Chapter 70 — Baltimore
A/N: Thank you to XLucyInTheSkyX, HeatherSS1, Akira D. Ryusuke, OldSFfan, BrySt1, JackslovesHilson, Iland Girl, MiaEther, JosieoftheRose, HopeForDuende, Musikrulesok, Robin, Meme, badwolffor3ver, saashi samy, SR Uki, Aranella, Noctis, Anastacia, blue-lily295, and all the guests for their reviews on the last chapter!
Extra shout-out to MiaEther for being an absolute gem and making a new and vastly improved cover for the story :)
And of course, apologies for the summer long hiatus...the blame this time is to be directed entirely at Good Omens, which stole my heart and subsequently has been all I've thought about for three months. But, I've come back, just as always. And with a double length chapter as a plea for forgiveness.
"I'm not moving out of this apartment."
"House, please, for the love of God."
We'd gone ten rounds on this twice a day (at least!) for the past week. Neither of us were budging.
"House, I promise this is not just me being selfish. Yes, my own room would be nice. Yes, not sleeping on the floor while trying to block out Wilson's snores would be nice. Yes, having two bathrooms would be nice—"
"Where was that part about you not being selfish?"
"We have too many people, too much stuff, and not enough space. Never mind that your leg doesn't like those stairs."
"It's only a few steps," House brushed me off immediately.
"A few steps seem like a lot of steps when you've got a bum leg," I replied.
"Can't you just move in with Zach if you're so unhappy with your living situation? This sounds very much like a you problem and not a me problem." House was digging around in the hall closet, his back to me.
"Would you move in with Cameron? You've been together longer than Zach and I. Kind of."
House did flick his eyes to me over his shoulder before returning to whatever he was doing in the closet. "Point."
"What are you even doing in there? Just tell me what you're looking for and I'll grab it for you, kneeling like that must kill your leg."
"So concerned about my well-being today. Moving would be very taxing on my leg, you know." House stood up with a wince, target of his search in hand: his duffel bag.
"You going somewhere?"
"Medicaid wants my ass. In Baltimore, specifically. All the better to rip me wide open," House told me, retreating into his room with his duffel to pack.
He left the door open behind him, surprisingly. I approached his room and leaned against the threshold, not wanting to intrude totally. House's room was a mess of clothes and books, a mixture of guy smell and House's aftershave pervading the room. From the few times I'd poked my head in—and the singular time I'd rooted through his desk and discovered his collection of alternate universe nonfiction—I'd noted that House never lifted the blinds and never tied off his curtains. He rarely even seemed to turn the lights on, minus his desk lamp, and he kept the room almost oppressively cold. Cameron had complained about the temperature before, but House had fans running almost all year long, even now, in the dead of winter.
For someone in a relationship, his bedroom screamed, "Bachelor!" The only signs of Cameron were a few of her tank-tops mixed in with House's clothes covering the floor, and her spare brush on his dresser. Since Wilson had moved in with us, House had spent two nights at Cameron's, which was highly unusual for him. Typically he insisted on her coming over to our place, even though Cameron's townhouse afforded them more privacy. I assumed it was because our bathroom was handicap accessible, and Cameron's wasn't.
House not being around at night was strange, but when he'd stayed with Cameron, Wilson slept in House's bed, and I got my couch back. So there was that. Even at nineteen, sleeping on the floor didn't do any wonders for my back. I needed to either convince House to start apartment hunting, or I needed to get an air mattress.
Yes, I could have stayed with Zach, in a bed, but...I liked being home. And, well. I tried to avoid staying with Zach too often because I feared it would cause him to propose the two of us moving in together, and the negative answer, "Because I want to be close to House," probably wouldn't fly. Never mind the fact that Zach and I hadn't...consummated...our relationship yet, and whenever I stayed, I feared that was where it would lead. Not that the idea appalled me or anything, obviously not. I was attracted to Zach. I was just a late bloomer, as my mother would have said. I wasn't quite ready for...that.
Maybe House had been onto something when he accused me of having a problem with vulnerability.
"How long are you going to be gone for?" I asked. Failure to Communicate was due to start, then. It had been about two weeks since Deception. Not nearly as large of a gap as there was between Hunting and Deception, but that was largely in part to me subverting the events of The Mistake.
"I don't know, haven't booked my flight yet," House said.
"Flight? Baltimore's like three hours from here."
"Why drive when I could be lazy, fly, and get absolutely shit-hammered on airplane bottles of Gentleman Jack?" House haphazardly tossed some clothes into his duffel, a sportscoat, two t-shirts, some boxers.
"I'm off. I could drive you. It's not a big deal. We could make a day of it, we could probably find something fun to do in Baltimore."
"Doubt it. What do you want to do, go to the National Museum of Dentistry?" House shoved some toiletries into his bag, his headphones and MP3 player (a friendly reminder we were in 2006, I couldn't wait until everyone just used their phones as an MP3 player) and after a moment of thought, the dregs of a bottle of scotch into his bag.
