"Whisper of the Wind"

Chapter 52

"When All is Said and Done"

Mid September 2025

Until End of Days …

Leather & Gresham:

Gresham:

As it turned out, that was the first and last public appearance made by Gregory House. His re-emergence as his own persona was short-lived.

After the question-and-answer period and the glad-handing and the commotion on the auditorium's stage, we had to excuse ourselves and him, to take him back to Foreman's office so he could rest. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but it was necessary. He was tired and pale, and he held himself on the big stool as though he hurt all over. His leg trembled and his hand went to it constantly. We made our apologies, got him settled in the wheelchair, and withdrew. He didn't like it much.

On the way back to Dr. Foreman's office, he passed out in the wheelchair and began to slide sideways. Whit was pushing; I was on the opposite side talking to Billy. Dr. Foreman and Dr. Chase were bringing up the rear. It was Dr. Strange who saw right away that something was very wrong.

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why a hospital administrator who probably had many important things to attend to, would choose to remain with this little procession. Yet, he was still here long after the cameras and recorders had stilled and the bright lights and microphones had withdrawn.

The moment Leather fainted, Strange reached out and halted the wheelchair, bent down beside him, then lowered to his knees and lifted Leather's arms into his lap and placed his head carefully against the chair's backrest.

We all gathered to assist him. At least I did! My fingers stole across to Leather's arm, but something odd emanating from the air around me, told me not to press in any further. The same thing must have happened to Foreman and Chase. They seemed to freeze in place and did nothing more to assist in determining what was wrong …

Dr. Strange looked up, and one by one, scanned us. I saw his eyes meet the eyes of Billy and Whit, who nodded briefly, and then he did the same with me. I was imminently cool with that. He then placed both hands on either side of Leather's shoulders and pressed lightly.

After a moment he changed positions, laid one hand gently on the back of Leather's head and with the other, cupped his chin. He pressed again and held it for a moment. He looked up at Billy and Whit, and they nodded the second time.

Suddenly, Foreman and Chase were moving again, kneeling for a diagnostic, their stethoscopes appearing from nowhere … just as Leather took a deep breath and looked around in confusion.

"Did I just pass out?" He demanded.

I couldn't remember. I wracked my brain. Chase and Foreman didn't remember either. Whit and Billy simply shrugged. "If you did," Billy said, "it was only for a second. Do you feel all right, Boss?"

Leather nodded. "Yeah …"

Looking at his leg, I saw that it was calm. Quiet and relaxed. Had I dreamed it? Or had it not been spasming a few short minutes ago?

We halted in front of Foreman's office. Dr. Strange was talking to the men, while I, the medical student, remained with Leather at the side of his wheelchair. For a moment I was angry, feeling left out. But no! This wasn't about me. It was about him!

The decision was quickly made to leave for home immediately. Leather needed a familiar place, they said, a familiar location, a familiar environment.

In truth, it was the beginning of the end.

We all knew. We said our goodbyes to Dr. Strange and Dr. Foreman and Cr. Chase. It was awkward. Chase and Foreman had worked with Leather for years, and though they had often been at odds with him, they recognized his many contributions … and his undeniable genius.

Dr. Strange stood by. Very formal. Very polite. Detached. I didn't think very much about it … then.

When Leather left Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital that night, it was on a gurney, hooked to narcotics and life support. Whit set the jet's course for Ypsilanti Airport, and we were off …

Gregg:

I'm not sure where I am at first.

It's warm, dim, quiet. I feel the pulse-ox on my finger, the Foley on my pecker, dragging at me like it's sucking a soda through a straw. There's a crosshatch of meds feeding into the back of my hand. What the hell? Where was I while all this was going on?

"Hey!"

My voice is scratchy. What was supposed to be a shout comes out more like sandpaper on glass. I swallow and clear my throat and try again.

"Hey! Where the hell is everybody?" The sensor behind my ear is gone.

