Hi everyone, sorry about the wait, went into House/Wilson

shock with the last few eps on TV... can't believe what's in

store for them both in 5 months time :'( As a result this

chapter kind of became a bit of an emotional roller coaster...

hope you enjoy anyway! I wrote a lot of this before 'Holding

On' but after that ep and THAT scene in the car I'm kind of

thinking anything could happen with House and Wilson...

woohoo! xxx

'Look at these hands, at my side…

They swallowed the grave of that night.

When I drank the world's sin, so I could carry you in,

And give you life… I want to give you life.

And I'll be by your side, wherever you fall,

In the dead of night, whenever you call,

And please don't fight, these hands that are holding you…

My hands are holding you.'

{Tenth Avenue North: By Your Side}

The apartment was pitch black by the time House was awoken by the craved-for sound of a drunken stumble against his front door, the slight thud punctuated with mumbled curses jolting him from the monotony of helpless worry that had seen him uneasily drift off on the couch around an hour earlier, his latest scotch sat untouched on the coffee table his feet were currently resting upon.

The digital light of his watch informed him that it had gone midnight.

A good while ago, in fact.

And now, as he heaved himself up to limp quickly towards the door, banging the light on and inexplicably dreading what he knew would be waiting for him on the other side, House couldn't help the Wilson-aimed surge that unexpectedly flew through him, a simmering surge of… resentment?... anger?

Whatever the hell it was, the door nearly came off its hinges as House ripped it open, blue eyes blazing brightly as he took in the utter mess that was his taken aback best friend, the concern-rooted, fretful words savagely out of his mouth before he knew it:

'How many more clichés do we have to tick off your 'to do' list before you're done, Wilson? Because right now, almost thirteen hours after you decided to do a runner, I could damn well throttle you.'

Wilson said nothing; his shadowed face paling even more than it already was and his somewhat stunned eyes going that little bit wider as he stared dazedly at House before he suddenly heaved, retching and promptly chucking up at the feet of his obviously pissed off friend.

Nice.

'Touché,' sighed House, sadly inspecting the back-splashed damage to his Nikes as Wilson moved only to lean his forehead against the cool wall of the dark hall way, eyes closed as he tried to breathe past the nauseating free fall that this wholly expected onset of intoxicated head spinning had sent him in to.

Oh… God… he was going to be sick again-

Wilson could only weakly protest at the strong hands that roughly grabbed him then, forcibly pulling him around the pool of vomit and into the apartment, wincing at the slam of the door behind him and his legs like lead as he stumbled forwards for what seemed like forever, finally finding himself shoved up against the remarkably impeccable kitchen sink, his head practically pushed down into the thing as he proceeded to hurl for a second time, House's instincts spot-on as usual in guessing that Wilson would never have made it to the bathroom in time.

For his part, House could only stand there, his leg killing him and his arm around Wilson's heaving waist as he did his best to steady his unknowingly swaying friend in keeping him propped upright at the now filthy sink, still furious at Wilson but so thoroughly relieved that he was here, that he was safe, that House didn't really know what the fuck to feel at this point.

The urge to just shake Wilson as hard as he could was so strong, the intense, stale stench of the inordinate amount of alcohol his usually stable friend had evidently consumed a stark reminder of the sheer stupidity he'd indulged in over the course of the day. Plus, he was practically dithering in his arms, cold as he was, and it didn't take a genius to work out that he'd eaten very little, if anything at all.

There was no doubt about it that the younger man was a fool for thinking anything remotely good could have come out of this.

But the urge to do what he could to fix him, to get his old Wilson back, was more than strong… it was overwhelming. That feeling of responsibility, that was always there no matter how hard House tried to deny it vocally, that shone through anyway in the little, meaningful things he did for Wilson, was flaring particularly brightly now, no more so than when Wilson eventually managed to stop vomiting, rinsing his mouth quickly and practically slumped across the sink in his exhaustion, trying his best to breathe deeply in a bid to exercise at least some control over his aching stomach and shivering with both the self-induced chill and general neglect he'd subjected himself to.

