"GUESSWORK"

- Chapter Twenty-Three -

"Setting the Woods on Fire"

"You don't really have to come along with me, you know," Kip Bernoski said as the two men paused before the door to Number-Two Lab. "This can wait until tomorrow, and like I said awhile ago, you look almost as bad as Gregg …"

Wilson chuckled deep in his throat and held up a hand. "No," he said. "I'm okay. This is important, and I probably wouldn't sleep anyway. I'd be dreaming about little metal bugs crawling around inside my head all night. I want to see your lab and get at least a basic idea of your operation. House has risked his health to get down here to you, and if it's that vital to him, it's that vital to me."

Kip opened the door and the two of them walked inside. Earl Keirkgaard and Lillian Chan were huddled together in front of a lab table, behind a glass partition, deep in conversation. Both were wearing "clean suits", white paper coveralls with head coverings and facemasks, and were sitting in a cool glass-enclosed booth that gleamed with stainless steel and white porcelain. Behind them, sterile-suited lab technicians scurried about, watching monitors and taking notes.

Wilson stared.

"They're talking to the 'children'," Kip explained. "Absolute sterile conditions are necessary when working with them …"

As they watched, Earl looked up and waved a rubber-gloved hand, and Lillian lifted her chin, nodded and smiled. "What … are they all doing?" Wilson asked.

"They're getting ready for Gregg's procedure," Kip said. "Conditions have to be exactly right, and the nanocites must be programmed precisely."

As Bernoski spoke, Wilson looked around further, astounded and wide-eyed. This was far beyond anything he might have imagined in his wildest dreams, and he felt as though he were being lifted into a realm of total fantasy. Were they on the Enterprise now? And if they were, then when would he meet Nurse Chapel, Dr. M'Benga and Dr. McCoy?

On the other side of the room stood an impressive array of sophisticated machinery. Computer stations, calibrators, data loggers and recorders were everywhere. Pressure flow sensors, transducers and laboratory equipment were crowded into every spare inch of space, along with other strange instruments he could not identify. Against the far wall Wilson recognized an electron microscope, an atomic-force microscope and a scanning-tunneling microscope. He had never worked with the latter two, nor had he ever seen either of them up close. But he knew what they were. Androgynous lab techs hovered like excited hummingbirds.

Wilson shot a wide-eyed question across to Kip Bernoski, and the tall blond man grinned as though some mysterious cat had just been left out of the bag. "This stuff can be a little overwhelming at first, can't it?"

Wilson whistled between his teeth and brought his right hand around to a sore spot at the back of his neck. Rubbing at the knots in the tendons there, he rolled his eyes and stared hard at his host. "Oh ho! That's gotta be the understatement of the year!"

Kip laughed again and turned to point to a large display on the wall near the ceiling that resembled a large television set. Flashing across the screen, and visible from everywhere in the room, a series of numbers and equations scrolled in an endless loop. It looked like the electronic display at the New York Stock Exchange. Wilson recognized some of the symbols as biological in nature, and was more than puzzled about some of the others, which he had never seen before. "What is that?" He asked.

"It's the first part of Gregg's workup. The first thing they entered was his blood type … see? 'B Positive' … along with temp, BP, pulse, respiratory rate … that sort of stuff."

Kip looked at the big screen again, then turned back to Wilson and frowned. "Jim … were you aware that the damage to Gregg's leg is beginning to cause a curvature to his spine?"

Wilson's eyes closed and he dropped his chin to his chest. "No," he said in a small voice. "I wasn't … although I probably should have been. When the pain gets to be more than he can handle, his body has a tendency to cant further to the left, and he leans a lot harder on the cane. Nothing showed up on his last MRI, so it can't be that far advanced. He's had some trouble with the right shoulder because of an old injury to the left one … and he can't use the cane on the left. I guess this best friend hasn't been paying enough attention to the really important stuff …"

"Jim … I already told you … you can't assume responsibility for his whole damned life! Even a best friend needs a little input from his best friend … especially when they're both doctors. If he doesn't tell you what's going on with him healthwise, there's nothing much you can do … unless you're a mind reader."

