Title: When Life Gives You Lemons

Relationships: All friendship

Rating: T/M

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.

Warnings: In this chapter I've made Julie rather nice…I don't know why, she just turned out that way.

A/N: Sorry for taking longer than normal, please review! I always welcome them. Just so you guys know, I only have two more chapters planned. There will be a sequel! I promise you that.

Chapter 13: Julie

Wilson woke at eight the next morning with a crook in his neck. He cursed himself for sleeping in a chair and went to go find the ibuprofen. If he was going to deal with Julie and divorce lawyers, he wanted to be in as little physical pain as possible because signing papers and discussing which of his things she wanted would give him a big enough headache itself.

"Morning," House grunted at him when he returned from the medicine cabinet.

Wilson nearly jumped out of his skin; he hadn't expected to see House creep out of some room even if it was his bedroom. "Why are you up?"

House gave him an annoyed look. "Some of us have to work today, Mother."

Wilson raised his eyebrows. He knew that tone and the look House had given him and Wilson just wasn't in the mood to deal with his pissy friend. "Could you drop me at my house on the way to work?"

"Call a cab," House snapped at him and hobbled off to the bathroom with a change of clothes tucked under his arm.

Wilson sighed and watched his friend hobble away. House's limp was much more pronounced that morning and it looked as though he was in more pain than usual. Wilson almost asked how Greg was feeling but bit his tongue knowing that a question or comment wouldn't be welcome. Instead, he went to House's kitchen and poured himself a glass of juice. He hated breakfast but needed a little bit of strength to deal with Julie and the lawyer.

"You ready?" House demanded of him twenty minutes later.

"For?" Wilson asked a little nervously. A question like that from House was always best to answer with a question. If he said 'yes' he could be agreeing to sell his soul to the devil or he could be agreeing to do House's clinic hours. Neither one of those were very enticing to him and in House's opinion they were about the same thing.

"A ride to your house," House answered and smirked a little when Wilson let out a sigh of relief.

"Yeah," Wilson answered with a sigh.

House snorted and grabbed his keys from the counter. "Let's go."

Wilson followed him out the door and noticed how badly House was limping. He bit his lip, knowing that it was best not to ask even though he wanted to. His concern was never really appreciated. He thought of a more neutral question. "You out of Vicodin yet?"

"I've got one left but I'm saving it," House answered, unlocking his car.

Wilson gave him a strange look. "For what? Cuddy? Clinic? Cameron?"

"Well, the first two are obvious," House answered with a small grin.

"Oh, well, I guess so," Wilson said dubiously while getting into the car and buckling his seatbelt. He personally liked Cuddy, they were old friends, but he would never bring that up with House. He'd tried to do that after the infarction and House had yelled at him for a good twenty minutes.

"And Cameron," House said thoughtfully. "Well, I don't dislike Cameron."

Wilson choked a laugh. "Well, that's good news! I thought you hated your whole team."

"No," House answered curtly. "I like them."

Wilson stared at him. "Well, I'll have to remember that."

"If you tell them," House warned, shaking his cane as he too got in the car.

Wilson chuckled. "Don't worry, I won't."

"Cameron's still getting over me," House said with a cocky grin. "If she knew I liked them she would probably try again."

"God you're arrogant," Wilson told him. "And I don't think you need to worry about Cameron. She's got Chase."

House made a face.

"Ha!" Wilson said triumphantly.

"What?" House demanded. "I don't like her."

"So, what? You just don't want to see her skipping down the hall hand-in-hand with Chase?" Wilson asked with a smug grin on his face. He loved when he managed to catch House like this.

"I don't think Chase would skip," House informed him. "He's a little too restrained."

"That's true," Wilson said, knowing the conversation was over.

After a few minutes House spoke again with a hesitant voice.

"I need you to write for me."

"I don't have my pad on me," Wilson said apologetically. "I lock it up in my office."

House cursed fluently.

"Ask Cuddy. She'd do it for you." Wilson wished he had his pad on him because he could see the pain etched in House's face but he never brought it home with him. He didn't want to lose it and have some junkie prescribe things for himself.

"I'd rather eat glass," House said spitefully.

