A/N if there's one thing I've learned from this fic it's that I cannot, for the life of me spell separate. Which is just one more reason why this won't drag out for ever, because it means that so long as they're not together, I have to keep refering to the seperately. Anyway, thanks to those of you who've been following along faithfully, it really does mean a lot to know that people are reading-more actually, to me, than reviews. So thanks, to all of you who've made it this far, and I only hope I don't dissapoint in the rest of this.

Though neither of them would admit it, they spent most of the rest of the day thinking about one another in various ways. Wilson, in wondering how it was possible for the man to always be so infuriatingly right. House, in wondering just why it was that Wilson had agreed. There had to be a reason, there always was. Always, and forever, there would be a reason behind man's actions.

Any man's. Wilson was not immune from the curse that had plagued human kind since their inception upon the earth. The curse of free will, and the ability to make decisions based upon higher reasoning. The one thing that separated man from animal was not clothing, or the ability to make a shelter, or the use of tools. It was free will, and taken away from a man, that was what reverted humankind back to the apes that they had come from. It was the only concession that he gave to organized religion, they had at least gotten that choice was what separated man from beast.

The rest of the day had been spent with them doing different things in different rooms-Wilson had made to leave more than once, but never had. Instead House strummed incessantly on one of the many guitars that laid strewn about in various corners of the apartment, while the captions on the television ran, black bars with unread text. Wilson worked on paperwork that had been sitting in his car for god knows how long, waiting for a moment to do it properly, and occasionally the sound of the guitar would cease for an hour at a time.

Lunch was simply sandwiches made with lunchmeat that Wilson didn't want to know the age of. One turkey, and one ham, and he briefly wondered if the turkey was kept in there simply because of how often he wound up in this apartment. And if that was one of the few concessions House made in the name of being nice to other people. Not that he actually made the effort to keep kosher, but when given the option, it was just as easy to follow rules long since drummed into his head than it was to break them.

And they had gone back to their own routines, occasionally interrupted by House popping in to the living room to grab something or another before heading back down the hall, or by Wilson getting up to fulfill basic needs-a shower, something to drink, something to snack on. And the occasional question of if the other man in the small apartment needed anything while the other was up. It was a simple day. Where neither of them went out of the way to talk to the other-not after the conversation that morning, but the other was the only thing on each man's mind.

One might say it was simply...domestic.

Both of them running around in the same few rooms without needing to talk to one another. Both of them simply enjoying a day without needing either's company, but enjoying the presence of another human being. House had to admit, he missed the feeling of knowing that there was something else alive in his house that wasn't a rat. He missed knowing that there was someone there who made him a sandwich not because he asked for one, but because the effort was already being made to grab bread and lunchmeat out of the middle drawer of the fridge. He hadn't even realized he'd bought sliced turkey until he saw Wilson's own sandwich.

Not that he'd admit he'd missed another person's company. But it was nice to have someone else simply there. He didn't like people, but even the most crotchey of old hermits needed some social interaction. It was one of the basic human needs. Everyone needed someone, at some point in their lives, and House liked-though he was loathe to admit it-company. Especially when that company kept out of his hair, as little as there was left on his head.

And Wilson wouldn't admit that it felt good to be somewhere that wasn't a hotel. Even when he'd upped and left, he never had the heart to actually actively apartment hunt. He kept telling himself that he'd find someplace to stay "later." He supposed that he knew, deep in his heart, that Jersey would call him back to her clutches. And he had just started to actively look through the Packet and the Trenton Times, and even the Trentonian-the only paper House would read on a daily basis if only for how ludicrous it was-for apartments when House had sprung this on him. And he supposed, if he had to play a part for the next few weeks that he'd put off apartment hunting until this whole mess was over and done with.

It was only when his stomach gave a rumble, and he realized that somewhere along the way the clock had ticked down to six at night that he even began to contemplate dinner. "Hey!" He called towards the bedroom, where he knew House was, doing something. There wasn't the infernal racket of a man attempting to figure something out on guitar, nor the steady tap-shuffle that bounced off the wooden flooring that indicated that House was pacing. Which meant that either House was doing something productive, or sleeping.

"What?" Came the response, muffled by the bedroom door.

