were still there – House's motorcycle languished in the hospital garage, going on a month of residence now – before he resorted to asking nurses if they had seen him. Finally, a resident pointed him to the third floor, and Wilson hopped up the stairs, wondering if maybe House had found a patient during the day.

Wilson almost overlooked him. He strode past the secondary nurses' station, which was not in use at this hour, and only barely caught sight of a lean shadow casting an oddly lumped shape on the floor. He rounded the pillar and found himself looking at House's sloped back, hunched as he was, propped against the pillar with his arms crossed and his cane dangling in the crook of an elbow. If Wilson hadn't first noticed the direction of House's stony glare, he might have taken House's affect for dour. Across the corridor, an expanse of plywood boards draped in sheets marked the boarded up hospital room where Danny Lyamone died at the hands of his father. The hospital wasn't lacking in money and the police no longer considered the area a crime scene, and yet for some reason, Cuddy had not yet hired contractors to repair the damage done to that room.

Wilson stood at the head of the stairs and stared for a moment, a literal fifty foot stare. Then he glanced away to swallow and shoved his hands in his pants pockets, lab coat bunched out of the way behind his arms. When he reached the nurse's station, Wilson could tell that House had heard him coming, and since House knew him well, he had probably recognized Wilson by the cadence of his footsteps. House didn't react other than to pick his chin up off his chest, draw a breath large enough to lift his shoulders, and then slump right back down into his original stance.

"Hey." Wilson stepped into the carpeted area behind the counters and stopped near House's shoulder.

Without moving an inch of his body, House tonelessly remarked, "You tried to kill me."

Wilson's mouth dropped open. "I…what?"

"With the DBS."

And here, Wilson had thought that his storming out had to do with insinuations about his drug habit. Foreman was right; House had stopped listening before that. Stumbling over his tongue, Wilson stammered, "I…wouldn't. House, that's – that's insane."

"Foreman's being nice," House spat. "I can read the damn films for myself. This would've happened with or without a secondary concussion."

Wilson quelled an urge to swear under his breath and carefully intoned, "I know I'm partially at fault for this, but you're not dying. If Foreman's right, then all you need are anticonvulsants. That's no reason to think I tried to – to kill you. What the hell?"

"Do you know how many complications can arise from a skull fracture of that severity?"

Softly, Wilson answered, "Yes. And it's a miracle that this is all you've got to deal with because of it."

"I could be a vegetable now."

"Where is this coming from?" Wilson demanded, at once angry with him and self-loathing at all of the accusations coming from House's mouth. "You didn't want this between us, remember?"

House shifted his weight against the pillar, sinking a little lower in the process, and then growled, "Well it is between us."

"House, there was no intent. I swear. I was being stupid and emotional, and I was angry with you for being drunk in that bar and luring her out – "

"Yeah, you've already told me I should've been alone on the bus."

Wilson shook his head, his hands slipping from his pockets without a sound. "I did not try to kill you, House."

"Maybe not consciously."

Wilson tried to nod and shake his head at the same time, and ended up with his gaze swirling to the trashcan near House's feet. "If you wanted to lay another guilt trip on me for it, then congratulations."

Almost too quietly to hear, House sighed, "Wasn't actually what I had in mind."

Wilson blinked, and then a quiet fury burned through his veins. "Then what the fuck are you doing?" Wilson grasped his arm and pulled him around, tore his gaze from the sheeted wall and then pushed him against the pillar when his bad leg threatened to buckle at the unexpected move. "Is this fun for you, rubbing my nose in it? What do you want from me?"

House's gaze turned shifty, eyes lidded. "Nothing. Just…forget I said anything."

Wilson's eyes unfocused, and then he muttered, "Son of a bitch." He looked up as House flinched from the sharp words. Wilson shook him by the forearms to make him meet his gaze. "Listen to me. I do not blame you for Amber's death. I tried; I admitted that already. But you aren't responsible for her death, and I was not using the DBS to get revenge. Do you understand me?"

