NOVEMBER

Wilson's newest patient gathered her things from an empty chair in his office: coat, scarf, gloves. She put her notebook into a large canvas bag along with the pamphlets he had given her. He could see a few notes she had scribbled across one white page.

"I know it all seems overwhelming now, but we can get this under control," he told her. She still had that shocked look on her face that most people did when he first saw them. "We've caught this at a very early stage, and it's highly treatable."

She put on her coat and then held out her hand to shake his.

"Thanks," she said.

"I know this sounds impossible, but try not to get too worried," Wilson said. He shook her hand, then walked her across the room. "We've got a rough couple of months up ahead, but everything looks really good in the long term."

She nodded and he opened the door for her, then watched her cross through the outer office.

"Dr. Wilson? Call for you on line three." Wilson nodded to acknowledge the department's admin assistant sitting at the desk to his left. "It's Dr. House's wife. Should I take a message?"

Wilson sighed. Carol was a good person, but probably should have retired years ago. She had gotten it into her head that House and Stacy were married, and he'd long ago stopped trying to convince her otherwise.

"Can you take it or do you want me to take a message?"

"I've got it, Carol," he said. "Thanks."

He stepped back into his office, closed the door behind him and sat behind his desk, hitting the connection for the line. He didn't recognize the number on the display.

"Hi Stacy," he said.

"Hello James. Did I catch you at a bad time?"

Wilson leaned back in his chair. "No, it's fine," he said. "I just finished with a patient, and now I've got an excuse to avoid paperwork. How are you holding up?"

He could hear her blow out a breath. "I have come to the conclusion that I am no longer in control of my own life," she said.

He smiled a little. "I highly doubt that. You're the most 'in control' person I've ever met. Heck, you even keep Greg in line."

"All I can do with Greg is keep him on a leash. He still finds a way to create havoc no matter what I do."

"And yet you love him despite that."

"Sometimes," she said. Wilson tried to convince himself that she was just joking but he didn't hear an amused tone to her voice.

Stacy had headed to Somers Point after work on Thursday to meet with the attorneys and real estate agents regarding her mother's property. It had been not quite a month since the funeral, and Stacy said it was time to start thinking about what came next.

"Don't feel like you have to rush," Wilson had told her

"I'm not going to rush, but someone has to make the decisions. I'm the only child. If I don't do something soon, my cousins will just declare that I can't make decisions for myself and begin bickering over who gets the furniture. I'd better at least start to make some plans," she said.

Stacy had hoped to get much of the official paperwork handled right away. "I've got some filings that I have to get over to probate, and Mom's attorney won't have them drawn up until Monday at the earliest," she told Wilson now. "I want to interview some more realtors, but I think half of them are preparing open houses and the other half have given up on the prospect of selling anything for the next two months and gone out of town on a pre-Thanksgiving break."

"I thought you were going to wait until the start of summer to put the house up for sale," Wilson said.

"I am, but I don't even know what it would bring in the current market," she said. "My parents owned it for more than 30 years, and I don't know if it's worth doing some updating or if I should hang onto it for a while or just toss it out onto the market and see what happens."

"You're thinking of hanging onto it now?" Wilson sat up.

This was something new. Stacy had always claimed she didn't care for the shore house -- too big, too traditional, too stuffy. It was filled with either the delicate antiques passed down through her father's family or what she had termed the "ethnic kitsch" of her mother's. When the day came, she had often said, she would sell it off and split the cash between a condo in the mountains and a smaller place on the beach further south, where the water was warmer and her cousins were thousands of miles away.

"Don't be ridiculous, James," she voice said now over the phone line. "I'm not talking about anything long-term, but I was talking to one agent who suggested turning into an income property -- you know, rent it out as a weekly vacation place."

"Wouldn't that mean you'd have to spent more time over there looking after it?"

"Not necessarily," Stacy said. "I could hire a management company to keep track of things."

"But I thought you said you wanted to take care of everything now. Get it all over with quickly," he said.

