047. Death
Nothing
Death came swiftly as death is prone to do. One minute Wilson was driving along the road to House's apartment, the next the truck had ploughed into the side of the car. He'd died instantly. Another stupid pointless death in a litany of stupid pointless deaths from road accidents.
House stood at the side of the grave, his hand clenched around the handle of his cane and stared down at the green grass, rain starting to fall around him.
The funeral had been almost unbearable. Julie weeping ostentatiously for a husband she'd stopped caring for a long time ago. White-faced coworkers looking shocked and genuinely distressed at the loss of a well-liked colleague. Stoic family members mourning a lost son, brother, nephew, uncle, cousin. And House. Sitting with the family at their request, stiff and silent as he'd been since the phone call had come from Cuddy.
He hadn't gone to the wake. He had no interest in standing around with a houseful of people trying to remember Wilson as they knew him. What did they know about James Wilson? Instead he'd gone home and gotten quietly drunk, finally letting the tears of grief fall in the darkness of his living room.
He'd tried to go on. He'd tried to keep functioning as he'd always done. But somehow it hadn't quite worked. He just hadn't known what he had until it was gone and beyond recall. He knew they watched him and worried about him. Cuddy, Foreman, Chase, Cameron, even Stacy watched. But they didn't see. Only Wilson had known him well enough to see that he was breaking, shattering under the strain of loss.
The first mistake had been just that. A mistake, an accident. Foreman had thankfully caught it and the patient hadn't died but it had been an indication of what was to come. He could no longer concentrate on his work. It no longer drew him in when there was no more Wilson pretending to have a long-lost cousin that needed his help. No more Wilson offering interesting cases. Because Wilson always seemed to find the most interesting cases.
One mistake had followed another and mostly they were caught by his team. And they said nothing. They didn't know how to approach him about it since he barely spoke to them anymore outside of matters strictly business. And they didn't want to go to Cuddy. In the wake of Wilson's death, they had rallied closer to him, protectively, defensively. And there was no Wilson go to which had been what they had always done.
But now a woman had died because he'd made another mistake; one his team hadn't caught. And their connivance was starting to come to light. The sheer number of mistakes he'd made was being uncovered. He'd been summoned to Cuddy's office this morning and placed on administrative leave while every file was scrutinised. He'd accepted that with the same still silence that had enveloped him since Wilson had died then turned and left, not seeing the worried and concerned gaze that followed him.
He knew what they would find and he briefly regretted his team's loyalty. They would pay for that and they didn't deserve it. They'd done everything they could to cover for him, to ensure that their patients survived and walked out of the hospital.
He stared down at the grave and let the small orange bottle fall from his hand. It bounced slightly before coming to rest, white label facing up, showing that it had been filled only that morning. It was now empty. House felt the nothingness he craved slowly creep over him and his cane slipped from his hand. His knees folded underneath him and he fell to the ground. He barely felt the pain from his leg as blackness overtook him.
Then he knew nothing.