"Cameron?" Wilson asked but when he saw the look on House's face he quickly said, "You're right. She'd fuss too much."

"Maybe there'll be some hypochondriac in the clinic I can prescribe for and switch the pills for candy like I did last time," he said to himself more than to Wilson.

"What!" Wilson demanded and turned his head to look at his friend. "When did you do that?"

"Relax," House said sulkily, cursing himself for saying anything. Now Wilson would worry. "I haven't done it in a while."

"I don't care when you did it," Wilson said furiously. "The point is that you did. That's dangerous!" If House was doing that sort of thing then he was more addicted than Wilson had originally thought.

"Shut up," House snapped. He didn't need to be badgered by Wilson. He's taken a Vicodin that morning but with only one left he was getting stressed. If Wilson was going to yell at him he was just going to ignore him.

Wilson sighed and said nothing until they pulled up at his house.

"Good luck," House said honestly when he pulled up in the drive.

Wilson nodded. "I'll probably need it." He unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car. He started to walk to his door but turned around after a few steps. "House!" he called before his friend could drive off.

"What?" House asked, clearly annoyed.

"Ask Foreman to write you a script. He'll do it with no questions asked," Wilson told him.

"Good idea," House said and drove off. It was true that he could ask Foreman for a script and that Foreman would give it to him, but he thought it was probably best not to give that sort of power to Foreman. Besides, Foreman was a good charter and would definitely put it down in House's medical chart and would get to see how often Wilson prescribed for him. Letting Foreman have that kind of information would only earn him disgusted looks from the oldest of his staff.

"Guess I'll ask Chase," House muttered to himself. Chase would do it and he would probably say nothing about it ever again since the man seemed to feel that House's personal life wasn't his business or something he really wanted to know about. Deciding to ask Chase when he got to the hospital, House smiled to himself and sped up a little.

Wilson looked at the clock on his bedside dresser and sighed with relief. He had an hour to get to the lawyers and that was plenty of time. He'd called a cab twenty minutes before and had taken a shower as well. He'd notified the insurance company of his accident and they'd worked out a deal. The money they were going to give him wasn't much since he'd caused the accident but it was enough and he could put it towards a new car – something he'd have to get very soon.

He heard a car horn and knew his cab had arrived. He was still in his bedroom at the time and was looking at the anti-depressants House had prescribed for him. It seemed like it would be a good idea to stave off his depression but Wilson didn't want to have the placebo affect with his pills like Greg did. Ignoring the pills, he quickly threw an overcoat on, grabbed his wallet, pocketed his keys, and walked out the door.

Wilson walked out of the law offices at one in the afternoon feeling drained. It had taken three hours to get everything done and he wondered how long ago Julie had filed. It normally took a while to get paperwork done so he figured she had filed a least a month before. His heart sank at the thought. If she'd filed a month ago then she'd been cheating for at least six.

He heard footsteps behind him and almost barked at Julie to go away when he saw that it was she who had followed him towards the curb and a payphone.

"Need a ride, James?" Julie asked kindly. "I'm going your way."

Wilson was taken aback; he had thought she was going to start yelling at him.

"I understand if you don't want to," she said quickly, seeing the apprehension in his eyes. "I was just trying to be nice. We've got to be civil for a few weeks more."

He smirked a little at that and he saw her brown eyes dancing. For a second he saw the woman he'd fallen in love with and smiled a real smile at her. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he smiled at Julie; really smiled at her. "You don't mind?"

"Mind what?" Julie asked. "Being civil to you? No, I can deal with that."

Wilson glared at her a little and she laughed. It hurt him to see how happy she was. Granted, she was probably just trying to be nice but he hadn't seen her laugh or had her tease him in a long time. She normally snapped at him or told him to go to the store and buy her some weird soy thing that he hated.

"Come on," she said, nodding in the direction of her car. "I don't mind giving you a ride."

"Thanks," he told her and followed her to her Mercedes. He hoped she wasn't about to ask him a bunch of stupid questions or demand that he pay her an arm and a leg in alimony. There was no chance she'd be getting anymore money out of him – he'd had her sign an agreement when they got married.

"How badly did you break your wrist?" she asked him when they were in the car.

