A/N: Okay, you do get one this weekend. The next chapter, the big triple session with Cuddy, is a whopper and will probably take a while. On the other hand, Monday is a federal holiday, which means work will be low, and I'll be fishing all day, so I'll most likely have some time then. We shall see. Thanks for the reviews.

(H/C)

Wilson had sat across the cafeteria alone watching House and Cuddy during lunch. To an intense analysis like his, as well as he knew them, their body language was somewhat off, an awkwardness, a little stiffness there. Tentativeness overlaying their usual spark. But for all that, they were together, obviously so. Nobody watching them could have taken them for anything other than a couple. They were both sitting on the same side of a booth, slightly touching at intervals in the conversation, sometimes intentionally though discreetly (no doubt at Cuddy's insistence) and sometimes apparently just finding each other without conscious thought, as compass needles will irresistibly find north. Every now and then, one of them would finish the other's sentence. He couldn't hear their conversation, but watching them throughout the meal was a conversation in itself.

Damaged. Scarred. Healing. Together.

Their relationship would be okay. He wondered if the same could be said for him and Sandra.

Back up in his office, he gnawed over that like a dog with a bone, then gave it up for further worry over what could be bothering House now and how on earth he had broken Cuddy down Saturday morning. House had tensed up so much at that question; whatever the answer was must be something major. Wilson even tried writing out a list of possibilities, but he was stumped. House seemed to have covered everything already in his failed attempts. Once the oncologist's next appointment came in, that one, too, asked about the left side of his face; her hypothesis was that he must have seen somebody in trouble and stepped into the middle of someone else's fight. This disconnect between how others apparently saw him and what he knew himself he had done was humbling. With an inward sigh, he wrenched the appointment back onto medical tracks.

The next visitor was Jensen. Wilson didn't even wait for him to get seated. "Did you talk to House? Is he okay?"

The psychiatrist took the chair in front of the desk. "Yes, and yes," he confirmed. "He'll be all right."

"He'll as in the contraction for he will be? As in he's not now?"

"James, you know I'm not going to go into details about his sessions with you, no more than I share yours with him. If you're really worried about him, either ask him yourself, or. . ."

"I tried that already," Wilson interrupted. "I went over before lunch and asked him how he'd convinced Cuddy Saturday morning that she needed help."

Jensen tightened up there himself, a mirror image, even if a lesser one, to House's reaction to that question. Wilson could almost see the sign with the message in large, black letters, readable even at a distance. No Trespassing. "What did he tell you?" the psychiatrist asked, his tone guarded now

Wilson sagged in his chair. "Nothing. He absolutely locked up on me and told me to back off. Actually came right out and said that, didn't just try to wiggle off the subject." He shook his head, frustrated. "I need to know."

"Why?" Jensen asked.

The oncologist stared at him as if that answer were obvious. "Because I'm his friend."

"Do you have to know that answer to keep being his friend?"

"No, but it helps. Lets me know how I can be there for him. Besides, it's good for him to talk about things instead of bottling them up."

"So he's bottling things up until he discusses it specifically with you?"

Wilson squirmed. How had a simple, concerned question about his friend ended up at this point? "We'd better get down to me this last week, I guess," he dodged.

"We will. But in a way, we're already getting there. If you want to change your former response patterns, which are the ones that culminated in Wednesday night, you first need to admit what those responses are. And one of them is that especially when you are under personal stress, you start digging in other people's closets, to find out their secrets and analyze those as an attempt to distract from your own. You need to acknowledge that tendency to try to modify it. You can't use others as a distraction from yourself."

"I really am concerned about House as a friend," Wilson said, defensive hackles rising.

"I know. That's why I actually gave you an answer to your initial question instead of claiming confidentiality immediately and refusing to give you anything. However, I would be willing to bet right now, still not knowing last week in full detail, that one step that night before you ran was that you found yourself pinned down in your own crisis with nobody else around at the moment. You were alone, physically, when you made the decision to leave, weren't you?"

Wilson stared. "Um, yes. House had been with me in the OR observation room. He left and went to Daniel; I told him to."

"So you were alone in the room right then."

"Yes. So what are you saying? That I should never be alone with myself?"

