The Body Found

by fourteencandles (thingsbaker)

Summary:

Wilson's missing.

Notes:

Originally posted to Livejournal in 2007. Maybe small spoilers through Season 2.5.

Chapter 1

Day 1

One day, Wilson doesn't show up for work. OK, House thinks. Must be one of those conferences. Wilson is forever getting invited to speak at this meeting or that, and though House plays a good game at paying attention - oh, OK, he doesn't even fake it well - he never remembers when Wilson's going to be in and when he won't. So he sees the dark office next door and revises his lunch plans. Cameron, he thinks, will be good for at least a free sandwich.

At ten, though, Cuddy walks into House's office, her arms crossed over a clipboard. Her face is slightly flushed; it's an angry look that House knows well. "Where is he?" she asks. "Don't act like you don't know."

House glances at Foreman, who is smirking over his copy of the Wall Street Journal. "Uh oh, Mom's mad," he says. "Did one of you kids misplace another patient?"

"I'm talking about Wilson," she snaps.

House fights off his own smirk. Jimmy Jimmy, he thinks. Didn't know you still had it in you. In the early days of their friendship, House had gotten several dawn phone calls from disreputable hotels, Wilson's panicked voice on the other end, asking House to cover for him while he drove this girl or that home. That ground to a stop with the marriages, though, unless Wilson has decided to pick up some old habits post-divorce. House makes a show of patting his pockets, then shakes his head. "Sorry, he's not here either. Must've left him in my other pants."

Forman snorts and tries to cover with a cough. Cuddy's glare could set fire to water. "When you talk to him, tell him he'd better be trapped under something heavy, because I'm not taking any lesser excuses for why he missed the interview this morning."

House blinks, but he waits until Cuddy's out of the office before he picks up his phone. He dials Wilson's cell, then his pager, then his hotel. He calls his own home number next, just in case. Then he calls Wilson's assistant, who confirms what Cuddy's just said: Wilson missed not only the interview for the new head of nuclear medicine that morning but all of his patient appointments. He's due in the clinic in the afternoon, too, a full day on campus scheduled. Wilson is AWOL.

House finds Wilson's office empty but neat. He checks his desk and his calendar. Nothing out of the ordinary. He pages his fellows to the conference room and peels a key off his ring. "Chase, check out my place and swing by his old house. Foreman, get yourself into his hotel room. Cameron, you're hitting the phones." He hands her the address book he found in Wilson's desk. "I want to hear back in an hour, sooner if you find him," he says. 

There are no arguments. Everyone seems to understand how completely bizarre it is that Wilson, king of modern responsibility, has bailed on an entire day. It will serve him right, House thinks, if Foreman finds him puking up a hangover in the hotel bathroom.

While the kids look in the expected places, House goes up to the oncology wing and pokes around. The nurses don't like him - and the other doctors like him even less - but when he takes a seat at the nurse's station, he finds himself surrounded. "I didn't steal him," he says, but they aren't looking at him in anger. It's worry on their faces, he realizes, and maybe expectation. If anyone would know where he is, they seem to be saying, it would be you.

"Let's talk about yesterday," he says. "Who has a copy of his schedule?"

A red-haired nurse named Bobbi leans against the counter next to him, and she and one of the oncology interns - Barbara - lead him through most of Wilson's day, a blur of rounds, appointments, and treatment schedules, followed by afternoon supervision sessions with the new residents. "I left at six," Bobbi says, "and he was here, signing charts, but he had his coat on."

"I think he left around 6:30," Barbara says.

There's a flutter to her voice that makes House frown. "Go check on your patients," he says. "I'm sure someone's in need of an inspirational head-shaving right about now."

He looks down at the notes he's scrawled on the back of a progress note. It's not an unusual Wilson day. Depressing and boring, but normal. No deaths, Bobbi had said; no particularly trying procedures. Something gets a little tighter in House's shoulders. Nothing traumatic has happened here. Wilson hasn't just run away.

He looks at his watch, collects his things, and goes back to his own office. Cameron is sitting quietly at her desk, and when House walks in, she shakes her head. "You called everyone? The exes, Stacy, everyone?"

"No one's seen him. His mother talked to him on Sunday like usual, but that was it."

He's about to press harder when his phone rings. Chase. "Yeah?"

"Nothing," he says. "Mrs. Wilson hasn't seen him since the papers were signed. And thanks for not mentioning that she works from home."

"Just get back here," House says.

"On my way."

He dials Foreman's number but gets no answer. That's got to be a good sign, he thinks, limping over to his desk. Foreman's probably too busy reading Wilson the riot act to pick up the phone. House opens his e-mail and forwards Wilson fourteen separate spam messages that include sex in the title, just as revenge for all this concern. Bastard, he thinks, and then, he's so buying dinner.

Chase reappears after fifteen minutes, and House gets up in time to hear him telling Cameron about his run-in with Julie. "She was going to call the police," he says.

Cameron takes off her glasses, and House leans against the door. He can just imagine Julie's reaction to all of this, can hear her shrill voice and see her manicured nails curled around a baseball bat or candlestick, ready to break the burglar into pieces. He has always admired her tough side. "You broke into her house," Cameron says.

"Under orders!" Chase glances at House. "So she's standing there, and she's already got the phone out, and I said, you know, 'I work for House!' And she just gets this look, and she says, 'Of course.' And that's it."

House is well acquainted with "the look." It's part exasperation, part absolute loathing. It's his own special blend. "And she hadn't seen Wilson?"

"Like I said, not since the papers were signed." Chase takes a seat at the table. "Did Foreman turn up anything?"

"Not sure yet," he says, heading toward the coffee machine. "Cameron, give him a call."

He leans on the counter and stirs sugar into his coffee. Cameron gets through to Foreman, clearly, because she starts talking. "Hello, on speaker," House orders, and Cameron taps the button and tells Foreman.

"Hangover?" House asks.

"He's not here," Foreman says. "No one's seen him since Monday night."

Two days ago. Well, Tuesday night, Wilson had crashed on House's couch after they'd watched a movie. Last night, though, he should've been home sweet hotel. House sets his coffee down. "Did they check to see if his key card had been used?"

"Yeah," Foreman says. "Last use was Monday at 8:02 p.m."

House turns back to the counter and grips it hard. He tries to make this match up in his head, and all he gets is a very bad feeling. "Check the garage for his car," he says, "and then come back here."

"Already checked. It's gone, too."

House hears Cameron hang up. He doesn't turn, just says, "Page Cuddy here, now."

It takes her two minutes to show up at his door. House looks at her and he sees the worry in her face that's been rising in his gut.

"Any word?" she asks.

Cameron catches her up, and Cuddy turns pale. She looks right at House, and he frowns. "Julie had the right idea," he says, and Cuddy narrows her eyes. "It's time to call the police."



Day 2-3

The F.B.I. agents come in on the second full day that Wilson is missing and they take over his office. They interview his staff. House sits in his chair in the corner because he can hear most of what they say from there. He learns nothing, but is reminded of how little Wilson's staff seems to actually know about the man. After listening to the third crying nurse, he goes to the conference room.

All three fellows look up when he walks in. There's no paper on the table, just their coffee mugs. "What are you all doing here?" House asks. "Shouldn't someone be in the clinic?"

"We thought -"

"Stop doing that," House says. "One of you, go take my hours in the clinic. Someone else, find out when Wilson's hours are and work them. Whoever's left over, go find me a patient."

Cameron flinches, even as Chase and Foreman stand up. "You really want to have a patient while Wilson's -" she stops, and House stares at her, waiting to hear the end of the sentence. She finally just gestures awkwardly at the hall, where two F.B.I. agents are walking toward the elevator, each carrying a cardboard box.

"You're right, one patient would be a minor distraction." He starts for the door. "Find me two patients, if you can. The closer to dead, the better." As the door closes behind him, he calls after the F.B.I. agents. "Where are you taking that stuff?"

The male agent turns and says, "To our office. Who are you?"

"I'm the best friend," House says. "Why haven't you guys interviewed me yet?"

The woman turns, now, and narrows her eyes. "And what would we learn from you?"

He shrugs. "If it's so necessary to know Wilson to figure out what's happened, you're wasting your time with all the goodie-goodies on his staff."

The man smirks. The elevator opens behind them, and he tips his head toward the car. House follows them inside. "So you know where the skeletons are buried, that's what you're saying?" the guy asks.

"Wilson doesn't have skeletons," House answers. 

"Several people pointed out that he's had quite a few out-of-wedlock flings," the woman says.

"Ex-wives, sure, he's got those," House says, "and they maybe wanted to set his clothes on fire for a week or two, but now they benefit more from him being on the job. And the other women - none of them were married. He has a weird moral thing about that, won't do other men's wives."

House just barely catches the woman rolling her eyes. The doors open with a ding in the lobby, and they all step out. All around, House can feel people's eyes on them; word of Wilson's disappearance has spread widely. "All right," the man says. He looks for a moment at the woman, and she shrugs and takes his box on top of hers, then heads across the lobby. The agent looks at House. "I'm Agent Bettes, by the way," he says. "Is there somewhere we can go to talk?"

"Yeah." He starts toward the clinic.

"And I didn't catch your name."

"I'm Dr. House. This way." They go through the clinic and into Exam 4, which is House's personal favorite, and one in which he and Wilson have watched hours of "General Hospital." It is also the furthest from Cuddy's office.

Bettes leans back against the wall and takes out a notepad, and House takes the swiveling stool. "So, when did you see Dr. Wilson last?"

"Wednesday," House says. "He stayed at my place Tuesday night and gave me a ride into work. I saw him again a couple of times during the day."

Bettes makes a note, and House guesses this is clearing up at least one question. "Did he seem upset or act strange?"

"No," House says. He's sure of this. The last time he'd seen Wilson was in the late afternoon, when Wilson had come through to get a cup of coffee. They'd talked for a little bit, made plans to see the Joe Bruseman Trio on Friday night at the Jazz Bar. "He was fine."

"So, Tuesday, he stayed at your place? Is that normal, or was he trying to get away from something, someone?"

"Pretty normal," House says. Bettes keeps looking at him, and House knows the question he's asking. Normally, he'd make the guy ask, just because it's so funny to watch people stumble, but this idiot is charged with finding Wilson. House can throw him a rope. "We're not romantically involved." He feels lame even saying the words.

"Is he seeing anyone, that you know of?"

"No," House says. "The ink's barely dry on the divorce."

"Doesn't sound like that's stopped him before."

It's a comment that House might make, himself, might even make to Wilson's face, but hearing it come from this guy makes House want to punch him. He cracks his knuckles. "He's not seeing anyone. He works, usually late, he goes to his hotel, he gets room service - you can check on that, it'll be mostly salads - and then he comes back here and does it all again."

"Except for the nights he goes home with you."

"Oh, ho," House says, "you caught me there." He rolls his eyes, just in case Agent Bettes isn't catching his disdain. Usually, people don't have a problem picking up on it, but this guy seems particularly dense. House wonders if they actually train them to repeat things.

"Does he have any enemies, you can think of?"

"Did I answer this already, in the elevator? Was that a hallucination?"

Bettes shakes his head, and his smirk finally starts to dislodge. "Look, you came to me, you said -"

"I said, if you think that knowing Wilson's going to tell you where he is, then I'm your best resource. But knowing Wilson isn't going to tell you squat." House pushes himself up. "Wilson didn't run off, and he wasn't kidnapped by some secret drug-dealing associate."

"Most people who go missing either run off or were taken by someone they know," Bettes says.

"Yeah, well, my math says that there must be a minority for whom that is not true, and Wilson is your minority." House shakes his head. "You're wasting your time here, when you should be out looking."

Bettes stares at him for a second, as though House might crack, might change his story and say, oops, you caught me, I've known where he is the whole time. He finally nods and steps to the side, opens the door. With his hand still on the knob, he turns to House again. "So if he didn't run away and he wasn't kidnapped, what do you think happened to him?"

House grits his teeth and looks down at the floor, away from the smug curiosity in Bettes's eyes. "I don't know," he says. There are no options that make sense to him, yet. 



Day 4

For the first three days, Foreman manages to sit calmly through the storm of attention being paid to the whole deal, figuring Wilson will surface somewhere with a great story to tell. Wilson's been around House for too many years for Foreman to believe that he's completely stable, and he can't possibly be the saint that everyone thinks he is. As House gets more and more wound up, Foreman distracts himself from the growling and yelling by thinking of where he would go, if he decided - hypothetically - that it was all too much. He spends a lot of time thinking about Hilton Head, South Carolina, and the golfing, and the beaches, and then he feels bad for not thinking of someplace more tropical. He wonders what it says about him that he's thought of someplace he could drive to, easily, within a day.

On Saturday, House pages him in at 7:30 in the morning. "We have a patient?" Foreman asks, walking into the office, and House just glares. Medicine is the furthest thing from anyone's mind, it seems. Chase and Cameron are already there, and they stand up as Foreman walks in and they all cluster around House's desk.

"The F.B.I. wants to talk to all of you," House says, lifting and dropping his cane against the ground. He looks nervous, or strung out, or both. It's always hard to tell. Foreman wonders if he's even left the hospital since the night before - from the looks of his clothes, probably not. "Draw straws on who gets to go first."

"Why do they want to talk to us?" Chase asks.

"Because they've finally realized that Wilson probably isn't hiding a secret mob identity," House mutters, "so they've started to focus in on who around him might have a secret." Foreman glances at Chase and Cameron to make sure he's not the only one who doesn't understand. They both look slightly lost, too. Reassuring. House looks up. "They think I'm involved."

"They think you kidnapped Wilson?"

"Actually," House says, "they think I murdered him, and then hid his body somewhere clever."

Cameron steps closer to the desk, and Foreman almost cringes, thinking she's going to try and touch House. She doesn't, which is good, because the F.B.I. agents are right next door. No way they'd be able to get House out of a murder charge with witnesses.

"What do you want us to say?" Chase asks.

House looks up at him, then rolls his eyes. "Tell the truth," he says, loudly. "I've got nothing to hide. And the quicker they get it through their heads that I'm not the problem, the quicker they'll actually go out and find Wilson."

One of the agents looks up at this. He's smirking, just a little, and Foreman looks from him to House. "I'll go," he says, and House just nods, then rests his head on his cane.

Foreman walks into the conference room, and one of the agents offers him a chair. He doesn't like the agents hanging out in their conference room. Really, he doesn't like the agents at all. The people from the F.B.I. look a little too much like the F.B.I. in movies. They wear dark suits and talk slowly to everyone, like they're all stupid. Foreman wants to punch the guy who interviews him from the moment he says a very leisurely hello. "I'm Special Agent Kendall," he says. "I'm in charge of this case, and I'd like to ask you a few questions."

They go over a bunch of very basic, stupid stuff, stuff he's already told everyone - last time he saw Wilson, are they friends, has he seen anyone suspicious around - and then finally, finally, the agent eases into more difficult territory. It's taken fifteen minutes to get there. 

"Could Dr. Wilson have been involved in any illegal activity?"

"Like what?" Foreman asks. "I doubt he even speeds."

"It says here he was involved in a police investigation earlier this year."

Foreman shakes his head. "Uh, yeah, we all were. And all of those charges were dropped. Wilson wasn't doing anything illegal."

"But Dr. House was."

Kendall pushes a cup of coffee toward Foreman. It's coffee from their own machine. It pisses Foreman off to have these people in here, taking over their space, and now asking him about House like he's the criminal. "Look," Kendall says, "we're here to find Dr. Wilson. I don't care about whatever happened in the past, only I need to know the full story."

Foreman pushes the coffee away. "What happened was somebody got their story wrong, and nothing ever came of it." Kendall's expression doesn't change in the least. "If you're crazy enough to think that House had anything to do with Wilson disappearing, you're dumber than you look."

Kendall sits back and shares a glance with an agent at the door. "I see you learned your manners from your boss."

And that's it, that's enough of this. Foreman gets it, finally, gets what House has been feeling, this wash of frustration and utter helplessness. Wilson is missing, Wilson is probably in trouble, and these people are doing jack shit about it. They are absolutely clueless. He leans forward, his hands flat on the table. "My boss," he says, "has been going crazy for the last three days, tearing up heaven and earth, trying to find his best friend, while you guys have been strolling up and down the hallway, asking stupid questions like this." Foreman stands up. "I have things to do. Are we done here?"

It takes a second, but Kendall finally nods. "Sure," he says.

As Foreman walks out of the conference room, Agent Bettes holds the door for him, then hands him a card. "If you think of anything," he says.

"If I think of anything," Foreman mutters, "I'll tell House."



Day 5

The F.B.I. sent the story to the press within the first twenty-four hours; Wilson's absence has been big news ever since, including a short, front-page article in the Sunday paper.

