"GUESSWORK"
- Chapter Thirteen -
"To Sleep, Perchance to Dream"
He crossed the line into Virginia at 7:30 in the evening.
His body trembled with fatigue, and his head pounded with a fury that pulled a haze across his vision and threatened to cause him to lose control of the bike. His upper body was dry beneath the thick leather of his jacket, and his head and neck were protected by the helmet and its face shield. But his jeans clung wetly to the skin of his legs and thighs. Both limbs were numb from the wind and the cold. His feet had lost all sensation long ago, and his hands kept sliding away from their grip on the handlebars.
Gregory House needed to locate shelter soon, or he would find himself off the road and in a ditch. He'd become weary and dazed on the endless expanse of Route 95, and so had made the transition to a winding rural legislative route that snaked its way in a generally southern direction, below the town of Woodbridge. In this area the roadbed was less maintained and riddled with potholes. There were also fewer vehicles to contend with, and the bike was making virgin tracks in the softly falling snow. Along here he could take his time and look for some out-of-the-way place to hole up for the night.
Sadly, his mind returned to Molly, back at "Charlie's Place", and her no-nonsense but touching tale of a husband who had succumbed to the pain of his leg infarction … and the muscle death and the nerve damage.
Incredible coincidence?
Gregg thought about the woman's stricken eyes as she'd looked at him in astonished understanding, probably seeing the pain in his own eyes, just as she'd seen it before, closer to home, six years ago.
He'd felt so bereft in her presence. He'd had nothing to offer of himself, no solace to warm her memories. The savings account in his heart had gone bankrupt and barren following his terrible anger at the downward spiral of his own life. His empathic responses and his ability to offer them were sadly lacking for Molly. His sympathies for others who found themselves in a similar situation had been ground down to the bone. He had nothing left to share from the emptiness of a soul scraped clean by unrelenting pain and years of self-inflicted isolation.
He regretted running out on her, but if he had not done so, he might have screamed at the irony, and he knew she would not understand about that. He couldn't do such a thing to someone who had witnessed too much of it already!
He stopped a few miles south of Woodbridge, at a little hole-in-the-wall store and gas station in the middle of nowhere. He filled the tank and grabbed a couple of munchies he didn't have to dig in his pack for. And another cup of steaming coffee, loaded with cream and sugar.
Painfully, he walked around to stretch his weary bones, and then visited the men's room. The little store was isolated, no accommodations there. In the full darkness of late evening, he headed south once more. The bike's headlights poked twin beams through the falling snow, and again he began to keep his eyes peeled for sanctuary.
The road was narrower and curvier now, and its pockmarked surface forced a small vibration upward through the front fork that hurt his leg. When he finally found himself a place to stop and got the leg warmed up, there would be no end to the misery it would cause.
He was passing through a wild area of overgrown fields and wilted cornstalks. There were houses, widely scattered along the countryside, standing out above the horizon in stark silhouette, most of them back and away from the road with only their roofs visible, and pale chimney smoke curling lazily into the air.
Although the Virginia weather was a few degrees warmer than New Jersey, it was still midwinter. Along this stretch of cold, lonely isolation, there was no such thing as "comfortable". He hunched his shoulders and worked his head slowly from side to side with the effort of combating the annoying vibration of the motorcycle. The cold drizzle of snow-turning-to-sleet tapered to a thin mist that brittled his bones.
As he pressed on doggedly, trying to keep himself warm and distracted from his failings, a second intruding presence knocked persistently on his mental barriers. It pushed away the images of Molly, replacing her haunted eyes with something more tangible, more constant. His guarded thoughts finally gave way to the brown eyes that replaced the blue; familiar eyes, fading in and out of his consciousness, insinuating their way into his head and filling him with renewed confusion and anger.
In spite of himself, he welcomed the intrusion, blurring the rough terrain that passed by in the bike's headlights on both sides of him. The insistent images branded themselves across every tree trunk, every bush, every rock, every stump, and every depression in the saturated earth. Every gnarl and knot on every tree he passed, framed by the falling snow, morphed into dark eyes filled with loss and confusion, and haunted with worry, guilt and apprehension.
Wilson!
Even in disjointed thoughts the protective "black helicopter" hovered above, and concerned eyes peered down upon him …
Damn you! You worm your way into my head like an army of pissants marching after a trail of sugar!
