House could see most of Princeton from up here. Orange lights, magnified by toxic fumes, formed hundreds of points in the darkness. The drone of the traffic rose up, making a white noise background for House's thoughts. Lights swung around the corner, casting illumination on the flowers adorning the tarmac, before flitting away again. House sat on the cold ground, dampness seeping through the seat of his pants. His good leg was drawn up to his chest, and he wrapped his arms around it, resting his chin on his knee. Wearing only jeans and a monster truck t-shirt, he shivered from cold. Always staring out over the city, he kept in his periphery vision the flowers that had been laid.
This was the first time he had been up here. He did not bring flowers. He hadn't even looked directly at the flowers yet, but he held in his hand a twisted piece of metal that had been at the side of the road. House pulled it back and forth in his hands, the rough edges burning his skin. The grass a few feet away was scorched. It had turned brown, the exact shade of his hair and eyes. Dark red paint had scraped itself onto a tree. Dark red blood stained the ground; it stained and tinted everything till all colours blurred into one. Everything looked the same but it all felt red.
House dug his fingernail into the soft, damp earth beside him; the mud and grit clotted beneath his nail. His finger scrapped over a stone and his nail snapped down to the quick. In an absent attempt to take the edge off the stinging, he placed his finger in his mouth and sucked, the taste of salty skin and acrid dirt staining his tongue.
"What's the differential for chronic headaches, localized paralysis, anaemia and low bloody sugar that's not responding to glucose or insulin? Cameron thought Lupus, big surprise." House paused, cocking his head to hear an invisible sound. "Foreman took the neurological route, a tumour messing with things in his head but the MRI didn't show up more than a spot – probably anomalous." He nodded slowly. "There were a few psych symptoms, nothing interesting though." Sighing, House continued, "I can't remember the last time I saw a good bit of plague."
House tossed a stone between his hands, back and forth, back and forth, just like he had done so often with a lacrosse ball. The stone beat rhythmically on his palms and the feeling took on familiarity; it became another part of the constant sensory bombardment that he was steadily learning to filter out.
"Can you believe Julie was laughing at your parents' house, while they were Sitting Shiva? She cried at the ceremony but…well you know I never liked her. I wasn't surprised in the slightest that you cheated on this one – well, I wouldn't have been surprised anyway, but you didn't even try this time. I always wondered if you got the third wedding free, but I thought it would be a bit tactless to ask. Yes, I do have tact. Anyway, it wouldn't have been any fun if I couldn't say it in front of Julie, and after The Jennifer Incident you didn't let me near your wives for any reasonable amount of time." House laughed. "Do you remember the look on Jennifer's face when I told her you had fishnets and a little black dress for the special parties? Actually, it's a pity you couldn't see the look on your own face, that one was a classic."
House drew back his right arm and paused for a moment before throwing the stone over the grassy bank with a flick of his wrist. He listened to it tumble and thud dully down until it came to a stop with a sharp clack against another rock. "Cuddy found a replacement. I was a little surprised she found one so soon, but I guess everyone wants to a head a department. I don't quite see why anyone would want to head oncology – spend all day telling people that they're going to die and there's nothing you can do about it. I don't know how you managed it for so long; that's one of the many confusing things about you James. How could you spend everyday so…helpless, like that? You couldn't fix them. You didn't pretend that you could." Sudden parallels struck House as he realised what he was saying. "I better not have been just one more pet project for you."
"This guy, the replacement, is starting next week. Your office hasn't even been cleaned out yet. I don't think Julie's going to come in to do it, that would be far too much trouble, so I suppose I have to. Or else Dr Hamster – oh yeah, this guy really does look like a rodent. It's uncanny. I bet him and Steve will get along well – he'll have to clear out your office himself, probably throw everything in the trash. So that leaves it up to me. I hope you appreciate it; it's a lot of work for someone with a bum leg."
Tears had begun to flow unnoticed down House's cheeks. He continued speaking as normal, "Delivery fucked up with my Vicodin again today. I was 4 hours without any pain control at all." House didn't say that the delivery had only been half an hour late, but he had waited longer before taking them because he had started to feel something. The throbbing pain in his leg anchored him to the real world for a few hours. It wasn't something he planned to do again. "I…uh, in General Hospital, it turns out Lucy did kill him. Told you so, didn't I?"
A biting wind had started battering against House, pulling his T-shirt tight to his body and skimming through the fabric to assault his skin. He slowly levered himself up from the ground, a process taking several minutes, and leaned heavily on his cane as he started the walk back to his Corvette. He looked at the ground as he walked, following the edge of the sidewalk, and found himself looking down at the flowers that had been laid for Wilson, strewn about by the wind. He lifted his head and looked at the points of light in the city once more.
"I shouldn't have bugged you to come over. I knew it would cause an argument with Julie…that's partly why I did it. But I had stuff I wanted to talk to you about; it's not important now. Julie said that she was screaming at you as you left the house that night, you must have been upset, not paying attention as you drove. And all because I asked you to come over. Then Cuddy kept calling, telling me to come to the hospital and I didn't because I was waiting for you. I couldn't work out why you were so late, I never thought…I was cursing you in my head for being so late."
"Cuddy took me straight down to the morgue when I finally got to the hospital. Too late, as I always was with you."
House ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "I miss you, Jimmy."