One of the local news stations pushes for an interview with Cuddy, and the F.B.I. press agent tells her to take it, and use the time to plead for information. "Why me?" she asks.

"His parents won't get in until tomorrow," the agent says. "So it's you or that guy House or his ex-wife, I guess."

Cuddy goes on the air and says exactly what the press agent has advised her to say, that Wilson is a valued colleague and friend, that anyone who has a solid lead should call, that all they want, right now, is to have him back. All they want is to know where he is, and that he's all right.

They show Wilson's picture - it's a headshot, from two years ago, when his hair was a little shorter, a picture they'd taken to run in the news release about opening the new pediatric oncology center - and flash the tips hotline beneath it. Cuddy holds herself perfectly still, even as the portable lights go out in her office. She stares straight ahead and barely listens to the news reporter chatting to her. Everything she's said is true. All she really wants, right now, is to know that Wilson is OK.

He's been missing for five days. Tomorrow, they'll start a new work week without him around; she has already asked his assistant to call through and reschedule his appointments. She can't make herself say they should be canceled. This is what being the boss means, though; it means she's supposed to stay above this, that she's supposed to think of the hospital first.

"Jesus Christ, get the fuck out of here already."

She snaps back to the situation before her and sees House limping through the quickly scattering news crew. "House," she starts, but she can't admonish him, not now.

"That went well," he says. Of course, he was watching. "Not the best picture of him."

"It was the best we had," she says. He nods. She looks up at him. His usual scruff is almost a beard; his hair is sticking up in wild tufts, and his shirt is beyond crumpled. "You look terrible," she says.

House shakes his head. That he doesn't even come up with a retort is more worrisome than even his appearance. 

"House," she says. "You should go home. Get some sleep."

He shrugs. "I can sleep here."

"OK," she says, "but you can't get a change of clothes here. And you look like you could use one." She stands up. It's Sunday; she came to the hospital just for this, and though she should stay and do some work, right now, there's not much chance of her focusing. She can make calls and review paperwork at home, too. "I'll drive you," she says. When she puts her hand on his arm, he doesn't shake her off. It's shocking, more than the television lights or the F.B.I. staking out her hospital or the idea, the idea that's just starting to rise, that maybe Wilson isn't going to come back. It's shocking to see how ruined House looks after just these few days.

She wants to comfort him, to tell him it will be OK, that Wilson will make it through, but she knows the way House operates. He won't believe her; what's more, he'll want to argue with her. If she says Wilson will be fine, he'll have to argue the opposite. And she can't do that to him or to herself, so she drops her hand from his arm and goes to find her coat. Instead, as they walk to her car, she says, "The F.B.I. agents know what they're doing."

House shakes his head. "I have my doubts," he says.

"This is what they're trained for."

"Then I have my doubts about their training." He climbs into the car and sits silently, staring out the window. She hadn't realized he'd left without a coat, and now it seems too late to mention it. She hopes he has his keys.

She drops him at the curb in front of his place, leans over the seat and rolls the window down after he's gotten out. "Are you going to be OK?" she calls.

He looks back, his keys already in his palm. There's no way he can answer that question, really, she thinks, but she's relieved when he rolls his eyes.




Day 6

They find Wilson's car on Monday. Chase is sitting in the conference room when an agent comes in to talk to House about it. "Goddamn it," House yells, "what have you people been doing for five days? I told you, I told you where he eats, I told you what he -"

He's cut off by the agent insisting that they're doing everything they can. That, Chase thinks, is the problem. In three years with House, he's learned that even everything one can isn't always enough with House. It has to be everything possible; it has to be everything, without limits, without boundaries.

The agent leaves, and when Chase looks over, House has put on his headphones. He's resting his head on his desk. What's funny is, if House were acting this angry and impossible at any other time, Wilson would already be over here, in his face, telling him to shape the hell up.

"Wouldn't go in there," Chase says, when Cameron walks in the door.

She's got the same pale, vaguely alarmed look on her face that she's had since the week before. Chase isn't sure whether this is mostly because she's worried about Wilson or because she's worried about House. "Has something happened?" she asks, taking a seat at the table, almost whispering.

Chase speaks normally, because wherever House's mind is right now, it's not listening to them. "They found Wilson's car at a Chinese place, about a mile from here."

Cameron leans forward. "And?"

He shrugs. He can only report what he overheard, which wasn't much. "And nothing." She keeps staring at him. "What, he wasn't tied up in the trunk or something."

Cameron flinches and then rolls her eyes. "Nice, Chase. Dr. Wilson could be out there, really in danger."

"Yeah, I know," he says, but the truth is, he hasn't thought about it. He won't think about. Wilson's gone, and Chase chooses not to dwell on the details of it. Not yet. If they find a body, well, then he'll think about it. Until then, there's nothing he can do, so there's nothing he should be thinking about.

In the next room, House gets up, abruptly, and Chase flinches, has to remind himself that House can't read his thoughts. House slams out of his own door, never sparing them a glance, and when Chase looks back Cameron is still staring after him.

"It's just not real, yet," she says, finally turning back to look at him. "I mean, it's like Wilson's still here."

"What, in spirit?" Chase asks. He knows even as he says it that it's the wrong thing, but he's tired, already, of everyone walking on eggshells about this. "Look," he says, and he leans across the table, and he's ready to say it, to say, Dr. Wilson isn't coming back, to say, People disappear all the bloody time, and it's never a happy ending. But Cameron's eyes are slightly wet, and from the hall, Chase can hear House yelling at another agent, and he knows that no one is ready to hear it all out loud yet. No one is ready to face this reality. "Look, I'm sorry," he says instead. Cameron's expression goes softer. "It's going to be fine."




Day 7

Cameron goes to the monthly clinic scheduling meeting on Tuesday morning. She has nothing better to do. House was cavalier about getting new patients when Wilson first disappeared, but now his energy is low. He's spending most of his time harassing the F.B.I. agents about why they aren't doing their jobs faster. She wants to pull them all aside and give them a primer in House, to tell them that this is how he shows concern, that this is how he helps, but they already have enough on their plate.

So she goes to the scheduling meeting and snags a free bagel for breakfast. They hold meetings every two months, to schedule for the following two months. The meetings are mostly held to make sure that shifts get covered when someone's going on vacation or away to a conference. Cameron, as House's representative, is not popular at the meetings, and she dreads going and trying to stick up for him. But when she doesn't attend, the other departments' representatives usually stick House with the worst hours, the three hours around lunch or the late-afternoon times when school kids get brought in. They think it's funny and deserved, but Cameron is the one who has to deal with House after he's seen eight chicken-poxed kids in a row. She goes, and she takes a calendar and a pencil, and she sits in the front row.

Usually, she sits with Penny Bright, an intern from Oncology who does the scheduling for the whole department - a mammoth task, as there are 25 providers who work in the clinic from there - but Penny is up at the front, talking to Martha, the woman who always runs the meetings. As everyone settles in, Martha stands up. "I was just talking with Penny," she says. "In light of what's... happened to Dr. Wilson, the oncology department is requesting he be removed from the schedule."

Cameron can't hold back her gasp. Wilson's only been gone a week - he hasn't died, he hasn't quit. She wants to stand up and say no, she wants to stand up and say that she'll cover his hours - all of them - that between them, the diagnostics staff can handle it. But it's the sad, almost horrified look on Penny's face that stops her. When Penny speaks, it's in a breathy, tearful voice.

"We thought if - when he gets back, he'll probably want some time off, anyway," she says. "So, if you could, just - we don't have enough people to pick up all the hours, but -"

"It's no problem." This is from Dan, who schedules for the internists. Regan, from Cardiology, echoes this, as do the two women beside him. 

Everyone, Cameron realizes, is willing to pitch in for Wilson. "We have this week covered," she says, quietly, but the room is quiet anyway, and she knows everyone's heard her. Good, she thinks, let them. They should know that House is human, and that he's hurt by this, too. "House has his hours covered."

For once, there are no soft asides about whether the hours will really be covered or not. There's just a brief, acknowledging nod from Martha and a thank you from Penny. Cameron nods back. When Martha puts the first month's schedule up on the overhead, Cameron tries not to flinch at the fact that Wilson's name has been crossed out on all of his scheduled days.




One Week

Wilson has officially been missing for a week. House walks down to the lobby, because it's evening and he should go home. Other people are going home, ergo - but he doesn't want to leave. Not yet. He doesn't know where to go. Wilson's disappearance is like any mystery; he feels better when he has the hospital around him, when he can, within a moment, bring all of its many resources to bear on the problem. Here, he is in charge, or at least close to it. And so far that hasn't mattered at all.

He takes a seat with his back to the windows, rests his head on his cane. Outside, it's been snowing for most of the day. He tries not to think about what the weather might mean for Wilson, if he's caught outside in it. His coat and gloves were missing from the car; in fact, the only things they'd found in it had been a small pile of mail and Wilson's agenda. The men at the Chinese restaurant recognized Wilson's picture - they'd told the F.B.I. and also House, when he'd made Foreman drive him over - but they hadn't seen him that night. They'd recognized him from all the times he'd picked up food on the way home, or on the way to House's place. There's no way to tell where he was headed on Wednesday night.

The lobby is quiet at this hour. Cuddy has gone home. She's rallied well, over the past few days, and doesn't look like she's been crying quite as much. It makes House a little angry, that she can get past it so swiftly, but it also makes him a little envious. Wilson is missing, and around him, nothing has stopped moving. The hospital is still running; patients are still getting sick and complaining about ridiculous things; the staff is still, somehow, managing to function and care. His own fellows seem to still be moving slowly, as though the world is suddenly made of water, but House thinks that may be more out of deference to his own foul mood than out of direct concern for Wilson.

House asks himself the same question that he asks during a particularly difficult case: what am I missing? The answer hasn't changed, not once, not in seven days: Wilson.

The doors open, and House looks over just in time to see a black coat swish past. "Hey," he calls out.

Kendall turns, a swift, easy turn, and walks toward House. "Just the man I was looking for," he says.

House takes a small breath. "I'm already sitting down," he says. 

He cocks his head to the side. "It's not the worst news," he says. That doesn't really mean anything to House because he hasn't thought about what the worst news could be. Every day there's been no word has been the worst news. "I'm pulling back the agents on the case. It will remain active - it will always be active - but the manpower's going to be reduced."

House nods, just once. "Reduced," he repeats. "To zero?"

"Agent Bettes is still going to be working the case," he says, and House hears the silent for now at the end of the sentence.

He looks up. "You came all the way here just to tell me that?"

Kendall shrugs. "I thought you'd want to hear it in person," he says. House keeps staring at him. "I thought you might not take it so well. Figured, if you were going to climb the clock tower, I'd be on hand."

House almost laughs. Instead, he taps his hand against his cane a few times.

"Dr. Wilson," Kendall says after a moment. "He's the guy who used to talk you down, huh?"

"Every day," House says. In between the truth and that answer are hundreds of days when he didn't listen to Wilson, days when he asked Wilson questions just to tell him his answers were wrong, days when Wilson was desperately trying to tell him something that he didn't want to hear. House tries to remember this. He's been gone a week; that's not nearly enough time for him to start glossing over things, not yet. Wilson's missing, he's not a martyr. He's not a saint.

"C'mon," Kendall says, stepping back. "I'll buy you a drink."

House wants to tell him no, because he's not sure he can stomach a pity invitation, but he needs, right now, to hear more about this. He needs to hear about the investigation. He needs somewhere to go that isn't the hospital lobby. So he follows Kendall outside, into the light snow, and he gets on his bike, and he drives to a bar on the other side of the campus that is usually the place he goes with Wilson or his fellows. He's not going to get mopey and start avoiding places just because he once went there with Wilson. If he did that, he'd never get to eat in the hospital cafeteria or at his own dining table again, at least not until Wilson comes back.

They take seats at the bar, and Kendall sips whiskey and talks about his last case, some suburban housewife who went missing for three weeks.

"Turned up in Albany," he says, and House nods.

"With the housekeeper," he says.

Kendall looks startled. "How did you -"

"You gave it away," he says. "You mentioned the housekeeper at the start, explicitly. You don't do that unless you're a bad storyteller or you're trying to make a point of it."

Kendall shakes his head. "You're a smart son-of-a-bitch," he says. It's a look House is used to, one of mixed admiration and aversion. "You haven't made any friends on my team."

"Good thing," House says. "I have all the friends I need."

"Dr. Wilson," Kendall says, and he raises his glass just slightly. "Most people, by this point, we've got their lives stripped bare and we're just covered in dirt. Dirty business, dirty marriage, dirty everything. Your guy, so far, he's clean. Other than the marriages, I guess, but even there - you know all of the wives cried, when we talked to them?"

"I'm not surprised," House says, though he is, a little. Particularly if Jessica, Wife Number 1, actually shed tears.

Kendall looks over at him. "He must be a helluva guy."

House opens his mouth and finds himself, for once, without words. He wants to tell Kendall everything, to explain what Wilson is and isn't, to somehow tie up exactly how loyal and funny and mean and smart and exasperating and kind and sad Wilson can be. "We had lunch together," House says, finally. Kendall looks over, paying attention. "Almost every day."

"We'll find him," Kendall says, after a moment, when House realizes he has nothing more to say. "Don't worry."

Neither thing is helpful to hear. House drains his drink and orders another, and when he pulls his pill bottle from his pocket, he hears Wilson's voice in his head bitching about it. That makes him smile.

Chapter 2

Two Weeks

In the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday, the hotel manager from the place Wilson has been staying calls House's office phone. He introduces himself as Mr. Bentley, and apologizes for calling "during such a difficult time."

"How did you get this number?" House asks.

"Dr. Wilson has you listed as his emergency contact," Bentley says. "Is that incorrect?"

"No, fine. What is it?" House glances up, sees Cameron already halfway across the conference room. She probably thinks it's the F.B.I. or something, the dramatic we've-found-him call. He waves her off.

"Well," Bentley says, "it's just - the F.B.I. agent, Agent Bettes, was here today, and he's released Dr. Wilson's room back to us. And I just - well. I understand he's still, ah, not, ah - "

"He's missing," House says. He's gotten too used to saying the words. "What do you want?"

"His things," Bentley says, his voice slightly higher, agitated. "What should I do with his things?"

"Uh, leave them in his room?"

Bentley clears his throat. "The room has been released," he says, slowly, as though it was the speed of his earlier statement that might have confused House.

House sits forward in his chair. He wishes he had a video phone so that he could glare. "You're saying you want his stuff out of the room so you can rent it to someone else."

"Understand," Bentley says, "please understand, Dr. Wilson was a valued guest."

"So valued that the second the F.B.I. says they're done with the room, you're boxing up his stuff to send to Goodwill?"

"I assure you, we haven't touched anything."

"Then you're doing the right thing," House says, and he hangs up.

But Bentley is persistent, and later that afternoon, while House is working in the clinic, Cuddy corners him in an exam room. "He's being charged for a room he's not even staying in," she says.

House wags his eyebrows, though his heart isn't in it. "You want to go check it out with me?"

"No," she says, and her rejection is too gentle. House looks away. "Go get his stuff. Bring it to my place, if you don't have room, but just get it." She pauses with her hand on the door. "He'll want it when he gets back."

So House has dinner in the bar at Wilson's hotel. The bar doesn't serve food. That works out just fine. He has two drinks, then goes to the desk and gets the spare key and rides the elevator to Wilson's room. He shoves everything of Wilson's that he can find into Wilson's two big suitcases, and then he sits on Wilson's bed. It's not as though it still smells like Wilson in there - the F.B.I. has been through, as has the maid - or that the place in any way feels like Wilson's space. It's just a hotel room, just a square space in a square building where his square friend had spent the last few months, living a very square life. And now, he's out somewhere in the round world, and House can't figure out exactly why or how they've come to this place. It is not like medicine. There's no cure. There's really nothing he can do, except wait for Wilson to come back.

House stands up and cleans out the small fridge, loads his pockets with the tiny bottles and tins, and then calls down to the desk for a bellhop. He leaves the key at the desk on his way out, and tells the receptionist they should charge the F.B.I. for the mini-bar.




Three Weeks

House has his groceries delivered. It's basically always the same delivery, every two weeks or so, with some minor alterations made for whatever he's in the mood to microwave. The whole process can be done online, and it's always something he does from the office. Wilson always razzes him about this. "Most people," he says, "would do this from the comfort of their own home, so that they don't end up with four cartons of chicken broth and no garlic salt." But House takes pride in his memory, in the fact that he can - usually - get things right, that he can remember what he has and what he needs. His mind is his best ally.

