Chapter 74 — Alpha and Omega

A/N: Thank you to gabby42, SoleFaith, Iland Girl, honeybeemotorcycles32, Angelstraightfromhell, MiaEther, Great, Musikrulesok, Lauren, Robin, cinti, CalvinHobbesGatsby, tsubasaiscool, SunshineGirl99, knetterzak, Sam-sam, Am, River-of-Death, and all the guests who commented on the last chapter for their reviews!

It was well past midnight when Zach and I finally stumbled our way downstairs, exhausted and half-tipsy from Cuddy's champagne. We'd made somewhat of an effort to unpack the kitchen and the living room, but eventually everyone ran entirely out of energy, and it devolved into most of us perched on cardboard boxes, sipping on one alcohol or the other, often with paper plates stacked with pizza in our laps.

House, Wilson, Cuddy, Chase, Cameron, Foreman—and of course me and Zach. The first time I'd seen the entire cast together since the cardiology conference. Nearly a year ago, now.

I had felt exceedingly warm all night—from both being surrounded by everyone I cared about in this particular universe, and the knowledge that never again would I be stuck sleeping on the couch, or the floor. Granted I'd be on an air mattress til I found a bed, but still. A vast improvement. I was happier than I'd been in a long time.

But what was waiting for me in the basement managed to make me even happier.

The room was empty—save my small dresser that held my meager possessions.

And a bed.

I latched onto Zach's arm, tripping to a halt. My mouth fell wide open. I looked up at Zach, and he wore a knowing grin.

"What...?" I managed.

"Wilson and I picked it up earlier. It was the guest bed from he and Julie's old place. Julie said if it was anybody but you she would've told Wilson to fuck off." Zach tilted his head. "Okay, I'm kinda paraphrasing that last bit."

Then I started crying.

I flopped down facefirst on the bed—MY bed, my own bed I could sleep in every night. In a house, a real house, not a cramped apartment where House, Wilson, and I were practically on top of one another. The bed was perfectly made, with Julie's far too expensive Egyptian cotton sheets and the same tastefully subdued comforter that had been on it when I'd stayed with them last spring.

"Are—are you okay?" Zach asked, obviously confused.

"I'm more than okay." I buried my face in one of the pillows, sighing in pure bliss. "I'm so, so okay."

Zach flopped down next to me, laughing. "Well, I'm glad."

I lifted my head head up just enough to look at him, cheeks wet with tears of unrestrained joy. "I love you."

He smiled at me, affection plain on his face. "I love you, too."

I rolled over on my back and arched my eyebrows at him.

He arched an eyebrow in return. "Is that an invitation?"

I smirked. "Sure is."

"An invitation not impacted by alcohol?"

Dripping with exasperation, I said, "I had one glass of champagne, Zach."

"Well, with your alcohol tolerance..."

"Will you just kiss me already?" I interrupted him. "I've had a long time to put thought into this. You think I'm making an impulse decision? Do I ever make any impulse decisions?"

I'd been thinking about me and Zach's...intimacy situation...ever since our conversation driving to his apartment a few nights ago. Or rather, I'd been thinking about it for months, but that particular exchange had put my brain into hyperdrive. Zach's nonplussed patience in the face of my own personal hangups...he seemed like he was willing to wait for me forever, without complaint, something that few guys in their early twenties would be signing up for. Not that I knew a great deal of guys in their early twenties, but still.

Did I have my concerns? Yes. But if I sat around waiting for my anxiety to go away, or as House called it, my pathological fear of vulnerability, I would miss out on a lot. Vulnerability was the sacrifice that had to be made to let people in to your heart. And how many times had Zach seen me upset, seen me cry? I'd confided in him on countless occasions. Christ, we'd nearly died together last year.

There were certain things I would never be able to share with Zach, unless I wanted to end up in Mayfield for a very, very long time. But I could share this with him. I wanted to share this with him.

"So...tonight was...?" he ventured cautiously.

"Full disclosure, I was gonna wait til I had enough money to buy a real bed. But." I gestured around us.

Zach turned his eyes to the ceiling, as if to speak to God. "I owe Wilson a steak."

I burst out laughing—once I recovered, I tried again, "Now will you kiss me?"

With a graceful nod, he obliged me—for the next several hours, in fact. And I was deeply, unspeakably grateful that I finally had my own room.

