Title: When Life Gives You Lemons

Relationships: All friendship

Rating: T/M

Warning: Nothing too bad. Mild language I guess…

Spoilers: Season 1

Disclaimer: I am not making any profit from this fan fiction, all recognizable characters belong to FOX and all of the others belong to me. The definition at the bottom comes from Webster's Dictionary.

A/N: Check out my new one-shot fic and review it! It's called 'House's in White' and uses one of the America songs. Thank you to my reviewers, please review again!

Chapter 9: Failed

Depression:

1) The state of being depressed; a sinking

2) A falling in of the surface; a sinking below its true place;

a cavity or hollow; as, roughness consists in little

protuberances and depressions.

3) Humiliation; abasement, as of pride.

4) Dejection; despondency; lowness.

House limped quickly after Wilson; an annoyed expression on his face. He knew that Wilson had only asked him for a ride home because he didn't want to take a taxi. House didn't blame him for his reasoning, it made sense to him.

Wilson was waiting at House's car when House finally caught up to him. Wilson was holding the antidepressants in his hand and a strange look was on his face.

"Did you take one?" House asked while unlocking the car and getting in.

"No," Wilson replied. He snickered and shook his head before getting into the car. He found it ironic that he was being prescribed pills by a drug addict. It seemed to be a nasty twist.

House started the car and pulled out. "You should take one. They'll probably help. If they don't, you could always sell them on the black market."

"For some reason, I doubt that the black market would want antidepressants," Wilson replied with a smirk.

"You'd be surprised…" House trailed off with a small smile.

"Please don't tell me that's how you get your Vicodin when I'm not around." Wilson looked at the evil grin spreading across House's face and said quickly, "I don't want to know."

House laughed. "I'll introduce you to…" He stopped when he heard Wilson's pager go off.

"Hang on," Wilson muttered and looked at his pager. He scoffed when he read it.

"Patient?" House asked.

"Julie," Wilson replied. He sighed and slumped back in the chair. "She probably got a hold of the lawyer."

"She shouldn't have paged you," House said. Spouses, or soon-to-be ex-spouse in Wilson's case, weren't supposed to call a doctor's pager unless it was an emergency and House didn't consider Julie getting a hold of the divorce lawyer to be all that important.

"She probably called the house and the hospital but since I'm not there decided to page me," Wilson said with a shrug.

"What about your cell?" House asked, turning off the highway and down Wilson's street.

"Smashed it in the crash," Wilson replied. "It's OK, I understand."

"I don't believe you!" House snapped. "She cheated on you first, demanded the divorce, lied to you, went behind your back, and you're defending her?"

"You're mad at me? Mr. 'Everyone lies and I hate them'?" Wilson shook his head. "No wonder Stacy left…" Wilson stopped and looked horrified at what had just come out of his mouth.

House slammed on his breaks and Wilson was flung back on his seat, hitting his head and jerking his neck in the process.

"Come on, man!" Wilson snapped, rubbing his neck with a pained expression. "Can't you learn to drive?"

House touched the gas and the car started again. "You whine too much."

"I've been in one too many car crashes this week," Wilson muttered angrily. "I didn't need that."

"Whatever," House answered.

They drove down the street and House pulled into Wilson's driveway. "She could have called my cell."

Wilson laughed. "Like you'd answer."

"I would!" House protested.

Wilson smirked. "To curse at her perhaps. Or to pretend like she'd gotten the wrong number."

House had a dreamy expression on his face. "Okay, maybe I would do that sort of thing."

Wilson snorted. "She's also afraid of you."

"She hates me," House replied. "Hate doesn't mean fear."

"You hate her," Wilson pointed out.

"Yeah, but I don't fear her. I don't think, 'Oh no, here comes scary Julie, I better watch out or she'll yell at me' whenever I have to go near her," House said sarcastically.

Wilson grinned a little. "Fine, have it your way." He opened the door and got out. "I'll see you later. Sorry about the Stacy comment."