"No. That being alone with yourself terrifies you when things personally aren't going well, but you don't want to admit that. You don't like the idea that you often use other people as distractions from yourself as well as friends. I'm not questioning the friendship; you are definitely a good and supportive friend, especially when someone else is in a tight spot and needs one. I'm just saying that for you, friendship often has another few layers mixed in. You use the challenge of their behavior and situations to keep you from having to think about your own actions and feelings too much. That doesn't invalidate the friendship, but call the evasion by its proper name." Wilson was silent, and Jensen switched back to the former topic, giving him a little bit of a breather. "Back to my sentence a few minutes ago, you never let me finish."

Wilson was grateful for the distraction, then caught himself noticing how grateful he was for it just then. Did he really use people like that? "Which sentence?"

"I was saying, if you are really worried about Dr. House, either ask him yourself or just be a friend without having to know the details."

"How could I be a friend if I don't know what he's up against?"

"Just be there. You don't always have to know everything. You can still be there for somebody without it."

Wilson grinned suddenly. "You ought to be telling this to him, not me. He's the absolute champion of unable to leave anything alone. There isn't a rock in this hospital he hasn't looked under and then conducted a differential on what he found there."

"He has some issues there, too," Jensen agreed. "With somewhat different reasons than yours, but yes. But how is that relevant to you?" Wilson was stumped by the straightforward question. The psychiatrist went on. "To draw an extremely extended example, suppose Patrick used that defense in court next month. 'But lots of other people have abused children, too. You're acting like I'm the only one. Here are the names of others, lots of them even worse than me.' Do you think that argument should carry any weight at all with the jury?"

"No," Wilson admitted glumly. "Put like that, it does sound ridiculous."

Jensen smiled at him. "You know, James, one of the hardest things Mark and I had to learn was how to be friends, when to push for more and when to back off. We're... this is hard to describe, but there's a connection there. Something that runs in the background constantly. We basically are aware what the other one is feeling all the time emotionally and somewhat physically. That made it harder to be friends, and we had to learn how as we grew up."

Wilson was fascinated. "I'd think that would make it easier to be friends."

"No. It presents a whole other challenge. Specifically, it begs the question of when to leave things alone. We get feelings, impressions. Not facts. I know what kind of mood he's in but not why. We've both had to learn, with some trial and error, when to just let the feelings be enough and grant the other one some privacy. And really, that's the appropriate response the majority of the time. I don't have to know every last detail going on in his life to share the feelings with him. Sometimes, we're even grateful that there's a limit, that there's something the other one doesn't know. Can you imagine somebody knowing everything about you at all times? That wouldn't be friendship; that would be absolutely suffocating. If there were such a person in your life, one with no limits to what was shared, you would very quickly start avoiding their company."

"I see what you mean. This has always just been there between you? I've read studies, but it's another thing to hear first hand."

"Yes, it has. Except for one period in childhood when I deliberately clamped up and switched off for a while and was determined not to share anything mentally with him." Jensen rubbed his right arm.

"That was after you got hurt?"

"Right. I was mad at him, but I had to shut him out to be mad properly, because he would have known exactly how mad I was otherwise."

"You can shut it off? Like a switch?"

"Hardly that easily. It took an unbelievable amount of energy to do that, and I never could have kept it up forever. I was trying to nurse a grudge, but it took even more effort to hide the grudge I was nursing and left me too worn out to nurse it properly. We were kids, too. I doubt it would be possible to do that and go through a day of adult responsibilities at the same time."

"So that's how you knew he was sick?"

Jensen nodded. "I knew he was sick, but I didn't know how. I couldn't give Dr. House a set of symptoms. That was once that I wished I could share more, facts as well as feelings."

"When he collapsed last week, did you know that?"

Jensen shuddered visibly. "Yes," he said, his voice abruptly tightening up. He reached over to his arm again after a minute's pause. "And when I got hurt, he shared part of the pain. He knew more than anyone how much it was hurting me, and that just made him feel more guilty. He even thought for a while that was why I tried to shut things off while I was healing, to spare him from feeling that. But back to the point, what we've been forced through this link to learn is that a large part of friendship is still respecting privacy. We can share things without having to know every detail. In fact, we shouldn't always know all the details. You need to work on that line in your friendships, James. Don't obsess on what you don't know. Think about what you do know. You know that your friend had a horribly stressful week last week, and you know that the main stressor is in the process of being resolved now. You can share the relief of that without trying to dig out the full story. The best friend sometimes is the one who does not ask you questions."

Abruptly, an image flitted through Wilson's mind. House all those nights over the bachelor years when Wilson had lost a patient and come over. More of those nights involved not talking about it than had involved talking. "What are you thinking of?" Jensen asked, watching his expression.

