"GUESSWORK"

- Chapter Fourteen -

"Hide and Seek"

James Wilson sat at a roadside rest on Route 95 a few miles south of the state line between Maryland and Virginia.

He'd switched off the SUV's engine a few hours before, climbed into the back seat and covered himself with one of the old blankets he'd thrown in there. He snuggled down with the intention of grabbing what sleep he could, but the biting cold had roused him, shivering, not much later. The foggy cloud of his breath in the cold air was enough motivation for him to scramble back over into the front seat and get the car running again.

The Escalade was covered with a light dusting of snow that had given him a very effective privacy curtain while he napped. It was cold enough in there now though, to cause his teeth to chatter like castanets, and he needed to be on his way again as soon as possible.

Ten minutes later, Wilson sat hunched behind the steering wheel allowing his bones to thaw out. Spread before him was a big roadmap of the eastern seaboard. He stared at it contemplatively as he munched on another Fifth Avenue candy bar, mulling over in his mind what road he might be on right now if he were Gregory House …

"WWHD?"

He'd used that obscure reference once before in front of his best friend. He'd assumed at the time that House wouldn't know what it meant, taking into consideration Gregg's ingrained irreverence and lack of religious faith. But much to his surprise, House had thrown back his head in a peal of sarcastic laughter and thanked Wilson for comparing him to Jesus Christ "… for whatever goddamn reason, even if I don't cook much and would therefore be pretty much out of the competition as far as gourmet loaves and fishes are concerned …"

Wilson let his chin fall to his chest, concealing his spreading smile from whatever Divine Entity might be watching at the moment. He could never get ahead of House; no matter how hard he tried. Parallel him sometimes, yes, but never surpass.

He sighed and went back to studying the roadmap, still with a slight upturn at one corner of his mouth; still wracking his brain with another attempt at guesswork. Would House stay on Route 95 until he made the switch to 85 into Raleigh? Or would he hunt some isolated country road in order to bypass traffic? House might wish to keep from being pummeled around on the highway by truck traffic. Or avoid a swarm of inattentive idiots who cared little about motorcyclists and afforded them no courtesy …

Who knew for sure what that man might be thinking at any given moment?

Wilson's fingers traced the thin lines of two or three secondary roads that wound in a southerly direction. Did any of them look like they might afford a logical choice to a crippled halfwit on a motorcycle? Wilson figured that if he closed his eyes, pointed a finger and chanted: "eeny-meeny-miney-moe …" one chance was just as good as any in guessing where his nimble-minded friend might be cruising at this very moment.

After a time, Wilson determined that only one of these little pot-holed wonders actually connected with Route 85 south. The map showed a fork in the road about twenty miles north of the city where a patch of broken lines indicated a construction area. Probably long completed since the map had been published, this new road tied the legislative route back into the main highway. Somewhere in that vicinity a Honda Repsol with a blemish on its right side … and its rider, also with a blemish on his right side … cruised along on its journey to who-the-hell-knew-what …

The defroster of the Escalade had melted the snow from the windshield, and its wipers, in turn, cleared the resulting rivulets of water. James Wilson folded the map and tossed it back onto the passenger seat. He moved the shifter into "drive" and pulled back onto the highway. For the first time since he'd begun this little hide-n-seek adventure, he had an idea where he was going, and probably what he would find when at last he caught up to the screwball on the bike.

Wilson:

The car is warm around me, but I have this feeling deep in my bones that something cold and brittle is waiting down the line. For a change I don't have any morbid visions of House lying broken and bloody by the side of the road. I'm not picturing the Honda lying smashed nearby while fire trucks and ambulances with red lights flashing, cordon off the scene of a fatal accident. But something "funny" keeps churning in my stomach, and it has nothing to do with the three candy bars I just ate …

There is a foreboding that surrounds me concerning the goal that House is aiming for. His desperation is a pain in my heart. He still thinks I betrayed him by making a deal with Tritter … even though my intentions were honorable. I think he believes me about that now, but it may take some time and patience on my part to convince him to trust me again.

His decision not to tell me about this last-ditch effort to eliminate some of his pain may be about as close as he ever gets to sparing me from seeing his personal agonies.

I guess he didn't stop to think that by keeping all this to himself, it only compounds the pain for both of us: for me, by escalating the worry I already have for him … and for himself, by ignoring my concerns about the things that make him hurt … because he's always known of my need to be needed.

I have no business sneaking around behind his back … hunting him down as though he's a common criminal … or continuing my habit of trying to cover his back in case he gets himself into a jam, as he's been known to do in the past. It's none of my damn business either … where he goes or what he does or who he sees.