House nodded silently, his jaw clenched. House noted that Wilson looked genuinely sorry. When someone was depressed, they often said things that they didn't mean to say, even if it was the truth; House knew that.

Wilson closed the door and headed up his driveway to the door. He took his keys out of his pocket.

"James," House called, his voice slightly quiet.

Wilson turned around with a sigh. He was expecting to be yelled at.

"You've got a key to my apartment?" House asked, his tone bored.

"Yeah," Wilson answered surprised.

"Okay," House said and drove off. He knew he'd probably see Wilson in the next day or two.

That had been House's way of forgiving him and he felt gratitude towards his friend. Wilson smiled to himself and went in to his house.

The first thing Wilson did when he got into his house was change in to jeans and a t-shirt. He enjoyed looking nice at work but at home he wanted something a lot more comfortable. Once he'd changed, he put the pills in a cabinet and went to get a glass of water.

He knew that he was depressed but he didn't want to treat it with pills. He wasn't suffering from a physical ache like House did; this was an emotional one, one he didn't really want to treat with medicine. Weighing how he was feeling at the moment to how he'd felt in the previous divorces, he had to say this was the worst of them. Of course, the fact that he'd broken his left wrist was what tipped the scales.

Grabbing a glass from the kitchen cupboard, he filled it with water from the fridge and took a sip.

He nearly dropped the glass when the phone rang. He had been dwelling on the antidepressants and hadn't been too aware of what was around him.

Setting the water down, he went to answer the phone.

"Hello?" he said into the receiver.

"James, it's Julie," said the voice on the other end.

Like she needed to tell him that, he scoffed. "Hi, Julie," was what he said instead with a soft tone. Yelling at her would get him nowhere.

"James, listen, I got a hold of the lawyer. Are you busy tomorrow?"

She sounded hesitant, he thought.

"No," he answered.

"That's a first," she muttered, the angry tone he'd become accustomed to quite evident in her voice.

"Yeah," he whispered with a sigh. "I guess it is."

Julie didn't bother to apologize, but her tone when she said the next few words told him she felt a little bad for the barb. "Well, I was hoping you could meet me tomorrow to sign the papers."

"Yeah, I can do that," Wilson responded. "What time?"

"Ten O'clock," she answered and rattled off an address.

"I'll see you," Wilson said.

"Bye," Julie replied and the phone clicked down.

When she hung up, Wilson slumped against the wall. He'd failed again when it came to marriage and he realized that this was the time in his previous two marriages that he had gone out and had anonymous sex with some girl. He didn't feel like doing that this time. In fact, he really wanted to be alone.

'I'd better call my brother,' he thought, 'before I get too upset.'

He picked up the phone and dialed his brother's number.

"Hello?" a cheerful voice on the other end greeted.

"David? Hey, it's James," Wilson said, wishing he hadn't called.

"Hey!" David sounded delighted. "What's up?"

"Not too much," Wilson lied. "How's Hannah?"

"She's great," David answered, obviously pleased that his brother was asking. "How's Julie?"

"Uh…" Wilson hesitated.

"Oh, I'm sorry," David replied.

Wilson sighed. His brother clearly knew about the divorce just from the hesitation. Well, David always had been good and knowing what was going on even when no one told him.

"Look, Jim, I've got to go, Hannah and I were on our way out," David said. "It's good to hear from you and I'll call you later."

"All right," Wilson replied.

"Bye."

"Bye," Wilson echoed and hung up.

He felt a little dejected. His brother and Hannah had such a great marriage. They always had been happy together, ever since they'd first met six years before. It was something James had always envied David for but it wasn't because he wanted Hannah or anything, it was because he wanted to be happy too.

House sat on his piano bench playing an old Beatles song and smiling wryly. The Beatles were always a good thing to play since they had a song for nearly every emotion.

He thought about Wilson and hoped he hadn't killed himself over Julie. House scoffed, James was probably out getting drunk and hitting on some pretty 'blonde thing'. He didn't know that nothing could be farther from the truth…