On the third week that Wilson is missing, House sits at his computer and thinks over the shelves in his cupboard and realizes he's being stupid. He's been ordering just like normal, getting the things he always gets, including the things he keeps around just for Wilson. This is how he's come to have two kinds of pancake syrup unopened in his pantry; it's the reason that there are 12 bottles of Hefeweizen, the yellow swill that Wilson likes, taking up half of the lower shelf of his refrigerator.

His hand hovers over the mouse. "You're being an idiot," he mutters, just to himself, and then slowly goes down the list of groceries and unchecks the boxes beside the things that are Wilson-only items. It's not a betrayal, it's not giving up; he changes his orders all the time. When Wilson went home for Passover, House had cut back his order and it hadn't been weird, just prudent. That's all this is, he thinks. This is prudence.

They're having a sale on Hefeweizen, though, so House orders another six pack, anyway. It's not like it goes bad so quickly. Besides, Wilson will probably want one or two dozen when he gets back.




Four Weeks

This time, the call in the middle of the day is from the day-manager of Princeton U-Store-It. "It's a monthly fee," he says. "Saw his picture in the news." He doesn't try to pretend that he cares about the situation. House could respect that, if he didn't hate the guy so much.

"Fine," he says. "I'll come down." He doesn't bother to ask why they've called his number, or why they're calling now. Two of Wilson's three credit cards - all but his emergency American Express - had turned up in his things from the hotel. House had made Cameron call and suspend them. He has a feeling that, wherever he is, Wilson is probably freaking out about the damage to his credit rating that a month of non-payment might do.

He takes off before lunch. He makes Foreman go with him, just because he happens to be standing nearby when House is putting on his jacket, and because he needs someone with a car so that he can haul things back. He is expecting a small locker, closet-sized, full of picture books and terribly sentimental crap that Wilson can't quite part with.

"What are you planning to do?" Foreman asks as they drive over. "Take it all home?"

House shrugs. "I could just pick up the tab. Let Wilson owe me when he gets back." This is how he speaks of it now: when he gets back, as though he's on vacation, as though he could drop in at any time.

"House," Foreman starts, but House looks over and Foreman backs down, just slightly, turning his eyes back to the road. "It could get expensive," he says, finally.

House knows Foreman has given up hope. "This isn't the ghetto," he says. "Not every story has a 'Law & Order' ending."

He amuses himself, watching Foreman's jaw clench and unclench, as they drive the rest of the way.

At the storage facility, they go into the front office, which is really just a large, concrete-floored storage space that's had windows put on the front and a desk installed in the middle. A burly man in a uniform shirt that says "KYLE" looks at House's ID for a long time, comparing it to notes on a sheet of paper. House can see Wilson's terrible handwriting on the form. He tries to imagine Wilson in the shabby little office, wonders when, exactly, Wilson found the time to move things in here. It only surprises him a little that Wilson didn't ask for his help; it actually makes him feel a little pride, that Wilson knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't have lent a helping hand. He's always been useless with moving.

"All right," Kyle says, handing back the license. "Says here you're only allowed in if it's some kinda real big emergency, but, I guess this counts, huh?"

Foreman smirks while House scowls. Of course, Wilson would put conditions on it. Well, he thinks, he does know me, after all.

Kyle hands over a key to unit J-4 and gives directions that seem far too complex for a single-story, straight-line complex. Foreman seems to be listening. House takes the key and walks out. The office is in building S. It's a mild day - for February, it's downright tropical - so House decides to walk. He yells back to Foreman that he should bring the car, then sets off.

As he goes, the units get larger. Building J is in the middle, and unit four has a small garage door, instead of the normal room door that House expected. He unlocks it and hefts the door up with one easy push, then steps back into the gravel drive to stare.

Within, there's a whole large room of Wilson. House recognizes the stuff almost immediately: mahogany leather couch and matching leather chairs, from the den in his second-to-last house; two long, low bookshelves from his den in his last house; an antique armoire that House hasn't seen in eight years, that he thought had gone the way of a garage sale during Wilson's first marriage; a flat-screen television that used to hang in his and Julie's bedroom; and dozens of boxes, all neatly labeled, carrying KITCHEN SUPPLIES and MEDICAL TEXTS and other things.

He leans against the armoire, which is dusty but otherwise well-preserved, with a moving blanket secured around it. Of course, he thinks. House had just assumed that when Wilson had said, three times, "she's getting the house," that had included, well, everything inside the house. But no, now that he thinks about it, it makes sense. Everything that he sees in front of him is something Wilson picked out, something Wilson had, at one time or another, wanted for himself. It's funny how neatly the items coordinate, House thinks. There's a real consistency of style and taste visible. It's like Wilson's been preparing, all these years, to furnish his own home with the leftovers of three failed marriages. If there were a bed, he'd have a full apartment.

"Whoa," Foreman says, walking up behind House. "That's a little more than what can fit in my trunk."

"Yeah." House sticks his cane between two boxes and pokes at the top of a very large, gold-embossed globe. The western hemisphere slides over, revealing a decanter, a set of glasses, and an ice bucket within. "Nice," he says, and though it's a little sarcastic, it's exactly the kind of thing he knows Wilson likes. He remembers, actually, when he got the globe-bar, mail-ordered from a particular manufacturer in Italy. He taps his cane on the woodwork, gently, remembering Wilson grinning at him, saying, "Want a drink?" and then sliding the globe open, like a magician.

"So what are you going to do with this stuff?" Foreman asks.

House looks around. It's nice stuff. It's a shame, really, for it to go to waste. What has Wilson been thinking?

He turns around, walks out, closes up the unit. Foreman follows him back to the office, and House can see he's struggling not to say this is a bad idea, a waste of money. House goes to the desk and Kyle doesn't bother standing until House pulls out his wallet.

"One more month," he says, laying down the money. "Then I'll be back for it all."

"You're going to move it somewhere else?" Foreman asks as they walk out. "Try and find a cheaper place for it?"

"No," House says. In his mind, he is already placing calls. "I'm going to find it a new home."




Six Weeks

Wilson's last paycheck comes through the first week of March. House knows it's come through because Wilson's accounts are now available to him. The F.B.I. has unfrozen everything; they're still monitoring the AmEx for suspicious activity, and they've told House to keep Wilson's accounts open, but the money is now, essentially, his for the spending, because he has power of attorney.

He also knows it's his last paycheck because Cuddy comes up to him, the day after, and says, "I can't keep him active any longer."

"Put him on sabbatical," House suggests. "And while you're at it, put me on sabbatical, too."

"House." Her admonishments are timid, now; limpid, even, lacking in any force or energy. It's like going back in time, to the days after the infarction, when everyone around him had spoken softly and carried a big sack of pity. It had been easier to deal with back then, when he'd been indiscriminately and righteously angry. Now, he's mostly just tired. "I'm taking him off payroll."

"You're firing him." House stares at her until she finally meets his eyes. "That'll be a nice welcome home present."

"If he -" she starts, but then she stops, quickly, her eyes going wide. House is snarling; it takes him a second to realize it. This is one of the things he can be righteously angry about. "When he comes back," she says, the apology apparent in her eyes, "I'll fix it."

He waits until she's started to turn for the door. "What about his office?"

She keeps her back turned. "Johnson is happy where he is," she says.

Tim Johnson is the acting head of oncology. House is relieved to hear that he won't be getting a new neighbor; it means he can probably remove some of the booby traps from next door. But Cuddy doesn't leave, and so House knows there's more, and he braces himself. She turns, finally, and leans against the wall. "I'll have to start interviewing," she says after a moment.

He nods. "God forbid the doctors in oncology go a day without some hand-holding," he says.

"It's not a day!" Cuddy snaps, stepping forward. "It's been six weeks, House. Everyone's been scrambling to cover as best they can, but you know what his schedule was like. You know."

What House knows is that Wilson used to find time, almost every day, to stop in, to take a cup of coffee, to tell a dirty joke or hear one, to lecture House (on many occasions, at a length that implied that maybe oncology could run itself) or to needle him or to simply just stand inside the conference room and observe and be Wilson. It's hard to imagine that anyone, anywhere, knows precisely the weight of Wilson's schedule better than House.

"I have to think of the hospital," Cuddy says. Her voice is lower and softer, and House blinks and frowns and tries to re-sharpen his glare.

"That'll be cold comfort to Wilson when he comes back and finds himself unemployed."

"At least he won't be homeless," she says, and House flinches. Of course, he thinks. Cameron and her big mouth.

He's been looking at new condos, at two- and three-bedroom places, since the trip to the storage unit. He has, in fact, found one that he likes, a first-floor place in a new building about three miles from the Princeton campus, in a nice, quiet area of town. He'd made Cameron go with him on the last walkthrough, so that the real-estate agent would assume they were the couple moving in. Wilson's check, and some of his savings, combined with the money that House expects to clear from the sale of his own condo, will more than cover the down payment and the moving expenses.

"You know," Cuddy says, and then she stops and looks at him for a long, uncomfortable moment. "Are you OK?"

"Now that you mention it, my leg kind of hurts," he says, then rolls his eyes. "Did I call for psych consult?"

"It's just, you nearly had a coronary when I tried to put new carpet in your office. And now you're thinking about moving out of a place you love, a place you wouldn't even give up for Stacy..." House keeps staring at her, waiting for her to get to the point. Cuddy throws up her hands. "You don't like change."

"Yeah," House agrees, "I don't like change. I don't like having to change my schedule so I can cover hours for Wilson in the clinic. I don't like the fact that I keep having to break up the pleasing routine of my day to go take care of his varied business ventures out in the city. I certainly don't like that everywhere I look, his status is being changed from 'missing person' to 'beyond hope.' So if someone could, please, get my best friend back here, so that things could get back to goddamn normal and -"

"OK," Cuddy says, turning her hands out, a move of surrender. House is standing; he doesn't really remember getting to his feet. His knuckles are white on the desk. "OK," she says again, a gentling voice, and House slams his hands down on the glass surface.

"It is not OK," he grinds out. Cuddy looks half-terrified, half teary-eyed. House turns away from her. "Put him on leave," he says. "Unpaid, unofficial, whatever. But if you cut him off the books completely, it will be impossible for him to get started up right away when he gets back."

He doesn't turn, just hears Cuddy say, "OK," again, quietly, before she leaves. House pushes out onto the balcony. It's still cold, but in a hopeful way, winter finally easing out into spring. The weather will be good, soon; by the time Wilson gets back, they'll be able to sit on the balcony, here and at the new place. He'll like that.




Two Months

The moving company charges House extra for almost everything. They charge for the piano; they charge because he's having them collect things from two separate spaces (his place and Wilson's storage unit); and they make him sign a form that says there will be an extra charge for inclement weather, even though it is now, officially, spring, and forecast to be sunny and beautiful all week. When they finally show up at his place, at seven o'clock on a Thursday morning, the sky is a crisp, seamless blue, and the temperature is supposed to be in the 60s.

"Do I get a good weather discount?" he asks the foreman.

"Keep talking to me," the guy says. "I charge by the hour."

If Wilson had been there, House could've made a joke about hourly rates, but he gets the feeling it would simply slide over these guys' heads. He puts on his helmet and pats his piano on the way out of the condo. "See you tonight," he says, then picks up Steve's cage and heads out.

At the hospital, he drops Steve in his office and then goes directly to Human Resources, where he spends an hour or so filling out change of address forms for himself and Wilson. He stares for ten minutes at his emergency contact information, before changing it from Wilson to Cameron. When he gets back, House figures they'll have a good laugh over it.

Back in his conference room, his fellows are gathered around the table. Cameron is doing paperwork. Foreman is feeding Steve something on the end of a coffee stirrer, while Chase looks on with a perfect expression of alarm and disgust and amusement. He looks up when House walks in. "So," he says, leaning back in his chair. "It's the big day."

House raises an eyebrow, then continues toward the coffeemaker. "Finally going to make an honest woman out of that nurse down in peds?"

Chase rolls his eyes. "I meant, you're moving."

"As we speak." House fills his mug and adds sugar. As he stirs it, he says, "Foreman, if you're poisoning my rat, you're performing every enema I deem necessary on every patient until the end of your fellowship."

Foreman snorts. "Just bits of oatmeal off Cameron's bagel."

"Hey!"

House turns in time to see Cameron taking back her bagel. She looks up at him. "So when do we get to see your new place?"

"When did you get to see the old one?" he asks.

"House -"

"I'm sure when Wilson gets back, he'll want to throw one of those horrible housewarming parties," he says, starting toward his office. He sees Chase cast what he probably thinks is a subtle-but-meaningful glance at Cameron. "Oh, I know," he says, pitching his voice high, making it sing-song, "how domestic, how very sweet. Just don't tell Wilson that, or he might run off again."

"House, Wilson didn't just run off," Foreman says, in his we-have-to-have-this-big-uncomfortable-talk voice. It's the same voice House has heard him use to tell people they're dying. "You need to accept the idea that he might not come back."

"Just for that, if anything breaks in the move, I'm going to tell him you're the one who dropped it." 

Foreman heaves his shoulders up, all the better to sigh with, and shakes his head. House wants to strangle him, to strangle them all, to take his cane and just start beating the shit out of people. That he's managed to hold back this long seems like particularly good behavior. Without Wilson around, he's had to police himself.

Damn it, Wilson.

He stops at the door to his office and turns around. "I do get it," he says. "Wilson's missing. And I'm not delusional, so stop acting like it. You all think I'm crazy, that's fine. That's, actually, just about normal." He takes a slow, steady sip of his coffee. "What's not normal is that we have no patient. If you can find some time between your big scheduled bouts of thinking the boss is off his rocker, do your jobs."

It's a good feeling, really, to see the shock and then the shame and exasperation on their faces. It feels like normal, until House realizes he's going to go home that night, to a new home, and have no one to tell this story to.




Three Months

Having Wilson gone has taken some of the shape out of House's days at the hospital. At home, Wilson is still present; his things have been neatly unpacked and incorporated with House's own. Sometimes it still feels like the best prank he's ever pulled, having managed to move everything Wilson owns into this new place. Sometimes it feels like something he should have done a long time ago, when Wilson would have come with the things.

At work, though, there's no comfortable Wilsonness left. Cuddy has started to interview candidates for Wilson's job. She let him take a look at the resumes, asking his medical opinion, but he couldn't find anyone suitable. Everyone looked like a boring dickhead square on paper. Now, the interviews are going on and House has no real idea of what's happening with that. He can't seem to make himself care.

House starts complaining about taking on patients again. He starts avoiding work in new ways. He spends a lot of time on the oncology floor, sitting at the nurses' desk, playing his Gameboy. The nurses give him funny looks, at first, and they give him a wide berth. After a week or so, though, they treat him like another piece of furniture, and when he makes a crack about this or that doctor, they laugh along. It's a nice new figure in his days. They're people who remember Wilson well, after all, and he's clearly rubbed off on them a little.

When Wilson's been missing for three months, almost exactly, House gets a page at lunchtime and picks up the phone from the oncology desk to call Agent Kendall. "I don't want to get your hopes up," he says, which does it, immediately, anyway. "We got a hit on Dr. Wilson's credit card. It was used for an online purchase about three weeks ago."

"Can you track it?"

"We've got people on the way now."

House is on edge for the rest of the afternoon. Kendall won't tell him exactly where they're looking, just that it's out of state and, therefore, out of driving distance. That's probably good, because they have a patient, for once, and House shouldn't leave the hospital.

He orders tests, then more tests, then a treatment that doesn't work and then, finally, one that does. None of it takes his mind off of Kendall's call. In between, he goes up to oncology and just sits and tries to tell himself that it's probably nothing. He comes up with a dozen reasons for why a charge could show up out of nowhere, but ten of them involve someone, somewhere, having access to Wilson.

At 8, when Cuddy comes in to check on the patient, he tells her about the call and watches her eyes. They widen, but only slightly.

"Do they think it's a lead?" she asks.

"Kendall said they were sending a team to check it out."

"God," Cuddy says, and that's all, just that, a few more times. She sits on House's couch. A week before, she'd asked him to clean out Wilson's office. He'd made Cameron and Chase do it and then carry the boxes out to Wilson's car, which he'd driven home and made Chase and Foreman unload into Wilson's room. When they'd complained, hot and sore and tired from carrying boxes in the swampy early-summer heat, he'd sent them to Cuddy. He hasn't really spoken with her since then.

The patient stays stable overnight, but House doesn't leave the hospital, anyway. He doesn't think at all about what he'll need to restock in his cabinets when Wilson gets back, or about the back pay that the hospital should owe him. When Kendall calls the next morning, he's been napping on the couch in the oncology lounge for maybe an hour.

"Fraud," Kendall says. "Somebody got a bunch of card numbers off an online database. I'm sorry, Dr. House. No lead."