"They're not gonna let you take the booze or the toothpaste. You might as well leave them here."
"You underestimate my ability to bribe TSA agents, even in a post-911 world," House responded, zipping up his bag.
"Come on, just let me drive you. It'll be a lot cheaper, and you can drink that on the way."
House suddenly seemed nervous. "Uh. No."
I tilted my head. "No witty comeback? Just no?"
"You're...annoying. And I don't want to be in a car with you for a cumulative six hours in one day."
"We're around each other constantly. Try again." My eyes widened and I took a step into House's bedroom. "Wait. WAIT. You motherfucker." I pointed at him. "Who's representing you at your Medicaid meeting? You're gonna need a lawyer for that."
House stared at me like a deer in headlights.
"Bet you're wishing you could run right now," I said, crossing my arms. "You're taking Stacy to Baltimore."
"We're taking separate flights—"
"Shh! I'm from the future. I know how this ends." I held up a hand. "That settles it. Stacy can fly, but I'm driving you."
"But Mom," House whined.
"And let me guess, Cameron doesn't know?"
"She knows I'm going to Baltimore."
"Does she know Stacy's going with you?"
"I may have left that part out. And she's not going with me—"
"You need solid legal advice. And Stacy's a good choice. But everything else about this is a bad idea. So, here's what's gonna happen: you, me, and Zach are gonna pile into the Dynasty tomorrow morning, and we're gonna drive you to Baltimore so you can get screamed at for your wildly unjustifiable billing practices, we're gonna get some solid seafood, and then we're gonna drive home. And this is not up for debate. I've learned enough in nursing school that I could drug you pretty easily."
House rolled his eyes. "You would so not be able to drug me. I'd catch you in a heartbeat."
"Want to test out that theory?"
House sighed, looking up at the ceiling, as if pleading with the God he didn't believe in for some assistance. "I hate you."
"I know."
"Speaking of illicit affairs," House said, changing gears—he could tell he wasn't winning this argument—he grabbed something off the top of his dresser. "Love letter from the Wombat. Can't handle him being gone for two weeks?"
I snatched the envelope (opened, of course) from House. "Reading other people's mail is a federal offense."
"Only if the person whose mail your reading is legally a person, which you're not," he countered.
I withdrew the postcard. A beautiful blue ocean and white sandy beach greeted me, Whitsunday Island written in gold scrawl along the bottom left corner. I smiled, even with House watching me, and I flipped it over to the other side to read a brief message from Chase.
Got all Dad's things in order, so Liza and I took a day to sail a bit and relax. Sorry about sending this to your house, I couldn't remember the address of the coffee shop. Hi, House. I'm sure you'll get to this before Anya. You're an ass.
Be home on the 7th. See you soon, and happy 2006.
—Chase
"You yell at me for even looking at Stacy, but you're blushing over a postcard. Okay."
"Hey, I didn't live five years of my life with Stacy!" I snapped, stowing the postcard in my back pocket. "Chase is like a brother to me."
"Where are you from, Alabama?"
I groaned and left the room. House was never gonna leave me alone about Chase. I'd already accepted that. The front door opened as I stepped back into the living room, and a bedraggled Wilson came in, snowflakes in his hair and cheeks wind burnt. "It's getting bad out there," he said breathlessly.
"See, you can't drive tomorrow," House called. "You'll kill us all."
"If you take a plane, it's just gonna get grounded," I retorted.
"What are you guys talking about?" Wilson asked. He shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the rack, then placed his suitcase on top of my dresser behind the couch. Both my possessions and Wilson's had mingled in the past week, our belongings a mess spread around the general vicinity of the couch.
"House is going to Baltimore tomorrow. With Stacy," I informed Wilson, and I heard House's irritated grunt from the bedroom. "So, we're turning it into a road trip. Want to come?"
Wilson didn't seem excited by the prospect, but he shrugged and said, "Oh, why not," anyway.
House emerged from his room, clearly annoyed. "You want to invite everyone we know? Turn it into a caravan?"
"The more people to keep an eye on you, the better."
"I'm not a child!" House insisted.
Wilson and I just looked at him.
"It'll be a good bonding experience for everyone," I said pleasantly. "Maybe we will go to the Dentistry Museum. Wouldn't that be fun?"
House seemingly considered killing me in that moment, but decided better of it. "This can only go bad."
"Oh, come on, what could possibly go wrong?"
"Can I make a confession? I've, uh. Never really driven in the snow before. Mom wouldn't let me have the car when it was bad out. Which in PA is most of the time, so..."
It was an absolute white-out on the way to Baltimore. If the lion's share of the way hadn't been interstate, I would have had no idea where the road was. I was only able to vaguely guess as to our position on the road now because I could make out the haziest suggestion of taillights in front of us. Hopefully whatever vehicle was leading us knew what they were doing, because if he went off the road, I was going to follow right after him.