That did it. People come out of the woodwork. Billy and Whit Travis, Gresham, two of the doctors from Whit's staff. Smiling sweetly like characters from a fairy tale when the princess awakens from the spell of the wicked witch …

And Uzal. No smile yet. Just big caring eyes.

Someone snaps on a diffused light beside the bed and I look around curiously. "Will somebody kindly tell me what the hell is going on?" I hold up my hands and arms, full of adhesive tape and tubes and needle pricks. "I look like a bad electrical connection."

Gresham is right beside me, stool pulled up so close that I can smell her breath. She must have been here quite some time!

"We thought we lost you," she says tearfully. "You went into cardiac arrest at Princeton Plainsboro …"

I know instantly that's not where we are now.

I look up at them, glaring. Drop both hands back onto the bed in exasperation. I seem to be feeling that emotion a lot lately.

"Do I look like I think we're still in New Jersey? This is the wrong group of morons ..."

Somebody snickers. I look down. It's Uzal. He's appreciating the snark. I hate to see him … or any of his kids … becoming Earth-acclimated. What a waste!

The little man walks up to me and touches my face, gently moving Gresham out of his way. I grin. "You better-feel now?" He asks me with a twinkle. I know he doesn't need the "pidgin" anymore, but it's almost a joke between us.

"I better-feel now."

So I sit still while the team doctors remove the tubes … the needles … the Foley … "Aghhhhh!"

… and the rest of the paraphernalia. They plump my pillows and help me to sit up and lean back.

"You see Stran?" Uzal asks me.

"Did I see what??"

"Like me." Uzal holds his hand above his head as far as he can reach. "Big! Up!"

Ahhhh …

He meant Dr. Strange, who had taken away my pain with his long thin fingers. "Yes. I saw 'Stran'. You know him?"

"Shipmate." I know he's joking. He smiles a little and steps back. "Good. You be sleeping now."

Uzal's hand touches me again … and damn him … I'm fading out ...

I hear Gresham sniffing beside me.

Damn her too!

Gresham:

All of us took turns sitting beside him through the night, and many nights after that. All through September and October.

It was moving into November, and turning colder. But it was warm inside the mansion and Leather never went out anymore. Once in awhile he was strong enough to get up and get dressed in a sweat suit. He liked the grey ones, the ones that looked like wet sand on a beach right after a storm. Made him look like a thin, hunched grey ghost.

Sometimes he used his cane, but usually it was the wheelchair. He didn't bitch about it much anymore; he just used it when he was too weak to walk. His bad leg had gradually straightened. His Achilles tendon has stretched to the point where he could place his leg out on the bed without pain and touch his heel flat to the floor. Too little, too late. He never mentioned it, but I knew he chalked it up to one more encounter with irony.

Christmas came around almost before we knew it, and one day … the week before the holiday … there came a visitor to the front desk of the mansion.

Billy Travis told me how he had felt when he first saw her:

The reception desk was busy, what with relatives and friends coming and going during the Christmas season. At first it was just her aura that drew his attention …

Billy was in the wide hallway talking to his brother and Bem. He felt a prickle at the back of his neck and he glanced toward the front desk. She was elegant and slender, close to sixty-five years old now, or a little more.

She wore high-heeled boots with fake fur at the tops, and a black coat with more fake fur at the collar. Her hair was piled artistically atop her head in a style that accentuated her long neck, narrow face, and the dark blue eyes. Spidery gold earrings dangled gracefully, close to her shoulders.

Billy drew a deep breath, stunned. He excused himself, and walked over. "Lisa?" He said only her given name because, to his embarrassment, he had forgotten her married name.

She turned and looked at him, a little confused, and Billy smiled. It seemed that the forgetting part was mutual. Besides, he was a lot older now. Both of them were.

Sometime during the long stretch of years that had passed them by unaware, he had shored off the cornrows and acquired a few extra pounds. His thick, wavy hair had accumulated more than its share of silver and white, and his scrubs had gone away long ago. He wore more formal clothing now: dark jeans and sports jacket.

