Unfamiliar territory
House remained still, considering how best to begin. Those blue eyes were restless as his brain worked through opening gambits and follow-up statements, discarding phrases as quickly as they materialised.
Wilson, meanwhile, waited patiently, aware House worked best when his brain was free to roam without interruption: problems (and this was a problem) were solved only when his intellect had run down every avenue and possibility, weighing up cause and effect, making connections and severing them when they didn't fit the circumstance. The root of House's genius lay not only in the relentless acuity of his mind (after all, every doctor was smart), but in the alarming intuition which proved beyond the capacity of most. Much of House's knowledge was entirely conventional, but alongside this conventionality was a streak of the special. Wilson had left jealousy behind long ago, but it was that aspect of his friend's intelligence, his brilliant unorthodoxy, which he envied the most. And yet, he thought, emotions are not an intellectual equation to be balanced.
Outside a siren pealed. House reached over and took a swig of beer. "Look, what I'm about to say will cause you to analyse me. Don't do it. You know how hilarious I find your attempts to pick me apart, but it's getting late and life's too short".
Wilson gave a mock salute, though remained silent.
Seemingly satisfied, House began: "for the last few weeks, I've been struggling with inappropriate thoughts regarding Cameron".
"Have these thoughts been coming to you in bed or in the shower...?", Wilson grinned, "because you know such feelings are an entirely natural part of growing up. Sometimes, when a boy and a girl like each other-".
"-hah, but maybe it's best you leave the humour to me, eh? I make the jokes in this relationship".
"Please continue, oh mighty one".
"Anyway, I don't like her", uttered House, looking down at his hands as he spoke. "OK, I like her. But that's not why I'm telling you this. I'm telling you because I want you to help me understand why I like her". Once again, he got up and began pacing the room, his running shoes leaving slight indentations in the carpet as he went.
"You mean, you want to do a differential diagnosis on attraction?", asked Wilson, who was beginning to rethink his earlier observation that emotions were not in fact mathematical equations to be solved.
House continued, oblivious to the other's interjection: "I thought that I'd shut down this little fantasy last year. I don't need to be fixed and I don't want to fixed. There's no reason at all for this infatuation. I told her she was just a piece of lobby art with a stunning ass. Apparently, this is enough for women-, no, girls-", he corrected himself, "to like you. It's pathetic".
"OK, but you said yourself that this stuff has already been resolved. Cameron has moved on. Didn't she tell you as much when you refused to indulge her caring instinct over that young cancer patient a while back?".
House stopped pacing and looked up, half of his face in shadow. "Yes, yes. If I remember correctly, you agreed with me on that one. Her exact words: 'I've jumped on the bandwagon with everyone else. I hate you now'".
"Right. And how does that make you feel?".
"What did I just say about the analysis thing? If I wanted a second-rate psychological assessment I'd go to Cameron. At least she actually knows who Freud is. And she's much prettier than you".
"Truth be told, I'm more of a Jungian myself. Anyway, how do you know she reads Freud?", replied Wilson, who silently acknowledged House's admission that he was attracted to his subordinate for more than her obvious beauty. So not just lobby art, then.
House walked to the bookcase, toying with the ball he had replaced moments before. "She mentioned it on our date".
Ah, thought Wilson, the mysterious date. House had remained remarkably tight-lipped about that night last year. It had been the talk of the hospital that the most acerbic and sarcastic doctor in all New Jersey had been enticed into an evening with his youthful subordinate. Some of the nurses had suspected black magic was at play (at whose conjuring Wilson couldn't say), or else that Cameron was merely attempting to win a bet. Certainly, most people were of the opinion that it was a disaster waiting to happen.
Wilson, however, had a different view. He remained convinced that there was more to the immunologist than met the eye, though he had not yet had the opportunity to substantiate his theory. Cameron was a challenge to—and for—House, in some as yet unidentifiable way. But while he was unsure how to characterise House and Cameron's relationship (if it could even be called such), he knew that there was something there. He didn't think it coincidental that Cuddy, the only other person in the hospital who had known House for any length of time, also regarded it positively at the time.
"You mentioned that these feelings, whatever they are, have arisen in the past few weeks. Your riddle implied that the shooting was a significant event...". Wilson paused, briefly considering the permutations of House's prior words. It was possible that near death had convinced him to embrace life, to open himself up to its uncertain pleasures, to take a chance on a relationship. But as this thought materialised in Wilson's mind the depth of its banality was so apparent that he almost laughed out loud. He could hear House in his head: almost dying changes nothing; dying changes everything. The guy had been hurt, but he had not died. He had not become a different person.
"Significant? Of course it was significant—I was shot, for God's sake! I'd think that would qualify as a significant event in a man's life, wouldn't you?".
Wilson ignored this snappiness as he made his own conclusions. The shooting had triggered feelings hitherto buried, and it was these feelings, rather than the simple fact (traumatic though it may have been) of the attack itself, that House wished to discuss. It was a truism of diagnostics that the most horrific injuries were invariably the simplest—House would say the most boring—to treat. This was not to say that they were easy to overcome; only that gunshot wounds were no puzzle, and discussion of which was certainly no reason to burst into a friend's apartment late at night. The gunman, then, had caused thoughts of Cameron to arise in his friend's overactive mind. The problem was emotional rather than physical, more subtle and therefore more interesting than any bullet wound.
House, meanwhile, moved once more to the window. The rain was now heavy, falling in horizontal sheets across the street. He watched as a young couple navigated the sidewalk, hunched together under a flimsy umbrella. The woman squealed as she splashed in a puddle that was deeper than expected. Her companion laughed at her misfortune but pulled her close and kissed her hair. Arm in arm they ploughed on through the night, oblivious to House and to the world.
The clock ticked midnight.
Wilson felt confident enough to say what he was thinking. "So, the shooting has somehow caused feelings for Cameron to emerge and you're concerned about the development".
House turned once again from the window, his face bathed in soft light. Shadows of streetcars danced in irregular intervals on the paintwork. "It's not just feelings. It's...it's", he sighed, searching for the right word. "I hallucinated her", he finished finally with a note of resignation.