"Anya, you should probably pull over and let me drive," Wilson suggested, trying to feign calmness, but a quick glance in the rear-view mirror confirmed he was white as a sheet. Zach's expression wasn't much different. House seemed totally at peace, but that was probably because at least he would be proven right if I managed to kill us all. If anyone was willing to die to win an argument, it was House.
"I would totally do that if I was sure where I could pull over. I haven't seen any lines in thirty miles," I said, a quaver in my voice. "Oh, man, this sucks. This really sucks."
"Don't panic," Zach told me, reaching over and squeezing my shoulder. "Panicking is just gonna make it worse. The storm can't keep up this way forever."
"Stacy's already there. Because she flew. Like someone who isn't an IDIOT would do," House said loudly, checking his phone.
"House, for once, please, please shut up. Everyone shut up. I need to focus on the road."
I distinctly heard House mutter, "What road?" but chose to ignore it.
"I can do this, I can do this, I can do this," I muttered under my breath. And lo and behold, I did. Shortly before noon, we pulled up in front of the Baltimore Medicaid office, all of our nerves absolutely fried. Life had improved dramatically once we'd gotten into the city and the streetlights and general glow of shops and homes had helped me see through the torrential shitstorm of snow. Baltimore traffic had been next to nothing, too, as most people were smart enough to stay off the road at the moment.
I pulled in next to Stacy, who relaxed in her warm, idling rent-a-car, reading a book and nursing a cup of gas station coffee. She looked up expectantly at us when I killed the engine. We all clambered out of the car, and she smirked as she turned off her car and stepped out into the flurry of snow.
"Starting to wish you'd taken the plane?" she asked innocently.
"He already knows he's right, don't give him extra ammo," I pleaded.
"Hi Stacy," Wilson greeted, a picture of pure misery.
"You look cheery. And who's this?"
"Zach, meet Stacy Warner. House's...lawyer," I introduced unspectacularly. "Stacy, meet Zach. My better half."
They greeted one another, and then we all went into the enormous building with vaulted marble ceilings that contained the Medicaid billing HQ for this part of the country. It looked like it could have been a church, with the sheer size and grandeur of it. We all breathed a sigh of relief once we were inside. "How long is this gonna take?" I asked Stacy, shaking the snow out of my hair.
"Given the absolute nightmare that is the diagnostic department's billing practices...this might take awhile," Stacy admitted. "You all might be better suited to go find something to do. House and I could be here all day."
"I saw a pub down the street," Wilson pointed out. "We could get something to eat while we wait."
I shrugged. "Sure, but we're not walking. House, just call us when you're done."
"Oh, you're trusting me to not have supervision? Wow, what's next, I get to go to the prom with the dreamy guy from my English Lit class?" House asked mordantly. He'd been full of nothing but snipes since the moment we got in the car, moreso than usual. At this point, we both desperately needed a break from one another. I wasn't looking forward to the ride home.
"Good luck," I replied in a monotone, and House and Stacy struck off down the hallway.
"A bar does sound good," Zach acknowledged. "Especially now that I'm legal. That was hell. Next time, just let him take the plane."
"Yeah, I'm starting to see the downfall to trying to micromanage House's social life." More and more I was failing to see the point. Was I here to keep House from getting caught in a love triangle, or was I here to save lives of patients that would have otherwise died? To save Amber, Kutner, and Wilson? To keep House from losing his mind? I didn't know if it was my nerves and tension headache talking, but I suddenly felt as though trying to interfere at all in the House/Stacy/Cameron situation was incredibly trivial. "Let's go get some food."
Taking a man who had been freshly kicked out of his house by his third wife to a bar was, perhaps, not the best idea I'd ever had.
"You wanna take it easy there, hoss?" Zach asked, eyeing Wilson's sixth Long Island Iced Tea. We sat in an Irish pub called McNerney's around the corner from the Medicaid office, an open-faced meatloaf sandwich in front of Zach and Wilson, and a bacon cheeseburger in front of me. Zach was still nursing his first whiskey sour, but Wilson was tying it on hard. Too hard.
"I've been drinking longer than you've been alive," Wilson waved Zach off. "We're fine. I mean, I'm fine." Wilson leaned back in his chair, giving his drink a more speculative look. "Uh. How many of these have I had?"
"Six," I provided, sipping on my soda.
"Oh. That's...that's a lot." Wilson looked at his sandwich, as of yet untouched. "I should probably eat this."
"That would be a good idea," I said slowly. "And maybe no more drinks?"
Wilson chuckled. "Let's not get carried away."
I turned my attention out the window. The storm was only getting worse; driving home was going to be a nightmare. Despite my best efforts, we were probably going to end up having to stay the night in Baltimore. Getting back home tonight wasn't worth risking all of our lives.
Wilson chugged his next drink, and another one, and another one, but did eventually finish his sandwich. Just as the bill was put in front of us, my cell rang in my pocket. I retrieved it and flipped it open. "House?"
