Chapter 8, in which House and Stacy talk...

House drove back home quickly, snapshots from his day whizzing around in his head. It was hard to believe that the ever dependable and reliable Wilson had vanished, to be replaced by… himself. There was nothing different in the way he acted, but he spoke to House slightly differently, almost as though he was carefully weighing each sentence before saying it. He had been obviously nervous around Stacy and the children and that only made House more inclined to trust what Wilson was saying...
He was from a parallel universe where House himself was entirely different, but it could all be traced back to one decision, made long ago. House wondered what that desicion could be, but he realized he didn't know enough about his parallel identity to even make an educated guess. He pulled into his driveway and sighed. He was going to have a hard time explaining this to Stacy.

He quickly crutched inside, locking the front door behind him and taking his shoe off. He went into the living room to find Stacy curled up on the couch watching TV with a glass of wine. He sat down next to her and she laid her head on his shoulder.

"Hey."

"Hey. Anything good on?"

"Only the news. There's been a fire in some warehouses on the edge of town."

House shivered. Even ten years after the fact, fire still made him nervous. His burn scars tingled slightly. Stacy looked at him sympathetically and kissed the scars where they marred the skin of his neck, trailing her lips down to his shirt collar.

"Sorry," she whispered.

"It's okay. One day I'll get over it."

"Not a day too soon."

They sat and watched in silence for a while, the newsreader's droning voice filling the room.

"James seemed to be acting a little odd this evening."

House decided to play it safe. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, the way he offered to help after dinner; he knows you're touchy about your leg and he's not usually that tactless. He was also pretty quiet whilst we were eating- normally he wants to hear every detail of the kid's days. Did he get some bad news today? Is everything okay with Bonnie?"

"I guess you could say… he found out something shocking this morning." House knew Stacy wouldn't leave it at that.

"What was it?"

"He… um… I don't know how to phrase this… Stacy, you have to trust me with this, okay?" He looked deep into her eyes.

She nodded. "Whatever you say."

"Wilson… isn't the usual Wilson. This guy is from some parallel universe where… well, let's just say things are worse for all involved. When I went into his office this morning, he fainted at the sight of me, because I'm apparently completely different in his universe."

Stacy was staring in open-mouthed shock.

"Is that even possible? How-?"

"I don't know. Wilson looked up a few articles and showed me some old Princeton student's theorem about it… it's related to Schrödinger's cat in some way. Basically, every time anyone makes a decision, a parallel universe splits off where the opposite decision was made. He reckons the decision was made along time ago to cause such massive differences in the worlds."

"So the Wilson who was here earlier is normally in some other universe? How did he get here? And where's our Wilson, for that matter?"

"I really don't know. The theorems apparently didn't explain that far."

"This is crazy."

"I know Stace, but you have to believe me."

Stacy sighed and shrugged her shoulders.

"If you believe Wilson, and you're sure he hasn't just gone mad then… I believe you."

"Thank you."

She looked up at him. "So what do we do?"

"I have no idea. Just wait it out, I suppose. Hope that he goes back where he came from and we get our original version of him back too."

"It's late. Let's go to bed." She helped House up from the sofa and handed him his crutches and they made their way upstairs and into their bedroom.

House sat down on the bed to get undressed and pulled on a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt. Stacy undressed and slid under the covers.

"I'll just go check on the kids," House said softly and crutched his way from the room, the right leg of his pants trailing slightly along the floor. He poked his head into the boys' room and, seeing they were both sound asleep, continued along the landing to Lucy's room. He leant against the doorjamb for a moment watching his daughter toss and turn restlessly in her sleep. Recently, she'd been having a string of bad nightmares and both House and Stacy were worried about her, as she wouldn't tell them what they were about. House silently cursed the click of his crutches as he took a step into her room.

"Daddy?" Lucy's quiet voice called out to him, followed by a sniffle.

"I'm right here Luce." He moved nearer and sat down on the end of her bed, reaching one long arm out to smooth down her hair. "Did you have another nightmare?"

"Uh huh," she mumbled. House thought she was probably still half asleep. He wiped the tears away with the back of his hand.

"Why don't you tell me what happened?"

Lucy's bottom lip quivered and some more tears spilled over.

"It was the bad men, Daddy. They… they killed you," she whispered and House pulled her into his arms and rocked her comfortingly.

"Which bad men, Luce? Who do you mean?"

"The bad soldiers where you went away to fight. This time they didn't just take your leg, Daddy, they killed you!"

"Oh, Lucy! I promise that is never going to happen, okay? I never have to go away and fight ever again and those bad soldiers are thousands of miles away. They can't hurt any of us here. Not me, or mom, or your brothers. No one is going to get killed."

House continued to soothe Lucy until her tears slowed down. After about ten minutes, she had fallen back to sleep and House laid her down gently and left the room as quietly as he could.

Stacy looked up as he came back in to their bedroom and saw the hollow look in his eyes.

"Greg? Are you okay?"

"Lucy had another nightmare. She told me she dreamed that 'the bad soldiers' didn't just take my leg, they killed me." His voice was a little hoarse. "I've traumatized my own children." He sat down on the bed, facing away from his wife.

"Gregory House, don't you dare say that! Your children love you and admire you for what you did out there in Afghanistan! They know you saved people's lives! It's understandable that they worry for your safety sometimes and that doesn't mean they're traumatized. It means they care for their father and don't want to see him get hurt!"

Stacy rounded the bed and sat down beside him, but he didn't make eye contact.

"What I did wasn't heroic. It was just in the line of duty. It was an expectation. I'm not special."

"Cut the crap, Greg, you have a uniform in that closet covered in medals that says otherwise."

"That day was the worst day of my life. I watched my friends die around me. I experienced pain like I had never felt before. I don't want a medal for that."

"I know." Stacy hated it when Greg got into one of his depressed moods like this; she never knew what she could say to comfort him. She did the only thing she could think of: wrapping her arms around his muscular frame, she hugged him tight and kissed his cheek, then moved back onto her side of the bed again, turning the lamp on her nightstand off as she did so. House lay down next to her and pulled the covers up, one hand going down to feel his stub of a leg through his pants. He felt Stacy's small hand cover his.

"I love you, Greg. You know this doesn't matter to me."

"I know." He was silent for a minute, a small sniff the only thing Stacy heard in the dark room.

"God I love you so much," he whispered, his voice thick.

Their lips found each other's in the darkness and they soon fell asleep, each comforted by the other.