Brace42 - Thanks. When I write, I try to do it so I can hear the characters' voices in my head. Glad its working :)


Disclaimer: As much as I adore Jimmy Wilson, I do not own him or any aspect of House. I'm going to go cry now.

Chapter 2

"He wants it to be a stroke." Chase is staring at the MRI monitor before the test even starts. "Because it means Wilson might live."

Foreman snorts. "Stroke isn't much better than a brain tumor. Wilson's the healthiest person in this hospital. If he had a stroke, at his age, there's a much bigger problem. And I don't know what it is."

"We'd figure it out; House would figure it out," Chase replies.

"It's so weird, knowing it's Wilson," Cameron murmurs. "He's so different right now."

"Yeah." Foreman leans toward the microphone. "How you doing, Wilson?"

"Okay." The slurring isn't as prominent as it was, which suggests it's a result of the seizure. His body is recovering from the shock.

"House doesn't actually believe it's a stroke," Chase points out. "He said as much. He's trying to convince himself that it's possible."

"Or he's trying to convince Wilson."

"Wilson's not that stupid." Cuddy's apparently decided to join them. "House knows what it is. So does Wilson. He's playing games with himself right now, and only God knows why." She pauses and studies the monitor. "See anything?"

"Not yet. We'll let you know," Chase promises.

"Thanks. I actually came to warn you that House is probably going to be in a pretty lousy mood when you see him again."

"What did you do?" Cameron smacks Chase in the back of the head.

"I'm sure it was House, not her."

"No, actually, this time it was me. I called Julie, Wilson's ex-wife. She's the closest thing he has to family right now, and I thought she should know. He could use somebody."

"Yeah, House isn't gonna be happy," Chase mutters at the screen. "Not that he ever is."

-------------------------

"MRI came back--" Foreman starts as the trio walk into the Diagnostic office, but House cuts him off.

"Cuddy is an idiot. Actually, she's something way beyond 'idiot' but I don't feel like looking in my thesaurus right now."

"And she would say the same of you," the neurologist replies. "The idiot part, at least. But that's an argument I'm not going to get into. Anyway, the MRI--"

"Just what a man in Wilson's condition needs, his ex-wife hanging around harping and getting in the way."

"Julie isn't harping," Cameron protests. "She's just sitting in his room staring off into space. She's just keeping him company."

"You of all people should be the most upset," House retorts. "What with your love for him blossoming as his condition grows more dire and dim."

Cameron grits her teeth. "What do you care? You have his medical proxy. You have control if he can't make decisions. She's doing nothing but try to be of some comfort to him. Which is something you're certainly not capable of doing."

House's face clouds and Chase gives Foreman a shove into the middle of the room. "So, about that MRI."

Foreman finishes for him. "Not good news."

"What is it?"

"Not a stroke," Foreman says pointedly. "A tumor on the stem of his brain. Inoperable. He's got cancer."

House nods, looking down at his desk, and pops a Vicodin despite the fact that he's not actually in much pain at the moment. Physical, at least. "What are the chances?"

"Well, I'm not an oncologist," Foreman replies pointedly.

"We'll be getting an oncologist's perspective soon enough. I'll take the neurologist's for now."

"Judging by the size, and the damage that's been done -- though some of it's reversing temporarily on its own and was probably more due to the trauma of the seizure than anything else -- I'd guess a year and a half at the most. More like a year, if that. Have to do a biopsy to be sure, take a look at the cells. Looks diffuse."

He nods again. "Tell Cuddy what you found. Wait on going to Wilson; I'll do it myself." It's a dismissal and Foreman and Chase leave; Cameron stays behind.

She sits at the table and stares at the whiteboard. It's obvious she's trying not to cry. A few tears escape anyway. "It doesn't seem fair."

"That would be because it isn't. Life isn't fair. I thought I'd drummed that into your head by now. Have to try harder. Though, maybe, this will do it."

"He dedicates his life to fighting the thing that's going to end up killing him."

House shrugged. "Seems pretty logical to me."

She stares at him, incredulity shining behind the tears. "He's your best friend. He's dying. Don't you care?"

There's no mirth, no joking tone in his voice when he replies. "Don't ever ask me that again."

"I'm sorry."

He plays with his pill bottle. "Crying over it not being fair isn't going to do anyone any good. Wilson is my only friend. But for the time being I am his doctor. Once we get the biopsy results, he gets an oncologist and I can go back to being his little buddy with the limp and the lousy attitude and I can cry like… well, like you. The same goes for you. Well, without the limp, though your attitude leaves something to be desired as far as I'm concerned. And saying that you'll cry like yourself is a little weird. But anyway… until then, you're his doctor."

"I'm not going to make you deliver the bad news. I should, and I probably would if it actually had to be delivered. But Wilson already knows that he won't see next Christmas. I am, however, going to make you grow up. You're a doctor. Start acting like it."

"I care, so you say I'm being childish?"

"Your caring impairs your ability to do your job. That's why I say you're childish. Being a doctor sucks. Especially for people like Wilson. He loses more patients in six months than I see in a year. I'm not counting the morons in the clinic because most of them don't count as people. Definitely not patients. You stay in diagnostic medicine, you will lose patients. You will lose them because they are too far beyond your help when they get to you. That's Wilson. You will lose them because medicine is just not advanced enough to do what we need it to do. That was Cindy Lou whatever-her-name-was. You will lose them because you can't find out what's wrong. You will lose them because you screw up. It happens. It's part of the job. Get used to it. It's why we have lawyers, malpractice insurance, and massive amounts of alcohol."