House can't think of anything appropriate to say. "He's a moron about ordering things online," he says, thinking of Wilson's childish delight over the trinkets available on E-Bay.

"I am sorry," he says. "I shouldn't have -"

"You call me," House demands. He can deal with this, with the loss of immediate hope, but he can't say it's OK for things to be held back. He won't let that happen. He is Wilson's emergency contact. "You have to call me every time."

"All right," Kendall agrees. "I will."

House sets the phone down. It takes him another week to stop lunging for it, hopefully, every time it rings.

Chapter 3

Six Months

House goes to Cuddy's office first thing in the morning. She's out, giving a tour to a donor. He waits. Her office is quiet, even though it's close to the clinic, to all the main action of the hospital. It's sectioned off. It's almost peaceful. House could take a nap on her couch. He's tempted. He hasn't been sleeping well, the past few nights. The past six months, really.

Kendall had called him a week ago to tell him that Wilson's case had gone from active to officially inactive; it's the bureaucratic label for a case that hasn't had a single new lead in 90 days.

"I'm sorry," he'd said, and he'd sounded it, but House had hung up on him anyway. He'd thought about pitching his phone against the wall, but it would have brought his new neighbor, Dr. Chen, Head of Oncology, running. He'd settled for downing a couple of Vicodin and then yelling at his staff until Cameron had cried.

That night, he'd shut the door to Wilson's bedroom when he'd walked by it, then taken a bottle of scotch with him to the sofa in the living room. He'd erased every program on the TiVo that he'd been saving for Wilson's return, and he'd put all of Wilson's mail in the recycling bin. He'd left a long note for the maid, asking her to deal with the extra food in the cupboards and the magazines piling up in the office. Then he'd taken an extra Vicodin and gone to bed.

Now, he has the pill bottle in one hand, and he flips it gently between two fingers, listening to the remaining two pills rolling back and forth. Since Wilson's been gone, Cuddy's been his prescribing physician, though he's also had Dr. Smythe, a rather agreeable GP who's been doing a lot of clinic hours, help out on occasion. It sucks. It sucks every time he has to ask for more. Cuddy is busy and tired and she doesn't want to deal with his problem, and Smythe, though helpful, is very proper about his paperwork. He's asked that House have an MRI before he prescribes again. It is a huge, humiliating ordeal just to get what he needs from anyone, any more. Wilson never fought him on this stuff; he disapproved, sure, but he didn't make House grovel. He wanted to help. He did, in fact, help.

This is what it's come down to: Wilson is gone and there's no one who gets House like he did. There is no one like Wilson around; there is no one with whom he can interact without effort, anymore. Everything takes such an effort. He's so very, very tired.

Cuddy walks in, but House doesn't bother getting up. He opens his eyes, and sees that she's expecting something from him. She's been hinting, in the last few weeks, that it might be time for him to take a break. He wonders if she knows that it's been exactly, precisely, six months since Wilson disappeared.

"I need a favor," he says. Cuddy's eyes narrow. She's probably wondering which patient he's fucked up now. "I want to try the ketamine again."

Her eyes go wide. "House," she says, in her warning voice, "you already tried, once, and it didn't -"

"There have been new studies," he says. "R-Ketamine, in alternating doses over a suspended period of time -"

"Suspended period?"

"Eight days," he says. This is the compromise he's come up with.

"No," she says, shaking her head. "Absolutely not. The risks are too high. Your seizure threshold would be substantially lowered, and there's something like a ten percent chance of brain damage."

The risk is closer to twenty percent, but he doesn't say that. "You weren't so worried about the risk before," he says.

She sits in the chair next to the couch and keeps her knees primly pressed together. "You were already in a medical crisis. Administering ketamine, S-Ketamine, would've been a sound medical option for anesthesia anyway. What you're asking me to do is put you at risk for no medical reason."

"There's a reason," he says, and he taps his leg with the pill bottle. She stares at him, and he ducks his head. "It's time," he says. "Either the ketamine works this time, and I don't need the stuff, or it doesn't, and I manage to sleep through the worst of the detoxing."

"Or," she says, "you suffer brain damage and spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair, watching cartoons on television." He shrugs. "No," she says, "you don't get to be cavalier about that. If this is some, some ploy, if you're asking me to help you commit suicide -"

"I'm not," he says.

"Then why now?? Why six months to the day?" He looks up again. Cuddy's hand is in the air, and she clenches it, drops it back to the arm of her chair. "If it's about Wilson," she starts, and House shakes his head, just once.

"Of course it's about Wilson," he mutters.

"House -"

"If I'd asked for this a year ago, he would've helped me get it done. And then, if I'd come out the other end a vegetable, he would have spent the rest of his life pushing me around in my wheelchair, visiting me on his lunch hour, bringing me mashed potatoes and ugly plants." He shakes his head. "At least, this way, if it goes wrong, I'll get to be a burden to my parents, instead. Serve the old man right, really."

Cuddy's lips are in a tight line. "That's an answer, but it's not your answer. You don't care. You would've done it anyway, if you'd thought it would work. So why now?" she asks. "Why didn't you ask a year ago?"

He shrugs. "Wasn't worth the risk, then."

Her eyes narrow, again, and she sits back. She looks tired, too. After a moment, she says, "I'll talk to Avery."

"No," he says. "I want Dan Michaels."

"Michaels went to Mass General," she says, "you'll never get him back just for -"

"He owes me a favor." 

Cuddy groans. "You can't blackmail someone into doing your own procedure."

House smiles, as best he can. "Actually, he owes Wilson. But he's willing to trade."

He watches her thinking about it, watches her tipping her head in the way she always does when she's considering something thoroughly. After a moment, she nods. "Fine. When?"

"Monday," he says. "I told the kids already. Cameron's in charge while I'm gone. And -" He pauses, because it's actually harder to say this than it was to do it. "I talked to Stacy, redid my will, all of that, and my benefits." Until yesterday, it had all been slated to go to Wilson. Now, half of his estate goes to his parents, and half to establish the Gregory House Scholarship of Greatness for pre-med students at Michigan. He's named Foreman, Chase, Cameron, and Cuddy as the permanent judges on that board.

Cuddy nods. "I'll talk to Michaels, get him temporary privileges, then."

He gets to his feet slowly. "Thanks," he says. He means it.

"House," she says, just as he gets to the door. "It's a good thing. That you're moving on."

He wants to have a witty retort for this. He wants to crack out one of the hundreds of lines he's used over the last six months to deflect whatever negative comment someone's had about Wilson's improbable return. He just doesn't have anything left that sounds true, so he nods, and limps out into the hallway, pausing near the window to take another pill. The parking lot is shimmering with heat, outside, but this is the last gasp of summer. He'll go to sleep on Monday and he'll wake up in a week and it will truly be fall.




One Year Missing

They have a patient. Twenty-one with stroke-like symptoms but no evidence of any blockage or damage on the CT scans. They scramble. The patient loses feeling in his left side. His speech is slurred; he is drooling; he can't remember his own name. Cameron talks to the family; Chase checks out the house; Foreman oversees an MRI. The patient gets worse. Cuddy comes in at four to tell them that they cannot, absolutely cannot, biopsy this man's brain without consent from a family member.

House steps onto the balcony and calls for a consult. He doesn't flinch when it's Chen, not Wilson, that walks through his door. 




Fourteen Months Missing

House wakes up in his new condo. He makes breakfast, feeds a carrot to Steve, throws on clothes that are draped over a chair. He drives past the hospital to the Princeton Health Club, where he swims for a half hour, good, low-impact exercise in complete quiet. He gets out, showers, redresses in the crumpled clothes, and goes to work.

He walks into the hospital and over to the elevators. He hasn't had a speck of pain in months, but that's no need to test it. The years of relentless cane use have set him up as a definite candidate for knee replacement before he's sixty; no use adding stair-climbing to bring it on sooner.

His staff is in the conference room, already studying a case file. Only Cameron is still a fellow, at this point. Foreman was formally hired by the hospital a month ago, and now works half time for House and half for Neurology. Chase is House's primary, full-time staff member; unless House manages to really piss her off, Cameron will join him when her fellowship ends in a month. They have already started interviewing for a new set of fellows, who will start in the fall and beef their staff total up to six (well, five and a half, since Foreman's part time). It's time, as Cuddy has said and as House has agreed, for his department to start carrying its own weight, and to start flexing some of its muscle. Either that, or House has to start taking more clinic hours, and no thanks.

House nods his greetings and goes to his own office. Dr. Chen is out on the balcony, and she waves a polite hello. House nods to her, as well, and takes a seat at his desk. He punches the button for the speakerphone, and then for his voicemail. He requested a consult from Germann in cardio late last night, and he's hoping the results are waiting.

"First message," the computer voice says, "received today, at 2:32 a.m. Length: fifteen seconds." He hits 1 to continue, and he hears a click, and loud breathing, and then, in a rumble so low and fast he can barely make it out: "1527 Adelphia Street, in the basement." The breath, again, and then a noise in the background - a shout of some kind - and then nothing. Nothing.

House hits the buttons again, listens to the message, yells for Cameron. When she arrives - Chase and Foreman in tow - she walks him through the process for finding the phone number of the caller. It's a Jersey number but not local, not something he recognizes.

"Wrong number?" Chase asks, tentative.

House dials it; he gets nothing, not even a recording. His next call is to a number that he'd thought he'd forgotten.

"Bettes."

"This is Dr. House," he says. He explains the call. Bettes, to his credit, doesn't sound explicitly bored. He takes the address from House and promises he'll check it out.

"Today," House says. "The call came this morning. It's got to -"

"Look," Bettes says, "I'll check it out. Today. I promise you. I'll call you back."

Foreman walks back in from the conference room. "I looked it up," he says, as House hangs up the phone. "No Adelphia in Princeton or Plainsboro; closest one is in East Windsor."

House's stomach knots up a little tighter. It's probably just a wrong number. It probably has nothing to do with Wilson. He makes himself take a long, slow breath. "They're checking it out," he says. He stands up, reaches for the cane that isn't there, that he doesn't even need. Old habits. He clears his throat. The panic, the excitement, it's passing. "Let's talk about the patient."

They work through the morning, tests wrong at every turn, the patient uncooperative. House is in the middle of quizzing the man's mother about his recreational drug use when he's paged. He leaves Foreman to finish up and goes to Cuddy's office.

"Yeah?"

She's standing, at her desk, her hands braced against the top. "The F.B.I. called. They couldn't get a hold of you, so they called me."

House strides forward, stands in the middle of the room, nothing nearby to support him. His hopes are not up; things that are dead cannot rise. "And?"

"And they found something," she says. "The address you gave, it was an old apartment building in Princeton Junction. They found - in the basement, they found," she says, and House feels a wave of nausea, of panic. Cuddy clears her throat. "They found his shoes."

"Just - just his shoes?"

"And maybe his wallet. They weren't sure."

House rubs his face. He can picture the shoes, untouched, two perfectly polished leather shoes sitting near a staircase or a doorway. Shoes, a clue, a sign. He doesn't want to picture anything more than that, but it's like any investigation, any mystery. He makes himself ask the relevant question. "Did they find a body?"

"No," she says. "But, it looks like, someone was there. Recently. Within the last few days." She takes a big, whooping breath, then sits down. "House," she says. "They think he was there. They think Wilson - they think he could be - could still be -"

"Jesus Christ," he says into his hands. "Jesus Christ." It's not easy to believe. It's not even easy to hear. It's been more than a year. It's been so long, too long. The time has become an answer: Wilson has been dead for months, now. Wilson is gone. He can't afford hope any more.

Cuddy clears her throat, again. It's how she keeps from crying, he knows. "The boss? Kendall? He said he'd call back. They're working on it right now. He'll call -" When House looks up, he sees how pale Cuddy's face has turned. He thinks he must be a perfect reflection. "All this time," she says. "I can't believe -"

"Don't." His voice is sharp. He likes it. He wants the rest of him to be just as strong. "When we know more -" He can't say anything else. He can't think about this. He shakes his head. "I have a patient."

Cuddy nods, very slowly. She dabs at her eyes. "Keep me updated," she says.

He doesn't mention the call to anyone, even though Cameron keeps looking at him like he's ill. He orders two new tests on the patient, one of which comes back positive and answers everything. House is disappointed. He'd wanted something more complex; he needs the distraction. He goes to the clinic and sees fourteen people in three hours, then takes all of the paperwork from Cameron's desk and digs in.

At 7, his office phone rings. The conference room is empty; Cuddy had called to say she was going home at 4:30. Even Dr. Chen, who is as relentless as Wilson at her paperwork, has left. House answers the phone after he watches his hand shake on the receiver for a second. "Hello?"

"I'm sending a car for you," Kendall says. "I need you to get over to Princeton General."

House closes his eyes. This is the answer he's already known, the one to which he's grown accustomed. "You need me to identify the body."

"No," he says, and House doesn't even process that word before he hears, "Dr. House, I think we found him."

He tries to ask, "Alive?" but his voice comes out as a crackle. He coughs, tries again.

"Yes," Kendall says. "But not in the best shape. That's why I need you down here. Do an ID, make some medical decisions. OK? Can you do that?"

"Out front in five."

He takes his jacket, his keys, his cell phone, and the stack of papers, at the very bottom of his lowest desk drawer, that name him Wilson's rightful stand-in and medical decision-maker. He thinks about calling Cuddy but he can't do it, not until he's seen Wilson - this maybe-Wilson - for himself. Not until he knows what's really going on.

Kendall meets him at the entrance to the PG E.R. "Over here," he says, and House follows his flapping black coat through a throng of noisy, messy people. Things don't quiet down even beyond the "staff only" doors, where they walk by three curtained cubicles before Kendall stops. "I should warn you," he says, but House pushes past him and the curtains and then he stops.

Lying there, unconscious, pale, strapped to a backboard, nearly hidden under a stack of blankets, is Wilson.

Chapter 4

Zero Days Back

His first phone call is to Cuddy.

"Put him back on the payroll," House says.

"What?"

Next to him, Kendall is talking on his phone, too; they're in the hallway, waiting for Wilson to come back from a CT Scan. "Wilson. Get him active again. He needs health insurance."

Cuddy's gasp is sharp, almost panicked. "Oh my God," she says. "House - is he -"

"He's here," he says, "I just saw him. They have him in for a CT." He runs through the things he knows - Wilson is unconscious now but was conscious when the F.B.I. agents found him. He's hypothermic and malnourished and alive. "And he needs health insurance."

He can hear Cuddy's shuddering breaths, but her voice is solid, professional. "I'll fix it. Right now. And I'll call Statler and see if I can get you temporary privileges at PG."

House hasn't even thought that far, but it's a good idea. He's not trusting these morons with Wilson's care. "All right." He hangs up.

A receptionist pushes a clipboard into his hands, and he spends ten minutes filling in the things he knows before it gets boring. He flips through the papers he's brought, looking for answers to the questions he doesn't know - family history, for instance - but it's all just papers. This is not the kind of medicine he's good at. He harasses the nurse at the desk until she lets him take a look at Wilson's chart. There's nothing new there, yet, just a record of the fluids that the EMTs provided. "Patient confused and lethargic." They don't list any obvious trauma. House doesn't feel better for that; obvious things are easier to fix.

After forty minutes, Wilson isn't back yet, and Kendall has taken his call outside, into the rain. He still hasn't told House any of the details from finding Wilson. Unless it becomes medically necessary, House isn't going to ask him.

He calls Cameron. "I need you to come down here and do some paperwork for me," he says. "For Wilson."

"House," she mutters, and he can hear her gearing up for a lecture, getting ready to tell him off for using Wilson's name in vain. 

"I'm at Princeton General," he says. He looks up and sees they're pushing Wilson down the hall; his hand is curled around the top rung of his bed. He's awake. House gets to his feet, still holding his phone. For once, he has nothing sharp to say, and this time, he allows himself to say the words. "They found Wilson. He's here."

He hangs up before he can hear Cameron start to cry and goes back to the cubicle Wilson was in before. A nurse looks up at House and smiles. "He's disoriented," she says, "but that's to be expected. Dr. Evans will be in shortly."

House doesn't acknowledge her. He's seen a hundred patients' family members take this exact walk, the hesitant shuffle-step up to the edge of an ailing relative's bed. They usually gasp, or whimper, or stagger back. The bold ones reach out. This is what House does, albeit it tentatively. He doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing, so he goes on memory and instinct and puts the backs of his fingers to the skin just beneath Wilson's jaw, his knuckles brushing the carotid artery.

"Hmm?" Wilson's voice is breathy and high. He turns into the touch, just a little, so that his chin is tucked over House's wrist. The skin of his face is tight across his bones. He's very, very thin.