"Stacy's wiles got me off scott-free," House provided without preamble. "Where are you? And there's no way in hell we're driving home tonight. Don't worry, I already took the liberty of booking a hotel room tonight. With your debit card. I knew you wouldn't mind."
"How the hell did you get my—" I slapped a hand on my backpocket. "House, did you pickpocket me?"
"It's not hard. You're oblivious."
"And Stacy?"
A heavy sigh from House. "If her flight doesn't get grounded, she's flying back. If it does get grounded, she's staying at the airport hotel. Happy?"
"No. We're coming to get you, be ready when we get there. Oh, and, fair warning, Wilson's absolutely trashed."
"Already? If I would've known we were doing the day-drinking thing today, I would've started way earlier. Scale of one-to-ten, how bad is he?"
I watched as Wilson unknotted his tie, and then tried to reknot it, but as if he was trying to tie his shoes. "How do you do a bowtie?" he asked vaguely, narrowing his eyes.
"Eight. He's conscious, but he's fucked."
House laughed loudly on the other end. "What could possibly go wrong, she says."
"Yeah, yeah. We'll be there soon. Bye." I hung up the phone. "Okay, Wilson, we're gonna go now, okay?"
Zach threw down three twenties on the table, evidently having overheard that I was sans wallet. He then scooted out of the booth and Zach gently lifted Wilson to his feet. "Come on, Doc. We're going to the car. Stay steady."
"The car? Why're we going there?" Wilson asked as Zach tugged the oncologist's arm over his shoulder. I took up Wilson's other side.
"Don't worry about it, we're gonna lay you down in the back so you can rest."
We deposited Wilson in the back of the Dynasty, and he promptly passed out. I sighed and went to a vending machine outside of the bar with a dollar from Zach and got him a bottle of water. "He's going to be puking soon. Hopefully we're out of the car by the time that starts." I nudged Wilson awake, and he lifted his head blearily. Snow poured into the car with us as I held the bottle out to Wilson. "Come on, drink. You'll thank me later."
"I'll thank you now," Wilson said, snatching the bottle and chugging it. I got back in the driver's seat and headed to pick up House.
Zach just ran a hand through his hair and sighed deeply. "Remind me to never come on a road trip with you again."
I just groaned.
We grabbed House from the curb. Stacy was already peeling out into the snowing chaos in her rent-a-car. He pushed aside Wilson's feet so he could sit. Wilson had finished his bottle of water and already closed his eyes and curled into a ball once more.
"Weak," House ribbed Wilson. House related the hotel's address to me, and we were on our way.
We managed to make it almost the whole way there before Wilson sat up and vomited. All over the Dynasty. All over House. All over everything.
That quickly turned into the worst, most incoherent shouting match I'd had in my life.
"I AM NOT PULLING THIS SHIT CAR OVER IN THE MIDDLE OF A SNOWSTORM TO CLEAN UP WILSON'S PUKE, YOU CAN HANG ON UNTIL WE GET TO THE HOTEL—"
"I CAN FEEL IT SOAKING THROUGH MY SHIRT—"
"YOU'RE A DOCTOR, THIS SHOULDN'T EVEN RANK ON YOUR LIST OF DISGUSTING THINGS TO HAPPEN TO YOU—"
"ARE YOU SMELLING THE SAME THING I AM!?"
"WILL YOU TWO STOP FUCKING SCREAMING—" Zach yelled, joining the fray.
"I'm gonna puke again," Wilson said.
"NO!" the three of us chorused at the same time. House stabbed his cane forward, pressing the brake down and stalling us in the middle of the Baltimore side street.
"HOUSE—"
House opened the door and promptly shoved Wilson out into the solid foot of snow. Wilson, limp as he was, did not resist. He was so buried by the snow I almost lost sight of him.
"Are you trying to kill him—!? Oh, he's. Yep. He's puking again."
Zach and I both jumped out of the car and went to Wilson. When he was done throwing up again (and wow, it was a lot of throw up) we packed him back into the vomit soaked backseat, which was now snow and vomit soaked.
I batted House's cane off the brake. "If anyone," I said in a deadly whisper, "anyone, says one word, before we reach that hotel, I'm driving this car into a brick wall and killing us all. Are we clear?"
Silent nods from Zach and House. Wilson just wiped a sleeve across his mouth and moaned.
"Bet that valet hates us," Zach commented as we filed into our hotel room, carrying Wilson over his shoulder. I felt a surge of gratitude that Zach was built so sturdily. Had it just been House and I, getting all 200lbs of dead-weight Wilson up here would've been an absolute catastrophe.
A king and queen bed awaited us within our modern, sparsely decorated room with clean white walls and a soft blue carpet. Aside from a TV, desk, side table, and dresser, there was no other furniture.