"Motives change." House licked his lips and looked away. "You say that now; it's not how you felt then."

"You don't know that! You're not in my head!"

"I saw your face before you walked away from my room." House let out a dark chuckle, and Wilson felt a foreign slither of unaccustomed fear snake through his abdomen. The sound reminded him of a certain Christmas Eve, and seeing House caught at the lowest end of his depression. "But you have to admit, it would've made things easier, right?"

Wilson breathed out, a level and forced breath; suffocation would have been easier. "What would have? You dying? No, House. What the hell has gotten into you?" He paused, then hesitantly asked, "Should I be worried?"

"It's probably just the seizure talking." House shrugged, completely uninterested, and the apathy scared Wilson even more. Post-ictal depression…very probable, especially considering all the shit blowing up in their midst. That still didn't explain why House would suggest it, though; he didn't admit that sort of thing - the feeling blue thing.

"House... House, look at me. I want you to stay here tonight. Let Foreman run the EEG, do the sleep study… Just stay here. Let me admit you."

House ignored him, a faint smirk tracing fading lines across his features. "She'd be alive if I hadn't been there to call her. Maybe he'd be alive too." House shrugged a shoulder toward the closed-off room behind him.

Wilson gripped his arms even harder and hissed, "You are not responsible for that boy's death, no more than you are for Amber's. Do you understand me? Say it."

"Somebody has to be responsible."

"Yes, but not you!"

House merely shrugged, and his eyes left Wilson's face in time with the movement of his shoulders. "Funny comparison."

Wilson gawped for a second. "No, not funny. House, this isn't like you. This… Did someone get to you?"

"Phht." House smirked, but the expression was all wrong. "Like anybody could." Then for no good reason, House flinched, just a tiny flinch.

"House."

House looked at the ceiling with a miniscule hint of resignation. "They're gonna take my license."

Wilson's brows fell into a divot. "What? Who?"

"I was stoned. They tested the blood on my shirt."

Wilson craned his neck to try to catch House's gaze and failed. The blood on House's shirt, as in the evidence taken from the crime scene. A bullet had grazed House's arm; he had bled all over his shirt. "The police? Wait, they're investigating you? Since when?"

"Three weeks ago."

Wilson gaped. "You've been…hiding this for three weeks?"

House peered far off to the right, perhaps to avoid looking at Wilson but more likely for purely abstract reasons. "Thought it would blow over. Things always used to just…go away." He sounded hollow, nothing like himself when he added, "Board revoked my tenure this morning. Cuddy gave me the option to resign."

Of all the times to regret not getting back on the board after Vogler left… Cuddy must have caught House on the way to the film room. And then, what – she informed him in the middle of a hallway? Hey, I'm ruining your life; catch ya later. Then there was all that talk earlier about personas, about pretending everything was fine…three weeks of pretending his medical career wasn't about to end with a spectacularly anticlimactic wheeze. Slink out the door with no fanfare. Wilson shook his head, hair flopping at the tips of his ears. No wonder House was depressed. "No. They can't do that. You had a medical condi– "

"I overdosed half an hour before the shooting."

"Accidentally!"

House merely moved his shoulders again, more a squirm than anything else, his mouth pressed into a thin line. "Doesn't make me any less stoned, or him any less dead. I shouldn't have gone up there; I wasn't fit to practice."

"You weren't practicing when you went up there, House. There was no medicine involved in that." Wilson was shaking before he knew what was happening. "They can't blame you for this!"

A dark chuckle eased its way from House's throat. "Seems you're wrong about that."

Wilson released House's arms, and House caught himself against the pillar before straightening. "What, the real killer's dead so they have to pin it on a live one just to get good press? That's horse shit!"

"I was stoned," House repeated with more force. "You can't disprove that. I'm not even challenging it."

Just because he couldn't come up with a good refutation, Wilson demanded, "What does any of this have to do with Amber?"

House sucked the inside of his cheek and looked down. "I dunno. It was a convenient time for it?"

