Chase was waiting for him at the entrance to the ICU, blocking the door. He was trying to explain something; but the roaring in House's ears was too loud and the only words that penetrated were the ones he'd been dreading, the ones that left him broken and ruptured inside. Seizure. Alarm. Dead.
His heart was pounding as he forcibly shoved the younger doctor out of the way and limped quickly into the Intensive Care Unit.
Doctors stepped aside and nurses scattered at his approach as he neared Wilson's bed. Electronic monitors continued to measure and beep, mechanically ignorant of the distinctions of human care, human emotions -- there were other patients here, after all.
This is how it ends, he thought, after everything, this is it, a stupid senseless death and life just goes on, nobody even turns around. Auden was so fucking right ...
He looked down at his friend, bracing himself for the end. A sudden wave of dizziness threatened to send him crashing to the floor.
Wilson was pale and gaunt, face drawn with pain even under sedation. His hair was damp, stuck to his forehead, and House could smell the rank odor of copious sweat rising from the sickbed.
Sweat. Jimmy was ...
"... alive."
Chase, beside him.
"He's alive, House. Okay? Not dead." The Australian doctor paused, drew a deep breath. "Dr. Wilson's fever spiked suddenly, reached 106.3. He seized, a grand mal. We were ready to pull everything, dump him in an ice bath." Chase stopped. House hadn't looked at him. "I had a nurse page you. I thought ... I'm sorry, I should have waited. It was a false alarm; his temp's dropping."
House's head turned, slowly, and Chase saw the question in his eyes.
"104. Going down slowly, but going down."
House nodded, and looking back down, realized he was gripping the bed's guardrail so tightly his knuckles were white. He let go, and lowered himself very carefully into the chair next to the bed.
A pair of nurses gave Wilson a cooling sponge bath and replaced the strategically positioned ice-gel packs in the bed. House closed his eyes for a moment at the sight of James's abused body, bruised and scarred from the bullets and surgery. He leaned forward and took Jimmy's right hand, holding it gently. It was hot and slick with perspiration. Wilson stirred, turning his head restlessly against the vent. House eased closer.
"Jimmy. Hush, it's okay." He brushed some of the sweat-damp hair away. "You're safe now."
James relaxed, the lines in his face easing, his respiration evening out.
House sat there the rest of the day, watching as Wilson's temperature continued to fall. As more days passed, no one dared tell him when visiting hours were over.
Wilson opened his eyes.
A woman's voice, fading away in his head ... she'd been telling him something familiar, the first words to a story he'd heard many times before. He tried to retrieve it, but whatever had been there was gone.
He blinked, and recognized his surroundings as the hospital ICU. He was as tired as he'd ever been in his life, and his throat was sore and a little raw. Vent ... I was on a vent. It was very hard to concentrate, his thoughts seeming to drift slowly through a glacial fog.
An IV line led to his left arm, and for a few minutes he simply watched the soothing, rhythmic drip of the liquid from the bag.
It took him a while to realize another person was there; a man's head, face hidden in folded arms on the right side of Wilson's bed. Brown hair, unkempt, showing signs of early gray.
House.
James stared at him for a long time, the minutes stretching away.
His fault, one part of his mind murmured. All this, his fault. You could be dead.
Another part of his mind considered that, examined it, turned it over.
But I'm not. Am I?
It was a huge effort to move his right hand just a few inches. He touched the top of House's head, curling his fingers into the soft hair.
"Hey," he whispered.
His friend stirred, then lifted his head.
Exhaustion almost as deep as Wilson's had carved deep lines on House's face. Unshaven, his usual stubble was approaching a full beard; his normally clear blue eyes were red and swollen.
They looked at each other for a long moment.
"Christ, you look like shit," James whispered.
House blinked, sniffed, blinked some more, then a grin broke over his face. The weariness fell away and his eyes brightened, taking on the deep blue tones of the sky after a great storm has passed.
"Hey," he said, "don't be taking the name of my Lord and Savior in vain."
Wilson was too tired to even shake his head.
"House ... the name of your savior is the Marquis de Sade."
And with that he was out again, the trauma of surgery, the drugs in the I.V., and sheer exhaustion overwhelming him. He was not awake to see House's head drop, or hear the odd coughing sounds coming from him.
Others watching might think the man was crying, but everyone knew the misanthropic Dr. House didn't care enough about anyone (not even Dr. Wilson) to do that.
Weeks later Wilson was discharged into House's care. James didn't object. It was easier this way, and besides, he wasn't sure if he ever wanted to be alone again in his life.