"Not too badly," he answered, feeling relieved that she wasn't going off on him. "It'll heal in about six or seven weeks."

"How's your car?"

"A lot worse off than my wrist," he answered darkly, startling a laugh out of her.

"It could be worse," Julie said to him.

"What could?" he asked.

"Your wrist," Julie answered.

"Yeah," he said, "but I'm happy it's not!"

She grinned. "You could have cracked your head open."

"Thanks, Julie," Wilson said sarcastically.

"Just trying to lighten the mood," she told him and gave him a grin that sort of reminded him of House. That thought scared him and he looked away.

"How's work?" he asked her. If she could use small talk to pass the time in the car then so could he.

"Great!" she said happily. She ran a restaurant with her sister and had always enjoyed it. "How about you? Is it still really depressing?"

"It's about the same as always," he answered, trying to turn her off of the subject.

It didn't work.

"My brother Daniel was telling me about an oncologist that is getting sued for making a mistake," Julie told him.

"Well, that's why we have malpractice insurance," Wilson said, wishing she would stop talking. He didn't want to hear about this, he had enough to deal with!

"I know," Julie answered, oblivious to Wilson's annoyance and discomfort. "But this doctor sounded like an idiot."

'Oh, God, here we go,' Wilson thought. "What did he do?" If asking questions would get her to hurry up, he would pretend to be interested.

"He treated this woman for cancer when she didn't have any," Julie said.

"How'd he manage that?" Wilson asked, trying not to sound bored.

"Daniel said that he didn't read the pathology report," Julie answered. "Well, he did the first time but the pathologist did another biopsy and discovered it wasn't cancer and the oncologist didn't read the report. The woman died from the chemo."

"That's horrible," Wilson said. He'd never made a mistake like that and never wanted to. Since he'd become Head of Oncology he had the biopsies checked three times, each time by two doctors and one pathologist. He also made sure that all of the reports were given to him so that if anything looked sketchy he could do a check of his own.

"I know," Julie said, wrinkling her nose. "It's sort of scary that there are doctors out there that make mistakes on reports or don't do their charts."

Wilson nearly laughed when she said that. Greg did that sort of thing all the time but he wasn't about to tell her that.

"Well, we're here," Julie informed him after twenty minutes more of small talk.

"Yeah," he said. "Thanks, Julie." He opened the door and dug his keys out of his pocket.

"James," she called.

"Yeah?" he asked, turning around.

"I'll see you in a few weeks at the hearing," she said, looking as though she wanted to say more but couldn't.

"Yeah; I'll see you," he told her and unlocked the door.

"Take care of yourself!" she called and drove off.

Wilson sighed and went into his empty house.

Julie had been oddly pleasant and he felt bad about the way he'd been treating her but reminded himself that it hadn't all been his fault.

Two hours later, he picked up the phone and dialed his brother's number.

"Hello?" a woman's voice asked on the other end.

"Hey, Hannah, it's James," he told her.

"Hi, Jim!" she said, sounding pleased.

"How are you?" he asked.

"A little nauseous," she said with a little laugh.

"Are you sick?" he asked, concerned. He really liked Hannah; she was such a sweet woman and she loved his brother more than life itself.

"David didn't tell you?" she asked.

"Tell me what?" he asked.

"I'm pregnant!"

"That's wonderful!" he said enthusiastically.

"Yeah, we're excited," she said happily. "Hang on; I'll get David for you."

"OK," he said. He was happy for his brother and his wife. They had been trying to have a baby for the last year or so and Wilson knew that they were pleased.

"Jim?"

"Hey, David," Wilson said. "Congratulations."

"Thank you," he said and Wilson knew he was grinning. "What's up?"

"Not too much," Wilson answered. "I was thinking about driving up to see Mom and Dad and I was wondering if you guys would mind a visit."

"Of course not," David said. "Come whenever you want."

"Great," Wilson said. "I'll probably be there in a day or two. I've got to call Mom first and see if they'll be around."

"Wonderful. Give us a call when you're on your way." David sounded excited and Wilson was happy about that. He didn't want to impose on his brother.

"OK, see you in a few days."

"Bye," David said and hung up.

Wilson smiled a little to himself and called his parents.