I woke naked in Zach's arms the next morning. The basement was chilly, but snuggled under the blankets as we were, it wasn't a problem. The problem was most assuredly the house-shakingly loud guitar blaring from upstairs. I groaned, extricating myself from Zach—whom, by some miracle, was still snoring away like House wasn't in the living room shredding one of the solos from Carry On Wayward Son.

I pulled on my underwear and a pair of shorts, and then the closest article of clothing I could find besides, which ended up being Zach's hoodie. I zipped it up to the point I was decent, then tramped up the basement stairs, already preparing a decent reaming for House. Sure enough, perched on one of the still unpacked boxes sat House, armed with his Flying V. He didn't make eye contact with me, but did reach to turn up his amp even further as I approached.

"House," I said loudly, but my voice was quickly drowned out by the guitar. I crossed my arms. "HOUSE," I tried again, at a much louder volume.

No effect, Captain.

So I stood there, glowering until House finally finished the song. He flicked off the amp, then sat the V horizontal on his knees. He finally met my eyes.

"Strictly necessary to do this at 8am?"

House narrowed his eyes at me, causing me to immediately tense. I never liked having House's full laser-focus directed at me. It rarely meant anything good.

"Two observations," he said, totally ignoring my very valid question. Unsurprisingly.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I can't wait to hear this."

"One: you had sex." He pointed at me to emphasize the statement.

I blushed furiously. "I—that's not—you—"

"Congratulations," House cut me off. "Was wondering how long you were gonna freeze the poor kid out."

"House!"

"Observation two," he soldiered on, setting his hands on the V's neck. "This isn't my guitar."

I went from mortification to dread in zero seconds flat. "Yes it is."

"No, it isn't." He tapped the bridge. "There was a nick in the wood here. It's gone. Never mind that when we left Baker Street, this was tuned to Drop G. Now it's magically back in standard."

"Why the fuck were you tuned to Drop G!?"

House put on an exaggerated stoner voice and responded, "Uh, because it's fuckin' heavy, dude."

"Look—"

"NOT MY GUITAR," House interrupted. "So, who am I skinning alive?"

I made a motion of zipping my lips and throwing away the key.

House rolled his eyes. "Mature." He continued staring at me. He even stuck the Flying V back in its stand. Once on his feet and mobile, he encroached on me. I remained relentlessly silent.

"The only people you'd try to cover for would be Zach, Chase, and Wilson. But Wilson and the boyfriend were here in my line of sight the whole time..." Houe lip's twisted into a half-smirk of bitter satisfaction. "Looks like Chase's fellowship will be ending early."

"It was me!" I burst out, panicked by House's words, even though he was almost certainly being facetious. "I broke it. Chase just helped cover my ass because I begged him."

"No—he broke it, and you covered his ass. Or tried to, anyway. Tried and failed. Interesting that you'd lie for him, though. Are you finally doinking Zach to work through all the sexual frustration of not doinking Chase?"

"You are so crossing a line right now," I snapped, any good humor flying out the window after that comment. "What happened to the V was an accident. We tried to take care of it. If it's that big of a problem—"

"It is a big problem. It's not my guitar."

I took a deep breath, searching for some semblance of patience within me. "What do you want from me, House?"

"I want my guitar back."

And that was how, an hour later, House and I found ourselves in Trenton, trying to buy back what was left of his guitar.

"House. This is insane. It'll cost you thousands to get it back and rebuild it. Just take the new one," I complained. He'd been negotiating with the owner for the better part of ten minutes, attempting to haggle down the price—a price that was much steeper than what he had offered Chase for it yesterday.

"I want my guitar back," he repeated for the umpteenth time.

It occurred to me, not for the first time, that Wilson and Cuddy may've been onto something when they theorized that House was on the autism spectrum. He did not take change well, and once he decided a particular thing needed to be a particular way, there was absolutely no stopping him.

"Give us a minute," I said to the store owner, tugging House by the sleeve.

"Come on! I had that guy over the barrell!"

"What is this really about, House?" I demanded, once we'd secluded ourselves near the drum section. "You...you cling to things, when something's freaking you out. So what's going on with you? Is it the move? You're trying to hold onto something familiar? Look, I get this is a lot, and it's a huge step for you, and—"

"Oh, no—uh-uh. You do not get to psycho-analyze me and break my guitar in the same twenty-four hour time period."

