Still not Hameron.
Enjoy!
Wilson entered the apartment with a scowl on his face and anger in his heart.
House had really screwed up this time.
From what he had heard from the team and the hospital gossip network, House had shouted to Cuddy (and unintentionally, to all the personnel eagerly eavesdropping outside of her office), that he loved and if she couldn't deal with that, then there was nothing more to say, before briefly checking in with his team and storming out of the building.
It had been seven hours since House had last been seen in the hospital, and Wilson was finally getting home after completing a batch of paperwork that seemed to have gone on for miles.
He opened the front door, sincerely hoping that his best friend was somewhere in the apartment and NOT passed out in a bar somewhere.
He didn't hear the television on, which was a bad sign.
Either he was sleeping (unlikely for him at this early in the evening), 'picking his bellybutton lint' (Wilson still shuddered at the memory), passed out IN the apartment, or off god-knows-where.
No coats were missing in the well organized closet, and in this weather, it was unlikely that House would go out only in his sports jacket, knowing what the cold would do to his leg.
Wilson moved into the living room, and noticed an open bottle of whiskey (hadn't he hidden that?), as well as an unusual number of half-filled glasses sitting on the coffee table.
The pillows were strewn around their new couch, and for the first time Wilson noticed what he knew to be House's sports jacket lying on the floor.
He could put two and two together, and not for the first time since House had moved in with him, he found himself disappointed in the older man.
The possible presence of two additional people in his home set off warning bell in his head, but he continued his journey to the bedrooms.
He walked down the halls, trying to pick up on any sounds that would tell him what his best friend was up to, but he heard nothing.
He tripped on an article of clothing, and upon picking it up, he felt a strange sense of foreboding, an apprehension that he couldn't quite place.
It was a light pink blouse, and he couldn't help but think in the back of his mind that he had seen it before somewhere. (Probably during his wistful trip to the Wal-Mart, his unabated grief telling him to go into the women's department to find that soap that Amber had liked to use).
House had hookers over all the time, at least according to the man himself, why should this one cause Wilson's stomach to drop?
Perhaps because this was the first time he had heard of such frowned-upon activities since House had returned from Mayfield.
Then again, Wilson was ever doubtful of the extent that House had really changed, so he supposed that this was no surprise, House had, after all, been feeling exceedingly lonely lately, and with his own problems, he had been unable to help him.
Ignoring his now pounding heart, he proceeded to the door of House's bedroom (a hooker in Amber's shrine, really?), hesitating for a second before carefully turning the doorknob.
He needed to know if his friend was okay, and the amount of embarrassment he would have to endure upon discovering the older man in a compromising position would have to be worth it.
The door swung open carefully at his hands, quietly enough to not disturb anyone who might be lurking inside.
Upon entering the room, it all hit him.
If House had had a hooker over, he would have been hearing sounds of sex, not silence.
If House had had a hooker over, she would have left upon completion of her task, not leaving behind important articles of clothing like blouses.
If House had had a hooker over, she would not have remained in his bed, wrapped around his naked frame in slumber, his arms holding onto her possessively.
If House had had a hooker over, Allison Cameron would not have been in his bed.
Wilson made a sound halfway between a gasp and a squeal, and that was what woke the unexpected lovers.
House opened his eyes and blinked twice, trying to decide if the image of his best friend standing in his doorway with a look of utter disbelief on his face was real or not.
Remembering what had happened a few hours ago between him and the woman currently curled up naked against his equally nude body, he decided that Wilson's shell-shocked expression was entirely appropriate for the situation at hand.
Now, if only he knew the correct course of action for being discovered by your best friend in bed with a former employee.
He decided that his usual annoyed, upset at getting his fun spoiled expression would work.
He slipped in onto his face, glaring at the oncologist for ruining what had been a peaceful, unexpected sleep.
"Wilson!" he said angrily, breaking his friend out of his spell. "You IDIOT, what are you doing here? Did I forget to put the stethoscope on the door again?"