"Wilson." House's voice is deeper than usual; maybe it's just in contrast to Wilson's weak murmur. "Wake up."

Wilson's eyes open very slowly, and his chapped lips part. He doesn't look surprised to see House at all, just blinks two times, slowly, and then closes his eyes again. House hears a soft wheeze at the end of Wilson's breath.

A doctor in blue scrubs walks in, carrying Wilson's CT films. House pulls away to follow him toward the light board, and Wilson mutters and turns more firmly into the hospital pillow.

"Head trauma?" House asks. The doctor - probably Evans - looks at him, startled, and House frowns. "I'm a doctor. So is he, actually. Let me see the damn films."

Evans nods, after a moment, and jams the scan up into the board, then flicks on the light. "Doesn't seem to be anything," he says.

House's eyes scan the pattered grays and whites of Wilson's brain; he checks it all, eyes combing the films for any sign of subdural hematoma, for the slightest crack, the smallest darkened patch. Nothing. His brain looks fine, which means that his confusion and lethargy probably aren't neurological. It means Wilson is alive, and he's coming back.

It's all House can do to stay standing.

He doesn't listen as the doctor gives him a rundown of Wilson's other particulars; House can read the chart, later, and as soon as Wilson's up for transport he's out of this place. He does mention the wheeze, and Evans listens to Wilson's chest, nods. "Probably pneumonia, or the start of it," he agrees. "I'll send a nurse in, get him started on Levaquin."

"EEC," House says. He wants the old stuff, the stuff Wilson probably hasn't built a tolerance to, not the flashy Levaquin.

"Fine." He gives up too easily; House doesn't like that, but he's glad to see him go.

He takes a chair next to Wilson's bed when one of the nurses pushes it toward him. She checks Wilson's fluids and gives him an injection, which makes Wilson flinch. Response to pain: good. He stirs and tries to curl onto his side, and House stands up to pull the blanket more securely around Wilson's shoulders.

"Cold," Wilson whispers. His arms are crossed over his chest, his fingers reaching for his shoulders. His temperature is four degrees below normal; it will take hours to solve that problem.

For the moment, House does the only thing he can do: he treats the symptoms. "It's fine," he says, reaching out, putting his hand over Wilson's, then drawing Wilson's cold fingers into the warm circle of his own. "Everything's going to be fine."




Day 1

Wilson wakes up to bright, blinding whiteness and chilling cold. Snow, he thinks, curling into himself. It's snowing again. It's snowed quite a bit recently, the snow piling up against the tiny window in his room, dripping icicles down and through the crack in the cement wall. He'd thought winter was almost over. He's been trying to keep track, but sometimes he sleeps for so long that he isn't sure how many days have gone by. He can't be sure if he is waking up in the same night or the next; the room is so dark, most of the time. The window cut at the top of the concrete wall opposite his bed is about four inches high and as long as his forearm, and it looks out into a tiny cement shaft. For days at a time, there is no light. Thus this whiteness, now, is blinding. No more snow, he thinks. It gets too cold when there's snow.

He tries to pull the blanket up closer around his shoulders, but when he reaches up, it feels funny: softer and thicker, and there's a sheet, too. A sheet, and a thicker blanket, and when Wilson opens his eyes wider, he realizes that's where the whiteness has come from. He's under a blanket and a sheet, and lying on a mattress. And, beyond that, he can hear people talking.

People talking.

"Help," he says, or tries to say, but his throat is still so sore, his voice tinny and weak. He's afraid to try saying more, because if he starts coughing, he might not stop.

But there are people. Maybe, if he coughs, they'll hear that.

"Help," he says, again, pushing as much as he can, and then he does cough, a few sobbing coughs that leave him blurry-eyed and exhausted. He closes his eyes. It's not the first time he's heard voices.

The sheet rustles back, and a warm hand lands on his forehead, stilling his head. "Jesus Christ, did you hear that?"

Wilson keeps his eyes closed. Oh, he likes this dream. He's had it before. House, he thinks, and he forms the name with his dry lips.

"Wilson, how long have you had that cough?"

"Not long," he murmurs. He wants to explain to House that it's all a dream, that he's just going to keep his eyes closed because as soon as he opens them, as soon as he tries to look for House, he'll disappear. And Wilson can't deal with that. He wants to stay in the dream, with the warm touch, for as long as he can. "Don't go."

"I'm not - go get a stethoscope." The hand retreats, and Wilson sighs, and coughs a little again. Stupid, to have tried to call out. He's wrecked the dream. He'll open his eyes and be back in the bitter cold cement room again. And because he's so cold, and because he's alone, and because his chest hurts and his hands throb, and because the dreams are never real, so there's no one to watch, he lets the tightness in his chest swarm upward. He curls a little tighter into himself and he's crying, and that's fine, no one cares if he cries.

"Hey." The hand is back. This is new. The touch never lasts; he never gets the dream back. "Wilson. Wilson, come on, open your eyes."

Wilson does, very slowly. He's used to tricks.

House is there, just in front of him. His face is the same lined face as ever, the same stubbly chin, the same bright eyes. "House?"

"Wilson."

Wilson blinks. His vision is blurry again. "You," he says, really working to push the words out, "always leave."

"No," House says, "you left." His hand moves down to Wilson's neck, and Wilson feels his fingers curling around the back. God, it feels so real. Wilson nods, just barely. He doesn't want to blink; he doesn't want to go back to the cold, lonely room. "I'm going to listen to your chest, OK?"

"No," Wilson says. "I don't want to go back." He keeps his voice thin, quiet. It doesn't matter what he says.

"Don't worry," House says. "You're not going anywhere, except maybe back to our hospital, if you don't have pneumonia."

"OK," Wilson says. He remembers the hospital. Bright lights, smooth halls. Lots of sound. Lots of people. Warm. He's getting sleepy; how can he get sleepy when he's dreaming? "I won't," he says, because he's not going to fall asleep, not yet. Not away from this dream, where House is looking at him like this and touching him and he's in a bed and there's light in the room. No, he's not going back, he thinks, and he tries to fight the sleep.

"Just relax," House says. His hand is still there, still warm, still heavy, so real, as Wilson falls back to sleep.



Day 1

Cuddy goes to PG at 11 p.m., driving through a late-summer thunderstorm to get there. She runs from the car to the hospital, finding her way through a sky lit by lightning. Dripping wet, she blasts her way through the reception desk and onto the floor, flashing her PPTH ID and her knowledge of Director Statler's personal phone number at anyone who tries to move her off. By the time she reaches Wilson's room in the Intensive Care Unit, she's not at all surprised to hear House's voice, arguing. "I'm a doctor," he's saying, "I'm his doctor."

"Let him stay," she says. She introduces herself to the two nurses and the security guard who have been trying to convince House to leave. They make a call and then give up, grudgingly.

"We need to get him moved," House mutters. He turns and walks back into a room, 4114, and Cuddy takes a deep breath and follows.

Cuddy did her residency in New York, working in a level-one trauma center. One of her last patients was a 30-year-old woman who'd collapsed on a subway train. She was cachexic, starving from a long struggle with cancer, and Cuddy can remember even now the cave-in of her stomach, the horrifying triangular cuts of her hipbones, the sunken, ashen look of her face. She'd been twenty-four and hardened by medical school and her internship and the day-in, day-out horrors of the emergency room, but that woman, the secret troubled fall of her flesh, had made her ache and nearly throw up.

It's what she sees in Wilson, now, and her medical training melts away. All she can think, looking at the sharp angle of his chin and his thin, dull hair, is no. No.

He's sleeping, or sedated, it's hard to know. Thin blue veins are visible on his eyelids; he is bundled deeply into warming blankets, curled up into an impossibly tight and small ball. The pallor of his face could well be the white shine of bone through skin; that's how thin he looks. Cuddy puts a hand to the wall and takes a few slow, deep breaths. She tries to think of a professional question to ask.

House saves her. "The worst of it, right now, is the respiratory stuff."

She blinks. "He's a skeleton," she whispers. "House -"

"One-thirty-five," House says. She does the math as best she can, figuring Wilson at 165, maybe a little more, when he went missing. It's almost a twenty percent drop in total body weight. She wants to throw up. There's a line from which a person can't come back.

"His heart?"

"Testing tomorrow," he says. "Have to get his temperature up, first." He leans against the wall, and for the first time, Cuddy really looks at him. He is almost as pale as Wilson, standing in the shadows. "He thinks it's still winter," he murmurs.

She takes a few steps forward and looks down, her hand falling lightly on the bed rail. "God," she says. "He's so -" but there aren't words. She feels unequipped for this. It's not a familiar feeling. Usually, she can handle anything; she handles everything. It's what she's best at. This, though, just the two of them standing here, with Wilson, this broken, faded version of Wilson, between them - it's too much. He looks sunken. He looks unfixable. He looks like a very long road ahead.

"House," she says, softly, wanting to say this to him, wanting to find a way to slip quietly from the room and back into the hallway, back into the buzz and whir of the hospital and the paperwork and the things she knows how to do. But when she looks up, he has his hand over his face, both hands, and his shoulders are curved in and he's shaking. She pieces the symptoms together and grips the bedrail more tightly when she figures it out.

She walks around the bed, and this she can do, this she has done before, comforting the family. She puts her hand on his shoulder, rests her head against his shaking biceps, just stays there, hardly touching him, sharing it all with him. "We'll get him through this," she says. It is something she always says.

House wipes his face and turns to the side, a quick, harsh turn, back into himself. "We need to move him," he says, again.

"If he has pneumonia -"

"Upper respiratory infection," he says. "He said he's only had the cough for a few days."

"He's been conscious?"

"Just briefly," House says.

"Do they know what happened?"

He shrugs. "Kendall won't say. They're working on it."

She clears her throat, softly. She doesn't want to wake Wilson. She isn't ready for it. "I called his parents," she says. "They'll be in tomorrow."

House nods. "Probably good. I called Cameron, so - everyone will probably know he's back by tomorrow." He steps closer to the bed, taps his fingers on the rail, then looks back at her over his shoulder. "Think you can pull some strings and get another bed in here?"

She looks at his eyes, red but bright, and then down at Wilson, lost in the blankets. "Yes," she says. Organization, she can do. "I'll do it now."




Day 2

Everyone visits Wilson at Princeton General except Foreman. Cameron goes because she's Cameron and she cares; Chase goes because he wants House to see him visiting Wilson. Cuddy has taken the rest of the week off. Foreman stays at Princeton-Plainsboro, does rounds on the patients in neurology, writes orders for another who will be checking in that evening, and then goes back to his own office to finish the crossword.

Chase stops in at lunch time. "Where've you been?" he asks.

"Right here," Foreman says. "How is he?"

Chase straightens his tie. "Pretty rough," he says. "Massively underweight. Doesn't even look like himself. House is already running a hundred tests."

Foreman nods. "PG won't know what hit it."

"Cameron's a mess, too," Chase says, and he rolls his eyes. "Anyway. Lunch?"

They get food in the cafeteria but take it up to the diagnostics conference room to eat, because two nurses try to stop Chase in line to ask about Wilson's condition.

"Doctor patient confidentiality? Anyone?" Chase mutters as they ride up in the elevator.

"You aren't really his doctor," Foreman points out.

Chase shrugs. "You could be, though. House is convinced there's some kind of neurological problem."

Foreman unwraps his sandwich. "Brain damage?" he asks.

"Nah," Chase says. "Nothing shows that. But Wilson's still pretty confused, shook up."

"That's only going to get worse," Foreman says. "The minute he gets back here, it's going to be like having Elvis as a patient."

"If Elvis looked like he'd been through a concentration camp." Foreman looks over, watches Chase flinch at his own words. "He's not very well," he says.

Foreman goes back to his own office. He has three messages waiting, all of them from other doctors in neurology. Despite all the talk of expanding the Diagnostics Department, when House is gone, all activity on that side stops. Foreman wonders what Wilson's return means for their patient load. He's pretty sure he can guess.

Around 3, he gets the page he's been half-expecting all day. He excuses himself from Exam Room 2, where's he's just started his two hour stint in the clinic, and calls House back from the nurse's station.

"Need a consult," House says, and Foreman sighs.

"Where are you?"

"Princeton General."

"So call Bailey. He's very good."

"I've seen Bailey's take." House's voice is much less commanding over the phone. "I want yours."

A year ago, Foreman might have been flattered. Now, he understands House a little better. "No, you don't," he says. "You want me to come over and tell you that whatever you're thinking is right."

"Jesus Christ, Foreman, would you listen to me?" Foreman actually takes a step back; it's not surprising to hear House get angry - it never is - but this is a different kind of anger. This is a desperate anger. "This is Wilson we're talking about. If you think I'm just going to take Bailey's word, if you think I trust some outsider -"

"OK," Foreman says. "He did an MRI?"

"Yeah."

"Bring the films over and I'll look."

He knows this isn't what House wants, or even what he's asking, and so he's surprised when House says, "All right. I'll send them over with Cuddy."

They hang up, and Foreman realizes that one of the other doctors has been listening in, probably hoping to hear something about Wilson. He meets the man's eyes, shakes his head, and then goes back to his patient.

Cuddy brings the films to his office as he's getting ready to go home for the day. He pushes them up into the lightboard on his wall and looks them over. There's nothing to see; he knows that. If Bailey didn't find anything, if House didn't find anything, Foreman probably won't, either. But he looks, tracing his finger just over the white lines in the film, because it's professional. This is his job.

After a few minutes, he pulls the films down and Cuddy slips them back into their wide envelope. "I don't see anything," he says, and she nods. She doesn't seem surprised, but she does seem relieved. "I'll call House, unless you're going to see him."

Cuddy slides the envelope under her arm, holds it there. "You aren't going over?"

Foreman pulls on his coat. "I'm going home."

He waits for her to walk into the hallway, then follows her, locks his door. It's nice to see his name on the plaque beside it. It's nice to be in charge of his own practice, his own world, even if he still owes half of his time to House.

"I don't blame you," Cuddy says, when he turns around. "It's pretty hard to see him, like that. He's -"

Foreman shakes his head. "I'm a doctor," he says. "I'm not avoiding seeing him because I don't think I can handle it."

"Then what is it?"

He looks at her, sees the dark circles beneath her eyes, the tiny wrinkles at their corners. He sees the white clench of her knuckles on the paper envelope and the slight redness of her nose. He sees that the emotional wear is only just starting. "Look," he says, "right now, Wilson has the best doctor in Princeton at his bedside. He has round-the-clock care at PG. I'm not going because I'm not needed."

"You're his friend," Cuddy says, quietly. "He needs friends right now, familiarity."

"What he probably needs is more rest," Foreman says.

She shakes her head. "You're House's friend, too," she says. "He could use a break."

She walks away, with the films, and Foreman watches her go. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and dials House's number as he walks to the car. "Yeah?"

"Nothing on the MRI," he says. "Completely clear. No damage I can see."

It takes House a second to respond, and it's that silence that makes up Foreman's mind. "All right," House says. "I'm going to run another when we get back to Princeton-Plainsboro."

"If he's up to it," Foreman says, sliding into his car. House doesn't hang up, and that's what changes Foreman's mind. "Look, if you want, I'll come by tomorrow, run a neuro exam."

There's a moment of silence. "Yeah," House says, finally. He does sound tired. The worst isn't over yet, after all; it's only just beginning again. "Can't hurt."




Day 3

Both CNN and FOX have been covering the return of Wilson like it's a national event. The televisions back at Princeton-Plainsboro have been tuned to cable news non-stop. From their broadcasts, Chase has learned where Wilson was held -- CNN even had its morning anchors block out the size of his 6x10 cell -- and by whom. He has the faces of the three Halloran brothers memorized. They've been showing both the released mug shots and a grainy photo from the late eighties, all three brothers with their arms around each other and around Patrick, the eldest, the brother against whom Wilson had testified in a criminal negligence trial almost ten years ago. The broadcasters talk about how close the brothers have always been, which seems like a load of crap to Chase. He loves his sister dearly, but he can't really imagine devising this kind of elaborate torture in her defense.

He's also heard a steady stream of legal analysts try to predict what will happen to the bastards who did it. Yesterday, he heard someone say, "Should James Wilson die, of course, the charges will be much worse."

Wilson isn't dying. That's what the forty-eight hours since his return have proven. Chase has spent most of his day at PG, running interference between House and the hospital's regular staff. He's had some help from Cameron, too, which is good because House has been staying at PG twenty-four hours a day. There's only so much sleeplessness Chase can take, now. Residency is over.

