He knew this because Dave Brubeck was sitting at his piano, gazing at him with sad, dark eyes. His hands were just lifting from the ebony and ivory keys as the last notes of Take Five echoed in the apartment. Brubeck smiled at him and gently rubbed his hands together as if they needed warming.
"House?" Brubeck's voice sounded vaguely like Wilson's -- soft and concerned. Always concerned. "What are you going to do?"
House considered the question for quite a while.
"I don't know," he said at last. "Stop asking." He rested his head against the back of the sofa and watched the ceiling spin in lazy circles.
Brubeck shrugged and looked away as his hands descended to the piano again. "Sorry," he said. "Not my problem anyway. Yours."
"His," House corrected.
The pianist smiled. It was an easy, open smile, and suddenly in the dim lamplight Brubeck looked a whole lot more like Wilson. "Are you sure?" he asked, and slipped into the opening bars of Blue Rondo a La Turk.
The darkness seemed to press close round, and House fell asleep.
House opened his eyes.
It was very late, or very early, and he'd been dreaming -- something about Wilson and jazz, and a memory of music drifting like smoke through his hands. His leg ached, and he took a Vicodin, washing it down with a glass of stale water from the end table.
Shifting into a more comfortable position, he looked down at the seven postcards fanned out across the coffee table. Wilson was correct -- he had no right to interfere, to try and influence these people's lives. Their lives were not his, and neither was their world.
But what kind of world was it? Who was this Wilson? He turned each card over, exposing the handwritten sides one by one.
Went to Josefov (old Jewish Quarter) yesterday and thought I saw my grandmother, but it turned out to be the Golem. Atypical humor from Wilson -- he didn't usually joke about his heritage. That was House's job. He sat for a moment, then shook his head at himself. "Not my Wilson," he muttered. "Who knows what this Wilson thinks is funny?" You do, another part of his mind whispered, and he shook his head again.
Berlin is beautiful but full of ghosts. Many still wearing dosimeters -- they pinned one on me at airport.
Largely rebuilt after the War of Northern Aggression ended in 1863, the capital of Austin is home today to more than 700,000 citizens ...
Flight took long way round to avoid rebel missiles in Hawaii so just got here.
House closed his eyes for a moment. There were too many paths here, too many possibilities, and hardly any of them were very good.
He picked up the seventh card, the one that had arrived today. The one he hadn't shown Wilson.
The stamp was innocuous enough -- a flowering bonsai, painstakingly trained to grow in controlled, composed angles, even as its branches still reached for the light. The front of the card depicted Hokusai's classic Great Wave of Kanagawa, the unstoppable force of tidal energy rearing up, drowning all in its path, with Mount Fuji in the background, a silent witness to the destruction.
He turned the card back over, the blue-ink chicken scratches as familiar to him as his own right-handed scrawl.
House -- all flights cancelled for week, Emperor's order. Worries over China/India. Pissed at Cuddy for sending me on this glorified USO tour. Good conferences but too long away. I'm sorry, House. Never wanted it to be like this & it's all my fault. I'll see you around the hospital -- won't bother you again. Always love you. Wilson.
House felt his breath stop in his throat. Behind him, the CD player hiccuped and skipped, and suddenly began playing. The low rumble of drums filled the apartment like far-off thunder.
What had this Wilson done?
He read through all the cards again, and found the half-remembered line on the fourth card, the one from an apparently radioactive Berlin:
We were drunk & thought I saw something I guess wasn't there.
House was no fool. He'd seen the way Wilson looked at him sometimes -- amused, warm, constant, even ... affectionate? Wilson had always glanced quickly away when House would turn towards him.
Perhaps this Wilson hadn't looked away. And if Wilson hadn't looked away, had actually --
It struck him then, with sickening clarity -- full knowledge of what had happened. A drunken look, drunken words, that once uttered, couldn't be unsaid ... and his other self hadn't known what to do. Had pushed Wilson away. Shut him out. He could almost see the hurt in Wilson's eyes, feel the horribly awkward silence. It was as if he'd been there, himself. He sat for a moment, hardly breathing. The corners of the apartment were very dark.
A car horn sounded suddenly out in the street, breaking the spell. He blinked, and pushed the lingering vision away.
Not my Wilson, House thought. Not my world.
Except it was his Wilson. Wilson was Wilson, no matter where or when.
Not my place to interfere.
The hint of a smile came and went. When had that ever stopped him?
He stood suddenly, limped painfully to the desk in the corner, and pulled out a sheet of clean notepaper and an envelope. Besides, who knew if this would work? There was no way of telling if the conduit went both ways.
Then why are you doing it?
That stopped him, but just for a moment, and his next thought was spoken aloud to the empty room.
"Because these people deserve a chance, even if I have to force it on them."
Clicking open a ballpoint pen, he began to write.
tbc