"Billy," he said. "Billy Travis."

Her eyes widened. "Bill? Oh God … I didn't know you. You look wonderful."

They embraced. "So do you," he said softly. "It's been a long time."

"Yes it has."

They paused, a little uncomfortable. They both knew why she was here. The sorrow in their eyes confirmed it.

"How is he, Billy?" Asked Lisa Cuddy Rothberg.

"Not good," Billy Travis sighed. "Not good at all. He could leave us anytime now. He's never alone. We monitor him around the clock. I'm certain he will be happy to see you. He speaks of you often: 'If Cuddy were here …' "

She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes, and Billy understood.

They came up together. Whit and I were with him, talking to him as he slipped in and out of consciousness. When they entered the room, I knew who she was immediately.

I had been told stories about her no-nonsense manner many times over the past year and a half. I stood to greet them. So did Whit.

She appraised me for a moment and nodded to Whit as she stripped off her coat and moved to Leather's bedside with a sad smile on her face.

"I've heard about you, Gresham," she said softly. "What you have done for this man is nothing short of miraculous. I'm very sorry you couldn't have come along twenty-five years ago."

Incredulous, I mumbled a 'thank you', but she had already turned back toward Leather's side. 'House's side,' I reminded myself. Her hand went to his face and cupped his cheek gently. "He doesn't have long, does he?"

"No …" I whispered. I could feel tears pushing into my eyes. I should have run out of tears a long time ago, but there was always a fresh supply waiting at the fringes. I had stopped apologizing for them.

Lisa Cuddy Rothberg straightened to her full height and looked down at the bed.

"House!"

The blue eyes popped open and immediately found her face. He gasped a deep breath as he oriented himself. His gaze slid downward out of long habit, and the 'look' morphed into that of a horny teenager. "The 'Girls' have gone a little south, Cuddy. You could use a boob job. Other than that, the old grey mare looks pretty good …" By the time he finished the sentence, he was out of breath.

She pretended not to notice. Class! She did not patronize him. When she spoke, it was all about the truth. "That stuff you said to Becky Adler all those years ago turned out to be a lot of bull, didn't it? You can die with dignity, House. I hear Jimmy Wilson did it. From what I'm seeing here, you're going to do it too.

"'Everybody lies' … isn't that what you used to say? Don't fool yourself. Your life has accounted for a lot. There are many good people walking around today who would not be … if not for you. You never lied about what you did best.

"You're a man of courage, House. The people who surround you now are proof of that."

The rest of us went away and left them alone then. He was in good hands. I did not have to look twice to know that she loved him. Had loved him forever. And he, her. It was a solid and comfortable realization.

I needed time to pull myself together, and I guessed the others did too.

I walked slowly down the hallway, alone by choice, trying to blank my mind and get a second wind.

At the junction of the two corridors, a small presence stepped away from the wall and barred me from going any further. "Miss …?"

It was Uzal. With pants on. There was an empty lounge a few doors down, and he wondered if we could speak privately … ?

"Of course." I followed him in, and we sat. My curiosity was peaked. I wondered what he wanted. Thank you, Uzal. You might admit to me who you are sometime.

"Please," he said. "I must talk … you. Need your trust."

He seemed a little agitated. But the manner of broken speech that had always been a part of him whenever I'd encountered him was changing now. "Are you all right, Uzal?" I asked him.

"I'm good. But please … need talk to you about gift."

"What gift?"

"Dr. House … his gift to you. If you want it. It is important you consider if you want gift, and … when you want gift. I am here forever. He has entrusted his gift to me until you need it … want it. If not, it will go away. Not for anyone else."

I looked at him strangely, and he caught my confusion. Of course he did! So he explained further. "Dr. House die soon … but he leave behind part of himself. Part of his body that he trusts to me … for you … because he wants you to have something that is his. Gift from Dr. House … and Boam."

