Chapter 8: A Thousand Words

Wilson awkwardly pushed open the front door, his arms loaded with groceries. "House? Are you here?" There was no answer from the empty apartment. He thought back to the note he had found on his desk—don't worry. He snorted; he'd run the entire gamut of emotions in the last few hours – worry, anger, and lastly, helplessness.

He dumped the bags on the counter and was placing the groceries into their places in the cupboard with more force than was actually necessary when he saw the picture. Over the years, he had become fairly adept at deciphering the puzzle that was Gregory House, but this latest clue was a mystery. The groceries were abandoned on the counter as Wilson studied the picture. He pulled it off of the refrigerator and turned it over; there was nothing on the back to indicate when it had been taken. He looked at the two figures standing on the beach. It was obviously before the infarction, because there was almost no gray in Greg's hair, and both he and Stacy looked ridiculously happy. Why this picture, and why now? Stacy was a topic that they both studiously avoided.

He went back to putting away the groceries, and began making preparations for dinner. He kept glancing back at the photo, wondering what he was missing. He was chopping onions when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He picked up the photograph again. It seemed so obvious now that he had noticed it. Stacy was pregnant.

She must have lost the baby, because he had never even known she was pregnant. So like Greg to go through personal hell alone, but he was surprised that Stacy hadn't said anything.

He turned back to the cooking, feeling like he had only partially unraveled the clue in front of him. He had originally planned on making a white wine reduction for the chicken, but had switched to a cream sauce when Greg had finally admitted that alcohol was one of several things that could trigger a new bout of nausea. Morning sickness, his brain clarified. Even two days later it was hard to wrap his brain around the thought that House was pregnant.

He had just placed the baking dish in the oven when the phone rang. Without thinking, he picked up the phone, "Hello?"

"James, it's Stacy."

"House isn't here right now." He tried to think of an excuse for why he was in House's apartment when House wasn't home, but his frantic thoughts were cut off by her next words.

"I know. He just left here a few minutes ago."

"What? He was there?" Wilson asked, not sure what to make of this new development.

"He called this afternoon and wanted to talk." She paused, trying to gather her thoughts. "I know I don't have the right to ask this, but is he OK?"

"Why? What did he say?" he asked, feeling a knot of worry beginning to form in his stomach.

"He asked about when I was pregnant with Kyle. We talked for a few minutes, and then he left. Unusual, but nothing seriously alarming. What worries me is how he looked – thin, tired. Ill. I can't help but think that there is something seriously wrong with him."

Again, Wilson felt ashamed that someone else had noticed what he had been unable or unwilling to see. He chose his next words with care. "He's been having some trouble with his stomach. Nothing too serious, but he's lost some weight and is probably a little anemic. Now that he's finally admitted there's a problem, he should bounce back pretty quickly."

"So you can treat the underlying problem?" she asked, having picked up some medical knowledge after working with doctors for so many years.

He thought of the methotrexate locked away in the bottom drawer of his desk at work. "Already have a treatment plan. He should be fine soon," but his words sounded hollow to his ears.

Apparently she believed him, because after a pause, she changed the subject. "He told me that you two are together. Is it true?"

He laughed, a little self-consciously. "Yeah, we've been together since August. Are you surprised?"

"Shocked, actually, but I'm happy for you both. I think if anyone could make him happy, it would be you."

He relaxed a little, and the rest of the conversation was spent discussing their respective jobs, as well as her family.

After he hung up the phone, he sat in the kitchen. When the timer on the oven beeped, he turned down the temperature and continued sitting at the table, occasionally picking up the picture of House and Stacy. Why had he gone to see Stacy? And why had he left the picture for Wilson to find? What was going through House's mind? Was he mourning the child they lost, and would he even let Wilson help him with that grief? Was that why he had delayed on the methotrexate?

He was still looking at the picture when he heard the front door open, and he could hear House's uneven gait coming towards the kitchen. He looked up, and saw that House looked tired, with every line of his body proclaiming his exhaustion. He went to the stove, and began dishing up the chicken and rice, and then added generous helpings of salad and steamed broccoli. When he turned back towards the table, he saw that House was sitting at the kitchen table and the photograph was now face down on the placemat across from him. James ignored the telltale redness of Greg's eyes, and wordlessly handed over the plate of food. He watched as Greg tentatively took a few bites, and then began to eat with more enthusiasm. Wilson sat down, and began eating as well.

They ate in companionable silence, until finally House was the first one to speak. "Did you and Julie ever think about having kids?"

Where did this come from? "Yeah. After I got promoted. We tried for about a year and a half, but nothing ever happened."

"Did you ever consider fertility treatments?"

Wilson shook his head. "I think we both realized that our marriage would have never survived that. I've seen much more stable marriages fail while trying to get pregnant." He was silent for a while. "I did go and get tested. I never told Julie I was going to do it. Sperm count and motility were fine. The problem was something with her, or maybe she never wanted a baby in the first place." He sighed. "Six months after we stopped talking about a baby, I found a packet of birth control pills in the glove box of her car. Maybe I'd forgotten the conversation where she told me she was going back on the pill – it wouldn't be the first time I'd forgotten something we'd discussed – but now I wonder if she ever stopped taking them in the first place. Maybe she didn't want kids, or maybe she didn't want to ruin her perfect figure."

