Author's Note: Pink Floyd lyrics belong to Pink Floyd. Taken from the song Wish You Were Here. House's chapter is next. Hang in there, 'cause I personally don't like this chapter.
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free
Wilson ripped off his belt easily and smoothly. It would have made more sense to just buckle it again, but he was sick and tired of having his pants held in place by a piece of leather and a metal buckle. It was so much easier, he also conceded, to destroy something than to fix it.
Usually that sentiment seemed to be House's (try various methods to see how the patient responds—possibly damaging them—but then finding a solution), but tonight it was his. Laziness reinforced this belief and Wilson took a deep breath.
He stared at his reflection in the goldfish bowl. Sushi, Julie's goldfish, swam happily around the plastic castle and facsimile palm trees. The orange tail flicked through the water and ruined his placid look. The ripples looked like wrinkles on his face and he turned away from the bowl.
Cory Lind had been asleep the first time Wilson went to check on him. Dr. Wilkerson had requested a second opinion on the case and had asked Wilson to offer it. Wilson had taken his vitals, checked a few other stats, and was just about to leave when Lind asked for "Dr. Gregory House." Wilson though he had misheard, but Lind repeated that he wanted to see House, so Wilson relayed this information to his friend. House had cast a derisive glance in his direction and told him to leave.
"We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl," Cory Lind had repeated the Pink Floyd lyrics when Wilson walked into the middle-aged man's room for a second time.
Lost souls, Wilson thought as he stared at the fish, usually meandered through life better than ones with little purpose. His soul was not lost; it just had little purpose. Wilson remembered seeing Cuddy storm out of Lind's room without an explanation. Her high-heels clicked furiously on the floor, meaning one thing to Wilson. Dr. Cuddy was not happy.
"Estella's fine," Lind had told him after a few minutes.
"What?"
"Estella."
Wilson had not heard the name Estella in some twenty-five years. Estella.
"How do you know her?"
"I know everything. I made many mistakes, my dear Dr. Wilson, just like you have. Why haven't you ever called her? She's always wanted to meet you."
"It was a mistake."
"Ah, so you forgot…"
"I did not forget anything."
In truth, he had forgotten the little details. He forgot how Belle's chin tilted just so when he laid kisses down her flower-petal neck. He forgot how Estella had eyes reminiscent to his. He forgot how old he was when he met Belle…
That was until Cory Lind reminded him of them.
"I made a mistake, too. I was seventeen. Like you, I chose to have selective memory and erase all the thoughts I had of either woman I loved so dearly. But what does that leave either of us with? I've had six marriages each one more broken than the next. And I left the woman I really loved."
Wilson lifted the fish food container out from underneath the table. He pinched a few flakes between his fingers and then proceeded to drop them into the bowl. He watched as Sushi swam rapidly towards the flakes, devouring them as fast as he could. Wilson watched as the fish raced the food to the bottom—trying to win the race.
"We tried to win the race, my friend, and lost."
Of course we lost! Wilson had thought. Sinners are punished through the oddest of ways. Three marriages and no children to show to for them. House had always mocked him about many things, but Greg never mentioned the fact that James would be a good father…both of them knew he would be, but there were sad truths that need not be revealed to the world.
"Why do work with cancer patients? Giving bad news to dying people must make you feel like shit, doesn't it?" Cory had asked through lucid blue eyes.
He worked with cancer patients, he knew as he stared at the goldfish, because he needed to atone for his sins. Not many sins, but one sin…
"It killed me, Dr. Wilson. It killed me. I pray it doesn't kill you."
He didn't know if it would kill him. He didn't know his sad life (living for a job and a friendship) would kill him. He didn't know.
"It's always easier to destroy the things we love than create walls to protect them."
Estella was 25 and his daughter whom he had not seen in as many years. Belle was his lover, Estella's mother, and he had made a mistake. He had gone to college—Harvard—while the baby dashed Belle's dreams. His sin had been ruining another person's life—it was easier to destroy the bonds than connect the imaginary dots that should have been obvious to even oblivious James Wilson.
"Estella's a beautiful name. One of my favorites."
"It means 'star.' Belle was a literary lover and even if she hated Great Expectations, the name Estella stuck with her…"
Explaining himself to a dying man was not something he usually did. He rarely gave reasons for the things he did—he was a man and men are fundamentally flawed.
"She wants you to call. She never had a father."
After Lind had said that, House had walked in and started to berate Lind for wanting an audience with he, irascible Dr. House.
So now he sat alone looking at his wife's fish. It kept swimming around the bowl in circles. Around and around and around…
And Wilson's mind went around and around and around again and again and again. Estella, Belle, Estella, Belle…
Estella meant star and Belle meant consecrated to God. Two holy things that he had desecrated. He was the tragically flawed Dr. Wilson, the aw-poor-thing-look-at-those-puppy-dog-eyes doctor. He realized that his earlier logic was wrong. He wasn't a person with little purpose.
No, he was just another hopelessly screwed up human being.
He watched as his tears mixed with the water of the fish bowl.