He couldn't even muster the strength to shed the tears that glazed the destitute depths of his dark eyes.

'You're an idiot,' concluded House softly, placing Wilson's arm around his shoulders and keeping his own arm at Wilson's waist to gently steer him from the sink, gripping the counter top hard to support them both as he limped painfully towards the couch under the weight of Wilson's drink-addled body.

Wilson, it emerged, had other ideas.

'I don't need your he.. your help,' he muttered stubbornly, his breath thick with the sour stench of a multitude of beverages as he dug his heels in, trying to drag his arm back from House's shoulders before endeavoring to weakly wriggle out of House's grasp, failing quite spectacularly in trying to bat House away at the irritated glare his friend subjected him to.

'You want us both to go ass over tit? 'Cause the floor's where we're headed here, Wilson, if you carry on being a total twat. Christ, how the hell you managed to find your way home in one piece, I don't know.'

Wilson scowled, waiting until they were a few feet away from their destination before attempting to push House away again, successful this time as House allowed him to practically fall from his arms and collapse forwards onto the couch, groaning on impact with the pain that shuddered through his beaten body; the aching, heavy pain that echoed back to his ordeal the previous night numbed only slightly by the alcohol as he crawled messily to the end of the couch.

'Well, House, that's me all over isn't it? 'M like some sort of stupid.. stupid homing pigeon,' spat Wilson eventually, his embittered voice sharply undermining any affectionate subtext that could have been gleaned from that slightly slurred statement as he struggled to get comfortable, his own eyes vehemently empty as he finally locked on to those blue eyes that meant everything to him, those beautiful, vulnerable blue eyes that constantly brought him heartache in some form or other now wide with a kind of guilt-stricken fear for his next, sudden drink-fuelled truths that cut through House as easily as any knife could, Wilson's pent-up resentment, pent-up grief, for this sudden appalling plunge his life had taken boiling over all at once to blisteringly scald the person closest to him, sobering him up pretty quickly in the cruel process.

'M like a homing pigeon, hard-wired to.. to always find my way back to you, to go wherever you need me to go, do whatever you need me to do, no matter what the personal cost-'

'Wilson-'

'No, House. No matter what the personal cost, you know damn fucking well that I'll always come back for you, 'cause don't we both know that I'm just too… too hopelessly attracted to resist the.. the.. what was it? Oh yeah, the shine of your neediness,' continued Wilson breathlessly, his shaken voice growing louder with every choked word as he drove mercilessly home to his friend just a fraction of the gut-wrenching pain that had swallowed him whole, that had nothing to do with any temporary physical infliction, that hurt so damn much that he could hardly breathe.

'Well, d'you know something, House? I'm not just attracted to it – I'm.. I'm fucking drowning in it. In you. In everything that comes with being your best friend, acting as your conscience, draining me constantly with the shit you throw at me every God damn day, giving you an inch at every opportunity and doing nothing when you take a mile every time-'

'Wilson-'

'-knowing all the time that while my life continues to revolve around you, like it does every fucking minute of every fucking day, you'll do sweet fuck all to help me whenever the tables are turned, unless it serves some.. some crappy selfish agenda, leaving me knowing that, actually, you don't care, because the constant fuck-ups you never fail to land at my doorstep totally undermine any small action that might have made me think otherwise, and I.. I… I can't…'

'I didn't rape you, Wilson,' pointed out House quietly, carefully lowering himself onto the other end of the couch and taking advantage of Wilson's momentary pause to starkly pinpoint the unsurprising, blaming sentiment that he could sense was at the agonized core of his friend's desperate outpour, blame that Wilson obviously needed to assign to someone in his frantic yearning to claw back some sort of control, to claw back some sort of normality.

And who better, who easier, to take it out on than the person who loved you most, lashing out before the person who knew you better than you knew yourself could effortlessly slip past any carefully constructed defense in finding you at your most vulnerable, making the horrific reality you were trying so hard to escape exactly that… an horrific reality.