Wilson shook his head. "Damn him!"

Kip Bernoski turned around and started for the door. He waved to Lillian and Earl, and then settled a light touch on James Wilson's opposite shoulder, guiding him in the general direction of the corridor. "Come on," he said. "You're so damn tired you can't think straight. Pretty soon you'll be blaming yourself for everything … including the cut on his hand and the wound on his foot. You need to get to bed. Now! Gregory House will keep until morning."

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James Wilson found everything he'd packed into the SUV except the two old blankets, placed neatly across the big bed. His suitcase, medical bag and laptop were arranged side by side with his windbreaker, which he remembered leaving somewhere in his wake placed neatly on top. Both cell phones and the pill vial were still in the pockets. The bed looked comforting and welcoming, and he sat down heavily, allowing his eyes to travel slowly around the room.

The dresser across from his position caught his attention instantly.

Oh God!

He saw the blue backpack first, then the saddlebags from the Repsol, dwarfing and half hiding a little thirteen-inch television. Wilson drew a deep breath and held it for a moment. Hesitating and half leery of what he might find, he pushed up again and trudged across to the dresser. Placed carefully between the blue backpack and the saddlebags, House's leather jacket, muddy riding boots, dirty jeans and other clothing, and the stiff, filth-caked leather gloves were laid out in a pile, each item enclosed in a zip-loc bag. He released the breath he'd been holding and drew another one, sighing deeply.

Beside everything else lay the long, hard, telling presence of the cane!

Wilson stood and looked at all of it for a long interval of motionlessness. It brought to mind strong thoughts that, in a nutshell, this small pile of material possessions was the sum and substance of House's real world; House's essence. It was a numbing thought, and disturbing. Everything else had been left behind in a heartbeat, simply on the outside chance that an unknown, unproven, risky medical experiment might lessen some of House's ever-present, mind-numbing pain. It told Wilson with heart-wrenching finality that his friend had been willing to forego everything he owned or cared about to be set free of this insidious foe that ruled his life, his profession and his mental stability.

Wilson picked up the cane and held it almost reverently in both hands. House was not House anymore without … this …

House wanted to be normal. But he was driven. The pain drove him far beyond the point where even his innate, abrasive manner usually reached its limits. It had twisted his level of compassion into an unsympathetic disregard. And it had turned his wry, energetic, passionate personality to the deep corners of the dark side. He struck out viciously when in severe pain, and even the full force of that formidable mind was often powerless to curb it.

Wilson's tired shoulders slumped. So many things here, telling him rudely of the compassionate position he should have taken with House, but didn't. So many things he should have seen happening, but didn't. So many chances to help and be the best friend that he'd always thought he was … not taken. So many warning signs he'd purposely ignored in sullen frustration …

Wilson picked up the blue backpack and carried it across to the bed with him. He sat down and fumbled with the zipper that opened the main compartment. Pulled the flap up. Looked inside. It was a jumbled mess. Not surprising. Everything was damp and sogged up from riding in the open for six hundred miles. He reached inside gingerly with one hand while holding onto it with the other. His fingers closed around a fearful conglomeration of unsurprising associated items: wet napkins from an assortment of fast food places, empty food wrappers and crusts of bread and buns. Sticky candy wrappers, cardboard French fry cartons, empty Mountain Dew cans. Handful after handful of debris came out from the depths of the black interior, and Wilson dumped everything on the bed behind him. All the way at the bottom, he came across a damp envelope with a printout of the JAMA article on Paramar Clinic and the man who ran it, along with a printout of House's initial application for volunteer status.

Wilson unfolded the document carefully and began reading. When he got to the box area at the bottom, where the applicant was asked to state his reasons for wanting to be a volunteer, Wilson began to feel like a voyeur. House's familiar script gave him pause. His friend was baring his soul on a throwaway sheet of 8 X 12 bond paper:

"I am approaching late middle age, and the only thing I can see ahead for myself is

unrelenting physical pain, which is quickly nearing unmanageability by any of

the drugs now on the market. As a doctor myself, I'm looking at a life that

can end only in multiple organ failure, and an early death that will place a burden

on not only my elderly parents, but friends and colleagues as well. If my case

could be used to benefit science, then I would wish for a two-fold purpose: to

come to your facility for treatment of the intractable pain and possible discussion

of same, or any other use I might be in your research."