"Stetho- Stethoscope? Oh, god, House, what are you doing with CAMERON?"
His friend had turned bright red, and had taken to half covering his face with his hands.
"Well, as may have been made obvious by our position and state of undress, we had sex."
By this time, Cameron had woken up and was looking at Wilson with wide embarrassed eyes.
"I know that- House! She's, she's, she's-"
"What, needy? Upset that you didn't get to her in time to take care of all of her little problems?"
"But, but, but how-?"
We met outside, after my disastrous attempt at making Cuddy fall head over heels for me, which I'm SURE you've heard about by now, we came back her for drinks, go to talking, one thing led to another…" House was reminded, with a pang, of the conversation he had had at the '80s party with Cuddy, and just how wrong everything had turned out. "But I'm sure you know how THAT part goes, JIMMY. You've probably perfected your 'Knight in Shining Trojan" routine over the years."
"Perfect, you're deflecting by picking on my relationship habits. What the HELL were you thinking House? Chase is going to kill you!"
"Oh would you SHUT UP, Wilson?" An unexpected outburst came from Cameron, catching Wilson off guard. "He doesn't need you to babysit him anymore; he can take care of himself. You think HE was the one to make the first move?"
"It's true." House added, refusing to break under Wilson's furious stare. "SHE jumped ME."
"I don't care who jumped who! You guys had SEX, that's, that's-"
"Nothing significant in any way?" House finished, raising his eyebrows. Wilson sputtered for a few more seconds before heaving a huge sigh of defeat.
"But, but what about Chase?" he asked weakly, looking from House to Cameron, who had untangled herself from her bed partner and covered herself up with a sheet.
"Is Chase going to find out?" House asked testily, glaring at Wilson. "I'm not going to tell him, Cameron's leaving in twelve hours, and YOU'RE not going to tell him, if you know what's good for you."
"But, but…" Wilson tried again pathetically.
"But nothing. It was just SEX."
"There's no such thing as 'just sex'" Wilson said doubtfully, and House groaned. Was he trying to make things more complicated than they were?
"Maybe not for you, but unlike your past affairs, Cameron is leaving and I'm never going to see her again. Now if you don't mind…" Wilson got the message, loud and clear, and he stepped out of the room with his hands, up, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do now.
His friend had always been one to take stupid risks for personal gain, but sleeping with Allison Cameron was an act of undeniable selfishness.
He had obviously just wanted her to forget about the fiasco with Cuddy, but there were hookers for that.
Wilson had never before wished his friend had been with a prostitute, but he wished it now.
How stupid could House have been?
How much had he really changed, what with his shameless manipulation of the Chase and Cameron's marriage, as well as the game he had played with Thirteen and Taub?
It was his fault, he was sure, he should have been paying even more attention to the man, not blubbering to his dead girlfriend about the girl in the coffee shop with the same scarf as her.
He should have known that Cuddy had been dating, he should have asked her about it before he had sent House swooning after her.
Anything that had happened to the man was Wilson's fault, and Wilson's fault alone.
He really was a failure.
He couldn't save patients, he couldn't save his best friend from himself.
*****
Dr. Lisa Cuddy had come to the apartment for one reason, and one reason only: to see if House was still alive.
She hadn't seen him in over twelve hours, and it was now almost midnight.
Wilson hadn't told her anything, in fact, she hadn't heard anything from him either, but he wasn't at risk for drug overdose or suicide like her most eccentric employee was.
The lights were on, which was a good sign.
If the lights were on, there could be people inside, perhaps enjoying a glass of wine, or eating pizza, or playing Twister.
She allowed herself a brief chuckle at the thought of cripple-thighed House trying to contort himself on a plastic mat with his best friend, before stepping out of her car and walking over to the door.