"House. He's actually good at that, just being there without digging out details. Odd; he really is obsessed with details, can't stand a puzzle, but there have been nights over the years, a lot of them, when he was just there and let me not talk about something. He knew in general, but he didn't push for more."

Jensen nodded. "There's a saying. Not that this applies all the time, but sometimes, in a friendship, it's excellent advice. 'Don't do something; just stand there.' That's what you need to do right now that can best help your friend, James. Let him tell you what he wants to in his own time; don't push him on it. This last week was too stressful for him; he needs some privacy to start to heal. But the flip side of learning to be there for others, no strings or fact-finding shovel attached, is that you need to accept that from others, not using people as distractions to analyze so you can avoid thinking of your issues, just accepting their support without trying to dissect them. Back to Wednesday night." Wilson sighed, and Jensen gave him a sympathetic look. "You were watching the operation. Dr. House was there."

"Not at first. I called him when they took Sandra to surgery. It took him a few minutes to show up." Wilson suddenly remembered House's leg as well as the Cuddy crisis and felt guilty. His very first remark to his friend had been wondering what took him so long. It always took House a few minutes to get across the hospital, very understandably, and who knew what he'd been pulled away from.

"What are you remembering?"

"I jumped on him first thing, the minute he came in. It took him a few minutes to arrive, like I said, and I challenged him on it and asked what took him so long."

"An unreasonable few minutes?"

"No. He probably got there pretty quickly, actually, especially considering his leg. He snapped back at me, said he'd stopped at Disneyland on the way or something like that, but then he shifted gears - almost visibly made himself shift gears - and was just there. It helped. And then Daniel was born and couldn't breathe right, and I sent House down to help with him. That's when I wound up alone again."

"Was there anybody else in the hospital that night, coworkers, friends, whom you could have called to ask them to come be with you?"

Several names immediately queued up in Wilson's mind, and he looked down, breaking eye contact. "Yes."

"Okay. We're dissecting this as it goes, to try to spot the potential exits you missed. Because it can never happen again, James. If you want a family, you have responsibilities to them, and those responsibilities cannot be set aside. No matter how stressed you are feeling, no matter how bad your day is going, you still will have responsibilities to them. You can never stop being there for your family. You can't opt out when it's difficult."

Wilson nodded. "I know that. I think I know it now, anyway."

"Good. Now, picking out possible exits from the highway to disaster. First of all, when you found yourself alone and under extreme stress, you should have called someone else after Dr. House left. You aren't limited to one friend. In the future, when you need people, reach out to them. Not to dissect out their secrets to distract yourself, but simply to draw support from their company. You have a lot of people who care about you, James. You would be there for them. Let them be there for you. Second, you do have the Ativan for when you start to panic. Did you take that?"

"Yes. House insisted that I take one when he got there."

"Good."

"And then I went out drinking on top of it."

Jensen flinched. "Bad. You know that as a physician, but translate it out of book knowledge next time. Back to the OR observation room. Dr. House left to go to Daniel. You started panicking again. You were getting overwhelmed, but you didn't call somebody else to support you. What then?"

"I turned off my cell phone."

Jensen closed his eyes briefly. "Okay, that's moving from bad to horrible idea. Not only did you not reach out to others, you deliberately cut them off from reaching out to you. Why?"

Wilson took a minute to think through that. "I didn't want to get the call that he had died," he said softly. "I thought it was all my fault."

"Thank you for giving me an honest answer there. Okay, two points. First, his problems turned out to have nothing to do with you. So you jumped to a conclusion and then turned off any possible route to hear that you were wrong. I realize it's hard, especially with guilt attached, but beware of jumping to conclusions. Most of the ones we jump to in personal relationships are wrong. But second, and this is a tough one. Assume that you were right and that he was going to die. Would turning off the cell phone change anything?"

Wilson looked down. "I wouldn't have to know," he said.

"But you would know. Are you telling me that without a phone call to finalize it, you wouldn't have ever thought about him again, wouldn't have wondered about the funeral, wouldn't have thought of Sandra being there alone?"

There was a long pause. "No. I couldn't forget about them that night even when I tried."

"Exactly. And that is what your family is. Not that you should try to forget them, even while mired down in guilt. But shutting off the cell phone, breaking the lines of communication, would have changed nothing if you were right about Daniel dying. Since you were wrong, it changed a lot of things. Imagine what would have happened if you had been reachable that night."