Wilson slowly folded the paper back again and placed it in the envelope with the other sheet already there. He had invaded House's privacy to an extent that he had never done before. His heart was breaking anew for this incredible man who was his best friend in the world, and for whom he had always held the utmost in respect and admiration. House was infuriating, certainly, but he was also a lonely, brilliant, tortured soul, and now Wilson knew what he had always suspected: there was a patch of warmth hidden deep in the abyss of House's heart where it was never, ever allowed to surface.

Stoically, Wilson replaced the damp envelope in the deep recesses of the backpack and gathered up the rest of the soggy mess and dumped that back inside as well.

Methodically, Wilson unzipped the smaller compartments. In the first one, he found a wet Game Boy that dripped a tiny cascade of water droplets down across the legs of his pants. In the second one, an iPod with its ear-bud wires trailing, and also dripping water, looked more dead than alive. He turned both of them on, but with Murphy's Law in full attendance, both were quite dead!

He wasn't sure exactly what to do at first, but he knew that House loved having access to his iPod for the times when he was fidgety and sore and bored out of his mind. Wilson shook the daylights out of the small player to rid it of excess water, then laid it out on the stand by the bed. Perhaps, in time, it would dry out and be usable again. He put the Game Boy back into the compartment it came out of and zipped it up.

When he finally opened the last zipper compartment, Wilson got the surprise of the week. Inside, securely fastened into the original gift bag, and completely dry, was the bright red silk necktie he had brought to House in rehab after they'd all found out he was going to trial for drug possession. Even the gift tag, inscribed: "Good Luck, Wilson" was there. Torn almost in half, but there.

James felt himself misting up as he put it back in the bag and rezipped the zipper.

Stop it!

He took the backpack over to the dresser and put it down in the empty space he'd lifted it from. He was going to go through the saddlebags in the same manner, but then thought better of it. Then he noticed the gloves and the boots. They were placed in such a way that he could see inside them where haphazard strips of duct tape caught his eye.

What the devil … ?

He found the money, a bit damp with moisture, but perfectly fine. House must have squirreled it there to keep it safe in the event of foul play, which, thank God, hadn't happened.

The palm of the left glove was saturated with blood that was beginning to stiffen the leather as it dried out. Wilson shook his head sadly. House seemed uncannily able to injure himself without even trying.

His foot was another example. The removal of the huge mass of muscle from House's thigh had compromised the circulation to his lower leg, and consequently his foot. He had traveled on, not feeling the pain until long after the damage was done. Now the ulcer would have to be treated with antibiotics and medical applications and bandages until it healed, which would take a horrifyingly long time. House would not only be unable to walk, but would not even be able to tolerate the pressure of his foot against the floor.

Wheelchair-bound until God knew when, Gregory House would be fit to be tied! Even shackled to a bed, as he was now, his leg pain eradicated by the tiny temporary Nano-electrical repressors, he would still feel the pain of the injured foot, as well as the laceration on his hand. The man couldn't win!

Wilson reached a conclusion.

Shower! He needed to get into a shower, wash off the rest of the "road", change clothing, and then get his butt over there to be by House's side.

Suddenly nothing else mattered more than showing up at the place where he was born to be. He was Tonto to House's Lone Ranger. Robin to House's Batman. Spock to House's Kirk.

Wilson opened his suitcase and pulled out one of the raggedy grey sweat suits he had packed two days ago. Clean socks, clean underwear, and a pair of soft-sole moccasins.

It was time to go where he was ultimately needed …

It was time to … as he'd heard House's Dad say, years before: "Either shit, boy … or get off the pot!"

I'm going already, Colonel House! Get out of my head!

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