"Trains, like time and tide, stop for no one." ―Jules Verne
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House hated weekends. The halls were eerily quiet when the lab and clinic closed. He stepped off the elevator and roamed around the empty lobby, hoping for a glimpse of Cuddy. She never stopped for weekends if there was a deadline hanging over her head. And there always was. This afternoon, however, her office door was locked.
With a smile as bright as a Broadway marquee, Wilson had announced he was taking Amber to Manhattan. The trip, Wilson-style, was planned down to the minute. They were seeing plays, visiting museums, dining in five star restaurants. Sunday night was reserved for the Empire State Building. Poor sap. House suspected an imminent engagement.
But maybe not. He'd been wrong before. Christmas had come and gone. In April Wilson drove Amber to upstate New York for Passover dinner with his parents. He had bet Chase that Amber would return wearing a ring, but no. Wilson hadn't pulled the trigger.
House picked through a stack of newspapers piled on the receptionist's desk and returned to his office. Baker Street Laboratories' startling medical breakthrough with arthropoda mechanica no longer made headlines, but a day rarely passed without some mention of his company in the medical section.
Then there was the editorial page. Vogler must have bought off every quack in the country to mail in letters. The smear campaign insinuated that his "tick" spread disease.
He eyed the tower of blue legal folders in his inbox. Vogler was hitting him with a new and completely false suit every day. The attorney fees alone could crush his company. Luckily for him, Wilson had contacted an old flame from his college days, a named partner in a law firm, Stacy Warner. She believed in what he was doing and only charged for services rendered by her paralegal.
Reluctant to set up a meeting, he was surprised how well they had clicked when they met. House considered calling her. If the chemistry was still there, he'd ask her over. However, his leg was nagging him like a jealous girlfriend, bitching non-stop. He responded by massaging his thigh. Maybe he'd try Stacy's number later.
What he needed was hot coffee, but the trek to the conference room was as impossible as driving a locomotive to the moon. He swallowed a couple of pills and erected a 3D chess set while they kicked in.
When impossible shifted to doable-but-unpleasant, he hitched over to the urn, careful not to spill any coffee on the way back. As he was about to sit down, he spotted an angry red light glowing on the fail-safe panel of the console. He toggled the switch, but it adamantly refused to shut off. And then another went on, and another, until a complete row beamed back defiantly in an arrogant display of solidarity.
Cuddy's voice blared over the intercom, "House, something's gone terribly wrong." As soon as she uttered the statement a claxon wailed through the empty corridors.
At first, phone calls and news bulletins added to the chaos instead of dispelling it.
The oily elocution of newscasters' voices filled the airwaves with details about a subway trolley derailment in midtown Manhattan. The lights on the console had gone berserk at the very same moment as the accident. House hunched next to the speaker, hanging on every word as his imagination went wild; he felt numb and lost. But Cuddy understood how to cut through red tape. She stayed by his side, called reporters, police stations, hospitals, and morgues.
When she placed her hand tenderly over his and said, "Wilson is alive," he awoke as if out of a trance.
"What's his condition?"
"Not bad. Contusions. Lacerations that required stitches. A concussion. The attending insisted on 24 hour observation."
The tightness in his chest lessened. "And Amber?"
Head bowed, she returned to reading her notes.
"I said, what about―"
"I heard you, House. There's no sign of her."
"Which means," he peered at the light that had started it all. It had gone dark shortly after pandemonium had broken loose in the lab, "she didn't survive."
xxx
He was reviewing Chase's recommendations for Arthur's next of kin, "Auntie" Adipose, when he heard the staccato click of Cuddy's heels. The new bug was a potential goldmine. While some people were in denial about their mortality and not interested in Artie, everyone thought their ass was too big. "Auntie's" microrobots stripped fat from the body and broke down fatty foods as soon as they were consumed. Even better, Vogler had nothing like it on the market. There was no reason for injunctions or lawsuits. It was a win-win. A triple win if he invested every dime into hog futures.
And then his fantasy of hobnobbing with King Midas shattered as a familiar leather messenger bag dropped onto his desk.
Wilson stood across from him looking pale, acting grim yet vulnerable, wearing his grief like an overcoat. By his side was Cuddy, her large, luminous eyes begging House to behave.
