They were taking it in shifts to sleep, six hours of down time per team while the never ending task of the herculean clean up was organised and set underway. The foyer had begun to be cleared, the blood washed from the floor and the rubble brushed away. Those people with the most superficial of wounds had been dealt with quickly and sent off with directions to see their local practitioner.
But the corridors still heaved, every bed crammed and people camped out in the corridors, moans and whines of pain and frustration disturbing the odd hush that had descended over the hospital, the lights had been set to half illumination in an attempt to let those unfortunate to have to wait out in the halls more comfortable.
Chase sighed passionately and braced his hands on the wall as he let his head fall forward, the hot cascade of steaming water washing away the remains of the day.
He echoed everyone's sentiments, the men's locker room silent but for the quiet noise of appreciation of finally finding some reprieve from the chaos that had ruined their hospital, the air thick with steam as they simply took the time to let the water soak out the tension that had frozen their tired bodies into strained bundles of nerves.
House accepted the tube of shower gel that was being relayed over the chest high walls that separated the shower stalls, handing it over to Foreman as he rubbed the sickly smelling liquid into his hair, over his face, washing away the grim feeling of being overworked and undernourished. He was dying for a coffee, would chew off his right arm to actually sit down to eat, to take his time rather than half-heartedly chewing on whatever tasteless sandwich he ate to try and dispel the lingering sour taste that cloyed at his mouth, the whispering smoke having been driven away with whatever fans they could find, but the smell of it still clung to the blinds, the couches, their clothes, pervading their mouths and wiping out their sense of smell.
He tried not to think of Wilson, hadn't dared to close his eyes like the others hand, to take whatever snatched moments they could to lean heavily into a seat and let their eyes drift close. There were people sleeping everywhere, curled up on tables, under tables, propped up against plant pots. They'd lost the on call rooms hours ago when it became necessary to use the beds. They were back to using their offices, blinds snapped closed to keep the light from the corridors keeping them awake, not that it would matter at this stage.
He hadn't slept for nearly sixty hours.
Twenty years ago this wouldn't be a problem, hell, even ten years ago, but not now, not with his leg a constant burning pain that spasmed and shook with each weary step he took, his hand blistered and raw from leaning on his cane. He was too old for this game. But at least he'd held his own against the likes of Chase, the virtues of youth forgotten and beaten out of him after countless surgeries and lives lost under his hands. He'd been pulled from the OR sometime in the early morning after he'd been unable to stop his hands from shaking, but he'd refused to go home, to take the time he'd been told to rest and instead joined the rest of them in the melee of red and green tag victims, staunching blood flow, stitching up lacerations and most importantly, telling these people that they were going to be alright.
And now they had six hours.
Six wonderful, blissful hours promised to them with no disturbances, no heads around doors asking for their presences, they were to go to the office and put their heads down.
House knocked off the shower, spitting the water from his lips and grabbing the towel draped over the short door. The fresh scrubs felt amazing, clean and dry against his skin. It was almost as good as it would feel to slide into his own bed at the end of this whole ordeal.
They walked up together, the lifts still out of order which filled him with a conflicted internal war. On the one hand he hated the inconvenience of having to painfully climb the stairs, biting his lip as he tried to ignore how the rest of his team had slowed so as not to leave him behind, but on the other hand, he just didn't know if he was ready to step back into an elevator. The door of the broken cart they had ridden was still wedged open, the uneven canted floor and smoked stained walls still visible behind the ribbons of police tape that had been plastered across the gaping doorway.
He paused for a moment, dragging his feet as he eyed the black hole that he had been trapped in.
If he held his breath he could feel the breathless sting of the smoke that had burnt in his lungs. Could feel the weight of Wilson's hands clasped to his shirt, twisting it in his grip as he fought to keep a grip on himself.
He tore his eyes away and trailed forlornly after his team. He shook his head, trying to dispel the images that were always just behind his eyes whenever they fluttered with exhaustion.
He hated the way he couldn't stop thinking about him despite the colourful display of distractions that had kept them so busy, head bent upon his work with barely enough time to look up let alone search the crowd for that face. So seek out that steady gaze and read him openly.
He'd left though.
Bereft and sodden in the rain with the taste of him still lingering on his lips.