House couldn't deny that he was the master of that particular trade.

Even so, years of experience spent doing just that didn't make the dawning fury on Wilson's face any less painful to bear witness to, nor his gasped comeback any less painful to hear, his targeted words dripping with the venom that, by rights, should have been aimed at someone else entirely, the accompanying guilt of which only served to spill the inevitable tears that trickled desolately down his cheeks, free-flowing now despite Wilson's furious swiping at them as he verbally hit House hard where he knew it hurt, hating himself all the more as he yelled:

'You didn't rape me in the same way you didn't kill Amber!'

House blanched, feeling the color drain from his cheeks as he stared hard at Wilson, who looked as stunned as House felt at his enraged outburst, the groundless accusation that made total sense, and yet no sense at all, hanging unbearably in the air between them.

Because the horrible thing was, despite knowing that Wilson was deliberately trying to hurt him before he could delve any deeper, despite knowing that Wilson's reaction shouldn't have been all that unexpected, House knew exactly what Wilson meant. He was only human, after all. Had he not already gone through all this the night before, sat in Wilson's bathroom in the condo, feeling thoroughly sick at the prospect of the inevitable, angst-ridden conclusion that Wilson would have to arrive at some time or other?

Because if House had done as he'd promised last night, deciding to be there for Wilson for once and coming home from work when he was meant to… well, there was a good chance that Wilson wouldn't have been raped, let alone leaving him in the utterly broken state he was in now.

Just like if Amber hadn't been on that bus, following through with House's fateful decision to ask someone to pick him up and take him home… the simple fact was that Wilson wouldn't have suffered so tragically then either. He wouldn't have lost the woman he loved, and Amber's life wouldn't have been so needlessly wasted.

There was no doubt about it in House's mind that his needs, on both occasions, had formed a fateful link in the chain of events that had led to these two incidents he regretted most of all, excruciating regret that surely didn't even come close to the sheer anguish that Wilson had already endured, and would continue to have to endure for a long time to come.

'I.. I didn't… I shouldn't.. God, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that,' whispered Wilson as he stared bewilderedly at House, leaning back into the couch and releasing a shaken breath that morphed very quickly into a suppressed sob as he hid his face in the welcome darkness of his hands, utterly loathing himself for placing any sort of real blame on House's shoulders when, truthfully, he wasn't to blame at all. Not for Amber's death, and most certainly not for the actions of the sick bastard who'd left him like this in the first place.

The silence could have gone on forever if House hadn't decided to end it, doing what he couldn't help and pushing his friend ever closer towards breaking point, that breaking point that he'd once tried so hard to avoid reaching with Wilson now the only place he knew this could go if they were to ever get past this.

He was terrified.

'We both know it would have been different if Amber hadn't come to pick me up that night,' offered House softly, his words catching dryly in his throat as he guiltily watched Wilson trying so, so hard to hold everything at bay from behind trembling hands at the other end of the couch, sensing the nearing of Wilson's inevitable collapse and choosing to difficultly voice the mutual thought that had been at the core of his friend's unraveling tonight, speaking a glaring truth that was so simple in hindsight, and yet so painfully true, because it needed to be said.

'And if I'd just come home on time last night, like I said I would… well, things might have been different then too. A lot different. There's no way around it – I stayed last night for me, for the puzzle, not for the patient. She could have waited till morning. If I'd known what would happen, what was happening, at home while I was just… well, you know I wouldn't have stayed there. I'm sorry, Wilson.'

Wilson froze, barely even feeling his hands slip as they slid limply to his lap.

Anger, he could have taken. House yelling something unforgiveable in rebuke, vehemently denying his part in this, harping on about the necessity of him staying late at work last night, like he usually did, thereby unwittingly illustrating his all-consuming guilt for not being there, that was crushing him, Wilson could have handled.