"Look, if I had a way to clean the car right now, I would, but I'm not going to Walmart in a driving snowstorm to get enough bleach and rags to deal with all of that. It's a problem for Future Anya," I said, trying to rub the headaches out of my temples with my pointer fingers.
"Were you planning on you and Wilson sleeping in the same bed?" Zach asked House, nodding his head in the general direction of the two beds.
"Even before he puked I was going to take the whole king and make him sleep on the floor," House said, entering the room behind us, and I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. He was in fresh clothes now, having changed in the lobby bathroom as soon as we made it to the hotel, tossing his puke-sodden clothes in a trashcan and cursing Wilson all the while.
Zach made to drop Wilson on the bed, but House stopped him, "Whoa, uh-uh. People who can't hold their alcohol don't get a bed."
Zach shrugged. "Fine." He gingerly placed Wilson on the floor by the foot of the king bed.
Wilson said something unintelligible. I looked at House beseechingly. "Should we call an ambulance? After vomiting that much he should at least be kind of coherent."
"M fine," Wilson muttered, louder and clearer than before.
"Are you, though?" Zach asked, toeing Wilson's side with his snow-crusted boot.
House tossed Wilson a bottle of water he'd picked up down in the lobby. It hit Wilson in the face because of his spectacular failure in trying to catch it. "He will be. Drink. I'll get you some Tylenol."
"I love you," Wilson slurred, immediately putting the bottle to his lips and draining half in one swoop.
"I know," House replied, returning with Tylenol from his bag. He chucked that at Wilson's head too—but I think that time he aimed for him. "You're pathetic."
"Can't you harass him in the morning?" I asked tiredly.
Wilson hurriedly downed the water bottle and the Tylenol, like a man dying of thirst.
"Why do that when I could harass him now?" House looked down at Wilson and shook his head slightly. "I haven't seen him this trashed in ten years."
"Yeah, and the body handles alcohol a lot better when you're in your twenties," I remarked. "Are you one hundred percent sure he's going to be okay?"
"As long as he stays hydrated, the only thing that's going to happen to him is the hangover from hell," House reassured me. "Which is what you get for trying to get blackout drunk at four in the afternoon."
Wilson did pick that moment to stumble up from the floor, with sudden urgency.
"Pee," he said blearily. He made his way to the bathroom, but stopped at the wall just outside it.
He unzipped his pants.
"Wilson—Wilson that's not the bathroom!"
Zach and House, to their credit, both made best efforts to avoid the inevitable, but it was no use. All they could do, much like myself, was watch on in horror.
All over the dresser. The TV. Up the wall. On the floor.
"Oh my God," Zach said dimly.
"It's like a contest," I said as Wilson zipped up his pants, mumbled something, and faceplanted into the bed. "I ask God, well, how can it get any worse? And then it does."
"Puke smell I can probably deal with for a night. Piss smell? No way," Zach said, grimacing.
House extricated Wilson's wallet from his back pocket. "Agreed. Wilson's gonna get us a fresh room, he's already marked his territory in here, he can have it for the night."
"But what if he pukes again and ends up aspirating it? He could die," I pointed out worriedly. "I don't think we should leave him alone."
"He's out of the woods. I've seen him this bad before, once. Same pattern. He's gonna sleep for the next six to eight hours before he wakes up feeling like a walking corpse."
"Are you sure?"
"Am I ever not sure?"
"Fair point. Fine." I leaned against the wall, trying to put as much distance between myself and Wilson as possible, and Zach did the same. House dipped out of the room to go speak to front desk, leaving the two of us behind.
Zach opened his mouth to speak, but I held up a hand. "Don't say it. I know."
He just snorted. "If it's any consolation, this'll be one of those 'really funny in hindsight' kind of things."
"I'd like that to start as soon as possible," I groaned, closing my eyes.
Apparently God was playing a game with me today, because when House returned, his expression wasn't a happy one.
"Hotel's booked," House said. "And unfortunately they didn't tell me that until after I told them that Wilson turned the room into his own personal litter box. So not only do we not have another room, we've been asked to get the hell out of this one."
I gaped at him. "You've got to be kidding."
"Does it look like I am?" He wacked Wilson's back with his cane. Wilson groaned, curling into a ball. "Get up, idiot. We've got to go find another hotel."
Wilson whimpered and curled in tighter. "Just let me die," he managed.
"You're not getting out of this that easily." House pointed at me. "You. Call around. Find us another room—two, actually, so we can keep R Kelly far away from the rest of us."
I sighed and dug my phone out of my pocket. "Here's hoping." I stepped out of the room to make the call, not wanting the background noise of House ripping Wilson a new one.
I returned twenty minutes later, contemplating smashing my phone against the wall.
"I have called every single hotel we could reasonably drive to," I said in a monotone. "All booked up. Everyone's trying to hide from the storm."
"So what the fuck do we do?" Zach asked.
"We have exactly one option left," House said. House, who had Wilson stood up, with Zach standing behind him for support, force-feeding him yet another water bottle. Wilson swayed, deathly pale, but he obediently drank what was given to him.
