Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night

Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall.

She sees the bartender in a pool of blood,

Cries out, "My God, they killed them all!"

Here comes the story of the Hurricane,

The man the authorities came to blame

For somethin' that he never done.

--Bob Dylan, "Hurricane"

"Dr. Wilson?"

Can I ever get any paperwork done? Is that so hard to ask? At least when House used to bother me, he was always entertaining. Stacy's stories are mired in melodrama, Cuddy is angry at the world it seems, and every one else is just a bother.

"Dr. Foreman, what do you want?"

He enters the room and he shuts the door behind him. He looks out the window for a brief moment. From the angle his face is turned, I can't tell what's wrong.

"I don't necessarily like what you and Cameron are doing, but it's not my place to interfere with a grieving process. Stacy—" he turns to look directly at me (into my eyes—unsettling), "—and Chase don't like anything that could be construed as hurting them. They want me to go with them to Cuddy's office. So I'm going."

Foreman leaves as soon as 'going' exits his mouth. He walks out the door and slams it shut behind him with much more force than necessary. All my gape-mouthed questions fall into the silence of an empty room. The papers respond by rustling in the wind of some turned-up-too-high air conditioner. The walls shudder after Foreman's door slam.

"Why?"

It's the only coherent thought I can verbalize. Why would Stacy do this to me? Why does Chase feel like he needs to do this? What is Cuddy going to say? And where is Allison?

The chart before me (Valerie Nen's) is no longer the focus of my attention. How can it be? I'm human—my fate is more important than my patient's right now. This woman may have three more months to live. She can wait and enjoy a few more minutes of ignorance.

But why are Allison and I the targets of this witch-hunt? All of us have flirted with one another at one point in time. Chase flirts with the pretty young technicians. I flirt with any woman to keep my mind off my divorce. We all do it—consciously and unconsciously. We construe it as petty conversations, but why are my discussions with Allison anything more?

It's those damn questions Stacy asked me last night. Whether I know Allison is pregnant or not. Deny, deny, and deny I am taught constantly, but how can I deny a charge that Stacy will believe to be true regardless of my pleas? We're old friends, but Stacy is Stacy—she's all pomp and circumstance (truth, justice, and the American way, too.) She sees injustice and her trained eye drifts towards the law.

But why is she going after me so ferociously? We go back a long time—I introduced her to House. Something's wrong…

She's perceptive, but is she willing to take a risk with this…this vehemence towards the belief that I'm the father of Allison's baby? It could make Cuddy suspicious. But Cuddy's been so out of it lately. Out of all of us, Cuddy's the one most affected by House's death. Allison may be more vocal because of the hormones of pregnancy, but Cuddy is slowly unraveling inside…I can see it in her eyes.

What to do, what to do? I can storm in on the meeting and demand to know why people in this hospital tend to verge on the insane. I can sit here and wait for some verdict to come down on my fate. I can call Allison to see if she's okay. I can break Chase's neck…

The thoughts are only 'cans' and most of them are 'cannots' when reason permeates through the details. I realize my pen is clasped too tightly in my hand. I let it go and gently rub the bones. I've always had a bad habit of hanging on too tightly to things I shouldn't.

My legs are the first part of my body to move. No signal has been sent by my brain to walk yet, but standing's a start. House stood like this. Stacy worries about me becoming House because I've gotten prickly. I've always been prickly, but House used to be around, and next to him I seemed tame. Stick a black next to a navy blue and the blue always seems lighter.

So, walk I do and it's onward to Cuddy's office. Step, step, step. Keep walking. Keep walking. Leave Valerie Nen's folder and life behind. Leave sanity. Leave her.

And the farther and farther I get from the office the only thoughts that I have are, oddly enough, something I haven't thought of lately. My divorce. Walk, and think of Julie's damning smirks and haughty calls to the lawyer. Think of how she derives sadistic, House-like pleasure from not moving out, but making me suffer her presence instead. It hurts me more that she calls Allison a home-wrecker because it's not Allison doing the home wrecking—it's Julie.

When I arrive outside Cuddy's office, I am reminded of the fact that Julie cites irreconcilable differences as the reason for our divorce. Always so politically correct and vague—perfect for a Hollywood-following "humanoid."

Cuddy sees me, but Chase, Foreman, and Stacy do not. Cuddy makes no movement acknowledging she sees me, but I can see sorrow in her eyes. Even from here, it is evident that this woman is dangling over a cliff with a piece of floss. Sanity's the needle in the haystack in this hospital. No one is sane in this damn place.

She swivels her head to the corner and the others' heads follow. She's screaming…I can't hear the words, but I can hear the decibels. But the shouts move Stacy enough to make her get up and put a hand on Cuddy's arm. Cuddy shrugs it off and I imagine she screams at them to get out of the room.

Stacy, Foreman, and Chase do not leave and apparently Stacy's taught Chase the finer aspects of arguing a point before a biased and possibly not-so-sane judge. Play to the eccentricities.

So I move on past her office, for there is nothing I can do. My fate isn't in my hands and destiny never favors me anyway. I think for a minute about how many divorces I can gain in one lifetime—how many does Liz Taylor have? 8?

But isn't that the point? Marry and divorce so many times that all the bad memories fade into one miserable, manageable lump? No one remembers anyway—they gossip for a day before it disappears.

That's why I do not worry about everyone's accusations towards Allison and me. When the next nurse/intern coupling ensues, Allison and I will be left clinging like we always have been to the shards of three months ago.

And there's nothing any one of us can do about the events that will come. House's death, if we had only known then, would tear us asunder rather than insulate us. Be it Cuddy and her insanity, Chase and his insecurity, or Stacy and her own unshed grief, we're all slowly drifting…

And I have no idea where we're drifting…

At least I know we're all going to end up like House some day.