And as fucked up as he knew that was, as fucked up as he knew he was, Wilson would have taken some strange comfort in the knowledge that he was always headed for what happened last night, that there was a reason for it all, like there was for everything, that there wouldn't have been any chance of House preventing anything anyway because he was never going to stick by his word and come home on time, because he always ended up having to stay in work for some patient's life that hung in the balance.

But… this?

Because what House was essentially telling him here, with his usual brutal honesty, was that, actually, the critical event that had utterly broken Wilson, that now unwillingly defined him above all else, that would surely haunt him for the rest of his hollow life, didn't even have that gloriously affirmative, almost tangible attribute otherwise known as fate.

His patient could have waited till morning… there had been no real purpose for him staying other than the fucking puzzle.

A puzzle that didn't even have life or death odds on it.

What House was telling him here, was that, actually, Wilson's rape wasn't always going to happen, it wasn't unavoidable… it could so easily have gone the other way.

What House was making starkly clear here was that Wilson, as chance would have it, had simply been in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Both of them had been.

Again.

Because the simple fact was that life had dealt him some pretty vicious blows, the worst of which he'd thought was losing Amber under such similarly senseless circumstances, her life a needless loss that had utterly shattered him.

But what had happened last night… that was something else entirely different. Wilson just couldn't envision ever being that relatively normal man he'd been two days ago, he couldn't imagine ever being able to wake up without thinking of how much he'd been robbed of, constantly aching for his old life, that now retrospectively simple life that had just ceased to be at 10:11pm last night; anything Wilson had ever known, ever dared to take for granted as being him, being home, from the assumed, inherent awareness of his own state of mind and body to the indomitable shelter that he found nowhere but within this stupid, screwed up friendship with Gregory House, having suddenly just dropped out from beneath him, without warning, to leave him falling helplessly with nothing and no one to catch him.

And he'd been left like that, detached from everything, by pure chance? The chain of events leading up to last night simply a collection of stupid chances that had fallen like dominoes to lead his rapist right to his front door? That last chance of any sort of defense, that last link in the damned chain, crumbling miserably with House's no-show? Consequently left like this, ultimately, for the inanely simple reason of being in the wrong place, at the wrong fucking time? His life decidedly over on the fucking whim of someone who had simply come out of the life lottery holding a winning ticket, giving them a free pass to choose him, out of billions of people that roamed this earth, to so totally destroy?

No.

No.

He couldn't do this.

'You should have had your meds hours ago,' muttered House suddenly, unable to stand Wilson's stunned silence any longer and guiltily glad of having some reasonable excuse to be helpful and leave Wilson for a moment of reprieve as he pushed himself up to limp into the kitchen, grabbing the Ibuprofen and the Tylenol as well as the various prophylactics before returning a minute or so later with the containers of pills and a pint of water to put them on the coffee table in front of Wilson, his light tone masking the fear that laced every word.

It was a tone that Wilson knew all too well, one that he had no trouble reflexively seeing straight through, even now.

'There. Pop them and drink that. You'll still have a bitch of a hangover tomorrow, but at least you'll be able to sleep pain-free. Fail that and I could just rustle you up a Vicodin flavor sleeping-remedy... I'm pretty sure there'll be one or two pills lying around here that escaped the mass clear out.'

Wilson didn't even bothering registering his usual reproachful response to that, avoiding House's uneasy gaze and simply swallowing the painkillers together as instructed before reaching for the prophylactics, his unsteady hand slowing at the last second as he tentatively wrapped his fingers around one of the little brown bottles, the detested pills that shook within signifying his best chance of staving off a multitude of sexually transmitted infections, including the one that was scaring him beyond all else, his own body thoroughly repulsing him with every breath he took.

It was a feeling that he knew, with unbearable certainty, wouldn't be leaving him anytime soon.

'I hate this.'

Wilson's voice was barely audible, so heartbreakingly small, and yet House couldn't miss the blatant animosity that permeated every defeated syllable of the gritted statement, that had Wilson so overwrought as his grip tightened evermore on the bottle, those three words truly illustrating to House, more than any yelled obscenity, just how beyond traumatized his friend actually was here.