His brother had gone back to his teaching life at Rutgers; his parents had stayed a week in a nearby hotel until he'd persuaded them to go home to their Florida condo. His father had been particularly hard-struck at the possibility of losing another son, and James had found himself in the unaccustomed position of offering comfort to his own parents. He was secretly relieved to see them go.
The news media hung onto the story of the WaWa Massacre for a few more weeks, but when Dr. James Wilson proved to be singularly unforthcoming about his experiences, the headlines faded away.
House took more cases, tormented his Fellows, and terrorized the general population. Life at Princeton-Plainsboro returned to normal.
For both men though, the past is never past and time has shifted into the eternal present. The crows are gathering.
Foreman's full neurological workup reveals Wilson's partial loss of hearing in his right ear. The same drugs that saved his life have left him with this small, everyday reminder of mortality. James takes the news stoically and schedules follow-up appointments with Audiology; House, attempting to elicit some reaction from his friend, takes to calling it his "George Bailey Ear." Normally this would be very funny -- House referring to his disability with the name of the hero character from the film It's A Wonderful Life, but Wilson doesn't think very much these days about funny things. He's tried to throw himself back into his career, working half-days, but he is exhausted all the time, and finds it hard to take very much interest or pleasure in the things about him. James's movements are slow and tentative, and he flinches at loud noises. Sometimes it's more than a flinch.
The first time Wilson hears a car backfire after The Incident (that's the name he's chosen for it; bland and indirect, it labels but doesn't define) he is out walking with House, on the athletic track near the hospital.
It's a surprisingly loud bang! and for a moment House doesn't realize his friend is no longer at his side. He stops and looks back. Wilson is off the tarmac and on the ground, clutching at the grass and doing his best to flatten himself into as small a (target) profile as possible. His breath is coming hard and fast; his whole body trembles with the severity of the fight or flight reaction.
House walks slowly back and lowers himself carefully to sit on the tarmac. After a few moments, Wilson stops shaking. After a few more minutes, he sits up and buries his face in his hands. House puts his hand on Wilson's back, between the shoulder blades, and leaves it there. In a while they both stand up; James first, helping House to his feet, and they continue their walk. Neither mentions what just happened, but the grass stains that never quite come out of Jimmy's lab coat are a silent reminder.
If the days are bad, the night-times are much worse; Wilson's dreams jolt him upright, the whine of a trapped animal in his throat. He's back in the convenience store, everyone looking at him; Teresa Pasqale is trying to tell him something but her lips move without sound. Sometimes House is there, other times it's Chase or even Dr. Klipspringer next to him. Sometimes there's no one there but him and Big Jay, and they stare at each other until Big Jay raises his gun and shoots him in the head, and in those dreams he falls a long way down until he wakes, bathed in sweat.
He's dreamed once of waking in the ICU; House beside him, eating a pomegranate, mouth and fingers red and slick with the sticky juice. House leans forward and offers him the fruit, a feral grin on his face. "Want some?" he says. His own screams awaken him from that one.
The symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are clear, yet House isn't quite sure how to handle it -- the role of caregiver is an unfamiliar one to him. His nursing technique consists of saying "Here, eat this" as he plops a bowl of soup in front of James, or "Sit up, gotta take your vitals." Jimmy always seems to be looking somewhere else these days, into the middle distance as if his life depends on something he's trying to remember.
He takes Wilson to temple. They sit all the way in the back and let the ancient words wash over them. The cantor is a young woman and sings beautifully, but James isn't sure these days what he believes, and they don't go back.
Sometimes when they watch TV, House puts his arm around Wilson's shoulders; a surprisingly gentle move that sometimes brings a response, sometimes doesn't. Either way it's okay. The apartment is quieter, too. Steve McQueen runs an eternal circle in his wheel. Occasionally House plays the piano, or, more rarely, the guitar, and that seems to bring some peace to James's soul. They're just existing, though. They talk, but their conversations are about patients, cases, the weather. They dance around the real subject, a waltz of prescribed movements that spins them both away from the truth. What they don't say could fill galaxies.
One month after The Incident, as House hovers protectively nearby, he meets with the parents of Tyler Orozco. Wilson understands that as the last person to see their son alive, Mr. and Mrs. Orozco are hoping he can offer some sort of closure to their grief.
"Did he say anything to you? In the store?" The question is from Mr. Orozco, and James blinks.
"No," he says. "He didn't say anything. None of us did."