There were not enough miles between him and the end of the universe to get Wilson out of his thoughts, out of his senses, or out of his heart! Like an elephant in the middle of his living room: not enough distractions existed in the world to shuck the image of this man in his mind. The more he tried not to think about him … Wilson … like the damned elephant … only grew larger.
House did not want to smile … but he did.
Around him now, the dark landscape was changing in a subtle manner. Overgrown fields and scraggly underbrush gave way to heavier vegetation. Pine and fir and other conifers were springing into view more and more as he continued onward, emerging larger and taller and thicker. Their heavy limbs were weighted down by snow and ice that sparkled like diamonds everywhere the Repsol's twin beams pointed. After another half mile, he found himself entering a natural tunnel beneath a woven, living canopy that closed off the sky from view, and the wintry mix from pelting down hollowly on his helmet.
House slowed the bike. It was as though he'd suddenly wandered through a space-time continuum into a parallel universe. The Honda's headlights were now showing dry pavement. The road was enclosed on both sides by heavy stands of pine trees that hovered like sentinel giants over layers and layers of packed, dry, brown pine needles.
He came upon a break in the thicket, a place where one of the tallest trees had been struck by lightning or some other natural disaster. The broken trunk formed an entryway off the road and into the soft forest floor beyond. He geared the bike down until he could balance its weight with his left leg, and walked it slowly between trees and around rock formations and stands of laurel and rhododendron. The pine-needled earth remained dry and silent, and he guided the Repsol slowly until he could no longer see anything that might represent the edge of the road or the downed tree that had invited him inside.
House let the machine rest at idle, turning the front fork both ways to direct the lights inward. To his right stood an outcropping of rock large enough to afford protection from the elements in case snow managed to penetrate the canopy. Quickly he untied the heavy-duty sleeping bag from behind the saddle and heaved it down beside the muddy drive wheel.
Next, he rummaged around in the saddlebag until his fingers closed around the tiny, cheap bar-b-que grill on folding wire legs; the kind sold in convenience stores for one-time use. He let it drop on the soft bed of pine needles beside the sleeping bag.
Finally, he removed his helmet and gloves and pulled the backpack from his shoulders. Inside the backpack was a large, square flashlight with a wide beam and a wide base.
He flipped it on and leaned down to set it carefully on the surface of the little grille. Its beam pointed skyward, illuminating the lowest boughs of the pine trees, casting a dim glow around a narrow area of the silent woods.
House sighed with exhaustion and shut down the engine of the bike, quickly kicked down the kickstand. The sudden, complete cessation of sound from the forest caused a roar in his ears that was, for a moment, eerily distracting. All that was left was the rush of wind through the boughs.
Around him, the woods were inky black, except for the tiny ring of light from the flashlight. He squinted until his eyes became accustomed to the gloom.
Carefully, he slid his bad leg across the bike's saddle and grasped the pant leg with the fingers of his right hand, lowering the senseless limb gradually to the ground. It was like lead. He was not in the least surprised to find that it would not support his weight, or move at his command. It rested useless, stiff as a flagpole; heel dug sideways into the pine needles, refusing to do anything but lean there.
Gregg propped himself on both hands for a moment, until he could feel the slow return of sensation that gradually awakened his physical body and traveled upward like mercury through a thermometer. The pain began to spike with it. He leaned across the saddle of the bike and retrieved his cane from its niche, half surprised to feel a layer of mud on its outside surface. He made a disgusted face and circled his fingers around it to scrape off the mud, then flicked his fingers outward and wiped the rest on his pants. His hands came away clean because the jeans were soaked. So far he was batting a thousand!
In the middle the night, in the middle of a stand of pine trees in "God-Knows-Where", Virginia, Gregory House, M. D., chief diagnostician at a prestigious New Jersey hospital, rested his weary bones around a makeshift campfire like a true and investitured knight of the open road.
House had removed his wet jeans, boots and socks. His right foot ached dully. The sleeping bag was positioned just under the edge of rock to his right. He was covered to his neck with the warmth of the down-filled material, and cocooned by the rest of it behind his back. All he had to do to experience its full benefit was zip it up. The little charcoal grille perked merrily at his left elbow, and right above it, hanging from the handlebars of the Repsol, his jeans, socks and boots were drying in the rise of its heat. The red coals cast a crimson glow across the face of the rock, and across the exhausted face of the man.
House had taken a dose and a half of the poor substitute for medication, and sat with his right hand massaging the painful area around his surgical scar and staring pinch-faced into the trees.
