"I lied. I'm not sick, never was, and never will be."

"It's time to pull the plug, House."

Guilty. He was guilty. But he didn't want to live with it, he could not live with it.

In total darkness, Wilson awoke from a dreamless sleep. He couldn't tell whether minutes, hours, or even days had passed. His skull throbbed, the blood rushed in his ears. Every movement of his body hurt him, every rotation of his head sent lightning flashes through his skull. He felt miserable, groaning in pain. Then glistening light shone above his head, flooding the room. Wilson felt as if the overhead light was burning his retina away, but as his eyes got used to the sudden brightness, he recognized House standing in the middle of the room.

"How could you?"

Wilson closed his eyes, couldn't look at his best friend because his eyes told of the deep, deep disappointment he was feeling. He couldn't blame him, he deserved the contempt that hit him like an icy wind.

"You would have done that for real, would you? You would have left me alone like that?!"

Wilson wanted to cover his ears to avoid House's roar, his true words. His broken heart tightened in his chest until he thought the pain alone was enough to kill him. The tears were already streaming down his face and he didn't try to stop them anymore.

Closing his eyes and ears to what he didn't want to see or hear, Wilson found himself shortly after the moment he had confessed his lie to House.

In his mind's eye he saw himself with the pistol in his left hand, loaded, ready to fire and destined for none other than himself. And he heard his own words like an echo in his ears.

"I'm guilty, House."

And so he had raised his hand, the gun released and he was ready to end his existence on this earth. He didn't know where death was taking him, but he hoped for redemption, for a place without torment, even if it meant the endless emptiness. A place without guilt.

Reluctantly, Wilson opened his eyes again, turned his head and looked at House. The longer he looked at him, the better the many gruesome details of his emotions came to the surface. Wilson realized how red his eyes suddenly looked. He had often seen this on his patients, their relatives and friends, when they carried their deepest, innermost pain through streams of tears to the surface. But House, House, he'd never seen him cry.

"Just tell me one thing, Wilson. Only one thing, then you can go wherever you please!"

His words were painful, but he deserved them. He received his punishment for the lies, for the suffering he made his friend feel. He nodded silently.

House came closer. His limp was immense, with every step he leaned almost his entire body on his cane, which threatened to burst under the strain. The friend stopped in front of him and looked him straight in the eye.

„Why?"

The question to which only Wilson knew the answer. The secret he had kept so well, though it eventually was revealed. But there was no point in clinging to it now, trying to preserve it. His lie had been exposed, his plan failed, his life was ruined. It couldn't get any worse when he revealed to House what tormented him day after day. What made him want to kill himself.

"I killed someone."

And so he began to tell of days gone by, months ago, which had brought a cruel turn in his life. And while he was talking, he thought he was there again.

On a cool, dark evening more than six months ago, Wilson was strolling the streets of New Jersey. He may not have been entirely satisfied with his life, as all of his marriages had failed and his friendship with House had been tested countless times. But even if his existence wasn't exactly ready for a movie, he wasn't unhappy in the long run.

A scream came to his ears that day, so shrill, so frightened that it made Wilson's blood run cold. A cry for help, just like you knew it from horror films. While he was still going through the bone and neck of the oncologist, he was already searching the area. At this time of the day the streets he was walking around were no longer very busy, not to mention the numerous side streets, some of which were not even equipped with street lamps. And in just such an alley, a horrific attack revealed to Wilson after a short time, as he had never seen it before in the real world.

There stood a man, taller and sportier than Wilson, grabbing with his hands at a young woman whom he had cornered and threatened with a clenched fist and a hushed voice.

Wilson was fierce when he discovered the crumpled blouse of the woman, which had already apparently brutally lost the top two buttons. Within seconds he realized what was happening and his brain switched without a second thought, his mind skipped a moment as he stormed towards the attacker and his victim and used the moment of surprise to grab the man from behind and to pull him away from the woman.

Wilson wasn't a violent person. Strictly speaking, he always skillfully avoided conflicts and avoided physical confrontation, because he was neither strong nor a trained fighter. The reason why he nevertheless decided to intervene, to act out of the ordinary that day, was in large part due to a very poignant conversation with a patient. The poor, already punished soul had told him tearfully about the painful past days she had lived through, in which she had been abused by a relative. Wilson couldn't understand how it drove people into such abysses to do such a thing, and even less did he understand how one could ruin those few years for a young person who was only allowed to live a far too short life.

Had this conversation not taken place that day, Wilson might have remained level-headed and calm, would have called the police and possibly only interfered verbally to buy time. But it was his deep pity that blew all the fuses in his brain and changed his life from that moment on.

With a clenched fist, he gave the attacker a hard blow in the face that even made his own ankles burn. He looked into the criminal's mad eyes and felt nothing but the deepest hatred, anger and contempt for the stranger. In his mind he was with his suffering patient as he lunged at the taller one, wrestling him to the ground at the slightest sign of weakness, and grabbing his throat with both hands. In his anger, Wilson did not notice that his opponent hardly defended himself, although it would have probably been easy for him to defeat Wilson. Nor did he pay attention to the fact that his victim hit his skull on the cobblestones of the path when he fell, leaving traces of blood behind.