"I'm NOT driving back to Princeton," I said immediately. It had been hell getting up here during the day, there was no way I'd be able to get us back at night.
"God, no. I'm calling Stacy. She's got a room at the airport hotel, we can sleep on her floor and leave in the morning," House replied, looking over his shoulder at me and sloshing half a water bottle onto Wilson's chest in the process. "Assuming you trust me to not bone her in front of an audience?"
"I am so past caring about that right now. Call her," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose.
House called. Stacy agreed. And now we had to go back outside again. I tugged my coat on, amidst House and Zach trying to get Wilson's soiled pants and underwear off of him. Wilson wasn't contributing much to the cause, mostly moaning and groaning about how the room was spinning. Eventually they won the wrestling match, and I pointedly averted my eyes once he was bare from the waist down. I didn't need that trauma on top of everything else today.
House donated a pair of underwear, and then once again with Zach's help (and exactly none of Wilson's) they were able to just barely wiggle him into a pair of House's jeans. The two weren't super far off in build but Wilson had much wider hips than House and it became a hell of a production to get him clothed. When all was said and done, Zach emptied half a can of Axe onto him, earning a protesting whine from Wilson.
"That's just gonna make the piss smell worse," House criticized.
"You got a better idea? You wanna fucking shower him? They're gonna be coming to kick us out any minute, guarantee it," Zach shot back. "Come on. Let's get the hell out of here."
House snatched the keys out of my hand when he passed me. "This time, I drive."
I held up my hands. "No arguments from me."
The Dynasty stuttered and died one mile from the airport.
We all sat there in silence for a moment. Then, I got out of the car.
And I screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed.
I kicked the side of the now militantly not moving beater, just needing desperately to hit something. Snow in my hair and wind beating at me viciously, I raged.
"WHY—" Kick. "DIDN'T—" Kick. "I LET YOU—" Kick. "TAKE THE FUCKING PLANE!"
"Because you're a moron. Quit kicking my car, it's probably just the engine fluid. It's thickened too much because of the cold," House said, rolling down the window just enough that I could hear him.
Zach sighed and clambered out of the car. "I'll look underneath."
I got back in the passenger seat. Zach returned after a cursory inspection.
"You might as well drive this off a cliff and get the insurance money for it," Zach said, slamming the backseat door with perhaps unnecessary force. "Your engine block's cracked. Probably had a tiny one and the cold did it in."
House's eyes widened. He looked at Zach, then at me, pointing an accusing finger. "I've had this car for almost two decades and I let you drive it out of Princeton ONCE and you kill it!"
"Well damn, House, I can't control the weather!"
"Look, can we just figure out how we're getting out of here? Because it's gonna get real cold real fast without the heater," Zach said, sticking his fingers into his armpits and already shivering from his brief escapade outside. I was feeling the cold starting to settle in too, in my face and my hands.
"We call for roadside assistance, it'll be hours before they get here—and the car will be buried with us in it by the time they do show up," House said. He pulled out of his phone, fumbling with the buttons through his gloves. "Best shot? Stacy will be dumb enough to come get us."
Stacy picked up after two rings. House put her on speaker.
"Are you guys alright?" Stacy asked. "You're taking your sweet time getting here."
"We're stuck on the the side of 195 freezing to death. The Dynasty gave up the ghost," House told her.
"I'm guessing you need a daring rescue?" I could hear the sounds of Stacy gathering up her purse and keys. Thank God.
"If you'd be so kind," I said tiredly. Never had I ever wanted a day to be over so badly.
"It might take me awhile, I'm not rushing anything with how bad it is out—but I'm coming. Don't die in the meantime."
"No promises," mumbled Wilson from the backseat, a lifeless lump next to Zach.
We hung up with Stacy. Zach looked increasingly uncomfortable in the backseat before he finally shook his head. "Fuck it, I'm gonna stand outside and have a smoke, I can't fucking take the smell back here. Hypothermia's a better option."
Axe, puke, and the lingering scent of urine were indeed a dreadful cocktail, and I was only dealing with it by tugging my scarf up and over my nose. Zach clambered out, a few swear words escaping under his breath.
House and I sat there, staring into the flurry of white. Wilson began to snore.
"I'm sorry," I said, slowly.
House flicked his eyes to me. "You're gonna have to be more specific."
"For not...trusting you," I began haltingly. "We could've avoided this whole stupid thing if I'd just let you go alone. I just...I don't know. I don't want anyone to get hurt. But I guess that's unavoidable. When you love someone, one way or another, you're gonna hurt them." I looked at him beseechingly. "Tell me you wouldn't cheat on Cameron, and I'll believe you."
"You say that like I'm not an accomplished liar."
