A/N: I tried to make things realistic. I'm not sure if I did a good job. It wasn't—er—easy to find a balance between giving in and fighting back.

III.

Julie's face wrinkled when she was angry.

The rational part of Wilson's mind realized that, under the circumstances, this was a rather odd thing to notice, but the irrational part, the part which focused on things like survival instincts and sheer, unmitigated fear, considered it the perfect mental focal point. A safety blanket. A binky, if you would. Thinking about the way Julie's face wrinkled meant he didn't have to think about the other things she was up to—didn't, of course, make them disappear, didn't make them hurt any less, but provided—at least—a brief mental respite.

When they'd married, her face was smooth. But it wrinkled when she was angry.

Wilson's situation was complicated, ironically enough, largely because he'd spent so many years trying to be a gentleman. By the time he realized that saving himself meant he would have to inflict pain on his wife, she had taken too many liberties, gone just a bit too far. Done just a bit too much. Crossed the line. He tried to fight her off, tried to fight back, but when she was not attacking him with anything she found handy, she was screaming, cursing, telling him he was worthless.

And eventually it happened.

She began to make him believe her.

It was two days into his Christmas vacation when Julie first tried to break him. They'd had a fight and he'd found himself sitting hours later, bruised and swollen, at a chair in the kitchen, idly scratching Charlie and clutching like a lifeline the same shirt which had just ignited her fit because she'd smelled another woman's perfume. At first he smelled only Downy, but as time went on the scent of clean laundry transformed into that of the hot woman in radiology—and perhaps maybe he had had an affair with her. He couldn't remember. What if he had? She wouldn't hurt him if he didn't deserve it. She loved him.

Didn't she?

That afternoon he'd shed a single silent tear into Charlie's fur and retreated for hours to his office at PPTH. He showed up at House's with a six-pack and the latest Girls Gone Wild on Christmas Eve and spent the evening eating Chinese, listening to House's version of James Taylor, drinking their favorite beer, and icing his knee—he blamed the swelling and sprain on a running accident and was too tired to be perceptive when House didn't believe him. He had another fight with Julie because he stayed out on a holiday, but he didn't miss New Year's Eve. That night the throbbing of his ribs accompanied the dropping of the ball. His main problem, when he fought back, because he refused to merely sit and be wounded, was that he simply could not hit her as hard as she hit him, hard enough to hold her off. His main problem was that he still loved her.

He began to mark time by his injuries.

Exhaustion, for the most part, kept him from realizing that people were slowly beginning to catch on. It clouded his senses and overwhelmed him at the oddest of times. He found himself becoming instinctively afraid of things which had not bothered him in the slightest before. He had to give up tennis because he was no longer comfortable around the ball, which seemed to head rapidly for your face just when you least expected it to; she threw things at him. She screamed at him; he watched as his confidence was depleted. When she got close enough to throw a punch, he'd restrain her or even punch back, but she quickly learned and found other ways to injure him; while he was sleeping, or from across the room, or with her newly-discovered sharp tongue. He had never cheated on Julie, but he became so afraid of accidentally, perhaps subconsciously, doing so that he often prevented himself from so much as looking at other women for fear he might jump them.

He adapted his wardrobe so that, regardless of what he wore, where he went, his scars would not be visible. She was wearing him down with her deprecation, the candlesticks she liked to wing at him, and the lies she fed him until he nearly accepted them as truth. He was ashamed—horribly ashamed; he was a man who'd been beaten by his wife, and if that was not the epitome of spinelessness, he thought, what was? And even if he were to try to get help, who would he ask? What could he do? He needed her signature to get a divorce, and he'd been with her so long that—the worst part of all—he was becoming afraid to try.

She'd find out. He knew it. She'd find out.

Oh, God, no, she'd find out!

"Wilson. Wilson."

It was an Australian accent. Julie didn't have one of those, did she? For a moment he couldn't remember; then it hit him.

Shit. Princeton-Plainsboro.

Wilson opened his eyes and blinked once or twice. His sight was rather fuzzy, and he soon realized that this was because there was a light in his face. Chase. He should've known.

"What are you doing, Chase?" he asked. "I'm fine."

"You were hallucinating," Chase said, somewhat defensively, clicking off the light and taking a step backward. "Moving round and saying all sorts of funny things like 'She'll find out!' Or something."

"It was a dream," Wilson said. "Trust me, I'm fine."

"Sure." Chase eyed him. "You don't look so good, you know."

"I know."

"Cameron's a bit worried about you."

"Cameron's sweet," Wilson said wearily. He was tired of conversation, tired of people, tired of pain, but going to sleep didn't sound like such a good idea either, not if he was going to dream like that again. And just then—oh, perfect timing really—came the familiar pounding at the door. House was back. Before Wilson had time to wonder why, he was in the room.

"Chase," House said, by way of greeting—Wilson wasn't sure if it could be considered that, since he'd never really seen House "greet" anybody.

"Er… House," said Chase, rather warily.

"Done blinding Dr. Wilson? Good. Off with you then. We grown-ups have something we need to discuss, and we don't want you nosy little Brits eavesdropping."

"He was having hallucinations," Chase insisted, desperate to justify the waving of his light in Wilson's face, and left the room mildly annoyed. House glanced at Wilson to gauge his reaction to the term "hallucinations," but Wilson shook his head.

"It was a dream," he said. "That's it. Perfectly ordinary." He paused. "Why the visit, House?"

"What, did you forget that we needed to talk already, Wilsie?"

Wilson sighed and allowed his lips to curve into a wry grin. "Just because you got me off suicide watch doesn't mean you get to call me Wilsie."

House grinned slyly himself. "How'd you know who busted you out?"

Wilson shrugged with his good arm, feigning innocence. "What do you get when you combine one middle-aged, self-conscious, gossipy nurse and one extremely overactive hospital rumor mill? A news and communications system faster than E-mail, that's what." In the act of shifting position, he bumped his injured shoulder. The pain was not much and he only allowed himself to wince for a moment, but it was enough—unfortunately—to remind House of the topic at hand.

"Where'd you get the battle scars, Wilson?" House said. He was suddenly serious, and again Wilson marveled at the rapidity of his emotions. He was not sickeningly sweet, did not even seem, to the untrained eye, very kind, but he went from laughter to solemnity in under a minute, and he eyeballed Wilson in a manner which was not threatening so much as curious and—dare he say it?—perhaps even, just a bit, solely for an instant, caring.

Though he forced himself to acknowledge the fact he could be imagining the situation, Wilson had not felt like he had a friend in months, and suddenly he did.

This was not like House—oh, no, not like House at all. It was almost creepy.

And Wilson found himself fighting an overpowering urge to honestly answer the question.

Instead, because he was afraid, he dropped the bed back to its horizontal position again, said, "What battle scars?" and got up, ready, for all intents and purposes, to get dressed and check himself out. It was a lovely idea, if he'd just been able to stand up properly. As it was, he staggered rather pitifully, stumbled across the room, and regained his balance by leaning on the door just as Cuddy opened it. He jumped backward in surprise, felt a crack in his left ankle, and landed somewhat abruptly on the floor.

The last thing he remembered before blacking out was House laughing uproariously. Laughing, and reaching out a hand to help him up.