If he'd been any less sane he might have thought he'd imagined it, but the simple fact that he hadn't seen the other man had driven home the truth a lot harder than any sort of physical evidence could have. He'd seen not hide nor hair of him, hadn't heard a whisper of his voice and there had been no second hand message that he was looking for him.
His heart shouldn't sink so much. It was nothing he hadn't expected.
Cuddy caught up with him just before he reached the office, her eyes dull despite just having come off her scheduled rest. She pressed a bottle into his hand, the weight and feel so utterly familiar that had he been a weaker man he would have broken down in tears. He looked down at the unmarked label, realising that she had obviously swiped the pills from the pharmacy without a word or reason. It wasn't like anyone was keeping tabs right now.
It was exactly what he needed and his immediate thought went to just how many he could take and still be okay to work in six hours time. He thanked her quietly, unsure how to convey without destroying his reputation his utter gratitude to her in that moment. She just shrugged and turned away as though it was nothing, that the very fact that during the worst crisis the hospital had ever seen she had still spared a moment's thought for him, had gone out of her way to dupe the pharmacist on duty into handing over a full prescription was of no real consequence, was the least that she could do for him.
He waited only a few seconds for her to turn her back before he was prising the lid from the bottle, shaking out two pills into the palm of his hand and tossing them back without a thought. He closed his eyes and for the first time spared a moment to think that maybe things were getting better. He was about to get his head down for some much needed sleep and it would only take about ten minutes for the Vicodin to kick in.
He paused with his hand on the door, one part of his mind caught on the action of his team distributing the sofa's back cushions between themselves and the another part suddenly aware of the light that was seeping out from beneath the door to Wilson's office.
He was probably asleep. It wouldn't be the first time he'd drifted off with the light on. It was one thing he'd always envied, his propensity to drop off with lights on and TV blaring, the man could fall asleep in a club if he fancied.
House sighed and let his grip on the handle fall lax.
Five minutes. If that. Five minutes just to break the ice and absolve Wilson of his fears before they had to confront each other at home.
Five minutes and then he could sleep.
He knocked lightly on the door, pushing at it with the end of his cane until it expanded his view to take in the anally clean office.
Wilson was sat at his desk.
It signified something, that he had seated himself at the place of his work, at the position where he had to take everything seriously. After all, there was a couch in his office for a reason.
"Wilson?"
He didn't look up, instead he scrubbed at his face with his hands. "Not now House." God, he'd never heard him sound so tired and defeated. "Please."
House looked at him, at the way he wouldn't meet his eye.
"I didn't come to start anything Wilson, I'm too tired to be pithy." He breathed in hard, eyes drifting over to the couch, its plump cushions calling to him like a sirens song. "I just came to say that it's been a fucked up couple of days and you can stop beating yourself up now. I get it, I understand." He rubbed his hand where the cane had rubbed the skin raw. "So let's just avoid the inevitable procession of guilt and self doubt you'll inevitably throw yourself under and call it what it was, just some post traumatic affirmation. It's fine."
There, he'd said his piece, hollow as it was he had lain down the groundwork to allow Wilson to gloss over the whole ordeal without having to explain to House with the goddamn puppy dog eyes and his false and ingratiating excuses that would no doubt break his carefully guarded heart.
He hovered for a second, expecting Wilson to say something, to lift his eyes from the desk and actually turn his face toward him.
But he said nothing. Didn't bring his gaze to meet his.
Not that it mattered.
Not that he should care.
He had some hard earned down time to get acquainted with. He turned and pulled the door shut behind him, the familiar latch of the door settling stirring something final within him.
It wouldn't be any harder than before.
Two painful, faltering, tired steps before the door was ripped open.
"Is that it?" He sounded hurt. Or maybe House wanted him to sound hurt. "That's all you have to say?"
He turned and immediately wished he hadn't. He'd forgotten just how disarming it was to be on the receiving end of one of those passionate stares. "What do you want me to say?"
Wilson balked. "God House, I don't know." There was a searching look to his suddenly fervent gaze. "I just...I mean, I thought you'd at least have something more."
He couldn't talk about it. It would kill him right now to even attempt this sort of discussion.