"I know, I know, but there's so much here I have to go through," Stacy said. "My Mom never even cleaned out my Dad's office. He's got letters here from Bobby Kennedy dealing with his work down south that were supposed to go to his school for their collections."

"OK."

"James, is it my imagination or are you giving me a hard time about all this?"

"No, no," he said. "Not at all. You should do whatever you want to. I was just ... surprised is all. I didn't know you and Greg and had been talking about a change in plans.'

"I haven't talked to Greg about it yet," she said. "It hadn't really occurred to me until I got here. I had forgotten how nice it could be in the off-season. How quiet everything is. It's very ... calming."

It was also impractical, especially for House these days, Wilson thought, though he didn't say anything.

The house sat high to avoid storm surges. When Wilson had driven them both up to the house that first weekend after Anna's stroke -- when it was clear that there was no hope -- he and House had both sat there in the car after he turned off the engine, staring at the stairs.

It was 14 steps up to the main level. Wilson counted them out silently as he supported House up each one.

House spent each night they were there sleeping on the couch in her father's office, rather than face the additional steps up to the bedrooms on the second floor.

"Besides, the prices will only improve if I wait," Stacy said, interrupting his thoughts. "The dot com crowd is looking for more stable investments. I was thinking that if they wanted to come down and rent the place for a few weeks in the summer, it'd sell itself -- and at a high price."

"I guess."

"And this way I could hang onto it at least for a weekend or two when the weather warms up. You remember how nice that can be."

Wilson knew the weekend she was thinking of, more than two years ago. Anna had been in Europe and he, House and Stacy had spent a long July weekend there. He could remember the feel of salt drying on his skin as they sat on the porch after a day on the beach, the sound of Duke Ellington drifting through the air, sitting in the sun with a cold beer in his hand while a cool breeze blew off the water.

Then he thought again about the steps. Fourteen of them: seven from the foot of the driveway, then a landing, then another seven. He wondered if Stacy had lost herself in the memories of how things had been.

For a split second, he wondered if she was imagining a life for herself there that was separate from what she had now -- someplace without House. But he shook his head and ignored the thought. She was probably just hoping that House would continue to improve. She had been so supportive of him up until now. He told himself that Stacy probably had begun to expect he'd keep getting stronger and that the stairs wouldn't be a long-term obstacle. He told himself that he should sit down with her at some point and lay out the facts on House's reduced mobility again.

Stacy and House weren't like him or either of his wives, he told himself. They would make it. They'd already made it through the toughest times already, after all.

Stacy's voice interrupted his thoughts again. "Anyway, I thought I'd stay here for the weekend and start going through things, then meet with the attorneys and agents on Monday, rather than driving back and forth," she was saying. "You'll look out for Greg, won't you?"

"Of course, but he doesn't need a babysitter."

"Not a babysitter. Maybe a keeper," she said. "He keeps using the cane when he knows he's already tired. He fell yesterday when I brought him home from PT, before I headed out here. I think he fell in the morning when he was in the bathroom too, but he wouldn't admit it."

"Greg has always pushed himself hard, we shouldn't be surprised he's doing it now," Wilson said.

"I know, I know," Stacy said. "But back then it was strained muscles and a few days of bitching. Now? Now ...you know. And he gets mad when I say something, but if I don't say anything he tells me to stop staring and spit it out." She sighed. "You know, it sounds terrible to say this, but in some ways it's going to be easier being here, dealing with all this, then being home and relaxing with him."

Wilson could feel that sense of doom struggling back into the back of his mind. This time it was harder to ignore.

"Does that make me a bad person?" Stacy asked.

"You're not a bad person," Wilson said. "Maybe you're just tired."

"Maybe," she said. "Anyway, Greg's got his regular therapy plus his blood tests on Monday. Do you think you can spare some time to give him a ride?"

"Of course," he said. "Don't worry about anything. And try to get some rest, OK?"

"Sure. Thanks James."

-------------

Wilson heard a muffled response through the door after he knocked, but couldn't quite make out the words. He knocked again and heard House's voice again, slightly louder, and tried the knob. The door was unlocked and he pushed it open.