She decided against the shiny new doorbell, the act of knocking seeming more familiar, more like the things that she and he had done in the past, before their lives had taken a downhill spill and gotten so messed up that late-night visits simply weren't an option.
The loudness of her determined, concerned-despite-recent-events fists echoed in her head, for the respectable street was silent in the midnight glow, and there was no room in her mind for further thoughts on Gregory House.
She was well aware that she had hurt him, with her silence and iciness at his confession, but what else could she have done?
Admitted to the same feelings?
Thrown herself into his arms?
Yelled at him for being so ridiculously confusing about the whole matter?
Told him lies about the impossibility of their future together? (No, it was impossible, she had to keep telling herself that).
She knew that he had been telling the truth, there was no doubt about that.
But it was the reason behind his admission that had scared her, that he was so desperate for something from her, for some sort of acknowledgment of their mutual love, that he could, in fact, say something like that without any deflections.
His feelings scared her; her feelings for him scared her even more.
It was hard, she reasoned, to find a good man for a single mother, and it was stupid to give up a good thing like Lucas because House had decided that he really didn't like sharing his toys.
He had, in fact, made it quite clear that he didn't want her, not really, that she was just another plaything for him, that her feelings were as much a puzzle as any medical mystery she had trusted to him.
At least, that was the message he had sent when he had grabbed her breast, after she had so thoughtlessly and naively tried to get him to go for her.
And then, there was Mayfield.
Before that, there were his hallucinations, and the night that he had imagined with her.
After, months of quiet, and whispered conversations between the nurses and the interns about where exactly is he, and has he really lost it and gotten himself institutionalized, and her favourite, well it's a damn good thing that they had never actually slept together.
Billions of different thoughts had gone through her head, all conflicting, all debating whether or not all of the words she had spoken still applied, whether or not his delusions had voided the statements about their personal relationship.
Some small part of her wanted him in her bed every morning, and another small part wanted to throw him in the incinerator and be done with all of his bullshit.
And then, he goes and tries to pursue her!
They were both foolish when their love was in full swing, her with the office thing, him with his blatant flirtations and attempts at those moments, the moments that slowly inched their relationship towards that line, far off in the distance but still in reach.
And inevitably, the average of all of her musings about the man with the cane had risen to the forefront of her mind, so that no words were able to escape her mouth when House answered her tentative knocks.
He looked good, no, for the first time since he had discovered the truth about her personal life, he looked happy.
That, for some unexplainable reason, made her uneasy.
"Hello, Cuddy, what brings you here at this hour?" His voice, so sickly sweet and artificially cheery, had further sedated her thoughts, to the point that any dialogue that tried to force its way out of her lightly lipsticked lips was caught in a tangle of molasses syllables.
But her mouth wasn't hanging open, she wasn't giving off the deer in headlights vibe, and that was the important part.
Eventually, she was able to string a few words together, and so the response, "Generally the standard for missing persons is twenty-four hours, but twelve hours seemed like an appropriate time to come looking for you" fell out of her mouth, and even in her half-dazed, unsure of just what she was doing state, the phrase didn't make as much sense as it should have.
"Come in." he said, and that should have been her warning sign, because House in his right House mind wouldn't have asked her to do so in such a casual manner, as if she hadn't just crushed his uncrushable heart that day, as if she came over in the middle of the night for tea and crumpets all of the time, as if he were a normal human being who entertained guests in a civil manner rather frequently.
And as she stepped into the dining room, the reason for his civility became apparent.
The blush that formed on Allison Cameron's face was out of place, because if they had just been sharing a late night meal, the embarrassment at seeing the woman that her host loved wouldn't have been there.
She knew, she could see it in the cruel twinkle in his eyes, and that was when the green-eyed monster took over her head, and she glared at him in disappointment.
"Yes, Cuddy, to answer your unspoken question, we had sex." The words he had spoken threw an unexpected blow at her chest, and it landed, that was for sure, the wind was knocked out of her lungs as surely as if he had thrown her small frame against the wall.