"You are. But I'm saying tell me right now, and I'll believe you. I'll back off. Whatever you decide to do with Stacy, with Cameron, it's up to you. It's—" I laughed a little, something thin and manic, after the day we'd had, "—honestly, it's none of my business. Pick one, or the other, or neither. Just don't pick both. Don't hurt Cameron like that."
I expected some kind of snarky comeback from House, a deflection, but instead, he just said, "Okay."
I blinked. "Okay?"
"Okay. I won't cheat on her. I wasn't planning to in the first place."
"Then...what are you planning on doing?"
"No idea. Won't matter if we die of hypothermia, will it?"
It was getting steadily colder and colder in the Dynasty. I could see my breath. "Fair point."
A few more beats of silence. "Stacy knows me."
"She does," I agreed. "Probably better than anyone besides Wilson and your mother."
"And you."
I did a double-take, watching House out of the corner of my eye. He'd wrapped his arms around himself, and I could hear the faint sound of his teeth chattering.
"You know me. And knowing me...what hope did Cameron and I ever have to begin with?"
I didn't have it in me to put a positive spin on things. "Not a lot. She...she sees what she wants to see in you. You're handsome, and broken, and complicated, and brilliant. It's the kind of thing someone her age is in awe of. Something she sees as ideal. Hot for t-teacher, or whatever." God, it was so fucking cold.
"Her age? She's older than you."
"Not that much older. Either way, she's romanticized you. Hard. And when that ends and she s-sees things for how they are—"
"She'll hate me," he finished. "She'll know me, and then she'll hate me."
I shook my head. "That's not it."
"That's exactly it."
"There's layers to you. Most people see the b-bad stuff first. But underneath there's good stuff...then, you know. The more deep-seated bad stuff is under that, but then under that...that's your heart. That's what you d-dig down to with any person. That's knowing someone. And your heart is good. It's not about you being—being unlovable. It's about her seeing what she wants to see. It's about her not knowing herself all the way yet. I hate to tout age differences, but...dating someone twenty years younger than you, you'll run into issues like this."
"Because you've got so much experience."
"I'm t-trying to b-be the voice of reason."
"You always are." He leaned forward, shrugging off his coat.
"What the f-fuck are you doing?"
"Your shivering's annoying." He tossed me his thick wool peacoat, leaving him in just his blazer and t-shirt.
It landed on me in a soft heap, and I clung to it. "B-But you'll f-f-f-f—"
"Freeze? Stacy'll be here any minute. I'll be fine."
I smiled at House, in spite of myself. "See? You are lovable."
House glared at me. "Shut up or I take the coat back."
Zach climbed back into the car, looking half-frozen and tracking in no small amount of snow with him. "I think I see headlights," he told us.
Sure enough, Stacy pulled up in her rented car, beeping the horn. We all exited the Dynasty post-haste. Zach slung Wilson's arm over his shoulder, shuffling towards the car. I wrapped my arm around House's back, helping to balance him on the ice, and surprisingly, he didn't shove me away.
House got in the passenger seat, and me, Zach, and Wilson piled in the back.
"Jesus, you four smell," Stacy said by way of greeting. "Everyone still have their fingers and toes?"
"Verdict's s-s-still out," I managed, reaching past the center console to crank Stacy's heater as high as it would go.
"Thanks for saving our asses," Zach told Stacy, settling Wilson against the door and patting him on the shoulder. "How you doing, Doc?"
Wilson was clutching his stomach, eyes pinched shut in misery. "Could you just, hit me over the head with House's cane as hard as you can?"
House was already making to pass his cane back to Zach.
"Kidding! Kidding! He's kidding!" I said, batting the cane away. "Can we just go, please?"
"Hold on tight. The road's mostly ice," Stacy warned.
I nearly collapsed in relief when we made it to Stacy's warm, clean hotel room. Stacy left us all there for a moment to go see about wrangling some cots (and no small amount of blankets) from the housekeeping staff, and twenty minutes later, two cots were brought in.
"This is all they've got left. House, provided you shower, you can have the bed—your leg will thank you in the morning. I call one of the other cots. The three of you can fight over who gets the other one, and who gets the floor," Stacy said, looking at the four of us, bedraggled and miserable, with obvious amusement.
Zach laid down on the floor with an extra thermal, evidently not even considering trying to fight for the cot. Wilson had already leaned himself against the wall, managing to stay standing for all of three minutes before sliding down, his ass hitting the floor, his head drooping between his knees. He was going to have a hell of a crick in his neck in the morning.
House flopped down in the bed without hesitation.
"House, I said SHOWER—"
"Not handicap accessible," he told her, tossing his cane to the other side of the bed. He groaned in annoyance when his phone went off. He fumbled for it in his pocket, picking up and promptly putting it on speaker. "What?" he asked, not bothering to open his eyes.
It was a conference call from the ducklings. "Preliminary results are back from Fletcher's LP, it looks like some kind of infection, which... narrows it down..." It was Chase who spoke, sounding as exhausted as I felt.
"From infinity, yeah," House filled in.