"I have six hours Wilson." He didn't even need to try and make himself sound desperate.
The silence stretched between them, tangible and fragile until broken.
"You kissed me too." His words were whispered yet they somehow seemed to echo inside his mind, of course Wilson would have had the presence of mind to focus on that instead of the rather delicate predicament he'd managed to put them in.
House became very aware of the knot of nurses that had used the shelter of their station to put their heads down.
Okay, maybe it would be ten minutes.
He motioned for Wilson to back into his office and gave a quick glance around to see if anyone had heard the other man's low admission. Chances were nobody would have even had the presence of mind to eavesdrop but it was precisely this sort of thing that would explode through the rumour mill as soon as things died down.
He snapped the door shut and bit his lip, no idea where to start.
"We could have died. " Wilson said softly, saving him from awkwardly grasping for something to say. "We nearly did." He was staring at the floor, his words the practise echo of recorded sentiments that had no doubt been playing through his head since the world had been ripped out from under them. Literally.
"And not just the accepted risk that comes with surgery or procedures," He rattled on. "If we had left the office just one minute earlier, if that lift had already been at our floor." He was shaking.
"Yes Wilson, fate is a fickle mistress. But a lot of people can say that, doesn't have to be something you need to dissect. We didn't die, didn't even get hurt. Well, apart from..." He motioned to the back of his head, finally drawing Wilson's eye.
"I didn't want you to come back either." Wilson admitted lowly, his hesitance written plainly on his face as he alluded to House's outburst in their home.
House felt his cheeks colour, glad that the office was only lit with the sullen light from the standing lamp.
"I didn't want to read about you in the news. Didn't want some phone call in the middle of the night." He flinched as though just saying the words had hurt him.
"So you came back and put yourself in the thick of it." House muttered, trying not to reveal just how much that had pissed him off.
"I had to come back, had to be where you were. I...I've..." He seemed to choke on his words, swallowing thickly around his admission. "I've always had to be where you were."
Those words hit House square in the chest, like getting punched and it left his breath with little air.
What the hell were they doing?
"Don't say something you're going to regret Wilson." He could feel the glower in his stare, hating himself for saying those words when it seemed like he was being offered everything up on a plate, a bright and shiny package wrapped up with a neat bow and delivered to him just when he had given up on any shred of hope that had dared to crawl out of his depraved mind. Because it didn't matter what Wilson was saying right now, it couldn't matter. Because it would ultimately turn to dust. Nothing good that ever came to him ever lasted.
"Regret?" Wilson asked him, his face blank.
"Yes Wilson, regret." He tried to put strength into his voice but instead it came out defeated. "Give it a couple of days, a good night's sleep. You'll feel differently, I promise you." He reached for the handle again. "Don't worry. I won't hold it against you." There, that sounded more like him, a little more cavalier to hide the ache in his words.
"What if I don't?" Wilson was looking at him again, holding his eyes and he couldn't pull away from that open, earnest look if his tried. His heart leapt as he stepped forward.
He should leave, he should turn around and just get out of there.
"What if I've always felt like this?"
He'd always wanted to hear him say that, so why was he so terrified, why couldn't he stop his hands from shaking where they were clasped at his sides.
"What then?"
He couldn't answer him, couldn't even turn away, wouldn't have even had room to open the door now they were stood so close and House could swear his heart would stop, couldn't possibly last and how could Wilson not hear its incessant hammering against his chest.
"I can't lose you." He whispered, betraying himself with his ultimate fear, maybe if he could make him understand then he could avoid the inevitable fall. "Any one else Wilson, but I can't lose you. Please." His breath shook at the feel of his cane pulled gently from his grip, didn't look down as it clattered to the floor and its support and strength replaced with the unsure grip of a hand curling around his own.
"You can't lose me. " He was so close, it was too real, could feel his breath ghosting over his lips. "I will never leave. You know this."
He was lost, falling into the abyss as his eyes fluttered close, one final and crushing words leaving his lips, a plea, a confession that revealed so much more that he ever should have lain bare. "James."
It was all that was needed to break the wall, to let himself give in, to damn the consequences and give up the fight that he had so valiantly contained for longer than he could remember. His finger's threading into soft hair, the taste of them combined melting into his tongue.