SUMMARY: Pain is a strange bedfellow, and it had been his bedfellow and mistress for nearly eight years.
A/N This was originally written as a one-off, but turned into a series of linked short stories set post No Reason, most of which could stand alone, I think.
Part III: Independence Day
"So, where's the fire?" Wilson poked his head into House's office. The page had read "Fire. Come quick." Wilson had known enough not to rush. He stopped by the Diagnostics conference room on his way home, just as House's team was leaving for the day.
"My place. I'm having a July Fourth party. Beer. Hot dogs. Bonfire," said House, capping the marker and gazing at the whiteboard for a few moments. "You're invited."
"House, it's the fourth of June, not the Fourth of July."
"Potayto potahto. Be there in"-he checked his watch-" thirty minutes." He grabbed files off the table and headed into his private office. Wilson watched him go, shaking his head. It had been three weeks since House had come back to work--and he still couldn't get used to the sight of House walking without a cane, and almost without a limp. He smiled as House opened the door to his office: House clearly hadn't adjusted to the change completely either. As Wilson watched, he transferred the files to his right hand and pulled the door open with his left. In fact, he still opened all doors with his left hand and behaved-when on his feet at least--as if his right hand didn't exist. He had, Wilson realized for the first time, become nearly ambidextrous in many things since the infarction, having to rely, as he did, on his left hand to do simple tasks such as pushing elevator buttons, carrying coffee mugs, or answering phones. It would take more than a few days of being cane-free for those habits to change. Just yesterday Wilson had even seen him tear open a bag of coffee for the coffee machine using only his left hand and his teeth. Halfway through making one-handed coffee, he had stopped, and laughed out loud. Turning around he'd found his whole team, and Wilson, trying to smother smiles. It was a scene Wilson didn't think he'd ever witnessed before-everyone in that room, laughing.
House greeted him at the door with an open bottle of beer and a bag of chips. "Come on in. The fun is about to begin. Hot dogs are in the microwave." Moments later he extracted the hot dogs from the microwave, thrust them into buns, and smeared them with bright yellow mustard.
"Boy, you've gone all out," said Wilson, feeling mystified. He looked around. Apparently he was the only guest at the Fourth of July party.
"No expense spared." House took a huge bite of the hot dog and led the way into the living room.
"So what's the occasion? And where's this bonfire?" Wilson looked out the kitchen window into the small back yard that went with House's apartment. There was nothing resembling a bonfire in sight.
"Like I said, it's Independence Day. We're celebrating freedom from tyranny. And the bonfire's right here." He gestured to the fireplace in the sitting room.
Wilson's heart sank. There, arranged like a funeral pyre in the center of the fireplace, were all of House's many canes, as well as a pair of wooden crutches House had somehow managed to shove, upright, part way up the chimney. In addition to the spare canes he kept in an umbrella stand by the door, there was the round-topped cane he had most recently used. There was the simple old black cane House had for some reason tired of. There was the elegant brown one that Wilson had sawed in half, the tape still around the middle of it. There was even the silver-headed 'pimp' cane that House reserved for formal wear occasions.
And those crutches. Wilson had long suspected that House kept a pair around, strictly for use at home when the pain from his leg and back got so bad he couldn't get around on the cane, but he'd hidden them so carefully that even during the weeks Wilson had spent with House, he'd never come across them. And he'd never seen House use them-he was much too proud ever to let even his closest friend see him that hurting, and that impaired.
House grinned at him and knelt by the fireplace-it was still hard for him to kneel, some part of Wilson's brain registered-and held out a cigarette lighter to the crumpled newspaper at the base of the canes.
"House," stuttered Wilson, wanting desperately to share his friend's joy and miserable that he couldn't. "House, don't you think you're being a little--"
"No, I do not," House replied, standing back as the flames licked the base of the funeral pyre. "I'm not being premature or rash or whatever you're thinking. I'm being happy. You're always telling me to be happy."
"But, you just got past needing a cane a few days ago. And you could still...You know that there's a good chance the pain-"
"Yes, there's a 50 percent chance the pain will return." He was impatient and angry. "I have read the journals, you know. But in 95 percent of those cases, the pain returned within two weeks. It's been three weeks now. Three weeks without pain. Or Vicodin. So don't rain on my parade. Be happy for me." He turned on Wilson a gaze that did not look happy at all. It looked desperate.
Wilson pressed his lips together and met House's gaze. He nodded his head the smallest bit, and then he raised his bottle of beer.
"Death to tyrants," he said.
"Death to tyrants," said House, and they drank on it.