"Was that a 'Come in?'" he asked and closed the door behind him.

"Oh, it's you," House called from the kitchen. "I was thinking it was the hooker coming back for more."

Wilson stepped through into the doorway and into the kitchen. House was standing in front of the counter next to the stove, his body supported by the crutches under his shoulders, his hands busy chopping an onion while something sizzled in a stock pot on the stove.

"So how many hookers are you cooking for these days anyway?"

"Dozens." House swiveled slightly onto his left leg to look at Wilson. "You'd be surprised how much action you can get with a little white sauce."

"And here I've been wasting my time with chocolate and roses."

"Those are strictly amateur level," House said and turned back toward the counter. "To play on the pro level you've got to be know how to handle a decent reduction."

"But for some reason, this doesn't smell like a white wine kind of night."

"That's because you aren't worth that much effort."

Wilson leaned sideways onto the counter, watching House dice onions then transfer them into the pot. House put the cutting board back on the counter and switched over to cutting jalapeno peppers, making fast but even slices. "If that's some of your five-alarm chili that you're making, I'll pass on the wine anyway."

House paused in his chopping and looked over at him. "It'd be a shame not to make it, don't you think? First night I've had the chance since ..." he shrugged. "I was going to make some a few weeks back, but Stacy kept bitching that I was going to end up hurting myself somehow, and I didn't feel like arguing about it."

House had called him less than an hour after Wilson had talked to Stacy. Wilson had been with a patient, but the message was brief, declaring a guys' night out -- "or in, as the case may be" -- and ordering Wilson to pick up some movies.

"There's beer in the 'fridge," House said, disrupting his thoughts. "Am I going to get a lecture if I ask you to grab me one while you're at it?"

"Depends on whether you need one or if it'd do any good," Wilson said and grabbed two Heinekens. He opened both, then hopped up to sit on the counter to the left of House's cutting board.

"The answer to both would be a resounding no," House said and took a drink.

"That's what I figured," Wilson said. He nodded at the crutches. "Bad day?"

House sighed and set down the knife. "What's Stacy been saying now?"

"Nothing unusual."

"Just her usual litany of mother-henning, I'm sure," House said. "I'm fine. It's just easier to use the crutches when I'm going to be standing for a while. This way I've got my hands free. That's all."

Wilson shrugged. "OK," he said. He took another drink, then set the bottle on the counter, watching House's hands as he picked up the knife again and resumed cutting the peppers, then followed them as he dumped them into the pot. "She just mentioned that you fell a couple of times yesterday."

House tightened his grip on the wooden spoon in his right hand, then began stirring the mixture of meat, onions, garlic, peppers and spices. Wilson could pick up the whiff of cumin, chili powder and some other ingredients that House had never revealed. "It's nothing," he said and then tapped the spoon on the edge of the pot. "I fall down, I get up. It's the new world order."

Wilson looked down at the beer held between his own hands. "I know, and I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be a nag, but you know that as long as you're on the Coumadin ..."

"Yeah, yeah, we need to monitor all cuts and bruises," House said. He waved the knife at Wilson. "Want to take these away from me? Just in case?"

"As if you'd ever let me touch your precious French knives. I'm surprised you let Stacy handle them."

House shrugged. "Stacy has ways of getting what she wants," he said. "Sometimes it's easier to just give in." He took a long drink of the beer and closed his eyes.

Wilson looked over at him. "Give in? That doesn't sound like you."

House picked up his spoon again and went back to stirring the chili. "Some things you just can't fight," he said. "Or at least sooner or later you realize you can't win." He looked over at Wilson. "If you want to make yourself useful, I could use a couple of cans of tomatoes from the pantry."

--------------

Wilson finished off a beer halfway through the first Jackie Chan movie as the chili simmered. House shook his head and paused the DVD when Wilson went to get another one. He held up his beer, showing the bottle was still half-full.

"I have officially become a lightweight," he said, and took another sip. "One yuppie beer a night is about all I can handle."

"I'm sure it won't take you long to recover your form," Wilson said as he walked back into the living room. He offered House a Coke instead.