I smiled to myself. "So … that's what you call yourselves!" My enlightenment had come slowly … just as it had come slowly when I discovered Leather's real name. I wasn't really surprised this time. Somehow it made perfect sense that he would befriend these people. Gregory House was lousy at making friends for himself on Earth. So he made them elsewhere.

"Indeed. We … not from here. We from far away. As Dr. House says: 'faaaaar…' away."

I felt a little stupid. How far away? Mars? Jupiter? Further than that? "Uzal … you're just making me feel dumb here." I was putting him on.

I heard a small snuffle and his face turned away from me. Was he laughing? He was! I had never seen him all happy-faced like that before. He looked back at me bright-eyed.

"I explain more. My home is in sky. Faaaaar … Dr. House call it 'fourth rock from the sun' … but he not say far enough."

"That's Mars … Oohhh … you're not from Mars??"

"No. Long time … more out."

I just looked at him. Gave him the 'Leather Glare'. Then I smiled, and he understood.

"Funny. Funny girl." He was smiling again. Grinning, actually. He knew the truth had penetrated.

I got serious. "You're Extra Terrestrial. And Dr. House's gift is … ?"

"Boy child.

"When you are ready. Do you desire it?"

"Oh yes. Ohhh … yes …"

After that day, it was only a matter of time, and I had a lot of serious thinking to do.

My grief at losing him would be softened a little by my anticipation of his gift.

I wondered what our son would look like …

Newspaper and television accounts of Gregory House's return from the dead, were not the blare of headlines we had been expecting. They were straight-forward and they quoted him accurately. Not loud, not a word of scandal. Whatever the reporters had taken from the intensity of Leather's account in the auditorium in Princeton had been positive … positive enough to earn him a new respect. It was about time. He was all about the truth. They had finally 'got it'.

I sat beside Leather on his bed, night after night, holding his hand, monitoring his body.

This particular night he was very weak. He asked me to retrieve a small box from his dresser. I went over and looked where he said, and recognized the little box that Jimmy had left to him along with the spinet piano when he had died last April.

I brought it over and climbed back up beside him.

"Open it." He used words sparingly now. His breathing was labored.

I lifted the lid and looked inside. "Ooh … 'Mister Peanut'." I had seen the tiny figure before, on his desk in his office at the university when I'd gone looking for him. I lifted it out and held it in the flat of my palm.

"Wilson's last gift to me," he said breathlessly. "Take care of it."

"I will, I promise."

Also in the box was the funny, snarky note Wilson had written to House … along with the tiny statue.

Beneath the note was a faded snapshot; a photograph of a family together in a back yard on a snowy day … obviously taken for a family Christmas card … Hanukah card … whatever. Mom, dad, three boys: James Wilson's family back during the happy times.

"Wilson … baby-faced one in the middle," Gregg said. "I swiped it from him … long time ago. Keep it forever?"

"Yes. Everything. Forever. Someday I'll have someone to show it all to." I felt as though I'd just been handed the world wrapped in ribbon.

"My … 'gift' … gonna keep it, huh?"

"Yes. Of course. As soon as I get my M. D., I'll come back for it."

"Gonna name him after me?"

"If you insist."

"Thanks."

Then he said something I never thought I'd hear coming out of his mouth: "I love you, Lynn Gresham. With my heart …"

"Oh Leather … I love you so …"

He died there, in my arms that night, his head on my shoulder and his fingers tangled in my hair. It was New Year's Eve.

I sat very still, waiting for his pilgrim spirit to leave his body and rise upward, away from his long corporeal entrapment …

… and soar …

… joining with Wilson at the plateau where they would continue forever into the "Somewhen".

It was over.

He would rest now … in a second plot behind the mansion in a plain pine box just like Wilson's … beside the man he had loved with silent devotion for all these years.

He would be remembered for his works of genius and for his quirky personality.

"Gregory House" to the world …

"Leather" to me.

And I was left behind to grieve … but with a bright future awaiting ...

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