Cameron's face turned a further, truer shade of red, but Cuddy felt no pity for the girl, not when she knew from the atmosphere in the room that the encounter had been his former employee's initiative.
"Are you hungry?" His voice, so comforting and yet so infuriating, cut through her thoughts like a razor blade through soap, and she found herself nodding.
It made sense, her desire for food, seeing as she hadn't eaten anything since lunch, and her body somehow sat itself down; she had the distinct impression of an out of body experience, for surely there was no way she could command her raging thoughts and her awkward physicality at the same time.
House had disappeared into the kitchen; the sound of scraping bowls and cutlery and the hum of the microwave could be heard, even through the thick, tense silence.
Somehow, her eyes had moved themselves to meet Cameron's, and the younger woman regarded her cautiously, as though Cuddy still had some sort of power over her.
She supposed it was good, to have the position of authority, and she was brought back to a time, months ago, when she had asked the former member of House's team to take over her job as she cared for Rachael.
Even then, she had been incompetent, fumbling, afraid of the word no, of displeasing House, of making herself into an inhibitor.
"Shrimp Scampi." House said, as he placed the plate of food down in front of her on the mahogany table. "Actually, if you translate it, it's "Shrimp Shrimp", but you get the idea. Real genious who decided to put that one on Italian menus, if you ask me-"
"House." she interrupted, stopping what was obviously her first glimpse past his façade, into his nervousness. "It's fine. This looks delicious." And in fact, it did.
It was certainly the most appetizing looking Shrimp Scampi she had ever encountered.
One bite told her that it was, by far, the best thing she had ever tasted.
And it saddened her more than she would ever admit to anyone to know that he had cooked it for Cameron.
"Oh my god…." she moaned, involuntarily, at the taste of the succulent shrimp and tender homemade pasta in her mouth.
"That's what she said." House replied, and Cameron instantly switched back to bright red and looked down. It didn't take long for House to realize the double meaning behind what he had just said, and he cleared his throat, trying, sincerely, to get rid of the awkwardness that had fallen over the group.
"So… how's the hospital?" Cameron asked quietly, looking up at Cuddy then looking away just as quickly.
"Huh? Oh, it's fine. Just burst a pipe down in the morgue, but other than that…" Cuddy mentally slapped herself. Nothing was the matter, except a certain recently re-certified diagnostician had disappeared early in the day, fueling even more rumours. Not to mention their disaster of an argument, an argument that had unfortunately gone around the hospital and back a couple thousand times since the people in the clinic had first heard his confession.
"Oh… uh, good…" Their conversation continued on in that fashion for all of two minutes, before the two doctors lapsed into silence, House still in the kitchen, doing, of all things, the dishes.
"House?" Cuddy dared to ask, after the silence had once again become stifling. "Where's Wilson?" He walked out of the kitchen at that, wearing a look of concern.
"Didn't he go back to the hospital?" he asked, seemingly confused.
'No, it was almost nine when he left."
"Shit." House muttered, and she looked up at him sharply.
"What?"
"Well, he's not here, and he's not at the hospital, so obviously, he's passed out somewhere… shit…" Cuddy was confused. Since when was House so concerned about Wilson's wellbeing? Yes, lately the oncologist had been a little bit off, but surely that was nothing serious, no reason for alarm.
"He found me in bed with Cameron earlier tonight." he said, half to her, half to himself. "Not doing anything, mind you, just sleeping…" She felt another pang of jealously at that; since when had House been a cuddler? "He must have thought that I was just screwing around, after you had… Shit." There was something wrong with the situation, very, very wrong.
Cameron was looking practically sick to her stomach, and House, well House was looking really undone, almost reminiscent of that day in her office, the day he had realized that no, he was not okay.
"House, what's wrong with Wilson?" she dared to ask, wondering if she would be treated to an explosion or a deflection or something equally unhelpful.