"At the rate his organs are deteriorating, he's got maybe a day or two," Chase said.
"Great! Well, call me back when you have something," House made to hang up, but Cameron's voice halted him.
"He was trying to tell us something!"
House hesitated. "What did he say?"
"You were wrong, it wasn't the fear. He opened up to me when I..."
House interrupted, "Sympathetic presence after a traumatic moment. Classic interrogation technique. What did he say?"
"You knew that I'd-"
"Act the way you always do? Yeah, I did. What did he say?"
"He couldn't tackle the bear," Cameron provided.
Foreman's weary voice came next: "Now all we need is the English-aphasic dictionary."
"A fluent aphasic retrieves words that are stored somewhere close to the one he wants. They can be filed by sounds or by meaning. So if he wants to say table, he could say... label, or he could say chair. Or he could just say Jabberwocky, there's no way to tell," House said.
Cameron added, "He also said 'they took my stain.'"
House's eyes finally opened, and he sat up reluctantly. Massaging his thigh, he snatched his phone and forced himself out of bed. "Anybody got a Sharpie?"
"No, but I'm sure front desk has something," I said, knowing exactly what he was planning on doing.
"Don't wait up for me," he said, taking the phone off speaker and putting it to his ear. "Keep him talking. We're gonna write down everything he says. Everything matters."
The door closed behind him, his voice growing more muffled, then fading.
Stacy promptly took the bed, peeling off her heels. "Anya, do you mind getting the light?"
I did as she bid, before claiming the cot as my own. I didn't even bother changing into pajamas. I wanted nothing more than to sleep.
"Stacy," I said into the darkness. "We owe you one."
"You bet your ass you do," Stacy said, but I could hear the smile in her voice. "Goodnight, Anya."
"Night, Stacy."
It took me ages to find House the next morning. He was down in the hotel's basement, near one of the kitchens, sitting in front of an old plaster wall covered in his untidy scrawl. Trying to decode Fletcher's aphasia ramblings, no doubt. Three empty cups of coffee sat in a stack near him. I didn't know how the hotel staff hadn't found him yet. Or, more likely, he'd just bribed them to leave him be.
Wilson was upstairs having another go at vomiting everything his body could possibly produce. Zach was still asleep. Stacy was down enjoying the complimentary breakfast with a good book.
"Did you sleep at all?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Nope." He sipped at his current cup of coffee.
"Your patient cured?"
"Diagnosed," House said. "Cerebral malaria. Cameron's probably starting him on IV quinidine..." he checked his watch, "right about now."
"That's great."
"What part of getting half lobotomized in Buenos Aires is great?"
"I mean, it's great that he's not gonna die," I elaborated, sitting down next to him.
House shook his head, clearly mentally stuck on something.
"What?" I asked. "What is it?"
"Why would anyone do that to themselves?" he wonder aloud. "Chop out a part of their brain, try to change their basic brain chemistry for someone else?"
"It's called love, House."
"When love makes you start amputating parts of yourself, it's not love, it's dependency."
"Isn't that what love is to begin with? Need in a nice dress?"
"Oh, look at you, waxing romantic."
"I'm just saying. People have done worse for love. Way worse."
"It isn't worth it."
I tilted my head. "Love isn't worth it?"
House nodded stiffly. "It's not. Because not everyone goes and gets a botched surgery on their brain, sure, but they metaphorically cut off other parts of themselves, or lose them. Wilson's proof of that."
"That's kind of glazing over all the really, really good stuff that comes with being in love."
"Yeah, well, I hear heroin is pretty sweet too," was House's dull response.
"What are you trying to say here?"
"I'm saying...I choose neither," he told me, sounding equal parts miserable and decisive. "Not Cameron. Not Stacy."
I wasn't sure how to react. "Is that really what you want?"
"It's better that way."
"That's not what I asked."
House rolled his eyes. "Yes, it's what I want. Do I ever do anything I don't want to do?"
"Point." I rested my arms on my knees, eyes tracing over the words on the wall. "Cameron will be hurt."
"Better now than later."
Maybe there were some things that just couldn't be altered. Certain road-markers that would be hit no matter what I did. House starting off the second half of season two alone appeared to be one of them. I could try to convince him that he was wrong, that he wasn't better off alone, sure...but there were certain things that House had to figure out for himself. No amount of hounding on my part would change that.
I guess that was the lesson I needed to learn. Some things couldn't be forced. In the end, I could only do so much.
In the end, it came down to House.
"Well. You've got me. And you've got Wilson," I reminded him. "Just...don't dip too deep into your own darkness, okay? Remember that you don't have to do everything on your own."
"It's too early for you to be this sappy," House said, draining the last dregs of his coffee. He rose slowly, grip white-knuckled on his cane. "My lease is up in a month."
I stood up as well, trying not to get my hopes up. "Yes..."
"Find us a better place by then, or I'm re-signing it."
He walked away without another word.