At noon on the third day, Chase relieves Cameron from her House-sitting shift and takes lunch up to the ICU. He's ordered sandwiches for all the dayshift nurses, and they thank him and most of them crack a smile. House is unbearable during the best of times, but with Wilson involved -- well. Chase is surprised not to find scorch marks on anyone, from the glares House hands out.

He has a Philly cheesesteak sandwich for House in a greasy paper bag. No hope of finding a way to House's heart, but his moods are often well-connected to his stomach. He knocks on the door to Wilson's room and looks in. House is sitting by the bed, watching television; Wilson seems to be sleeping, curled up, facing toward the door and away from House. Chase doesn't look too closely at him, because it's difficult to see him like this. He looks better than the day before, though; his hair has been cut short, probably the best they could do. He hadn't come in with long hair, but the cut had been very uneven. It looked like a haircut Wilson might have given himself, with a bad pair of scissors.

House waves Chase out of the room and then follows him into the hall. They walk to the small waiting room and House opens his sandwich on the table. "How's he doing?" Chase asks.

House rattles off stats: potassium up, temperature regulated, still anemic. Heart rate steady for the last five hours. "This is good," he says, mouth half full. He looks at Chase for a moment. "There's going to be a press conference this afternoon."

"Yeah?" Chase asks. House nods. "You going to talk?"

House grunts. "I have nothing to say. I didn't find him." He shakes his head. "They want one of his doctors to talk, though, and no way am I giving Evans that glory. You do it."

Chase opens his mouth, closes it again. He takes a deep breath. He doesn't want to talk about Wilson on television. Really, he doesn't want to talk about Wilson anymore at all. "Doctor patient confidentiality," he says.

"Which can be waived." 

Chase starts to argue -- Wilson's in no shape to waive his rights -- but he realizes that, if Wilson's down, House has power of attorney. "Why me?"

"Face made for television."

"Why not Cameron?"

House snorts. "Hurts the hospital's reputation if the doctor cries on camera."

Chase sighs. He works full time for House, now; there are prices to be paid. "What do you want me to say?"

"As little as possible," House says. He crumples up the paper from the sandwich. "But enough to let people know what miserable bastards these guys really were."

"We could just show them a picture," Chase says. 

House glares. "Take care you don't say anything that will make this worse for Wilson." He gets up and goes back to the room.

Chase spends an hour or so making notes from Wilson's chart and transferring them to the back of a brochure he finds in the lobby. When his pager goes off, he calls the number -- a PG extension -- back from the nurse's station. "This is Agent Kendall. Could you meet us in the Gerlich Conference Room on the first floor?"

The conference room is long and narrow, with two tables set up at the front, a podium between them. Two chair sit on either side of the podium, with paper placards in front of each. Chase sees his own -- Dr. Robert Chase, Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital -- in front of the second chair down. Nice TV setup, he thinks, and feels a thrill of nerves.

"Ah, good." A woman in a navy blue suit approaches him and shakes his hand without ever introducing herself. "The lab coat is a great touch, yeah."

"I'm sorry?" Chase says, but the woman has already moved on. He spots Agents Kendall and Bettes in the corner, and they give him the rundown: they'll talk about the case and the arrests that have been made, and then Chase will have a few moments to make a statement about Wilson's status. Then they'll all take questions. 

"If they want medical stuff, we'll refer to you."

Chase nods. "There are some things I can't talk about," he says, and Kendall nods.

"Whatever you can." He winks. "I was kind of hoping to set Dr. House loose on these guys."

The blue suit pushes Chase to his chair and then opens the doors at the back. Within minutes, the room is crowded with press -- reporters, cameras, people with microphones on long poles. Bight lights. Chase tries to look unaffected by it all, suddenly aware that everyone back at Princeton-Plainsboro is going to be watching this. Jesus, he'll never hear the end of this from Foreman.

The blue suit introduces herself as the press liaison for PG, and after a particularly lengthy introduction about the hospital and its services, she turns things over to Kendall. His report is no different from what Chase has been hearing on the news -- they've caught the guys, they've got evidence, they are in the process of interviewing witnesses from the area, they thank local law enforcement for their assistance. It's facts about the after and very little about the during. "And I'll turn it over to Dr. Robert Chase, of Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital, one of Dr. Wilson's attending physicians."

Chase nods to Kendall and gets up from his seat. His stomach is swirling. He looks down at his notes, clenched in his damp hands, and reads them slowly. "Dr. Wilson was admitted Tuesday night with hypothermia, an upper respiratory infection, and severe malnutrition -- starvation, in effect. We've been administering treatment, with the help of our colleagues here at Princeton General, and so far, Dr. Wilson is responding well. He remains in serious condition, in the Intensive Care Unit."

Before he can move, there are hands in the air, and the blue suit is beside him, pointing to a woman in the front. 

"Is he conscious?"

"Yes," Chase says, "but not consistently."

"Do you know when he'll be released?"

"He's not likely to be released any time soon," he says.

"Is there any concern about lasting damage?"

And this is the question that Chase can't really answer, because yes, of course there's concern, but saying it out loud -- no. The whole of the hospital is listening. House is listening. Wilson, maybe, is listening. Chase takes a quick breath, sure that on television the slightest pause will seem like a death sentence. "So far, he's responding well to treatment," he says. "And we expect a full recovery."



Day 4

Cuddy arranges for an ambulance to take Wilson from PG to Princeton-Plainsboro on Saturday evening, when at least all of the office staff is out of the building. Two reporters tried to get into the PG ICU after the press conference on Friday, and she still thinks they got off easy with a trespassing slap-on-the-wrist from the PG security guards. If it had been her hospital, she would've locked them in a room with House for a while. Maybe she would've brought him his old cane.

House rides along in the ambulance, so he's the first thing she sees when the ambulance doors open. They've chosen the secondary bay, one that's usually used for patient transport like this, and not the high-traffic emergency room entrance. Too many people want to see Wilson right now, and Cuddy isn't having any of it. All patients deserve privacy, and Cuddy feels completely justified in her view that Wilson deserves it more than most. The Wilson that she's seen, over the past few days, isn't a Wilson that anyone should be seeing. He's not himself. Not yet. He's defenseless, still lost. That's why only she and Dr. Foreman are on hand to greet the ambulance, and they help House and the EMTs unload the stretcher.

Wilson is unconscious, pale beneath the blankets. "Sedated," House says when Foreman lifts one of Wilson's eyelids. "Didn't want him freaking out in the ambulance."

"Has he been --" she asks, wondering if he's had anxiety problems. House shakes his head. Cuddy's seen Wilson's chart -- she's held it in her hands every time she's been in his room over the last four days -- but she hasn't looked at it. It's irresponsible, but she doesn't want to read it. She can see Wilson's status in House's posture, in the tension of his voice over the phone, in the number of annoying requests he makes in any two-hour stretch. Wilson is a wreck.

"What'd you give him?" Foreman asks.

"Ativan," House says. "Just in case."

They roll the stretcher to the elevator, and inside, Cuddy presses three for the ICU. House presses his own floor, and Cuddy looks at him. He hasn't left Wilson's side in days -- though Wilson seems to have had a shower. "Pressing paperwork?" she asks.

"I left my keys in the desk," House says. The elevator stops, and he steps forward. The light from the hallways is bright, almost purplish. It makes House look gray. "I'm going home."

She hears Foreman cough and keeps staring at House. "Now?" she says.

House looks straight at her; his eyes never move. It looks almost as though he's trying to forget that Wilson is there. "Carpe diem," he says. "Or, in my case, carpe mattress." He backs out of the elevator and waves. "Foreman, better stay with him in case the Ativan wears off."

The doors close, and Cuddy stares at them. She glances at Foreman, who's shaking his head. "Never understand the guy," Foreman says. "But he probably is due for a break."

Wilson moans, just slightly, and Cuddy bends to look at him. He doesn't stir, and she's glad. It's not as though he'll notice whether House is gone. Every time she's been to see him, he's either been sleeping or barely awake, still floating in half-dreams and nightmares. In a way, that's easiest. It makes it easier to focus on getting him through things, medically, if he's not completely present to understand what they're doing. Terrible, she thinks, but true.

Cuddy chose his room herself -- it has a wide window (and available black-out shutters) and is situated in a corner of the unit, so that it will be easy for the nurses to observe who's coming and going. Wilson's parents are waiting just outside. His mother is a short, warm woman, blond-going-gray, who hugs Cuddy every time she sees her. She has Wilson's eyes, bright, intelligent eyes that Cuddy hasn't seen in more than a year. "Is he all right? Was the trip all right?" she asks.

"He's resting."

She watches Mrs. Wilson put her hand on Wilson's pale forehead. It's a calming motion, and Cuddy realizes she's seen it before: House has done it, when Wilson stirs and mumbles. It surprises her to make the connection between them, and she feels unsteady, suddenly, completely off balance. House hasn't left his side in four days, and she hasn't even read his chart. Cuddy swallows and pulls Foreman to the side. "I'll stay," she says.

"But House -"

"It's fine," she says, turning toward the bed. She lifts the chart from Foreman's hands. "It's my turn."


Day 5

On Sunday they have storms. Wilson looks surprised at every new noise. "Just the thunder, dear," his mother keeps saying, and Cameron notices, even if Mrs. Wilson doesn't, that Wilson looks surprised every time she speaks, too.

Noise is what's hard for him. It takes Cameron only a few visits to realize this. Wilson flinches when the door opens, flinches when the monitors beep, flinches, even, when she says, "Good afternoon, Dr. Wilson."

It always takes him a moment to surface, again, to come up from the panic or memory that he slides into. "Afternoon," he says, like a reminder to himself. It still seems to be hard for Wilson to understand things and try to respond, so Cameron doesn't try to start a conversation, even though she desperately wants one. She wants to hear him talk, she wants to know he's in there, she wants to know he'll be OK. In lieu of this, she notes all of the readings on his monitors and in his chart, then says she'll be back again in the afternoon.

"Do you need anything?" she asks, meaning both Wilson and his mother. There isn't much she can bring him; he isn't allowed to have solid food yet, as his nutrient intake has to be exact and precisely monitored.

Wilson doesn't answer, just blinks until his mother says, "We're fine, dear, thank you," and pats his hand again.

Wilson's eyes are already closed again. He sleeps, most of the time. It's hard to see him, but Cameron comes by three times a day, beginning, middle, and end of her shift. She is one of the only hospital staffers who is allowed to do this; House has made sure that all well-wishers of no direct medical use to Wilson have been banned from visiting.

He's been back at Princeton-Plainsboro since Saturday, after four days at Princeton General. House had spent all of that time at PG; now, he won't leave his office. Cameron tries to believe that this is because Wilson's parents are around, that House is trying not to crowd them, but she thinks there's more to it. She thinks it's enough, for him, just to have Wilson back in the building, and maybe too much for him to have to go in and show that he cares.

She goes to House's office and tells him everything she's recorded from the charts. House grunts and picks up the phone, changes his orders on Wilson's fluids. "You could go see him," Cameron suggests.

"I've seen him," House says. "He's got that whole Paris-Catwalk look going for him, doesn't he?"

Cameron rolls her eyes. She remembers the way Wilson turned automatically toward House's voice when he was at PG and feels a flare of anger and hurt on Wilson's behalf. "Fine," she says, turning toward the conference room. "You probably won't have to work so hard to avoid him for very much longer, at least."

She goes to her desk. It takes House a minute or two to follow her, but he does, just as she'd known he would. "What do you mean?" he asks, leaning on the wall next to her desk.

She looks up. "His parents are talking about taking him back to Chicago while he recuperates."

House's eyes narrow. Cameron waits. The story isn't completely true - Mrs. Wilson had just asked, in passing, what would happen to Wilson next and whether he might be able to get the same care in Chicago - but she's been saving it, waiting to drop it on House so that it will have maximum effect. She's waiting for him to say, "Like hell they will."

What she gets, instead, is a slow blink. "Maybe they should," House says.

Cameron flinches. "What?"

House shrugs. "Makes sense. He'll probably want to be around family, they'll have a shorter drive to check on him -"

"House," Cameron says, "you can't be serious. You've been missing Wilson for a year."

"That's not Wilson, down there." House shifts, just slightly. "It's like pre-Wilson, or something. Just because they found his body doesn't mean Wilson's not still missing."

Cameron gapes at him, her mouth open, her hands clenched too tightly on the desk. House isn't looking at her; he seems to be studying the floor. Behind her, she can hear rain tapping on the glass, and she thinks of Wilson's wide, bewildered eyes, his small, uncertain voice. "You jackass," she says, finally. "He's been through hell and you're avoiding him because he's not himself, yet? God, House, you're a worse friend than I thought."

"I am doing what I can," he snaps, gesturing toward his desk, where Cameron's notes from Wilson's chart still lay.

"No, you're doing what you want, which is what you always do." She picks up the nearest chart, not even looking at the name, and stands up. She'll sit in the lab, or the medical library, or the goddamned cafeteria, but no more of this. "He needs you," she says. Her voice is trembling. "You want to avoid him, you're going to need to find a new spy," she says, and leaves the office.

Chapter 5

Day 6

He waits until late at night, after visiting hours have ended and the Wilsons are back, safe and sound, at their hotel. They're staying at the Drake, which isn't far from the hospital. It's the place House recommended, when he'd talked to them on the first day they'd arrived. He has put their room on his own tab, figuring it's the least he can do. He plans to bill Wilson for it all later.

Wilson is asleep when House lets himself into the room. This is how it's been every night. He glances at Wilson's chart, even though he knows exactly what he'll find there. Cameron wasn't his only daytime spy. He makes a note that someone should try and get him out of bed, soon, and then hooks the chart into its rack again.

The tiny click of the metal chart against the bed makes Wilson stir. His eyes blink open, and his hands clench at the edge of the blankets. He looks frightened and vulnerable, probably because he is. It makes House's chest feel a little tight.

He clears his throat. "Wilson," he says, trying to keep his voice low.

Wilson blinks again and tips his head, just slightly, so that he's looking down toward House. "Oh," he says.

This is almost the worst part. He clearly recognizes House. House can see the fear melting away, he can see Wilson's instinct kicking in, telling him this is someone safe, this is someone who's not going to hurt him. But that's as far as he can seem to get, so far.

"Just checking in." House keeps his hands on the metal rail at the end of the bed. "You learning some good knitting tricks from Mom?"

"House." House looks up; it's the first time Wilson has used his name since he's been back at Princeton, the first time since that very first night in the E.R. His voice is still weak, and it has no expression, no useful tone to it, but it's enough, God, it's really enough right now to see him making that connection.

"Yeah," he says. "That's me."

"Keep leaving," Wilson says. He rests his head against the pillow again, looking away from House. "Dreaming."

"It's not a dream," House murmurs, but Wilson's eyes have closed again.

There's danger in having Wilson close. House has a brilliant imagination to go with his brilliant medical mind, and every time he walks into Wilson's room the medicine and the creative swirl together into a dark, sickening storm of ideas about what, exactly, might have happened to Wilson while he was gone. He wants to know the truth almost as much as he doesn't want to know; until he hears exactly what did happen, it can be both the worst thing he can imagine and the least worst. There's no best-case scenario. This is what Cameron doesn't understand, and it's what he can't explain.

House takes a seat next to the bed. He can smell Mrs. Wilson's floral perfume off of the chair. Maybe that's what Wilson smells, when he comes in and out of consciousness. Maybe it's comforting to him.

What's comforting to House are the numbers on Wilson's chart. He's dangerously underweight, but there seems to be no damage to his heart muscle. His MRI and most recent CT - House did a second one at Princeton-Plainsboro, for good measure - still say there's nothing wrong with his brain. House has regulated his nutrition intake and has his temperature stabilized, has him on exactly the right course of antibiotics, has already called for a physical therapy consult on how to best fight the atrophy of Wilson's muscle tone. Everything can be fine and, diagnostically, everything is figured out. Even this lingering confusion is normal, for someone who's still essentially starving and, on top of it all, probably an excellent candidate for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's the perfect storm for a little disorientation. It is all completely normal.

House doesn't want it to be normal, though. He wants to hand Wilson a pill or give him a shot or notice a spot on an X-ray and say, "Ah-ha!" and then have Wilson, good old Wilson, back with him. Instead, there's this shivering, cowering, half-lucid, rarely conscious stick figure huddled under the hospital blankets. He has saved up months of inside jokes and private stories and he still, even now, has no one to tell them to.

All of the notes, though, all of the machines and the tests and everything House can think of, it all points to the fact that Wilson will come back. And, staring at Wilson's snow-pale face, House decides he's going to be there when it happens. They have a lot of catching up to do.