"Wilson… Wilson's depressed. Really depressed. I think he's going to have a breakdown. I might have just sparked it."
"By sleeping with Cameron?" As unhappy as she was about the situation, it wasn't something that Wilson should have been overly affected by, not when the young doctor was leaving the next day.
"He thinks he can't help me anymore… he thinks I'm self destructive. I… can't get him to understand…" He looked off into the distance at that, still talking more to himself than to her, but she caught ever muttered, worried word.
"Get him to understand that I've changed…" He turned back to Cuddy, and fixed her with a biting glare. "Well, I couldn't get you to understand that either, so I guess I'm the one at fault here."
"Don't say that, House." Cameron said softly, comfortingly, and Cuddy felt a thrill of anger towards her. She shouldn't be the one that House turned to for comfort, but it was the Dean of Medicine's own fault that she was no longer that part of House's life.
"It's true." House muttered, and at that moment, the front door flew open, bringing in the cold rainstorm that had been reigning outside.
"Wilson!" Cuddy exclaimed, and strode over to him. He was soaked from skin to bone, and looked like he had been through a war zone. His knee was bloodied and his face was scraped; it looked like he had taken a pretty bad fall.
House tried to limp over quickly to his friend, but he twisted his leg in a way that couldn't be forgiven in his attempts at speed, and he collapsed on a chair, gripping his thigh in agony.
Cuddy placed an arm around the dripping drunk, and escorted him to the dining room table, where he took a seat next to his best friend.
"Cuddy…" he muttered, looking around wildly. "What are you doing here… can't stay here, got to get out..."
'I'm not going anywhere, Wilson." she said firmly, but he just looked up at her with wide, bloodshot eyes.
"No, no, not you… I can't stay here, got to go somewhere else… hurts too much... gotta get my things, gotta leave..."
Cuddy looked at him in alarm, and she could feel Cameron and House's eyes on her.
"What hurts, Wilson, what's too much?"
"I can't be here…. Knowing that… I'm too much for him… that I can't do anything for him... he still hasn't changed...Take me to the hotel… take me out of here…"
He then yelled loudly and nearly fell out of the chair. Cuddy forced him back onto the seat.
"We need to get him to the hospital Cameron," she said, turning around to face the blond haired doctor. Her practical side had taken over, and she no longer thought about who had slept with whom but what she needed to do to help her friend. "Who knows what's wrong with him."
"Don't worry, Lisa, I'll take him." Cameron said somberly, surprising Cuddy with the use of her first name. "I should get going. I'll get him a room, get him set up." She heaved Wilson off of the seat, and steadied the man, making sure that he was easy on his feet.
"I'll get his things." House said, finally having worked out the kink in his leg, and he got up, limping more heavily that Cuddy had seen him limp in a long time.
"Are you sure, Cameron; you don't have to, I can get him a room in Princeton-Plainsboro."
"No, I'll take him. He just needs a bed. And out of this house."
'What do you think is wrong with him?" Cuddy asked, worried.
"I don't know. But I'm sure it's nothing that can be fixed overnight." the younger doctor said gravely.
House returned with a suitcase full of Wilson's things, and he gave them to Cuddy to carry, having exhausted his leg's capacity for the night.
He collapsed on the couch, nursing his thigh.
"Cameron. Thanks… for everything. For talking to me. For… caring about me. For being ridiculously emotional and irrational about nearly everything you do." He mumbled from the couch, almost inaudible. "I would get up and hug you, but I can't. Take care of Wilson. He needs it." And with that, the world renowned diagnostician fell asleep. Cameron spared one glance back at Cuddy, before picking up her suitcase and Wilson's keys, guiding the man out of the door.
Cuddy was alone in the house, and she was exhausted from her day, in no shape to walk, let alone drive.
She saw no choice but to sprawl out on the couch adjacent to House's, and so, she did.
Sleep came easily, but it was, by no means, an easy sleep.