But … I can't help myself! In admitting that, I fully recognize the folly of making the statement. House always tells me: "… everything after "but" is bullshit! "

So here I am … probably about an hour or two behind him, heading into the heart of Virginia on some winding country road, knowing he has no cell phone to call for help if he gets in trouble. No way to find his way to safety if the bike conks out. And no one looking for him or worrying about him except me … knowing he's abusing the hell out of the leg that barely holds him up in the first place …

And I'm thinking of all the dangerous consequences I'm letting myself in for by trying to be his Guardian Angel.

I don't know why I keep torturing myself about this stuff. I've been over this, and over it and over it until it's beginning to get as monotonous as another plate of "turkey surprise" a week after Thanksgiving. I can't let it alone. I'm like a kid worrying at a loose tooth, or picking at a hangnail until it's bloody and he keeps wiping it on his pants.

That's House. Sometimes he's a stale sandwich, sometimes a loose tooth … and sometimes a bloody hangnail. Sometimes he's a combination of all three. But he's my best friend! I've sacrificed more than a few friends in his favor over the years, and never regretted it. Don't ask me why. I don't know now … any more than I knew then. But he possesses something; some spark that no one else has. Some quality that keeps drawing me in. He is like a smart eight-year-old without a lick of common sense.

Sometimes he seems so helpless, so utterly without guile when he's scheming to chisel me out of five grand of my hard-earned money. He's as endearing as a little kid making with the innocent blue eyes and stealing the lunch right off my plate.

Gregory House is a human contradiction. On one of his good days, drawn up to his full, impressive height, he is powerful, dignified, forbidding; the master of all he surveys. On a bad day he is hunched and vulnerable, angry and isolated, battling his pain alone and daring anyone to come within ten feet of him.

Even when he's at his worst, his most snappish; the times when he hurts the worst and cannot find the words to ask for help, I can tell when he is seeking me out. I can tell by the way he holds his body, and the way he tries to hide the grimace on his face, and the gut wrenching hurt in those eyes. Those are the times he will allow me … and only me … to be around him.

That's why I'm here; sneaking around behind his back and tracking him the way Sherlock Holmes tracks his quarry. I'm like the father who follows a wayward child in the effort to keep that child from getting hurt any more than he has already been hurt …

And I'm here because I love him.

That'll never change.

I was right.

I'm on the right road now. I can feel it. I can feel him … out there somewhere in front of me, not that far ahead anymore. I found the new section of highway and a series of turnoffs just a little south of a town called Woodbridge. I pulled off near the traffic light there and looked at the map again. He's on this road. I know it. All I have to do is keep going, and sooner or later he'll look in his rear view mirror and see this big white SUV creeping up behind him.

That's the best-case scenario. The other possibility is that I'm so full of baloney that it sticks out my ears … and I've never been so wrong about anything in my whole life. But I don't think so!

The snow has stopped now, and the wind has died down to almost nothing. I can see the sky beginning to lighten out there over my left shoulder, and I'm thinking it has to be close to six in the morning. I'm not tired anymore. I'm too close to tracking him down, too close to putting my mind to rest … that he's all right … not half frozen to death or sick or hurt. I've got to know.

So far, this has been a mind-numbing trip. I may have had about two hours' sleep in the last twenty-four, but I'm too keyed up to think about stopping now. I have to stay on this road and see where it leads, and what might be waiting for him at its end. I still have that "funny" feeling deep in my gut … like all this will be for nothing, and House will end up with more pain and more disappointment for his efforts.

The other side of the coin, of course, is the possibility that this nanotechnology will provide the miracle he needs, and he will be pain-free for the first time in almost eight years.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. I think my biggest fear is that he will want to fly free as soon as he possibly can … and I will be left to worry. He will have a newfound sense of giddy irresponsibility that frightens me to death, and even though those little metallic bugs can't replace the missing muscle in his leg, and he will still need the cane for stability, I'm afraid he will take chances that could lead him into deep and dangerous waters.

And I still wonder if he didn't plant that damn cell phone in his sock drawer on purpose … lure me after him on a wild goose chase of his own. With him, anything is possible, and I know the extent to which his mind works when he thinks he has the better of somebody.

That Machiavellian deviousness is always there begging to get the higher ground. Am I playing into his hands? Or will he blow his top when he sees me, and tell me to get out of his life and go straight to hell?

I'm not sure if I have what it takes … to take that chance …

But here I am!

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