"Once again—accident—and Chase paid for a new one."

"I don't want a new one, I want—"

"I know, I know." I held up my hands. "Your guitar."

"Yeah, I'm gonna get back to that now." Without further adieu, House returned to the checkout counter. And, sure enough, twenty minutes later, we walked out with the remnants of House's originaly Flying V.

"Are you happy?" I asked, climbing into Lola's passenger seat.

"No," House answered shortly, after carefully storing his broken guitar in the trunk.

"Do I get to know what's really bothering you now?"

"What's bothering me is the guitar I now have to Frankenstein back to life, thanks to Chase."

"And that's it, huh?"

House said nothing, roaring out of the music store's parking lot and onto the street. He shamelessly sped through Trenton, staying a cheery fifteen miles above the speed limit. I prayed we wouldn't see any cops.

As his silence continued, it occurred to me that I could've approached this better. One could argue I was being a jackass—Chase had broken his guitar, I helped him cover it up, lied to House about it (by way of omission) and now I was being a brat with him for wanting his original guitar back. Sure, it was broken, but for all House's claims and bluster about being as far from sentimental as possible, he definitely was. And he attached plenty of sentimental value to his instruments.

Not to say this was only about the guitar—it was definitely about the move, too. House had lived at the Baker Street apartment for, what, ten years? It was his space, his home. One that I had invaded when I stumbled out of the university fountain, and one that Wilson had joined me in invading when he and Julie had split. And yet House had (albeit begrudgingly) opened his door to both of us.

And he'd done something I never thought I could convince him to do—move on. To a bigger place, a home. A home for more than just one person. Of course I was sure he had eventually acquiesced for mostly selfish reasons. Namely, to get me to stop annoying him about it, and also because I thought, and hoped, a part of him had adjusted to not living alone, and feared that under our previous living conditions, he could possibly lose both Wilson and I as roommates.

I would never know exactly why he agreed to move, but either way, my gratitude was off the charts. And stomping my feet about him wanting his old guitar back seemed a poor way to repay him. I wasn't even sure if I'd apologized about the guitar yet.

One bad side effect of living with House, you do pick up some of his shittier habits. Obstinance being the main one.

So, apologies it was. "I'm sorry," I said, watching the rundown buildings race by in a blur as House floored it out of Trenton. "About the Flying V, and trying to trick you. I know it meant a lot to you. And Chase is sorry too. Terrified of you killing him, but. You know. Also sorry."

"Sorry doesn't rebuild a bridge."

"I know," I agreed. "But I could help you. If you want. My dad and I had to fix a few of my guitars growing up. Granted, I never had an electric, but, I'm not totally clueless."

"That's debatable."

I sighed. "Look...I'm..." I struggled to find the right words. "You have no idea how much it means to me to have my own room. My own bed. In an actual house. And I know that leaving Baker Street must've been hard for you, and I'm—"

"It's an olive branch. I get it."

"So are you gonna take it?"

"If I say yes, will you shut up?"

"Maybe?"

"Fine. Taken." House turned on the radio and cranked it up as loud as it would go, and that was the end of that conversation.

We returned to find Zach and Wilson hovering at the kitchen counter, eating pancakes that smelled so heavenly that only Wilson could've made them. They glanced up at us when we entered, House cradling the broken Flying V in his arms.

"I have...questions," Wilson said, cheek full of pancake.

"Be prepared to rent a suit for Chase's funeral," House said.

"Chase broke your guitar?" Zach asked. "But I thought I saw it in the living room."

"Chase broke my guitar and conspired with my spawn to do a bait-and-switch. And failed, spectacularly," he said pointedly, nodding his his head in my direction.

Zach busted out laughing. "Oh my God. When you kill him, can I watch?"

"This is so not funny," I said, leveling a glare at Zach.

"It's pretty funny," Zach argued. "And you really thought you could swap it without House knowing? Dude doesn't miss anything."

"Thanks bro," House said sarcastically, before heading through the kitchen and into the living room, settling his Flying V on the dining table. He got the decoy V from its stand and settled it down next to the other one. He put a hand on his hip, staring down at the project-to-be.

