(A/N: many thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing, it's been great fun getting your messages. I'm delighted you're enjoying the story. Lots more to come! -B)
"House, you knew this day would come. You have to get fitted for a prosthesis, unless you want to spend the rest of your life in that chair."
Wilson sits across from him, all earnest and serious, his big brown eyes wide. It takes every ounce of control Greg owns not to hurl the dregs of his coffee straight at those boyish good looks. In case it's escaped this idiot's attention, he will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. What the hell would he know about anything, especially this? He's never lost a limb, never lived with chronic pain . . . "Fuck off," he mutters, for lack of anything better to say.
"No, I won't." Wilson looks stern now. "You need this, you know you do. How do you expect to do consults? A wheelchair makes travel ten times as difficult. A crutch or a cane-"
"Fuck. Off." He's louder now. The man never could take a hint.
"House—just because Dana's gone . . ." He sighs and looks down. "You've wallowed for weeks. Enough is enough."
"So now we're down to tough love." Greg slaps his mug on the coffee table. "And I say yet again: FUCK OFF."
"And I reply yet again: NO." Wilson glares at him now. "You need to get on with your life!"
"Tell me why." The words slip out before he can stop them. There's a brief silence.
"Because you've made progress after Mayfield," Wilson says at last. He sounds bewildered now, almost hurt. "To throw it away on a game—"
"I'm not." He utters the lie with astonishing ease. "I'm on sabbatical."
"You can't find a better bullshit excuse?" Wilson shakes his head and turns away. "Okay. I have other things to do with my time, like shopping. Give me your list."
"You already know what I need."
"Much as you'd like to linger on the edge of malnutrition, I'm not buying just beer and Cheetos." Wilson picks up the recyclable shopping bags by the door. "You have to eat something, you look like hell. I'll be back in an hour or so."
The sharp snap of the door is loud in the quiet room. After a few minutes Greg picks up his mug. He needs more caffeine, but the work it takes to move from the couch to the chair is more than he wants to deal with. The thought of crutches makes him clench up inside; he had to use them in the hospital, and he'd hated every moment of it. Anyway, he's already navigated around the apartment by holding onto things—something he'd often done before the loss of his leg. He could try it again now.
It takes a while but he gets to the kitchen, where a full coffeepot waits. Soon enough he has a mugful of good brew and two slices of toast on a small plate. Now he has to figure out how to get back to the living room. He can't manage both plate and mug, so he eats the toast at the counter, picks up his coffee, and heads back to the couch. Everything goes well until he gets to the area rug. As he reaches out for the back of the couch, his foot slips and just that fast he's down on his face with a loud, solid thump. The mug flies out of his hand, lands in the middle of the room and dumps hot coffee all over everything. Then it's quiet again. Greg lies there, the breath knocked out of him, half-blinded by stars of pain. The scar on his forehead aches, a dull reminder of the moments after the accident. There's something else that blocks his field of vision—a table leg, he realizes after a few moments. Another insight occurs to him: he almost brained himself on that table. Another couple of inches and he'd be out cold and concussed at the least, no doubt.
Damn, I really wanted that coffee. A sort of laugh comes out of him. And then he's got tears in his eyes and a knot in his chest and the inescapable, cold knowledge that he'll never walk again on his own two feet. He's joined the ranks of cripples and freaks for good this time, no getting out of it, no miracle cures, no nothing. He lies there drowning, helpless, and hates his weakness as drops of salt water slide down his cheeks to the carpet.
After a while he hauls himself up, gropes his way to the chair, and moves down the hallway to his room. It's cool and dark there, with fresh sheets on the too-big bed. He crawls in and pulls the covers up with trembling hands, and buries his wet face in the pillows. After a while he falls asleep.
"House! House, are you okay?" Wilson puts a gentle hand on his shoulder and he shies away, unwilling to let anyone take him out of his cocoon.
"'mfine," he growls.
"What the hell happened? There's coffee all over the place . . ." A moment's silence. "You tried to walk to the kitchen, didn't you? You . . . you have to face the fact that you can't do that anymore—not without a prosthesis or a cane, something." Greg pushes his face deeper in the pillows, in what he hopes is a clear signal he doesn't want to listen. "Yeah, okay. Guess I get to clean things up." Another pause. "I'll come back with a tray later on."
He's left alone for some time. It feels good to just lie there and listen to Wilson work on the rug. He's got some steam-cleany thing he brought over a while back; it's noisy and from the amount of cursing, starts and stops, it's not easy to use. But the activity isn't annoying, in fact he welcomes it as white noise. In slow degrees he drifts off into an uneasy doze.
A while later the fragrance of corned beef invades his consciousness. When Greg opens one eye, he can see a large sandwich and a pile of chips, and just beyond that, an iced tea. He sits up, a slow, careful move that makes him well aware of the new bruises all over him, and takes the plate in hand.
The sandwich and chips are almost gone when Wilson taps at the door and comes in. "Rug's clean," he says, and perches on the end of the bed to do a quick exam. His touch is light, professional, but there's worry in his dark eyes. "How are you?"
"Sore." Greg picks up the iced tea. "This isn't beer."
"No it isn't, considering you've got a huge bruise on your forehead and a nice mouse started," Wilson agrees. "Anyway, it's too early for alcohol."
Dana wouldn't have said that. "Bite your tongue." He twiddles the bottle around and stares at the quilt draped over his remaining leg.
"House, I can't be here all the time to look after you." Wilson sounds both sad and annoyed. "Things have to change. You know they do."
He watches the bottle turn in his hands, slow and sure, just as the world revolves every twenty-four hours, inexorable as death and life. "Yeah," he says after a while. "Yeah, I know."
"So you'll make the appointment?"
"Let me think about it."
"You've had—"
"Wilson." He won't beg; he won't. "I'll do it. Just . . . not today."
Wilson doesn't answer right away. "Good enough, I guess." The bed moves a bit as he gets up. "I'll . . . I'll bring in the chair for you. Just—just use it, okay? We can do takeout tomorrow. And beer. Maybe watch a game."
It's a good bribe. He doesn't have the heart to tell Wilson he doesn't really care. And when he's alone again, the quiet takes him down into indifferent darkness.