House sat in his apartment, waiting.
Of course, he could have been drugged at a bar night before last, but he thought the action had occurred here, after he had returned after closing. He thought somebody had either followed him home from the bar or had been staking out the apartment waiting for his return. When he'd woken up, his leg had been still affected by the Vicodin, though not in the initial surge of relative pain relief. He thought probably he had been drugged in the last few hours before dawn. Besides, for tonight's trap purposes, it had to be here. Harder to pretend to drink in a bar, and he needed control of the environment. He looked over at the webcam, set up unobtrusively and recording, focused toward the couch.
He had been out for a full trip to the liquor store and had promptly poured a good bit of it down the drain, leaving just empty bottles for effect. He saved part of one bourbon bottle, and once it was well after dark, he poured himself one glass and gulped it down, successfully getting the smell of alcohol on his breath. He tipped more out dribbling down his shirt until he decided he smelled enough of liquor. Then he sat back to wait, the mostly empty bourbon bottle on the coffee table with the empty shot glass beside it. From this point, he would be acting, not actually drinking. The shot glass he'd selected was swirled glass, dark enough to maintain a long-distance illusion.
The alcohol still stunned him. How could he have possibly given such an opening to an enemy? To deliberate turn his mind, his proudest possession, off and open himself to attack was utterly stupid. But beyond that, he knew that even without enemies, his drinking had been getting out of control lately. It wasn't yet a full-blown addiction - he wanted another drink right now but wasn't salivating over it as he had the Vicodin, and he'd felt no withdrawal the last day - but he knew that it was heading that way. He had to deal with it. Waking up in the wrong apartment should have been enough of a literal wake-up call. It should never have taken laying himself open to attack to make him realize. He sighed. Well, this was one thing in his life that he wasn't going to keep screwing up. He'd get help somewhere. Not from Nolan, but somewhere.
Nolan. House was more hurt than he ever would have admitted that Cuddy's attitude had changed right after she'd talked to Nolan. To that point, she was trying to explore alternatives with him, but there, her mind shut down. Okay, so he hadn't told her about walking out of therapy, but it hadn't been something he was keeping from her deliberately to make this situation look better. Lost in the horror of being trapped, he hadn't even been thinking about that appointment until Cuddy had mentioned calling the psychiatrist. Too much else had been preoccupying him. But once she talked to Nolan, the fact that he'd broken off therapy automatically convicted him of a relapse in her eyes.
Wilson's attitude hurt, too, but it didn't bother him as much because he'd really expected it. Wilson was a good friend, and House thought he probably would be again, but Wilson at times hit overload when things got too much and simply shut down and walked away. The oncologist's most unreasonable point by far was love. Take Amber, for instance. House wasn't denying Wilson's grief, but keeping that sort of shrine over a year later and talking every night to a woman he'd only dated a few months was an extreme overreaction. House still felt bad about Amber, but she hadn't been Wilson's departed wife of 70 years, and his reaction to her death had elevated her to a pedestal that would have had Amber herself, if she'd seen it, rolling her eyes. She would have been the first to give Wilson a ghostly kick in the rear and tell him to get on with life. Now that Wilson finally was starting to get on with life, approaching it in his usual jump-into-the-deep-end fashion, he wouldn't be able to accept anything right now that he possibly perceived as against Sam. And implying that she had drugged and framed House certainly fell into the category of negative accusations.
But it wasn't that House wanted to believe in Sam as a suspect; it was that she fit the criteria. She and Lucas both did. Why couldn't the world stop having emotional reactions to logic? It wasn't that he wanted to find things against her so decided to blame her for the Vicodin. It was simply that 2+2=4, and on that alone, she was a candidate.
He glanced at his watch. Assuming that both Cuddy and Wilson had carried out their plans, probably over their respective tables, he figured he had maybe another hour before the earliest time anybody could get here. Easier for Lucas to leave given his job, but he had no doubt Sam could, too. She could think of some excuse if caught sneaking out once Wilson was asleep. He got up and spent the time playing the piano, then he checked the webcam again, opened the blinds, and set down to an imaginary alcoholic pity party in full view of anybody out on the street with binoculars.
He took his time, going through each imaginary glass, occasionally getting up for more, balance failing rapidly. He played the piano again once, forcing himself to hit progressively wrong notes, then staggered back over to the couch and settled down on the couch, reaching over to the bottles on the coffee table for refills, once letting one fall from slack fingers and roll away. It was disturbing to realize how well he knew all the stages of drunkenness, how easy it was to pretend. Yes, he had to get some help himself.
He was rapidly nearly what should be passing out stage, and his own doubts began to creep in. Was anybody watching? Was anybody coming? Was he in fact misreading the evidence?
The differential loaded up and ran again mentally. No, if he had taken Vicodin at the apartment early yesterday morning, which fit the data, and if there was no Vicodin here, which he'd proven, it had to have been brought in by another party. He tried to steady himself with the diagnosis, tried to pretend that his future career and all faith in himself didn't hang on this.
Maybe his visitor was waiting for him to pass out. He'd been thinking of some sort of spiked post-bar nightcap at the apartment, but the actual method of delivery had been a guess. Shoving pills into his mouth would work just as well, and he cringed to think that his body, with mind shut off, probably would have reacted automatically to the familiar taste and received them without resistance. He let himself fall into slack oblivion a few times, snapping out of it, and then let his eyes fall shut and stay that way, his head leaning back on the couch armrest, his mouth hanging slackly, thus providing escape for his alcohol breath, and everything but his ears apparently unconscious. His ears were alert for any possible sound. Come on, damn it, he accosted his unseen enemy. I'm right here, passed out, helpless. Get on with it.
Twenty minutes passed by ticked off in painful slowness by a clock in the room, and then there came the faintest rattle from the door. The sound of a key, sliding with infinite care into the lock. He kept his eyes shut, but his mind was racing. A key. Wilson had a key. Sam could have had it copied. On the other hand, Lucas could have easily swiped Wilson's for copying and returned it, either from the loft or from the hospital; Lucas had moved in and around the loft like it was his own.
Footsteps, soft but determined on the floorboards. He felt the presence over him, felt his enemy bend over and smell the alcohol fumes coming off. Between his breath and his shirt, House knew he smelled like a brewery. He kept absolutely still, giving the intruder enough rope to incriminate himself on webcam. To this point, it could have been passed off as being concerned and checking on someone. A rustle and the sound of something being pulled out of a pocket. House was waiting for the rattle of pills, but instead a voice came, and it took every bit of self control he had to avoid reacting as the impact of the words soaked in. This wasn't what he'd been expecting. This was even worse.