Wilson narrowed his eyes. "And you're trying to deflect. Somebody did get to you. Somebody put that idea into your head. You would never accuse me of intentionally trying to hurt you; you know better. Somebody had to say it."

House scoffed. "Do you really think I'm that gullible?"

"Yes," Wilson exclaimed. "On some points, yes. Guilt eats at you, House; I've seen it often enough to know." House's scowl was answer enough. "Who was it?"

House rolled his eyes and tried to inch away. "God, Wilson; I don't need a white knight."

Hands going to his hips, Wilson said, "It was Fletcher, wasn't it. That ass had to finish what he started at the pub."

That unleashed an unanticipated level of fury, and House rounded on him to yell, "He's right! Drunk or stoned, it doesn't make a difference. They're both still dead, and I'm not!" Then he backed away just as quickly and ran into the counter, where he fell heavily to sit, hands going to his right leg. "God dammit."

Wilson started forward. "House?"

"I can't do this anymore. I don't know what I'm doing anymore, and I can't think straight – "

"It's alright," Wilson assured him, his hands going to cover House's. "You're confused. It's just the seizures talking."

House tried to shake his head, eyes squeezing shut, but Wilson put his arms around House's shoulders and held him to his stomach. Muffled against Wilson's shirt, House swore, then shuddered. "I need my license. I can't…I need this."

"We'll fight it," Wilson promised. "The medical board has to give you a hearing. I'll testify – "

"You're not credible."

Wilson refused to acknowledge that it was true; no one would find Wilson objective anymore when it came to House, and not just because their relationship had become semi-public knowledge. So he redirected. "Foreman will testify, then. It was an accidental overdose; he'll say as much, and he'll provide evidence that you're getting treatment for it. You heard him – your Vicodin intake is half of what it was a year ago. Blood tests and prescription records will bear it out."

House shook his head and then pressed his face to Wilson's stomach. "I don't want to fight it. I'm tired of fighting everyone."

A nurse rounded the corner in the corridor and stopped dead at the sight of them, faltered, then hurried back the way she had come. Wilson made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat and then grappled at House to get him to stand. "Come on. We're going to your office, and then I'm calling Olivia. I don't care if you don't want to talk to her; I'm calling her, and she's going to talk to you, and you're going to listen."

"I want to go home," House protested, though he allowed Wilson to drag him to his feet. "Wilson, I want to go home."

"I'm not taking you home like this." Wilson steered him out of the nurse's station with an arm around House's back, gripping his waist and carrying House's cane himself; the man seemed to have little interest in using it, and he leaned into Wilson, limping heavily, his hands fumbling uselessly until he decided to wrap the fingers of his right hand over the ones that Wilson had dug in around House's belt to hold him up. He gestured for his cane with the other, and Wilson passed it to him; House merely clutched it against his torso and kept leaning on Wilson.

They made it to the elevator without incident, where House shrugged him off with a gruff word of thanks disguised as an insult to Wilson's deodorant, and then into the hallway of the fourth floor. House stopped dead right after he disembarked and Wilson craned his neck to see past House's shoulder. Cuddy was waiting in House's office, perched on the edge of his desk and looking grimly at her open-toed, color-coordinated shoes.

"Don't lose your temper," House warned lowly.

Wilson started and glanced at him. Of course House noticed him tense even though his back was turned and they weren't touching; he had Wilson-radar for that sort of thing. "Someone has to."

"I just want to leave, okay?" House pivoted a few degrees so that he could peer over his shoulder at Wilson. "You can freak out and call your shrink in the morning; I just want to get out of here."

Wilson blinked at him, incredulous. "You're just going to let her win?"

"She already did."

Like hell. Wilson narrowed his eyes to convey that sentiment, but he also gave a curt nod. If House didn't want to do this now, then Wilson wouldn't make him. But they would do it, and soon; no way was he letting House go down for being the good guy. "When, exactly, did you decide to stop standing up for yourself? Was there a memo?"

House balked, and then his eyes blinked off to rest elsewhere. Finally, he settled for a neutral declaration of, "I need to get my stuff."