Day 6

When the fog lifts, Wilson remembers almost everything that happened to him: Getting out of the car at the Chinese restaurant, walking over to make sure that the man slumped over by the light pole was OK, the swift and painful hit on his head, the chaos of being stuffed into another car, thinking, Oh God, no, and offering them his wallet, his cash, his car, and then another hit to the head. He remembers waking up as he was being dragged down a flight of concrete stairs, and then the hard cold impact of a cement floor as he was thrown into his cell. Even then, there was no explanation, just the hard closure of the door and then silence. Frigid, horrifying silence and near-darkness, except for the indirect light from the window.

It had taken a long time - weeks, maybe more - before he'd had an explanation. That had been the worst of it. He'd been sitting in the dark and cold for no reason until the day they'd opened the door and piled in, four of them, and he'd seen their faces and thought, well, there's my answer. He had recognized them from the trial, because they all looked like their brother, Patrick Halloran. Halloran had been a doctor in New York who'd been accused of diluting patients' medicines in order to sell the surpluses. Wilson, fresh out of a prestigious cancer research fellowship, had been hired to testify on behalf of the prosecution as to the precise effect that this had had on Halloran's cancer patients. He'd done a few civil malpractice cases before, but he'd never done a criminal case until the Halloran ordeal. It had garnered a lot of press attention, which had helped Wilson's career.

He'd looked up at those familiar faces, all of Halloran's brothers, and knew he wasn't going to get out alive. Not without a miracle.

He'd treated the man they'd brought in, anyway. The guy had gotten into a knife fight and needed some stitches but couldn't go to the hospital because of some other recent crime. His girlfriend had walked in at one point, and Wilson had tried to explain to her - because the men clearly weren't listening - that he wasn't supposed to be there. For that, he'd gotten a blistering hit across his jaw and a few more blows to his stomach, and when they'd thrown him back against the wall he'd blacked out. He feels lucky, even now, that he survived, because when he'd woken up, he'd had vomit on his shirt; he could have choked.

After that, there was no one for a very long time. His food was shoved in every few days through a hole in the bottom of the door that was otherwise bolted shut. Solitary confinement, they'd called it; a taste of the medicine Patrick had wound up with in prison. Wilson had tried prying at every crevice in the place; he'd tried making noise with the empty cans from his meals; he'd tried reaching for the hand that pushed the food inside. Nothing.

He had a tiny sink and a grimy toilet. Every few weeks, a smooth hand would push through a bar of soap in addition to the meal. He had a rusty razor that he used to keep his hair trimmed and his beard to a minimum. The smooth hand, he'd decided, belonged to the kinder of his two caretakers. He was convinced that it was this person who had finally called House, after all of Wilson's pleas.

And he had pled. He'd yelled, particularly in the first few weeks, for help, for attention, for someone, anyone, to tell him what was going on.

At some point, he'd lost his voice. He'd woken up and realized he'd gone days without using it, without even trying to make contact. Instead, he'd sunk farther into his own head, into the brilliant and comfortable memories he had stored there. He tried to make himself remember things: the protocol treatment for Stage 1 Lymphoma. All of the facial bones, in alphabetical order. As the days went by, he was tired more of the time. He slept a lot. Without anyone to check him, his mental games became simpler. He tried to remember all of the addresses at which he'd ever lived, and failed; then, one day, he tried to remember his last address and couldn't come up with it, either.

House, though, had remained an indelible memory, even when Wilson had reached a point where he couldn't put it into sophisticated terms. He'd quote House's name and phone number over and over and over again, to himself and to the door. He knew that, of everyone in the world who might be looking for him, House would be the most tireless. It would be a puzzle to him. He would never stop trying to put things together.

Toward the end, he'd developed a cough that had echoed against the walls. He'd enjoyed the noise, a little, sometimes, forgetting that it was something bad. He'd coughed at the door and underneath it, coughed onto the smooth hands when they'd offered him soap, and he hadn't been able to catch his breath.

"Hey, you all right?" the smooth hands had asked.

And he'd said House's phone number, when he could speak, because it was the only thing that had made sense.




Day 7

Chase sees the women crying: Three interns in the first floor doctor's lounge on the first full day that Wilson is back in the hospital; two more during his clinic duty the next afternoon. He goes in early on Tuesday morning, says hello to a woman he's pretty sure works at the front desk in radiology, nowhere near oncology, and is greeted by watery eyes and a red nose.

"I'm calling it Wilson's Sickness," Chase says, taking a seat at the conference table. 

Foreman looks up from his newspaper. "Thyroid problem?"

"That's Wilson's Syndrome. And Wilson's Disease was already taken, so I've settled on sickness."

Foreman raises an eyebrow. "Symptoms?" Chase mimes the slide from sniffling into outright sobbing, and Foreman snorts. "You figure out the treatment, let me know."

Chase looks up, sees two of the oncology interns walking by, talking excitedly and clutching each others' arms and, oh yes, crying. When he glances over, Foreman is watching them, too. "Should just aerosolize the antidote and send it out in the heat vents," Chase says, and Foreman nods.

Foreman is, really, the only one with whom Chase can talk about this. Cameron is emotionally invested - Chase thinks she'd be an excellent test subject for the Wilson's Sickness treatment - and never one to enjoy making light of a tense situation, anyway. House, well, Chase values his personal safety a little too highly to go anywhere near him with comments about Wilson. 

House, of course, hasn't really been in the office much of late. After a few days off, he's now set up shop in Wilson's room and the lobby just beyond it. Chase finds him once or twice a day to make sure that there's nothing new he absolutely needs to be doing.

"Actually," House says, when Chase checks in that afternoon, "I have something for you."

"Yeah?" Chase is ready for a patient. He is almost ready to volunteer for extra clinic hours. Wilson is a good guy, but he can't imagine why the entire hospital seems to have stopped working to hold vigil at his bedside. "It's not more television, is it?"

"Need you to hang out with Wilson this afternoon."

"What?" Chase shakes his head. "House, he can be alone for a while, he's just sleeping. The nurses -"

"He's going to be awake," House says, snapping shut his tiny video game player. "And he's going to be talking to the F.B.I. I want you to go and listen in."

Chase leans back in his chair. "Why do I need to hear that?"

"One of his doctors should," House says. "There's probably loads of medically relevant material in that story."

Well, Chase can't really dispute that. As far as he knows, no one's heard exactly what happened to Wilson. They've been making guesses based on his symptoms. "So, then, if this is so important," he says, narrowing his eyes, "why aren't you going?"

"I'm working on my delegation skills," House says. "Plus you blend in so nicely with the décor."

He follows House's glance to his tie, which is, perhaps, a bit bland with its blue-and-tan pattern, but that's beside the point. "How do you even know Wilson's going to be able to tell them anything?" The last time Chase had seen him, which was on Sunday afternoon, Wilson had barely been cognizant. He'd still been slipping in and out of believing that everything around him was a fantasy.

House stands up. "Because he started trying to tell me about it this morning. Three o'clock."

He walks off and Chase curses, startling a woman walking past. He can't spare her an apology. Fucking House, he thinks, and then, Fucking Cameron. She's drawn some kind of line in the sand with House, and now House is all weird about Wilson and Cameron is, as always, weird about House, and Chase is stuck in the middle and fucking fuck. Just bloody great.

At just before three, he goes to Wilson's room in the ICU. Wilson is sitting up in a chair by the window, with a small table in front of him, a glass of juice on the table. It should be good to see him out of bed, but he somehow looks more like a patient, like this, because it's such a big deal that he's in a chair. He's wearing a sweatshirt that appears to be three sizes too big, but it might have fit him last year. He still looks better than Sunday. Agent Bettes is sitting in the chair next to his, another uncomfortable hospital armchair, and he looks up suspiciously when Chase enters.

"Hullo, Dr. Wilson," Chase says, putting on his usual for-patients smile. "House says you're feeling some better."

Wilson nods and murmurs something that might be a yes. He has a blanket pulled up over his legs, and his hands are bunched together under the little table, on top of the blanket. Chase nods to Bettes. "Don't mind me, I'm just observing for Dr. House."

Bettes frowns and looks at Wilson, who nods, after a moment. "All right," Bettes says. "So, let's keep going, then. What do you remember next?"

Wilson shrugs. Chase leans against the wall by the door. This is going to be a very long interview, he thinks, if Wilson's not going to talk. He can see Wilson's hands shaking just a little on top of the blanket, and he wonders if he should have thought to bring along some Ativan.

"OK. Let's talk more about what happened after."

Wilson nods. He's not looking at Bettes or at Chase; he seems to be staring at the juice. "We went to the, ah, basement," he says. His voice is high and hard to hear. "It was - like prison. They told me that."

Chase leans forward, a little, and he listens to Wilson's halting, breathy voice as Bettes slowly urges the story and the details out of him. And after thirty minutes, a nurse comes in and says it's time she helped Wilson back to bed. Bettes says his thanks, and Wilson's head falls back against the chair and his eyes close, and Chase walks out into the hall and right past House and into the men's room and he throws up. He flushes the toilet and washes his hands, grips the sink, and nearly throws up again as he thinks of what Wilson has just said.

House pushes in while Chase is still standing there. He leans against the wall next to the sink. "That bad."

Chase nods. The whole time Wilson was gone, Chase had figured him for dead. He had figured robbery gone wrong, maybe even just wrong place, wrong time, and he'd decided Wilson had died. And he'd grieved in his own quiet way and mostly felt bad for himself and everyone around House.

Now he has a different picture of it. He spent fourteen months thinking Wilson was dead, and Wilson spent fourteen months living in a tiny cement room in the basement of a someplace that should have been condemned, a duplicated prison cell put together by the brothers of a man he'd helped send to prison ten years ago for malpractice. He'd had almost no heat and very little food, mostly cold things out of cans; he'd been allowed to leave his room once, a year ago, when one of the men had been injured and had needed a doctor. And then, for his services, they'd beat him up before throwing him back in his cell. The only way he'd had to track time was through a 4-inch tall window at the very edge of the ceiling that looked out into an airshaft. He'd said it was the only sunlight he'd seen the whole time. When they found him, he hadn't seen a friendly face -- or any face -- or heard a kind word in over a year.

"They didn't talk to him," Chase says, keeping his head down. "For a year, no one said a single word to him."

He cups his hands under the faucet and lets them fill with water, then rubs it over his face. House's hand is clenched into a fist against the wall. "So what made them call?"

"His cough, maybe," Chase says. "They tried to move him, the day before the F.B.I. found him."

House nods. For a moment, they just stand there, and Chase can't think of anything to say that might comfort House or even himself. House clears his throat. "Anything we should know - medically?"

Chase shrugs. Everything he's learned, they already knew, that Wilson hadn't had enough to eat and that he'd been too cold. Knowing the causes - the starvation rations and his unheated cell - hasn't made a difference. "Probably shouldn't try to feed him any Spaghetti O's," he says.

"OK." House steps away from the wall. "You coming?"

"In a minute."

It takes Chase another five minutes to leave the bathroom, because he waits until his eyes aren't red. He runs into Cameron, of course, first thing out. "Are you OK?"

He shrugs. "Fine. Fine enough."

"I heard you sat in on the F.B.I. meeting," she says. "How was that? How is Wilson?"

Broken, Chase thinks. "Fine," he murmurs, because he can't get into it, doesn't want to, doesn't even think it's right. "He'll be fine."




One Week Back

House finds Wilson awake when he walks in just after eight o'clock. He's been back for a week.

"Do you go home?" Wilson asks.

He looks better, and he is, actually, better. He hasn't had any episodes of confusion for the last twenty four hours, and he's starting to sound like himself. That's still intermittent, though, so House is slightly taken aback at the question.

"Every night," he says, though that hasn't been completely true lately.

Wilson's brow furrows. "But you're here every night."

"Short straw," House says. "Plus, I thought you might like to take a trip."

"To where?"

"Sightseeing," House says, and he opens the door and pulls a wheelchair inside. "As your doctor, I think it's time for a little fresh air."

It takes a second, but Wilson nods, and House lowers the rails on his bed. Wilson is wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, not the typical hospital gown, because they're still trying to make sure he stays warm. Beyond that, being a doctor still affords him some higher status, and no one is willing to argue with anything that makes Wilson more comfortable.

Wilson's arm, when House takes it to help him into the chair, is like holding a paper-covered twig. They've managed to bring up his weight, slightly, but he's still bird-thin and frighteningly pale. They'll need to keep checking his hemoglobin.

"Where are we going?" Wilson asks once he's settled in the chair.

"My office," House says.

"Are there - people?" Wilson's hands grip the arms of the chair tightly, and House can see that he's shivering. He finds a blanket in the closet and tosses it into Wilson's lap, watches him carefully unfold it and close it around himself.

"No," he assures him, holding open the door. "No people."

They scoot out of the ICU without raising any eyebrows and then over to the staff elevator. The hospital is pretty quiet, and House knows all the abandoned corridors, so they make it to his office without seeing anyone. He parks the wheelchair in the conference room and offers Wilson his arm to get up.

He can walk, and has been walking, a little, over the last few days. This is good, because he has to be ambulatory before he can be moved out of the ICU, and he has to be out of there before House can take him home. His grip on House's arm is sharp and needy, though, and House realizes Wilson still has quite a ways to go before he's perfectly steady on his feet.

Still, they make it across the office and out to the balcony just fine, and House settles Wilson in one of the two plastic chairs he's put out there. House has a few cartons of orange juice - Wilson needs the vitamins - and a bowl of oatmeal made up just like House's mother used to fix it, with a dash of maple sugar and real cream. He has a bag of jalapeno potato chips for himself. "Dining al fresco," he says, and Wilson smiles and picks up one of the juice boxes.

It takes him two tries, but he gets the straw in and takes a drink. "This is good," he says, and he sounds surprised.

House takes a seat next to him. "I was going to get you beer, but your doctor wouldn't go for it. That guy's a dick."

Wilson picks up his bowl of oatmeal and takes a bite, then closes his eyes. "I dreamt about beer," he says. "While I was - gone."

House wants to tell him, suddenly, about how he kept the Hefeweisen for months, how his eye caught on the sale flyer every week, how he looked for it on tap in every bar. But he also doesn't want to tell him, because he doesn't want to talk about all of that gone time. He just wants to be here, with Wilson, right now. "I wonder what that means," he says. "They say all dreams about flying are dreams about sex."

Wilson takes another sip of his juice. "I dreamt about sex, too," he says. "And you."

House glances over. "Same dream?"

Wilson waves his spoon. "After a while, it's all the same dream."

"Cryptic, I like it." He sips his own juice. "How are you feeling, by the way?"

"Right now or in general?" House shrugs. Either one is interesting. "Tired," Wilson says. "Cold, and tired. That's the start and finish of it."

House nods. It's to be expected, with the anemia and the respiratory infection and everything else. Wilson must know that, though, so he doesn't bother to say it, or that it will get better. Instead, he watches Wilson take a bite of the oatmeal and feels a tremble of something painful, like sadness, inside his chest.

"I dreamt about this," House says after a minute. He doesn't look over, but he can tell that Wilson's looking at him. After a moment, Wilson's cold fingers land on House's forearm, just a friendly touch. House nods.

"It doesn't feel real," Wilson murmurs. "None of it - not this, not the past year, none of it. I keep waking up and thinking I'll be -" he stops, and House looks over because he needs to know if this is the confusion returning or if it's something else. Wilson draws his hand back and rubs it over his face. "I'm tired," he whispers. "I'm just pretty tired."

"We can go back whenever you want," House says, and Wilson's hand drops back to the arm of his own chair.

"Not yet," he says, his head settling back. "OK?"

"Sure," House says.




Two Weeks Back

Foreman finds a patient on Saturday, almost two weeks after Wilson has been brought back to the hospital.

"Seventeen-year-old female," he says, trailing House as he walks in from the parking lot. House pauses at the coffee cart, and Foreman waits, thinking House will order and then listen again. It takes him a moment to realize that he has House's full attention.

"Seizures," he says, "but no response to Dilantin."

"Huh," House says. He holds out his hand for the chart and glances at the top sheet. "OK. Get a better history."

Foreman shakes his head. "Just like that?" he says. Usually, it takes a huge sales job to get House interested in a case, and Foreman's been figuring on having to argue particularly hard because of Wilson. Instead, as he follows House to the elevator, House is actually studying the chart. 

"Interesting," House says as they ride up.

"I'm sorry," Foreman says, "but really?"

House stops just outside the conference room door. "Either you think it's a good case or not," he says, with a touch of the usual House impatience. 

"It's just that you usually make me dance through all of the details and then you insult me a few times before you take something on," Foreman says as they walk into the conference room.

"Well, for once you seem to have led with the interesting stuff," House says, handing the chart to Chase. "And your tie speaks for itself."