Wilson ran a hand over his eyes. "I've kicked myself for that a thousand times so far. House would have called before too long. You know he left me 31 messages that night. 31! He would have caught me with an initial update before I was too many drinks down at the bar. I would have come back to the hospital, I would have been there when Sandra woke up, and she never would have had to know. Everything would be okay between us."

Jensen shook his head. "You were doing fine up until the last part. I agree things would have been a lot easier, but you still should have told her at some point that you left."

"But you were just saying that it's not necessary to share every little detail on things," Wilson protested.

"Nice try. When you're talking about your mate, major things specifically about your relationship absolutely should be shared. You don't get somebody to trust you by hoping they never find out some way you messed up. That's another default response that you need to work on: You've used it with your former wives, and you've already also used it before with Sandra. Shoveling things under the rug is just going to make it worse when they are found. You made a lot of mistakes Wednesday night, failing to call someone else to support you, shutting off the lines of communication, going out to get drunk. But none of those was your biggest mistake, James. The biggest one was deciding to walk out in the first place."

"But I did decide to come back," Wilson emphasized. "Without knowing the truth about Daniel yet. When I still thought it was my fault."

"That's excellent. No doubt that fact has helped you with Sandra."

"I think it did. We listened to the cell phone messages together, so she could hear they were new messages. She's still mad, but that did help."

"She's not mad, James; she's hurt. It's hard to distinguish the two sometimes, especially with women. Tell me, what made you decide to come back?"

"That was weird. After I left, I went to a bar just to forget everything. I'm still not sure on some of the details that night; they say I asked them to call my sponsor, and I have no memory of that. But the one thing I do remember is that I couldn't forget them. Daniel and Sandra. The harder I tried, everything else got fuzzy, but I still remembered them. My sponsor said I wanted to come back that night, but he stopped me."

"Good. That would have made things even worse."

Wilson spread his hands. "So where do I go from here?"

"You don't go anywhere. For the moment, Sandra should know absolutely where you are at all times. It goes without saying that you should keep your cell phone on."

The oncologist nodded vigorously. "I've turned into paranoid checking of it, making sure I haven't missed a message. I'm not going anywhere. I found out Wednesday night that I can't even when I try anymore. I don't want to; I want to be there for them. But how do I fix things?"

"Have you ever seen a large city building under construction, James?"

"Of course. Lots of times."

"Have you ever seen one completely built overnight?"

"No. All right, I get it; things take time."

"Yes, they do. But what would happen if they tried to speed it up, cut corners, not work as carefully? Would they get a better building at the end?"

"No. So I just wait?"

"You work on your relationship. Put conscious effort into it. And watch the progress; don't forget to watch the progress. You can see little changes regularly in a building along your route, even though it takes time. You and Sandra are rebuilding trust. Think of it as a building that's been damaged badly, hit by a tornado or something. The first step is to clean out the debris; if you started rebuilding on top of the broken bits, it wouldn't work. If, for instance, you had made it back to the hospital before she woke up and were sober and able to talk to her but you tried to hide the fact you had left, that would be trying to rebuild on top of wreckage. You have to get the debris out first. But then, once you can see clearly to evaluate what's left, you usually find out that a lot of the foundation is still usable. The foundation is your love for each other, and that's important. With a bad foundation, a building will never be safe. But rebuilding the structure over that foundation will take time and work. Don't try to cut corners, James. The end result will be worth it."

"So you think we've still got a chance to be a family together?"

"Yes, I do, but that's up to you."

"I can do better. I have to." Wilson pulled the note pad on his desk over, intending to write down some of Jensen's exits off the road to disaster. The top sheet was his list of how House had tried to convince Cuddy and what might be left. He flinched, pulled it off, crumpled it up, and threw it away, starting on a new page. Jensen watched him but didn't comment.

"One last suggestion, James, and then I need to get out of here before your next appointment comes. You might try getting some physical reminder of your commitment to them and keeping it with you all the time. A picture, a piece of her hair, a ring. Something that you can see and touch that symbolizes them to you. It can help when you get tempted." Jensen hesitated, then pulled out his own wallet and extracted a small twist of hair that was in the fold underneath his money. "Melissa and Cathy. I can take that out and remind myself what's important when I really get tempted to let work take too much time again. It doesn't even have to be visible to anybody else; you will know it's there. It's helped me."

"I'll try that. Thanks."

Jensen stood up. "Good luck, James. Rebuilding can be done, and a lot of times, the second version of the building is even better than the first." He reached across to shake hands, then left the office. Wilson glanced at his watch. He had two minutes until his next appointment. He spent them studying his list.