He expected House to make a comment on the deceit of his ex-wife, but instead House was chuckling. "I can't believe you thought you were shooting blanks. Well, we certainly disproved that notion!" Wilson was looking confused. "Oh, come on! You knocked me up on our first date!"

The glass Wilson had been holding shattered on the tile. "It's mine?" he stammered.

"Whose did you think it was?" House asked, a little anger creeping into his voice. "Who else did you think I was sleeping with?"

"Nothing like that," Wilson quickly explained, grabbing a towel to wipe up the glass fragments. "It's all just so strange. I guess I never thought – it never occurred to me – that…" his voice trailed off.

"That my baby might have a daddy?" House supplied helpfully.

"Something like that. The normal rules of biology seem to be thrown out the window at this point." Wilson paused, before asking, "how do you know that it's mine, and that it didn't just, well, appear?"

House considered. "I don't know how I know. Somehow, I just feel that it isn't just my baby, but our baby."

Wilson sat back down at the table and took a few more bites, trying to come to grips with the rather stunning statement. Finally he gathered his courage to ask, "what happened that night? On Wednesday, you said that Kayla was involved somehow. Do you know how and why this happened?"

House reached across the table, and flipped the picture so that it was right side up. He looked at it for a moment before he answered, "before she showed up, I was thinking about this. Eight years later, and I still wonder what things would have been like if my son had lived." He turned the picture face down again. "And then a dead girl shows up on my balcony and tells me that she is going to give me what I need. She disappears, and then you come out and we end up making love in your office, and now we are going to have a baby."

Wilson nodded. "It's completely logical and completely crazy, all at the same time."

When they were finished eating, they did the dishes in silence, and then retired to the couch, where House channel hopped until he stopped on the New Yankee Workshop. They propped their feet on the coffee table, and when the show was almost over, Wilson looked over and saw that House was fast asleep. Wilson smiled, House would never know if Norm had made it through the episode with all of his digits intact. The credits were rolling when the phone rang, and House didn't even move. Usually that level of unconsciousness only occurred after half a bottle of hard liquor. Wilson reached for the phone. "Hello."

"James. It's Barry. I just wanted to see how House is doing."

Wilson sighed. "We didn't do the methotrexate today. He's dealing with a lot right now, and I think he needs some time to think."

"A few more days shouldn't make that much of a difference. I just thought that he would want to get it over with as soon as possible and get on with his life."

"Until a couple of hours ago, that's what I thought he wanted." Wilson moved off the couch and went into the kitchen, where he could talk without House overhearing the conversation.

"What happened?"

"We managed to sit down and talk today. He finally let me know what's been going around in his head." He sighed, and then continued. "I don't think he wants to terminate the pregnancy."

"Jesus, are you sure?"

"No! I'm not sure, but I think that he's considering it."

As he waited for the shocked silence on the other side of the line to end, his eyes were drawn to the red backback sitting next to House's chair. The zipper was partially open, and it was easy to pull out the stack of photocopied journal articles. Passages were underlined, and he recognized House's writing in the margins.

"Does he have any idea how bad the odds are?"

James looked down at the pages in front of him. "Probably better than most of your colleagues," he replied absently.

"What about you, James?" Barry's voice was kind. "This is going to affect you as well."

Wilson sighed. "I just want him to be all right. The thought of him continuing the pregnancy scares the hell out of me, but if this is what he really wants, I can't ask him to terminate it." For a while, both men were silent, until James asked, "if House does go through with it, are you willing to help us? I think that is the only way I'd agree to this. You're the best OB/GYN in the area, and more importantly, House trusts you."

Barry's response was thoughtful. "I need to do some research, and I think that the three of us need to sit down for a pretty serious talk before any of us commit to this."

James agreed before adding. "I'll let you know as soon as he lets me know what's going through his head."

They talked for a few minutes more, and after he hung up the phone, Wilson reached over to slip the papers back into the backpack where he had found them. He was sliding them in when he found the bag from the bookstore. Curious, he opened it, expecting to see a few new additions to the novels and autobiographies that lined the walls of House's apartment. Immediately, the pictures on the fronts signified his mistake, but he read the titles anyway: What to Expect When You're Expecting. Your Pregnancy Week by Week.

There was something almost childishly optimistic about having these books, given that this pregnancy was anything but normal. Wilson picked up the second book and began flipping through it. Somehow he found himself skipping to week eleven, and random phrases seemed to jump out at him. "Length of your baby is 1½ to 2½ inches" "Your baby is about the size of a large lime." "Fingernails appear."

He turned back to the beginning and began reading. The next time he looked up, it was after midnight. He put the books back where he had found them, and went out to the living room. House was still fast asleep on the couch. He prodded his lover awake. It was a sign of House's exhaustion that he slipped off his clothes and fell into bed without even brushing his teeth.

TBC

The Books in House's Backpack:

Heidi Murkoff, Arlene Eisenberg, Sandee Hathaway, What to Expect When You're Expecting, Third Edition, Workman Publishing Company, 2002.

Glade Curtis, Your Pregnancy Week By Week, Perseus Publishing, 2004.