"Then let's go." Wilson edged past him and strode toward the Diagnostics office, shoes clacking an angry tempo against the tiles, echoing in the deserted corridor. He listened to House shuffle uncertainly behind him before following, thump-stepping down the corridor. Wilson hesitated at the office door long to cool his jangling nerves, though he told himself he was waiting for House to catch up. If only the door weren't made of glass, Wilson could throw it open to complement his outrage, but he had to settle for easing it aside. The moment Cuddy looked up, Wilson planted his feet and demanded, "How could you?"

House feigned obliviousness and merely limped between them to get behind his desk.

Cuddy sighed long and hard as she went back to contemplating her feet. "I tried to protect him." She paused to raise her eyes to the wall and added, "I'm sorry." As if it were an afterthought, she twisted at the waist to look at House where he stood tossing things into his backpack, which sat open on his chair. "I really am sorry."

House met her eyes, his gaze a bare shade too open to count as flinty. "Not as sorry as your ass will be after you drown your guilt in moose tracks."

"House, you – " Cuddy stopped herself by force, biting her lip over all of the recriminations that meant nothing at this point, then softly finished, "It wasn't my choice."

"Not your choice," Wilson mocked, storming closer. "Please. It takes a unanimous vote of the board to revoke tenure. You had to agree to it." On the other side of the desk, House threw his fuzzy ball into his pack and then put hid back to them both while he traced the grooves in his forehead with his thumbnail.

Cuddy offered Wilson a contrite look. "I did agree to it." Her voice lowered and turned husky, regretful and weary as if she had reached the end of a long and fruitless battle. "He got high and treated a patient, and now the patient's dead."

"He wasn't treating the patient!" Wilson shouted. "He was going home, and a guy with a gun shot the patient." He threw a hand to one side in disbelief. "Are you honestly going to blame him for that?" He regretted his tone when he noticed House's shoulders bunch up under his shirt, but he was too wrapped up in finding a way to browbeat Cuddy into taking it all back, as if it were just a perverse practical joke. A tripwire for an already beaten man.

"The media is going to get hold of this by morning," Cuddy informed him tersely, but she still sounded as if she were justifying her actions. That, at least, mollified Wilson a little bit; it meant she had doubts, and he could work with doubts. "And when they do, donors are going to start calling. What am I supposed to tell them this time? That he's a good doctor? That won't fly anymore, Wilson. Not after this. A child is dead."

Wilson inclined his upper body, angling for reasonable and persuasive. As if it were obvious – which it was, to him – he suggested, "You could try telling them the truth."

"And what is the truth?" Cuddy asked reasonably. "That House got high and confronted an equally strung-out gunman?"

Wilson gritted his teeth for a moment, eyes closing of their own accord. When he opened them, he spat, "It was an accidental overdose, and House had nothing to do with the kid's father deciding to go on a killing spree. In case you forgot, the asshole murdered his own wife before he came here. House didn't egg him on!."

"House turned him in," Cuddy said quietly, probably a purposeful contrast to Wilson's sharp, loud words. "And he made sure to humiliate him in the process."

"How else should he have done it?" Wilson demanded, his voice rising in pitch. "The man was making and selling crystal meth; he humiliated himself."

"Look." Cuddy pushed up off the desk and held her hands out. "I'm not arguing with you over this. It's done; either he resigns, or I have to fire him for the sake of the hospital. I gave him until Friday to decide. As for his medical license, he can file an appeal with the state medical board."

Wilson deflated with a puff of air through his nose and stepped back, shaking his head. All of his fury had suddenly disappeared, and he didn't even want it back. He knew there was no point in railing against her, but he couldn't just let this go. House may be content to crawl off without a fight; Wilson was not. Weary and disheartened, he merely said, "You know this isn't fair."

Cuddy swallowed and looked down as if she already knew that. "I'm sorry," she croaked. "It's out of my hands."

Wilson nodded, mostly to himself, and pinched the bridge of his nose. In a tired though perfectly friendly tone, he replied, "Well, in that case, fuck you too."

