The phone rang.
"Hello?" The blond beautiful woman asked sleepily, stretching one arm over her head and wiggling her fingers.
Dial tone.
"Did you order a wake up call?" The woman rolled over. She'd slept in her make up and her heavy eyeliner had smudged, giving her eyes a dramatic somber look.
"No." Wilson said, groggy with sleep. He sat up, pulling his tie away from his neck and blinking at the light. He rubbed his head, glancing at the clock. It was nearly ten.
The woman sat up as well, scratching her hands through her hair. "We fell asleep."
"Yeah." Wilson said. "Who was on the phone?"
"Nobody."
Wilson rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Something clicked.
"Shit." He dove across the bed and grabbed the phone off the bed stand, rapidly dialing numbers.
The phone picked up.
"House..." Wilson began.
Dial tone.
"Who's House?" The woman asked, pulling her shoes on.
"My boyfriend." Wilson said miserably, dialing the phone again.
The woman smiled. "That explains a lot."
Wilson glared. He was horrified to realize that the expression in question was one copied exactly from House's own repertoire. The woman raised her hands in surrender and picked up her coat and purse.
The phone rang once.
"I think I better go." The woman said, walking as she did so. Wilson nodded. The door slammed behind her, bouncing once out of it's lock before falling shut.
The phone rang again, then a third time.
Someone picked up.
"I didn't sleep with her." Wilson said, the words spilling out in a rush.
"Wilson?"
Wilson let his eyes fall shut, squaring his jaw. "Hi, Cameron." He said through gritted teeth. "Is House there?"
"I don't think he wants to talk to you."
"What is the point?" He heard House yell. "Of you answering the phone if you tell him I'm here?!"
"And thanks for guaranteeing a lovely day on our end." Cameron said, her voice low with sarcasm.
That was too much too close to awakening. "Shut up, Cameron." He spoke clearly and distinctly as though instructing a five year old. "Shut up and hand House the phone."
There was a clatter and bang. Wilson heard the door slam, heard angry footsteps, heard mumbling.
"Oh for Christ's sake, would somebody pick up the phone?"
Somebody picked up the phone.
"Hello?" Chase asked. "What's going on?"
"Hey."
"Wilson?"
"Yeah, is House there?"
"House is pacing up and down the hallway. Cameron just ran past me in tears. Foremen is…making coffee. What's going on?"
"I messed up."
"Yeah." Chase said. It clearly meant No shit.
"Does House have his cell phone?"
"Uh…no. It's right here."
"Can you give it to him? Please?"
"Yeah, sure."
Wilson hung up quickly, pacing back and forth across his hotel room. Realizing he was still wearing yesterday's suit he dug through his bag, pulled out jeans and a T-shirt and threw them on. Then he sat on the bed and counted to sixty. Breathed deep. Counted to sixty again. When his heart stopped racing, he picked up the phone and dialed House's cell phone.
The phone rang.
It rang again.
Wilson wrapped the phone cord around his finger, watching the skin turn white.
The phone rang a third time.
On the other end, someone picked up.
Someone did not speak.
"House?" Wilson asked.
Someone did not speak.
"House? Please, is that you?"
The person on the other end let out a short even breath.
"It's me." House said finally. His voice was dramatic in its complete lack of emotion.
Wilson felt something sick inside him start to crawl up from his stomach. All the muscles in his face seemed to tense at once.
"I didn't sleep with her." He said.
"So I hear."
The silence between them was hard and awkward. Wilson thought a million different things to say, but rejected all of them. There was nothing to say. So he sat on his rumpled hotel bed, head bowed in his hand, trying not cry.
"Did you want to?" House asked.
"What?" It was a tiny squeak of a noise. Hardly a defense at all.
"Did you want to sleep with her?"
Wilson struggled through a million more excuses before deciding on the blatant fucked-up truth.
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I don't." The tone he spoke in was childish and he stifled it immediately, coughing to cover up the noise. The action brought his stomach in and out quickly, jarring the sick feeling and making it worse. "I went to the bar and I had a drink and there she was and she was looking at me and I…I…I just wanted to know if I still could."
"You wanted to know if you still could."
"Yeah."
"Could you?"
"Oh, Greg…" And he winced, recognizing the statement for the manipulation tactic that it was. With four letters, he'd flashed his whole hand and had nothing else to bluff on. He'd used the G-word. That was all he had.
It didn't work.
House didn't say anything. Just breathed heavily, in an out. If Wilson hadn't known better, he'd have thought House was climbing stairs.
"I'm sorry." Wilson whispered, pathetically, trying not to count the times he'd had to say those words in just that way. "I'm so sorry."
"Yeah."
"Please, I'll get on a plane today. We'll talk in person, right? We'll talk when I get home?"
House's breath stopped on the inhale. When he spoke, the voice was tight, as though his chest were constricted.
"It's not your home."
Dial tone.