"What brought you here today?" A mix of guilt and bitterness swept over him. Guilt because he was instrumental in bringing the couple together. Bitter because Wilson's reason for resigning was that the lab was a daily reminder of Amber's loss. The friendship that had begun in his office long before she had arrived meant nothing. "If you're missing a tchotchke from one of your beloved welfare kids, check with Blue. He packed your belongings."
"Not the cause for my visit, but if you must know, that's my tennis ball." Wilson pointed to the oversized, fuzzy orb on the corner of House's desk, then dropped his arm as if it were made of lead. "Never mind," he said tiredly, glancing at Cuddy.
She brusquely pushed an unruly lock of hair behind her ear. "You two sort things out on your own. I'm going to my office where I'm needed." She clicked her way back to the elevator.
"If you're here about your old job…"
Wilson raised his hands. "No. I came because the police officially closed the case on Amber, ruling her death an accident without finding her remains. During the cleanup the Transit Authority gave me a box of odds and ends from the site tagged 'incidentals'." He reached into the case. "Since you like puzzles, I brought a few pieces with me."
A diamond engagement ring skittered across the surface of his desk, sparkling like a prism as it caught the light. And then a heap of bolts, rods, pins, and gears clattered down.
Wilson pointed. "The investigating team couldn't understand why there was rubble beneath the wreckage, parts not belonging to the trolley car or the track-cleaning robot that had gone rogue." The back of his hand slid over his mouth. "And I didn't know…" Wilson's laugh rang off the hook. "There was so much I didn't know."
House watched fascinated as Wilson placed a finger gently in the debris and idly cut a path through it. "Here was this box of junk taking up space in my kitchen, collecting dust. One day I decided to take a closer look. And, you know what I found?" Wilson's finger circled the pool of metal until he chose a large, chunky gear and pushed it toward House. "Every one was stamped with the same serial number, GH/BSL3M0013."
"Do you know what I did with that information?" Wilson slowly and carefully pulled a sheet of yellowed paper from his bag and held it out.
House found it hard to swallow. He reached for it. Not paper, parchment. One line in wobbly, uneven ink stood out:
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Amber Volakis A.K.A. GH/BSL3M0013. Patent holder: Gregory House, Baker Street Laboratories
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"You broke into my office," House said, stunned.
"Easier." Wilson fished into his pocket and dangled a key ring. "You never asked for your keys back." He shook his head. "Why didn't you tell me?"
When House saw the key he automatically patted his pant's pocket and silently cursed. A rookie mall cop would never have made such an idiotic mistake. He'd let denial get the better of him, expecting Wilson to return.
"You were depressed about Sam and your job. Amber was a temporary distraction. Threatening to fire her every week was supposed to get your attention, not arouse your inner knight. If that freak accident in the tunnel hadn't happened you'd still be head over heels in love. That is, until you found a needier screw-up without x-ray vision."
"Always ready to deflect," Wilson answered. He picked up the diamond and swept the metal back into the bag. "By the way," he said casually, "I know about Cuddy, the real Cuddy. She doesn't live very far away."
"You're a regular Nancy Drew, aren't you?" House said, attempting to mask his discomfort.
Wilson paced in front of the desk as he talked. "We chatted over a long, illuminating lunch. She's not estranged from Leah. Actually, she's never heard of her. Her sister's name is Julia. And, she said you paid off the repairs on her home years ago, three times over. Her attorney sent the stop order but you never turned it into the court. She asked me to pass on a message. Stop sending money."
House couldn't bear looking at Wilson anymore. He maneuvered the pile of paper clips on his desk to form a spiral pattern. "Tell her the payments are in an irrevocable trust. She can do whatever she likes. Save them for Rachel's college tuition or bury them in a hole. Same difference."
Another paper landed on his desk. A list of names. There was Roger Chase, Charles Taub, and Blue. After the janitor the names changed to plain titles: Lunch Lady, Busboy. Each had a unique serial number. House turned it over so he wouldn't have to look at it.
Wilson sighed. "Guilt does funny things to people. Like you for instance. Throwing away a medical career for a life in your own personal prison, stocked with ghosts from your past." He looked around the office as if seeing it for the first time. "Is there anyone here who doesn't dream of electric sheep, House?"
Wilson's pity was worse than his anger. House stood up and lifted the phone receiver to his ear. "Unless you want to find out who my guards were modeled after, get out of here."
For a long moment Wilson stood there, stricken. His face changed to icy granite as he walked away.