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't care."

"Yes, it does. You've seen Wilson's patients. You've seen him with them. Most of them are good kids in terrible situations and there's nothing he can really do for them except try to let them live a little longer a little more comfortably. And he acts like he cares. He listens to them. He holds them. He even sleeps with one once in a while." He probably wasn't supposed to say that, but Cameron either doesn't notice, doesn't care, or thinks he's just being an ass. Probably the latter.

"But you don't know Wilson as well as I do. I saw him when he still did care. I've talked him out of suicide three times. Because he cared too much. You want to see me care, you should have seen me the night he was half a step from jumping off the hospital roof, or the night he was planning on emptying a full bottle of sleeping pills. I care about my friends, not my patients." He hesitates. "After the third time he stopped caring."

"I don't believe that."

"You are always so literal." He sighs. "Yes, he still cares. Yes, I care about my patients -- no matter how it seems. But not the way you do. I care about making them better. You just care about them. And you need to get over it, now. Or you need to find another job. Become a pediatrician or something. That way, when a kid gets sick, you ship him off to a specialist and all is right in the world as far as you're concerned. Though, knowing you, you'd probably follow the kid all the way to the morgue." He shrugs. "Ask Wilson. He'll tell you."

"Can I be with you when you tell him?"

He's taken aback by the request and considers denying, because he wants Wilson to react when he tells him, not shut down, and he's more likely to shut down if there's someone else in the room. But maybe it will be good for them both.

Now, to keep Cameron from falling in 'love'…

"Fine. Let's go."

-------------------------

When House and Cameron walk into Wilson's room, there is absolutely no hope in Wilson's eyes. It's unnerving to see such quiet resignation. Julie isn't there.

"MRI?" His speech pattern is something resembling normal, and when he forces a smile it doesn't look quite so uneven.

"Yes." He says the word -- at least, he thinks he says it -- but it comes out in Cameron's voice. No. She is not picking now to get over this whole stupid caring thing. He takes over, steps in front of her. He can feel her surprised scowl at his back.

"You have an inoperable tumor on your brainstem. We can do a stereotactic biopsy, identify it, and then do some combination of chemo and radiation." He's saying things that Wilson already knows, and Wilson's just sitting there like some clueless patient who's never heard the word 'biopsy' in his life. "Obviously, you can refer yourself to whomever you'd like. I'd still like to go ahead with a CT scan, give whatever doctor you choose a little better idea of what he's dealing with."

"Do the biopsy."

"It's risky," Cameron speaks up again. House rolls his eyes; as if Wilson doesn't know that.

The oncologist shrugs. "Do it. It's not like I have a lot to lose."

"CT scan?"

"May as well." Wilson leaned back on his pillows and sighed. "That's the easy part. But do the biopsy first; it'll take longer for the results."

House sends Cameron to prep for the biopsy and then turns to Wilson. "Speak now or forever hold your peace." He locks the door.

Wilson quirks an eyebrow. "What happens if I seize and you collapse?"

"The chances of those happening at the same time have got to be a million to one." He pauses. "But then, half of what we see here has a million-to-one shot. So… eh, still not going to happen."

"Under most circumstances I wouldn't be willing to stake my life on that…"

"Under most circumstances there wouldn't be a chance of you seizing. But this isn't most circumstances."

"Really?" Wilson's eyes go artificially wide. "I hadn't noticed."

"I'm better at that than you are."

"You always were."

"Always will be."

"Well, yes, I don't envision improving in the next six months."

"Yeah. Well, on the topic of the fact that you have cancer and are dying… remember that conversation we had, about brave little cancer girl, the one who comforted mom when we told her that she wasn't far from dead?"

Wilson rolls his eyes. "I have a slight recollection." House knows he knows exactly what he's talking about. "You thought there was something wrong with her amygdala, that she wasn't properly processing fear."

"Yeah. Now, see, that was because we didn't know what was wrong. We know what's wrong with you, and that tumor you've got isn't having that effect. It's not in the right spot. So stop acting and be a human being."

"House--"

"Cry, damn it. Pray to… whoever the hell it is you pray to, to spare your life. Scream. Get hysterical. Something."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to."

"It's me. It's not Cameron or Chase or Foreman or Cuddy. Or Julie. It's me."

"What's your point?"

"You're dying. I know you well enough to know that you aren't some religious fanatic who believes that God decides to take people for a reason and you should be at peace with it. Which means you should be angry. Or scared. Or something. And you're not letting yourself."

"Of course I'm not letting myself."

"Why?"

"Because it's you."

"You've cried in front of me before."

"Because I was drunk and had a bottle of sleeping pills in my hand."

"Jimmy."

"Greg."

"I've never asked you to let me in. You don't ask me to either. But I'm asking now. I shut people out after the infarction. It was a mistake. But I always let you in."

Wilson scowls at me. "You never let me in! Yes, you let me hear you scream -- at me. But you never let me in. You never talked to me. You used me as a verbal punching bag because you weren't well enough to actually stand up and hit something for real. You didn't let me in."

"So you won't now."

"The fact that I won't cry in front of you now has nothing--" The man goes stock-still.

"Wilson? Wilson!" House's eyes dart toward the monitors as he waves a hand in front of his friend's face.

He's seizing.