"It'll take years, if Stacy has anything to do with it."

"She worries." Wilson slouched back into the cushions and stretched his feet onto the coffee table. "That's not totally unexpected from someone who cares about you."

"She never did before." House flicked the tab on the can .

"Of course she did," Wilson said. "She just was better at hiding it."

"So why can't she do that now?"

Wilson took a drink and stared off at the bookshelves. "I don't know," he said. "She was scared as hell when you got sick. I guess maybe she still is."

House glared at Wilson down the length of the couch. "Well boo hoo for her." He stood and grabbed the cane from the end of the couch and walked back into the kitchen, Wilson following him. He paused at the door to change the cane for the crutches that had been leaning against the wall and made his way back over to the stove. "Maybe we should have a party to try and cheer her up."

He picked up the spoon with his right hand, lifting the lid of the stock pot with his left, steam and the scent of spices rising into the air. He tried to move closer to the stove, but couldn't handle the spoon, the lid and the crutches all at once, and the spoon and lid both slipped out of his hands when he grabbed for the crutches -- the lid clanging down on the metal surface of the stove, the spoon splattering red across the counter.

"Son of a bitch!"

He moved back from the stove. "Leave it," he ordered when Wilson reached for the sponge. "I've got it."

Wilson held up both hands. "OK, OK."

He watched House clean up the mess, then toss the sponge back into the sink. House turned back to the stove and picked up the spoon again, but seemed to just stare into the pot. Wilson leaned back against the counter, waiting House out.

"I don't get it," House finally said.

"Get what?"

"Her," House said. "I used to think I knew what she was thinking. Now?"

"Wow, a man not understanding how a woman thinks," Wilson said. "Radical concept."

"Stacy's not like that," House said. He still had his back to Wilson, but his shoulders weren't as tense. "Or she wasn't. She made sense -- at least most of the time."

House began stirring the chili again, more slowly this time. "Now she's always on edge. She's always crying over everything."

"Well, her Mom did just ..."

"Before that," House said. "There have been days when she seemed to act like everything that happened was all about her. As if I was supposed to apologize for putting her through so much. As if any of this was my choice at all. Like somehow I've dumped all this extra responsibility on her."

House set aside the spoon again and put the lid back on the pot. "It's only gotten worse since her Mom died. She used to laugh about her mother's taste in jewelry. Now she won't even leave home without that damn crucifix, like it's some kind of Eastern Orthodox mourning ritual. What's up with that?"

Wilson shrugged. "I guess it makes her feel closer to her Mom. You've got to expect she'll be on edge about a lot of things for a while, though. She's probably going to be overprotective about everything she cares about -- including you. Maybe you should just accept it and let her pamper you for a while."

House headed out of the kitchen again. He didn't bother slowing down long enough to switch over to the cane, instead propelling himself back into the living room. The movie was still paused, Jackie blurred in the middle of a roundhouse kick. House picked up the Heineken again and took three long gulps.

"It's not pampering, it's nagging" he said when he'd emptied the bottle. "And I don't want people taking care of me anyway. I never have. Hell, I got mad at my Mom if she tried to hold my hand to cross the street when I was three."

"You might not want help, but you do need it," Wilson said. "Don't even try to deny it, you know it's true whether you want to admit it or not."

"I just need to figure out new ways to do things."

"And I'm sure you will, but why do you have to make it so damn hard on people who care about you to help you out now?"

"Because it's hard on me, OK?" House said. "I don't see any reason why I should make it easy on you or Stacy or the guy holding open the door when he sees me coming just because you all seem to think you're doing a good deed."

House headed back into the kitchen carrying the empty bottle.

"Yeah, because doing something good for you is its own reward," Wilson muttered and followed him.

House rinsed out the bottle and put it in the sink to drain next to Wilson's empty.

"Why are you on my case all of a sudden anyway? Stacy put you up to playing twenty questions again?"

Wilson took another sip from his beer. "What, I need a reason to care now?"