More than once during the past twenty-four hours he had wondered whether this long, torturous journey would be worth it. What had seemed like such a promising idea when he'd first read about it months ago, now just seemed like one more pipe dream and one more wild goose chase.
The overriding anger he'd felt with being confined to rehab against his will had tamed a little since his release. His obstinate sense of pride at seeing it through to its conclusion, mainly to spite Wilson and Cuddy and Tritter for forcing the decision upon him and conspiring to humiliate him, was losing its fascination.
He had known letdown before. When he was a kid, his father had let him down with stiff military rigidity, and his mother had let him down by continuing to side with his father. His friends had let him down all his life by disappearing into thin air every time the Marines transferred his father to a new base … and Gregg to a new school where he would have to start all over again.
Schools and colleges had let him down by not recognizing his genius and the restless mind that surged like an angry sea, and for not offering him a challenge big enough to fit his massive brain and his massive ego. He'd gotten himself into trouble and found that there was no one he could trust who recognized his potential … or his desperate need to know! To accumulate information! That was when he'd finally learned to trust no one.
Until Wilson came along.
No matter what he did … no matter what shenanigans he pulled … he could never shake the unflappable Wilson, or chase him off. Wilson would wait quietly and let him rant and rave. Wilson would sit with his chin propped on his palms and roll his eyes and let him bitch and scream and carry on like a madman to make some obscure point or other. Then Wilson would look up at him and ask, in a detached voice, whether he was finished fanning the air with his flapping tongue …
Wilson accepted him for the mad-scientist he was, and never tried to change him over to a different point of view. Wilson generously offered him half of everything he owned, whether it be food, rides downtown in his dilapidated car, clothing, money, girls …
Wilson was always there, and Wilson celebrated the good times with him, and listened to his tales of woe when he didn't get his own way.
Wilson was just … Wilson.
And House took him for granted, never once realizing how much Wilson actually meant to him.
Wilson hadn't turned him in to Tritter to hurt him. He'd turned him in to help him.
For a man with the mind of an Einstein … a Sagan … a Hawking … Gregory House knew he sometimes had the common sense of a house fly. The realization was galling!
And that nagging portrait that hung on the walls at the back of his mind: Wilson. Always Wilson. Caring, responsible, honest-to-a-fault, courageous, loving, "cherubic" Wilson!
Damn him!House's leg was a lump of misery. Even after the rest of him had warmed up; after he had eaten a pair of squashed (but grilled!) ham sandwiches, a squashed bag of chips, a squashed Snickers bar and a warm can of Mountain Dew, the leg radiated pain up and down his body, from the middle of his back to the heel of his foot, and the fucking meds hadn't touched it. His hand was cramping from rubbing at the wasted muscle.
What would he find when at last he arrived in Raleigh, North Carolina and met with the doctor with the breakthrough theories about nanocites and chronic pain? What then? He would willingly lend himself as guinea pig, just on the outside chance that the technology would work for him … as the Ketamine … last year … had not …
Finally he fell into an exhausted, fitful sleep as the little fire in the bar-b-que guttered and went out. He burrowed deep into the warm sleeping bag and followed his restless mind as it rose into dreams …
He was sitting on a bench near the bank of The River. He was watching joggers pounding by on the nature trails, and he was imagining the sun glittering on the water and a cool breeze lifting the leaves of the trees. Ducks and geese glided happily in the crystal clear water, while he remained shackled to a cement bench and a cane by a useless leg that dictated his every movement. Even whether or not he was strong enough, on any given day, to walk down here by The River and watch the joggers and the trees and the geese and the water … and imagine …
And there sat Wilson. Not too close. Not too far. Saying nothing. Expecting nothing. Watching the joggers and the water … and all the rest … at his side. Imagining …
Gregory House sighed in his sleep … until a sudden pain in his leg made him hitch over sharply to the left. Just above him stood a smiling, not-quite-solid image holding a warm blanket in his hands … James Wilson. Calm. Caring. Purposeful. Dream-Wilson lifted the blanket, bent over, placed it gently across Gregory House's trembling shoulders and then withdrew without a sound.
The image drifted slowly off on the last whiff of charcoal smoke from the dying fire. Beneath the warmth, sleeping-House watched, a convulsive sigh forming in his throat as Wilson's image faded away again, into the cold night air.
…Don't go …0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
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