"Dinner?"

"Yeah. What?"

"Whatever." There was a pause and the steady tap-shuffle of House walking from the bedroom to the living room, clad only in an undershirt and boxers. "Sorry-if you were sleeping-"

"Kinda hard when you're so busy working I'm afraid to snore." Wilson fought the chuckle that came from the sarcastic comment. He knew there were likely other reasons that House was unable to sleep, likely thanks to scar that was just barely poking out from beneath the blue fabric. "So what's Julia Child making today?"

"Nothing, judging from the sorry state of your pantry."

"Well, I don't have you around to go buying my groceries for me."

"You know there's a grocery store about 4 minutes that way-" Wilson gestured down the street. "Really nice one too. I hear there's even a whole shopping center, where they sell these wonderful things called clothes, and they're ones that haven't been in your closet since the last time the Ramones played a live show." House merely rolled his eyes.

"I just bought this one last week."

"Undershirts don't count."

"Yeah, so? It's something in my closet that hasn't been there since before the death of Dee Dee. Which has only been seven years, mind you. I'm sure some of your ties are older than that."

"This is not the time to complain about my ties. Besides, I'm not wearing one now."

"What is it the time for then? And the only reason why you're not is because you're in a set of my sweats because you were too lazy to go back to your hotel and shower." Wilson sighed.

"It's time for you to figure out what the hell you want to eat." He wasn't going to admit that he hadn't wanted to go back to the hotel, that he had actually missed staying on his friend's couch.

"Let's see, if we're vaguely gesturing to where things are, there's Chinese-" House pointed towards his back wall, "Hoagies-" He pointed towards where Wawa lay two blocks to his right, "or pizza." He pointed across the street. "And since we already had sandwiches for lunch, I vote Italian."

"Pizza?"

"No, Italian, like real food. Spaghetti and meatballs and all that."

"Where the nearest place is Theresa's, and that requires you actually dressing up. Sorta. And that requires me going back to the hotel and changing."

"So why don't you?"

"Why don't I what?"

"Go back and change?"

"Are you really going to dress up just to have Italian?"

"They have the best linguine con vongole on the east coast." While it might have been true, as Theresa's had been part of why his waistline had slowly expanded since he had first moved to Mercer County, he was quite comfortable on the couch, even though he'd curled his legs beneath him to make room for House to sit.

"I won't believe you'd actually dress up for a dinner that wasn't ending in a promise of getting laid at the end of the night. And even then, it's not dressing up for dinner, it's dressing up for sex." House actually restrained himself from the sarcastic reply that automatically rose to the tip of his tongue, unsure of how it would be received.

It was only when Wilson was met with silence that he turned his face from where it was casually perusing the newest JAMA, which House had carelessly discarded on the corner of the coffee table. He never expected to see House look repressed. "You can crack a joke you know. Now I know how Laurel must have felt once Hardy died, setting himself up for a punchline and never getting it."

House merely put on the biggest pout he possibly could. "But now the joke is ruined. It's like someone explaining 'Who's on First' the second the joke starts. Where's the fun in that?" Although he'd never show it, he couldn't describe how pleased he'd been that Wilson set himself up for the endless quips at his own expense.

"So find jokes with a shorter punchline."

"You know I already have a cane, grab one for yourself and some bad hats, and we could start our own vaudeville troupe, the Miserable, Sarcastic, Bastards." Wilson merely grinned his thoughts on the idea. It was starting to feel as though the entire past few years, and everything that had threatened to sink the tiny ship that was their bond to one another had passed. The Titanic had been rebuilt, and this time it'd hit the iceberg and stayed afloat. Tritter, Amber, all of it seemed to fade into the background, and the friendship that they'd had when they first met was once again brought to light. This was HouseandWilson again, the inseparable duo, the good cop/bad cop routine that had been so busy bailing out the flooding that threatened to sink it finally righted and put back on course.

And Wilson suddenly felt as though this was what contended bliss was like. And he was determined not let how scared he felt by that thought ruin his newfound good mood. "So, are you actually going to get dressed up for dinner?"

And House, who was feeling good, but only because he felt as though the world had been put back into it's proper order, actually smiled instead of smirked as he considered it. "Why the hell not?"