Only after a few seconds the firm grip of his cramped hands loosened and he got up. The stranger stopped moving and the woman who had saved Wilson had fled. Now he was alone.

"I didn't call the ambulance. I guess I secretly wanted him to die." His words sounded empty, but they were accompanied by regular sobs that could not be stopped, because telling of his horrific outrage tore his aching heart into a thousand pieces. He hated himself, oh he hated himself so much. He had taken a life.

"At some point, someone must have found him. Fate is a real asshole because of course they took him to Princeton Plainsboro for an autopsy." He heard himself laugh sarcastically and bitterly, although he couldn't find anything funny about the situation. It was probably nothing more than a desperate attempt to keep his composure. "I found the report and it revealed that the man was probably on a drug intoxication."

Again he felt as if thousands of tiny needles were piercing his chest. Sure, drugs and alcohol had never been an excuse, but that realization had stolen Wilson's last desperate thought that his victim didn't deserve it any other way. The autopsy report had shown him what he had already known: He was a murderer.

For a while there was an icy silence between them. House hadn't made a sound throughout his story. He just stood there, leaning heavily on his cane and piercing Wilson with looks he couldn't interpret. But for once he didn't mind the oppressive silence, because he knew there was nothing more to say. There was nothing House could do to ease his conscience, to cleanse his hands of the blood that was on them. For this reason he hadn't turned to his best friend for all these months because he knew it wouldn't work. There was only one way to salvation. There was only one last resort.

"You should have looked for professional help."

Now the deep grief was joined by furious anger, which caused Wilson to sit up on the couch with a swing. Everything immediately went black before his eyes, deafening roar rushed through his head, but he ignored it and screamed as loudly as he probably had never screamed before.

"Don't you think I came up with that idea myself?!" he rebelled angrily at his friend. His vision cleared and when he was able to fixate on House, a deadly fire blazed in his otherwise peaceful brown eyes. "But what should I have done? Introduce myself as a murderer in front of a therapist? "

"Strictly speaking, it wasn't murder, at most-"

"Shut up, House!" Aloud he cut him off. Immediately his friend was silent. His mouth was still open, but he stopped speaking. Wilson's uncontrolled anger seemed to impress even on him.

Silence again ruled the room for a few minutes. Wilson had averted his gaze again, was staring at the floor in front of him, but his eyes were not fixed on a specific spot, actually they were staring into the void. Until House spoke again.

"You wanted to redeem yourself, as far as I can follow. Then what were all these lies for?"

Wilson took a deep breath and sighed, then he began to explain.

Suicide in itself, as he thought, was a selfish proposition. You might think that the dying person suffered the most, but actually it was terrifyingly easy to die. But dealing with the death of a loved one was a task that could last a lifetime. Yet Wilson's unselfishness had not been enough to dismiss his plan.

What it had been enough for, however, was to come up with something he thought would be the easiest for everyone involved, but especially for House, to accept.

After Amber's death, House had been plagued by guilt. Though it wasn't his fault, many days had passed in which he had secretly blamed himself for it. This event had harmed him in the long run.

After Kutner's suicide, House had spent hours trying to find evidence that hadn't been there, tracking down a killer who had never existed. It had driven him insane that he hadn't seen his employee's suicide coming and, even if he didn't openly admit it, he had suffered as a result.

Wilson wanted to die, but he wanted to spare his friend another experience of this kind. So he made up his diagnosis, falsified the pictures, and even hired a patient's friend to manipulate the MRI that House had done on him. He'd believed that if he died of a terminal illness, House would eventually find it easier to accept and let the past rest.

The double, potentially fatal, dose of chemotherapy was the first attempt to end his existence. He had firmly assumed that this would be sufficient, accordingly he had been unprepared when his body had withstood the therapy. In the second attempt, he had therefore rejected all further therapies and resolved to hold out for five months and then die "of cancer". Just that House would stay with him until the bitter end and at some point would realize that Wilson wasn't getting any sicker, he hadn't considered that. And now they were sitting here. Meanwhile on the couch next to each other, albeit with the greatest possible distance, because apparently House's leg could no longer tolerate standing.

"I'm so sorry," Wilson finished his explanation and buried his tear-streaked face in his hands. Words weren't enough to tell House how much he regretted his lie now that he saw the extent of it. Wilson slumped, every muscle in his body slackened, until he crouched there as miserably as he felt on the inside. He had given himself up, which was why it was no longer a problem for him to let out the chaos of his feelings in all its ugliness.

Until House moved closer to him, put his arm around his hunched back and hugged him in deep friendship. He didn't say a word, but Wilson's body flooded a wave of warmth and compassion that he'd wished for for many months. For the first time, he believed that his pain could be relieved.

"I'm not letting you go, Jimmy. Not like this."