On Tuesday morning, Wilson stopped at the University Chapel on his way to work. He hadn't scheduled any patient appointments for the day, but there were rounds to do and an ever-present backlog of paperwork that had only grown larger and more unmanageable during four months' leave. Still, there was time to listen to an invocation and blessing, to close his eyes and let the mournful notes of a cello wash over him. There was time to spare a moment of silence for those who had given so much more, and to remember his own fresh loss, the victim not of an undeclared war but of a mission of peace.
The Diagnostics department was dark when he walked past, but Wilson saw the light go on in House's office shortly after. He wondered if House had found remembrance oppressive in a silent apartment, or if he'd called his mother to share or ease her memories. House had always avoided observing Veterans Day in the past, but Wilson hoped John House's passing had brought some measure of reconciliation, if not peace. "The war is over," Blythe had said, but Wilson knew some wars never ended.
Just before eleven, he closed the file he was updating and walked out onto the balcony. House was sitting at his desk, staring past his monitor, seemingly lost in thought. Wilson hesitated, and then picked up a handful of pebbles and tossed them at the door.
House slid open his own balcony door, arranging his features into a put-upon frown, as if Wilson had interrupted something more portentous than simple brooding. Wilson had seen the brief smile cross his lips, though, and wasn't fooled. "It's too early for lunch," House said, though it had never mattered before.
"Come on," Wilson said. "I know you don't like ceremonies, but you can almost see the monument at Mercer and Nassau from the roof." He knew House would understand without further explanation. Still, Wilson half-expected House just to roll his eyes and walk back into his office without a word.
He was half-right. House did roll his eyes, but he joined Wilson by the low wall that marked the no man's land between their balconies, his own version of an armistice.
"We can almost see it from here as well," House said. "Which is to say, not at all. So why bother with the stairs? What time is it?"
Wilson checked his watch. "Five to eleven. I could recite 'In Flanders Field' while we're waiting."
"How about you give those two minutes of silence a practice run instead?"
Wilson ignored him. "Or I could sing 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda.' One of my grandfather's cousins fought at Gallipoli. He was a Rhodes Scholar, and when the war broke out he enlisted in the British army. He died during the advance on Baghdad in 1917." Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, he thought.
He'd found a picture of that lost, distant relative on a military website. A captain in the British army, though he'd been born in New Jersey just like Wilson. Wounded four times, mentioned in despatches, the brief commemoration read. A life and death summed up in just a few sentences. Wilson had seen traces of himself in the faded black and white image -- the same dark hair and eyes, the long, straight nose -- but not enough to create a sense of family or a real connection.
"Thanks for that fascinating glimpse into your family history," House sniped. "If a first cousin, twice removed, is the best you can do today, I can't see how it's worth the effort."
"You don't have to have someone's blood running through your veins to honour him," Wilson said pointedly, then tapped his watch. "Eleven o'clock. Two minutes."
He thought about a young man who hadn't lived to see his twenty-fifth birthday, who had died in the war to end all wars in a country where war was still being waged nine decades later. He thought about John House, who had shaped his son, even without the aid of DNA. He thought about Amber who hadn't been a soldier, but who could fight with the best of them, and whose memory still made him laugh and cry. He lowered his head, knowing both the smile and the tears would discomfit House.
More than two minutes had passed when he looked up again, but House was gazing off in the distance, either lost his in his own memories or silently respecting Wilson's.
"I hated Veterans Day when I was growing up," House said, still looking away. "Living on a base it was real. Not just a parade passing by, or wreaths being laid at a cenotaph. The glorious dead, the living heroes, and all the expectations I was never going to fulfill. I was never his son, in blood or spirit."
"He hurt you in ways I'm never going to understand," Wilson admitted, "but he did love you. And he was prouder of you than he could ever admit. Remember the other things, but remember that as well." He patted House awkwardly on the shoulder. "Come on. Let's beat the rush in the cafeteria. I'm buying."
But House shook his head. "Maybe later. I think I'm just going to stand out here a while longer. Who knows what else I can almost see." It was a dismissal, but a gentle one by House's standards.
Wilson wondered if his words had been enough to carry House though the day and the ones to follow, or if words alone could make up for years of sorrow and regret. They were all he had to give for now. That and space. Wilson didn't think he'd ever stop wanting to protect House, but the least he could do was try not to smother him. "Call me when you get hungry," he said and returned to his office, where he could still watch over his friend from a distance.