I sighed. "It's gonna be a long day."

"With several trips to the hardware store," Wilson added. "House, we need to unpack. Can't you do this tomorrow?"

"Nope," he said brightly. "Gotta be today. You." He aimed a finger in my direction. "I'm making you a list. You're gonna go get everything on that list. Got it?"

Well, I had signed up for this, so I couldn't really complain now. "Okay. Whatever you need."

"So I'll be unpacking alone," Wilson said dryly. "Where'd Cameron get off too? She's a better organizer than the three of us combined."

"Had to work," House said shortly.

"I thought you gave them all the day off?" I questioned.

"Clinic duty," he explained, already hunting through a nearby box for pen and paper. I had a feeling he wasn't being completely honest with us, but complete honesty was more alarming when it came to House than lies, so I let it pass.

"Speaking of work, I gotta do that too," Zach said, finishing his pancakes and tossing the paper plate in the trashcan. He sidled up to me and gave me a macadamia nut flavored kiss. "Love you. I'll see you soon."

"Love you too," I called after him as he made for the front door.

"Of course he's saying I love you now," House taunted from the dining room.

"He said it before," I argued.

"Bet he didn't say it as much."

"Why is he saying it more now?" Wilson asked, cocking his head.

"House," I issued a warning, because for some reason a part of me still thought I had any control over the bullshit that came out of House's mouth.

"They had sex," House said immediately, finally liberating a stationary pad and pen from a box shoved unceremoniously under the coffee table. He began scribbling, limping with his cane pinned under an arm.

"Why does this matter," I whined, raking a hand through my still unbrushed hair.

"It matters because the only thing you fear more than vulnerability is rejection. Also, you're a prude."

"Am not!"

"Not anymore."

"Leave her alone, House. She's nineteen. This was bound to happen eventually," Wilson said, clearly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was headed in.

"Figured she'd at least try the nunnery first," House joked, then ripped the paper off the pad and handed it to me. "Get to work."

With a grimace, I grabbed Lola's keys off the table.

It took us all day. And I really do mean all day. It was nearly midnight by the time House and I both wiped the sweat off our foreheads, stepped back, and examined our work: House's Flying V, composed now of all its original parts—with the new neck jury-rigged in. Something that I thought was far beyond our ability to do here in the townhouse, but after five trips to the hardware store and a frantic library run before they closed to get a book on guitar repair, House and I had managed to do it.

At least, it looked right. Now we had to test it and make sure it sounded right, because if not, it would kind of defeat the point.

House took a long draught from a flask he'd filled around 4pm—and refilled twice since. He looked, dare I say, nervous? If we'd done one thing wrong, this wasn't going to work, and both of us would feel enormously defeated.

"Plug 'er in," I told House. "Only one way to find out if we fucked this up or not."

House nodded his assent, gingerly lifting the Flying V off the table. He limped to the living room, me following behind him, holding his cane. He plugged in the V, turned on the amp—we got feedback, which at least meant we didn't destroy any relevant wiring inside the body.

"Good so far..." I handed him a pick. "I know you're an atheist but uh, praying would be a good idea right now."

"Oh Dark Lord Satan, please—"

"Okay, enough, enough, just. Do the thing."

House took a deep breath, and strummed a G note.

It sounded perfect.

House and I both wooped in pure joy, probably loud enough to wake Wilson—who had gone to bed several hours earlier—but we were both far too delighted to care. House launched into what I quickly identified as the intro solo from "Plug In Baby" by Muse. I head-banged accordingly, mentally patting the two of us on the back for being able to pull it off.

"CAN WE RESUME THIS DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS!?" Wilson shouted from upstairs.

House continued, but I turned the amp down to its lowest volume, where the picking of the strings could be heard over the sound coming out of the amp. House diddled around for a bit longer, then set the guitar on his knees and motioned for me to turn off the amp. I leaned over to do so, then stood back up, grinning from ear to ear.

House and I fist-bumped, but his happiness seemed short-lived. "What's up? Why the long face?"

He looked up at me. I could tell he was considering what he was about to say next carefully, which was rare for House. Impulse control and a filter were not something he came pre-built with.

"What is it, House?" I asked quietly, growing more anxious by the second.

Another long pause, then:

"I broke up with Cameron last night."