Cuddy appeared to accept that as her due, though Wilson thought her too gracious when she did so. He wanted her to be ashamed, to maybe sniffle a little. House was supposed to be her friend; she had always stuck up for him in the past. Amazing how one freak mistake could change so much. Cuddy lifted her eyes back to Wilson's face and offered a weak smile. "I'll write him a letter of recommendation; it's the least I can do."

"It's a booby prize, and it won't matter," Wilson muttered. "No one will risk hiring him after this, after even you bail on him."

Cuddy sighed. "James – "

"No!" Wilson whirled on her and chopped a hand through the air between them, sending Cuddy scuttling backwards a step. "This isn't just about House anymore. Lyamone is ruining both our lives, Lisa. We're living in a fucking hotel, for god's sake. It's not safe in our own home – they are following us! Do you get that? This hospital is the only bit of normalcy we have left, and now you're stealing that too."

"You still have a job," Cuddy reminded him. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"Neither did House!" Wilson stormed around her and picked up where House had left off, shuffling through the chaos of House's desk in search of anything he might want to take home with him tonight. "I was in the room, Lisa. I know." He could see House out on the balcony, a weary profile cut against the backlit sky, painted in shades of orange by the walkway lights on the grounds below. Wilson had no idea when House had walked out, but it didn't surprise him. Lowly enough that his voice wouldn't carry through the door, Wilson said, "This is a witch hunt and you know it. The police need a scapegoat since they can't manage to catch any actual drug dealers, and you're no better. We're getting a lawyer, and you're staying away from both of us." Wilson finished jabbing his points into the air with his index finger and went back to shoving House's things into his backpack.

The carpet dulled the thump of Cuddy's shoes as she drew near again. Her voice was louder with indignation and a smidge of hurt when she said, "Wait, you're not threatening to sue the hospital."

Wilson suppressed a groan by rerouting it through is nose, his upper lip curled, and then demanded, "Give me one good reason not to."

"I hired him!" Cuddy replied, morally outraged if her tone were anything to go by. "When no one else would. And I kept him on, I protected him, I perjured myself for him – "

Wilson slammed the backpack down on the keyboard and spun around, a veritable vortex of unexpected fury. "Oh, good for you, playing his friend for a decade. You're all squared away now. Debt's all paid for that time your doctors sent him home as a drug seeker while his fucking leg died."

Cuddy gaped, speechless. Then she hurried to look away, stumbling a little in place as she backed down, glanced at him again, and made a less than dignified retreat from the office. After her shadow and the sound of her footsteps in the hallway died, Wilson sank down to sit on the edge of House's desk, breathing harder than he thought justifiable. He shouldn't have yelled; he certainly shouldn't have implied that House would sue. He had just needed to break her, just a little bit. Crack the administrator façade to see if maybe Lisa, their old friend, were still hiding in there somewhere. The sad part was that he couldn't tell if she was or not.

With a groan, Wilson scrubbed his palms over his face, feeling an unfamiliar coarseness against his cheeks; he had not been moisturizing as often as usual, and it showed in his dry cuticles and rough palms. His face was also greasy from the long day, stressors heaped over each other until he thought he might bow under the weight. He needed a nice hot shower to sooth his aching body, and then a long night's uninterrupted sleep for once. Next to House, in their own bed, with their own leaky bathtub fixture to measure the length of the night by.

Wilson finished gathering House's things and slung the pack over his shoulder, then locked House's hall door from the inside. When he slipped out onto the balcony, he found it empty. At first, he figured that House was sitting in the dark in Wilson's office, but that proved vacant too. Wilson grabbed his own things while he was there and locked up behind him, then padded heavily down the corridor in search of whatever bench House had elected to wait on. He sincerely hoped that Cuddy hadn't stumbled across him, but since she had gone off toward the secondary bank of elevators, Wilson thought it unlikely.

Ten minutes, four cell phone calls, a text message and two intercom pages later, Wilson still hadn't found him. And he panicked.

--TBC