'I know,' said House calmly, feeling totally useless when Wilson instantly snapped his eyes from the pills to him then, his expression such a frenzied mix of astonishment and aversion that House, where it mattered most of all, realized he couldn't even begin to fathom how his best friend was feeling.

He could read his patients like a book, whip a diagnosis out of thin air on the basis of a little, white lie that every patient told in some form or other, make life and death decisions that could make or break a patient, like that.

But the brown eyes that held him now, the vulnerably shattered windows to the torn soul of this man before him, this man who meant the world to him… well, House, appallingly, didn't know where to begin.

And Wilson knew it.

'You don't know,' laughed Wilson derisively, the disbelief emanating from him in harsh waves as he stared incredulously at House, his already tearful eyes filling once more at this token crap House was spouting, crap that sounded so false in comparison to the blur of raw memories that were just merciless in their constant replay, killing him over and over again.

'You can't know. I don't want you to ever have to fucking know. I don't want you to have to live your life flinching at every stupid knock, every noise, you hear, jumping in fright when some dick of a bartender, some dick who's just doing his job, accidentally brushes his arm against yours to get your latest empty glass, your skin crawling long after he's gone, crawling like the rest of your body has been for what seems like forever, making you feel sick constantly, the sm.. the smell of the night that ruined your life always lingering, never fading away, the air you breathe saturated with that revolting scent of the man who just.. just took whatever he wanted, wh.. who beat you to the floor, trapping you there, choking you as he.. as he.. climbed on top of you, reaching d..down and.. and… oh, G.. God…'

Wilson was crying now, the pills falling forgotten from his grasp to skittle across the floor as he hid behind his ever-trembling hands that flew once more to his ashen face, feeling every searing, violating touch of his attacker as he shamefully relived the worst nine minutes of his life once more, drowning in the white hot pain he'd endured that was like nothing he'd ever felt before, humiliated pain that still overcame him in heavy waves when he least expected it, pain that now had him sobbing so hard that it hurt, God, it hurt so much… pain that only ebbed slightly when he unexpectedly felt the strong arms of his friend suddenly surrounding him, carefully wrapping him to his chest, Wilson's bristling instinct to push House away, to push everyone away, quashed wholly by the startling relief that flooded so soothingly through him in that instant; this warranted embrace, like the night before, saying everything that words would never be capable of expressing as Wilson's world suddenly, thankfully, became House.

House didn't know how long he held Wilson there for, forcing this feeling of comforting security onto him in a desperate bid to counteract, to obliterate, everything he'd just tearfully revealed to House, to make him see that he wasn't alone in this, that he would never be alone, the passing of time measured only in the lessening shakes that ran insistently through Wilson's cold body as he slowly relaxed against House; his wracking sobs that seemed to echo through the apartment, that tore through the dead of night stillness, that tore through House, eventually dying down to the occasional shuddering intake of breath as his exhausted body slackened in House's embrace, Wilson's damp cheek coming to rest at the crook of his friend's neck as he stared sleepily at the wall opposite, utterly exhausted.

'You would have stopped him,' he whispered after a minute or so, as suddenly certain now of the truth of those five words as he was of any cancer diagnosis he'd ever made, the sheer conviction behind Wilson's fragile words flooring House as he looked down to his friend, this boy wonder Head of Oncology who was a pillar of strength to every one of his patients and their families, to colleagues and friends, to him, never having felt as breakable as he did then, House's hold tightening just that little bit more around Wilson as he muttered his fervent reply:

'Yeah. And I won't let him hurt you again. I give you my word.'

Wilson nodded, finally giving in to let his eyes drift shut as House pulled the blanket from the back of the couch to tuck around them, peaceful at last with this unanticipated sanctuary he'd found within his friend's arms, this sanctuary that he'd been unknowingly searching for all day, this sanctuary that he'd thought he'd find within strange people and bars, within pint after numbing pint… this sanctuary that he'd unwittingly run from this morning, that had been here all along, just waiting for him to come back.