"As if anyone could stop you from caring. It's embedded in your DNA. But you usually do a better job of hiding it when you're dealing with me. This line of questioning is almost amateurish. It's beneath your usual level."

"Well excuse me for not having the time to devise a master plan for checking up on you."

House leaned against the counter. He poked the end of the crutch under his left shoulder at Wilson, nearly touching him with the rubber tip. "Or maybe, this is actually some elaborate ruse, and you're actually worried about something else," House considered. "What's wrong, things going bad with Julie already?"

"What? No. No! God, House, why do you assume I have to have an ulterior motive every time I ask you a simple question?"

"Everyone does. It's human nature. You go to the car dealership and you really want the red sports car, but you let the salesman think you're only looking so he'll give you a better deal to try and lure you in."

"Right, because friends and used car salesmen operate on the same level."

"Of course not," House said. "Salesmen are more up front about what they want."

Wilson shook his head and took another gulp of his beer.

"Or say you're at the strip club, and Chesty McChesterson says she doesn't do lap dances ..."

"I'm begging you to stop," Wilson said.

"You sure? It was a great metaphor."

"Positive."

"Because I've got other examples."

"Each one a sterling character reference I'm sure."

"Great. So let's get back to how you compare to the used car salesman."

"Isn't the chili ready yet?"

"I've got to do a taste test, then let it simmer a while longer once I adjust the spices," House said. "So I'm going to guess that you're worried about meeting her folks, right? Got the big 'get acquainted' dinner coming up on Sunday. You're probably wondering how to break the news of the two divorces to them."

"Yes, I'm nervous, but not about that. Julie says she already told them," Wilson took another sip of his beer. "And, you're trying to change the subject."

"See? Human nature. First I insult you, then I pretend that I give a crap about your love life, and it's all about disguising the fact that I don't want to talk about me."

"Fine," Wilson said. "Consider the subject dropped. You are of no interest to me. But just one last thing: be careful."

House rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll let you know if I get any weird bruises." He took the lid off the stock pot again and stirred the mixture. "Now will you shut up?"

"That's not what I mean," Wilson said. "Well, yes, be careful that way, but just ... take it easy on Stacy for a while. Let her rag on her or whatever else she wants to say and let get it out of her system. Try not to fight everything she tells you for a while."

House took a bowl out of the cupboard and spooned a bit of the chili into it. "Oh right. So I suddenly stop fighting her and she'll be sure to stop worrying. No change in a character there. Great plan." He scooped some of the chili onto a tablespoon and blew across it to cool it down.

"Good point," Wilson said. "Plan B: let her have her way some of the time."

House slurped up the chili and seemed to consider the taste. "You try it," he said to Wilson and handed over the spoon.

Wilson took a sample of the chili and followed House's lead, cooling it off before putting it into his mouth. "Tastes perfect to me," he said.

"That's what I thought," House said. He opened a bottle of chili powder and poured more into the pot and stirred it in. "So what did Stacy say to you today that's got you so worried?" House put the lid back on the pot and put the spoon down on the cutting board. He stared down at the wood surface of the board and the wooden spoon across it. "What is she telling you she won't tell me?"

"Nothing," Wilson said. "It's nothing."

House turned toward him.

"She didn't say anything," Wilson said. "She's just ... she just seemed tired, that's all."

"We're all tired." House narrowed his eyes and Wilson could sense him studying his face for any hidden meaning.

"And maybe she's a little more tired just now," Wilson said. "I just thought you should give her some space for a few weeks and give her a break from worrying about you."

"Fine," House said. "No more worrying. Now will you shut up so we can watch the rest of the movie? It's a very complicated plot, you know."

House swapped out the crutches for the cane and walked back into the living room, settling back down on the couch.

"There's a plot?" Wilson sat down at the other end of the couch again and put his feet up on the coffee table.

"Sure," House said. "Very intricate. I think there are some bad guys who are mad at him. He's a chef in this one, isn't he?"

"I thought he was a TV star this time."

"Maybe he's both. Let's find out." House hit the play button again and Jackie finished his kick, the bad guy flipping back and to the ground.