Disclaimer: I don't own House, MD or any of its characters.
It wasn't supposed to happen this way.
He was supposed to die first, not the other way around. He was the one with the addiction, the bum leg, and nothing to live for. But life didn't always go as planned, did it?
It made him angry, no not angry. It made him, god, he didn't know what it made him, but it just wasn't right. The only person to morn his death would have been him, but now he was dead.
It had been an accident. It had been sudden. There had been no warning, no signs; there had been no stupid premonitions. Yet he felt like he should have been warned, so he could have been prepared for the news.
He hadn't been prepared. It left him devastated and alone.
He had been told at work.
Cuddy had cornered him in his office. She had told him to sit down because she had something to tell hum, and of course he had kept standing just to infuriate her. The words had come out clipped and harsh, as if saying them like that would let her hold in her tears a little longer. But as soon as the words slipped out silent tears began to slide down her face.
It had been a damn accident; the person driving the other car had fallen asleep at the wheel. Their car had come into his lane, he honked his horn but still had to swerve and hit a tree. A tree. He had been taken out by a tree.
The memorial service had been packed. All the people he had met and touched throughout his life all seemed to be there, giving him their respects, thanking him for what he did for them.
The funeral itself had just been close friends and family.
His wife had sat quietly through the whole thing, holding her wedding band in a tight fist until the end, when she had placed it on his casket as it was lowered into the cold ground.
Stacey had clung to her husband, wishing that he hadn't died, fearing how this would affect an already miserable man.
Cuddy had stood with silent tears slipping unnoticed down her face, as she worried about the person that would be affected by his death the most.
House had stood with an unreadable expression on his face, thinking that it should be him in that casket. That things hadn't gone as planned, that things never go as planned.
The tombstone was a dark marble and it displayed only his name.
James Wilson