His empathetic skills have deserted him, and he sits quietly as the Orozcos weep uncontrollably. Afterwards, driving home, House yells at him, exhorting him to feel again, to feel something, anything. James looks straight ahead, eyes searching that mysterious middle distance.
Two months after The Incident, there's another call. This time it's Angelo Pasqale.
Teresa's husband has seen edited versions of the store surveillance tapes, never aired in the news stories; had seen how a young doctor had stepped in front of his wife even as murder was done around them; had seen the doctor fall and then ... the tapes always stopped at that point, before his wife also fell, dying. He too wants what Tyler Orozco's family sought.
House argues against it; Wilson should be seeing a therapist, not victims' families, but James overrules him.
They sit at the kitchen table with untouched cups of coffee, House a discreet distance away but watching their visitor's every move. Angelo Pasqale is a big man, Merchant Marine tattoos on his muscular forearms. No one says anything; the silence stretches on and on.
Great, House thinks with no small level of disgust. This is going to turn out just like the Orozcos.
"She was my life," Angelo says suddenly, his voice loud, hands clenching into fists.
From his vantage point, House sees Wilson's eyes widen in surprise, then drop to the tabletop and stay there.
Shit, that's it. This Pasqale guy's outta here. Not going to let James get hurt again ...
House starts to rise, but Wilson shakes his head almost imperceptibly; House sinks back into his chair, an unhappy frown on his face.
The question they're expecting comes a moment later.
"Did she ... say anything to you? There, at the store?" Angelo's voice is gruff and hesitant.
James's right hand comes up, covering his eyes as if looking at something he can't bear to see.
"Anything ... anything at all ..."
Wilson takes a deep breath and slowly lowers his hand; he looks at House for a long moment, dark eyes holding the answering blue gaze, then turns his attention back to Angelo as House waits for the inevitable disappointment.
"She said ... she was sorry she didn't tell you she loved you that morning."
The kitchen is silent. James can feel House's eyes boring into the side of his head.
Now where did that come from? House thinks, and narrows his eyes at Wilson, who pointedly ignores him.
This time it is Angelo Pasqale who drops his gaze, studying the tabletop, trying to catch his breath in the emotional undertow.
"Okay," he sighs. "I had to ask, y'know?" His big hands clench and relax, in an unconscious, rhythmic manner. "I wanted to say ... thank you."
Wilson, caught off-guard, can only stare.
"Thanks for trying to do something for her. I'm ... glad ... she was at least with somebody who cared."
James lays both hands, palms down, on the table, as if afraid it will suddenly start levitating.
"I didn't do anything," he says. "I didn't save anyone. It was just blind chance I was even there."
House flinches, but Angelo Pasqale shakes his head.
"No," he says. "Teresa always said there was no such thing as chance, that if people just paid attention, they'd see how things are connected."
He looks at James.
"She was smart that way," and then both men's eyes well with tears. House is the odd man out, wondering how it's come to this: his best friend and a complete stranger, crying in his kitchen.
The next morning Wilson leaves a note and drives to the Jersey Shore.
He walks along the beach for hours, watching and listening to the tide as gulls wheel above him and sandpipers leave tiny footprints along the shoreline. He thinks about the people he knew and the people he didn't -- about his brother and Teresa and Tyler, Pizza Woman and Chip Boy.
He remembers fragments of his dreams from that lost weekend and wonders how much of it was real, or if it was all just a gigantic clusterfuck by his own subconscious.
He thinks about the sharp, flat cracks of gunshots, and their concentrating effects upon the human mind.
He wonders about redemption, and if it really exists or is just another lie people tell themselves to get through the day.
Most of all, his thoughts turn to forgiveness, and the deceptive gift it offers as both liberation and debt; head and tail of the same coin, tossed every day.
We're dead. The dead know everything.
Third time's the charm.
Abracadabra.
The tide is going out.
In the Volvo, he slips his prescription sunglasses on and pops an old CD in the player.
The walls are built up, stone by stone,
The fields divided one by one.
And the train conductor says,
"Take a break, Driver 8 -- Driver 8, take a break -
We've been on this shift too long"
The sound of R.E.M. fills the car, and James turns up the volume. His brother David had bought this album for him, years ago, when records were still vinyl discs.
And the train conductor says,
"Take a break, Driver 8 -- Driver 8, take a break
We can reach our destination, but we're still a ways away"
He points the car west, toward home, and steps on the gas.
He and House have a lot to talk about, and it's about time they got started.
The End
June 22nd - July 27th, 2006 ... on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.