They spend the morning actually doing medical work. Foreman and Cameron run the patient down for an MRI while Chase spends time in the lab. When they regroup at lunch, the results are puzzling and Foreman feels a little rush of something like relief at how normal it all feels. House yells at them, accuses the lab of incompetence, and then orders another procedure for the afternoon.

"Weird, isn't it," Chase says as they prepare for the PET scan, "but I'm kind of enjoying this."

"Right there with you," Foreman says.

He feels bad about it, too, but most of what he feels all day is relief. Since Wilson has been back, everything has been difficult and dark and heavy all day. It's worse than the first few months after he'd gone missing, because now there's an ending to that story, and it isn't happy. Even with Wilson back, it's not happy, yet, because the Wilson that's downstairs is a Wilson that no one is confident can be fixed. House doesn't deal well with frustration, particularly medical frustration. He's had Foreman review both CT scans twice, looking for something, anything, any sign that there's some intracranial pressure, some physical abnormality, that they can fix. Foreman is a good doctor and a great neurologist and he knows there's nothing visibly wrong with Wilson's mind, except that Wilson has been through incredible trauma. He's been hurt in ways for which there are no cures. It's what he's been hitting his head against all week with House. There's nothing that can fix Wilson, right now, but time.

Radiology is backed up, so the results of the scan won't be back until morning, which turns out OK since their patient is bad but not getting worse. Foreman and Chase go to the bar after work and have a beer apiece.

"To a whole day without Wilson," Foreman says, lifting his glass, and Chase offers a cheers in return.

The next morning, House greets them with the results of the scan and then holds Foreman back when Chase and Cameron go to tell the patient.

"You and I are going to talk to Wilson's parents," House says.

Foreman starts. "Do you have me confused for Cameron?"

"Nope. Wilson's parents love me. I need someone to play bad cop." He shakes his head. "You have no idea how weird it is for me to say that."

Foreman leans back against the wall. "I don't know whether to feel honored or appalled that you've chosen me."

"Feel both," House says.

He explains their mission: Wilson is about to be moved out of the ICU, and it's time for his parents to go home. This is, House explains, partly because their continued presence constitutes, somehow, a challenge to House's influence over Wilson.

Foreman grimaces. It's never good to let House consolidate his power. "So - wait, you want me to help you talk them into leaving so you can do what, exactly?"

House shakes his head. "Nothing specifically. But if anything would come up-"

"Huh-uh," Foreman says. He knows House too well. House isn't a forward thinker, unless he wants something. "What are you planning to do?"

House rolls his eyes. "I have no nefarious plots. I'm not going to cut him up for science, I'm not waiting for them to leave so I can steal his brain or his pristine liver, I swear. I just think -" He stops and shakes his head. When he speaks again, his voice is lower, and he doesn't look Foreman in the eye. "They may try and convince him to go back to Chicago," he says.

Well, then, Foreman thinks. There's the ulterior motive, at least. "And you think that's a bad idea."

"Duh."

Foreman crosses his arms. "Are you sure? I mean, here - it's like he's the new exhibit in the zoo. I've had to chase two different oncology interns off the floor already this morning. Maybe getting away from all of this -"

"He's been away from all of this," House says, his voice sharp. "He was away for more than a year, or did you sleep through that?" House rubs both hands over his face. "He should be around familiar things."

It's not an unreasonable argument, but it's not what convinces Foreman to go along - that comes from House's look, from the desperation in his voice, from the fear in his eyes. Wilson will recover slowly and painfully wherever he goes, and staying at Princeton may make things harder both on him and on the rest of the staff, but House, to get back to normal, will need Wilson nearby.



Three Weeks Back

Wilson is moved from the ICU to a general population in his third week, once he's finally off of all of the IVs and able to eat real food again. His parents go home; Cameron hears House tell them there's not really anything else they can do and that he'll call them, of course, of course, if anything happens. Then she watches as he gives Wilson a mild sedative before he makes her wheel him down to his new room.

She's not at all sure that Wilson's ready to be out of the relative calm of the ICU; things are serious, there, but they're also well-contained. On the general floor, people are in and out; the nurses are constantly rotating around; and, for the first time, the rest of the hospital's staff will have unfettered access to Wilson. House can bluster and bully all he wants; Cameron knows that there's already a Welcome Back party being planned by the Oncology staff.

On the second day after Wilson's big move, Cameron is in the lab when she gets a page from Wilson's room. She stops her work and goes over directly, only to find House pacing beside the bed. He looks a little pale. "Wilson's missing," he says.

Cameron flinches. "What?"

"The morons that pass for nurses up here came by an hour ago and noticed he wasn't around." House is gritting his teeth. "It took them another thirty minutes to page me."

"Maybe he's just -" she starts, but House cuts her off.

"I've checked every room on the floor, including the bathrooms and the lounges. He's not up here. And security is guarding the exits."

Cameron nods. House looks ready to explode. She can't even feel fear about Wilson, yet; she's too immediately worried about calming House down before he starts throwing furniture. Foreman walks in behind her, and Cameron grabs his arm. "We'll check the building," she says, but House stops them.

"He can't have gone very far," he says. "Foreman, take a look in the ICU. Cameron, check with Dr. Chen and Oncology, see if he's gone back there."

Chase wanders in just as Foreman and Cameron are walking out. His eyes are wide. "What?" he asks as Cameron drags him toward the elevators.

"Think like Wilson," she says, pushing him onto an open elevator. "Try the roof."

She goes downstairs, to Dr. Chen's office. The door is locked and there's no light from beneath it, which isn't surprising. Dr. Chen spends a lot of time out on the floor. Cameron cuts through the conference room, thinking a check of the balcony might be reasonable. There's an abandoned wheelchair sitting next to House's armchair. She stops with her hand on the light switch, then decides against flipping it on. Once she's spotted Wilson, sitting quietly in the corner, she steps out of the office and picks up her phone. "He's in your office," she says quietly to House. "Give me a minute, though, OK?"

"One," he says, and hangs up.

Cameron goes back into the office. "Dr. Wilson?" she says, keeping her voice soft. She pushes the wheelchair out of the way and peers around the armchair.

Wilson looks up. "Hi, Cameron." She takes a few steps closer. Wilson doesn't seem to be hurt; he doesn't seem to be anything, really. His face is calm, his voice is steady. Cameron crouches down. "This looks bad, huh?"

"What are you doing here?"

He takes a deep breath, and it sounds only a little shaky. "I was just going to go to my office, but then I realized - I don't have an office any more, do I?"

Cameron sighs. "No," she says. "I'm sorry."

He shrugs. "I don't know - I don't know what I was going to do there," he says. "I just wanted someplace - away." He closes his eyes.

"It's all right," Cameron says. "We just didn't know where to find you. We were worried."

This time, when he speaks, his voice is small. He has faded back into the Wilson she's getting used to, the Wilson who is timid and scared and cold all the time. "Are you mad?"

"No," she says, right as House pushes through the office door.

"Jesus Christ, Wilson!" he says.

Cameron turns, stands, ready to spring on him, to fly to Wilson's defense, but she sees the raw fear and worry on House's face. He's not angry; he's terrified. "He's OK," she says.

"He's insane!"

"House," she says, sharply, and House nods and rubs his hands over his face.

He puts his hands on the wheelchair's handles and bows his head. When he looks up, he's looking past Cameron. "Wilson," he says, and his voice is low and frightened.

"I'm sorry," Wilson says. His voice is still small. "There were so many people."

House sighs, a huge, near-sob of a sigh, and he takes a few steps and slides down the wall next to Wilson. "You are a crappy patient," he says, and Wilson smiles, just slightly, and Cameron watches his eyes slide closed. "I should totally get overtime for you."

"We should get him back upstairs," she says, concentrating on the slight tremor in Wilson's hands. "House -"

"In a minute," House says. He looks up, and Cameron understands that she's being excused. She goes to the conference room and calls Foreman and Chase, tells them to stand down. When she looks back into the office, Wilson has House's jacket draped over him like a blanket, and he seems to be asleep, his head turned against the wall. House is staring ahead, his expression absolutely blank and terrifying. Cameron doesn't go back inside, but she stays near the door, in case either of them needs her.

Chapter 6

One Month Back

They decide Wilson can go home after four weeks in the hospital. Foreman runs the final tests that House has requested - extensive bloodwork, a final CT, and a chest X-ray to make sure the respiratory infection has cleared. He draws up discharge papers himself and carries them over to Wilson's room, where Wilson is sitting in the armchair by the bed.

He flinches when Foreman walks in the door. "Sorry," he says, ducking his head.

"It's all right," Foreman says. He knows the way to talk to Wilson these days is to be forthright and careful; it's the way Foreman would talk to a particularly bright child. "I have your discharge papers."

Wilson nods. His hands are pulled up into his sweatshirt sleeves, so instead of trying to hand the papers over, Foreman lays them on the table next to Wilson.

"You just need to sign down at the bottom, by House's signature," Foreman says. "And he's got all of your medication and everything settled."

"Thanks," Wilson says. He doesn't talk very much, and when he does, it's hard to hear him. The television is on overhead, but the sound is barely up. When Foreman looks up, he sees the weather channel, and he wonders how long Wilson's been watching that.

Foreman pauses at the door. He has somehow become Wilson's primary care physician, over the last few weeks, because Chase still turns a little green whenever Wilson is mentioned and Cameron and House don't seem to be speaking. House, being House, is overseeing everything, but from a distance, and for once that seems to be very wise. They're all probably too involved in Wilson's case to be the best physicians possible, but then again, the diagnoses are set - in all arenas but one.

"You know," Foreman says, "it might not be a bad idea for you to talk to someone before you leave." Wilson looks up, doesn't say anything, but seems puzzled. "I can get Dr. Roberts over here."

Wilson's eyelids flutter. "Psych consult?"

"Not a consult. I'm not suggesting we should keep you here," he says, because he doesn't actually think that would be a good idea, in part because House would kill Foreman for even suggesting it. "But you could talk with him, maybe set something up." Wilson shrugs, not meeting Foreman's eyes. Foreman sighs. Mental health help is usually a hard sell. "OK, think about this like a doctor," he says. "Medically, I have no problem releasing you to House's care, because he's an ass but he's an extremely good doctor. Physically, you'll be fine. But, like I said, House is an ass, and it is my opinion that you could benefit from some care that's not, exclusively, physical."

"Not yet," Wilson murmurs. When he looks up, he has the smallest of smirks, just for a second. "I am thinking like a doctor," he says. "I have to get back on my feet before I can go through anything more."

There is some logic to that, too, so Foreman just nods. "But once you're better -" he says, and Wilson nods and looks down again.

"Thanks, Foreman," he says.

In the hall, Foreman pauses at the nurse's station. If this were Wilson from before the kidnapping, he'd have no trouble believing him. Wilson was organized and sure. Wilson, now, is uncertain and, at worst, simply a kid willing to follow House's orders. And Foreman has no confidence in getting House's support for Wilson needing psychological care.

He picks up Wilson's chart and starts to make a note for follow-up care, then realizes everything he writes, House will read. Instead, he goes to his office and closes the door, then dials Henry Roberts. "It's Eric Foreman," he says. "I need to make an appointment in, say, three months, for a patient of mine."


One month back

House comes to his room and walks beside Wilson's wheelchair as Cuddy pushes him out. They go out a side entrance, right into the patient and visitor garage, and House's car is waiting for them. Wilson knows he's going home with House, and that House lives in a new place, but until the moment he gets out of the wheelchair it doesn't seem possible. He lets Cuddy hug him good-bye and he takes a seat in the car. He's not carrying anything because he doesn't have anything to take home, other than the medications that House has in a white plastic bag.

Wilson is exhausted just by riding in the car. The city flickers by outside his window, but he can't look at it. It's too much, too fast. He feels carsick. When House pulls into an underground garage and says, "OK, time to go," it's all Wilson can do to get out of his seat.

House gathers the medications from the backseat and takes off, but Wilson stays leaning against the car. I can't, he thinks, and he's not sure if he's too tired or too frightened to move. He hasn't been anywhere with this much space for a very long time. It is very quiet in the garage, and when he looks down, all he sees is slick gray concrete, and he feels sick to his stomach.

It takes House a minute to double back for him. "Come on," he says, putting his hand on Wilson's arm. Wilson puts his arm around House's waist and House helps him over to the elevator. Inside, Wilson rests against House, too tired to care about how much they're touching or where. They go up two floors and Wilson lets House steer him down a hallway and then into his condo, where House props him against the wall by the door.

"You're going to be no fun," House says, panting a little.

"Sorry," Wilson murmurs. He turns against the wall so he can see the room. The place is furnished almost exactly like House's last place, only with more stuff. Familiar stuff. "Hey -"

"Welcome to your new home," House says. He hangs his jacket in the hall closet, which also seems to have a bunch of very familiar jackets in it.

"I live here?"

"Well, your stuff's been living here for a year," House says, shrugging. "And your money, I might add."

Wilson can't really summon the energy to find out more about that, so he just nods. So much has changed. "Where's my bed, then?"

"This way."

House offers an arm, again, and Wilson takes it. They walk through the living room, past House's piano and Wilson's couch from his second marriage. The hallway takes them past a bathroom and then a painting that Wilson's brother had given him a few years ago for Hanukah. They stop at the second door on the right and House opens it, then leads Wilson in.

It's a nice bedroom. No, actually, it's a great bedroom, like something out of a magazine. The bed is in a dark-stained sleigh frame and has a thick, satiny green comforter and several matching pillows in green and gold and blue. There's a window, and its drapes match the bedspread. Though the floor is dark wood, there are two woven mats by the bed. Wilson's antique armoire is sitting to one side, next to the window; his flat-screen television is mounted to the wall directly across from the bed. On the dresser, there's a tray with a candle and a few smooth stones, and there are matching lamps on matching bedside tables at the head of the bed. It's a nice room, and a little showy, particularly for House's taste.

"You did this?"

House shrugs. "I had some help from the nice folks at Pier One, and Cuddy, who said you couldn't leave the hospital until I made sure the bed ruffle matched the throw pillows." He pulls away from Wilson and walks to the bed, then pulls back the comforter. There are three thin blankets underneath. "Should be warm enough," he says.

Wilson feels heat in his eyes. He looks away. "Thank you," he says.

"Hey, don't thank me," House says, "thank the nice people at American Express who've never cancelled out your card."

"I mean it," Wilson murmurs. "House, really."

"It's fine."

He has to help Wilson into bed, and Wilson, again, just can't be embarrassed. He's too tired, and now he's in the most comfortable bed in the entire world. The pillow seems to suck his head down, and Wilson can barely keep his eyes open. House turns off the light, leaving the room in grayish daylight, and says, "Yell if you need anything. Or there's a phone over there, you can call Cameron." As he walks out, he catches the door.

"House!"

He looks back in, immediately, and Wilson is alarmed by his own yell. "What? What's wrong?"

It takes him a second. "Don't close the door," he says, and House nods.

"Yeah, of course," he says. "Sorry about that."

House leaves the door open wide, and Wilson can hear him walk back down the hall, can hear him picking up the phone and muttering to someone. Probably Cuddy, probably letting her know they made it home with only a minor meltdown. Wilson closes his eyes and lets himself sink into the comfort of the bed and the half-dark room. Home, he thinks, but he can't quite believe it.




Five Weeks Back

For the first week that he's out of the hospital, Wilson doesn't do much. He shuffles from the bed to the couch when House prods him; he eats what House puts in front of him; he nods in all the right places when House sits on the bed beside him to watch television. But he's disengaged, just a guest, just barely there. He spends too much time wrapped up in blankets. House begins to worry, against his own nature. He can diagnose the problem easy enough.

He calls Cameron while Wilson is sleeping. "I need you to come over," he says.

"What?"

They are speaking again, though barely. Cameron hasn't forgiven him for "abandoning" Wilson at the beginning of his stay at Princeton-Plainsboro, and House hasn't forgiven Cameron for being so stupid as to think he actually didn't care. But, being the most oversensitive person he knows also makes her the most sensitive person he knows, and this is what Wilson needs, right now. A shoulder to cry on.

"It's Wilson," House says.

"Is he all right?"

"No," House says. "He's miserable." He describes Wilson's symptoms as best he can: lethargy, reduced verbal interaction and appetite, difficulty sleeping but the desire to do it all the time.

"He's depressed," Cameron says, in a well-duh voice that she must have picked up from House. He'd feel pride if it weren't so completely annoying.

"Yeah, caught that," House says.

"So why are you calling me? Call Dr. Roberts or Dr. Stone. I'm sure they'd fit him in -"

"He doesn't need to talk to a stranger," House insists. He can barely get Wilson into the living room; getting him back into the car and over to the hospital at this point would involve hiring movers and possibly someone with a tranquilizer dart. "I thought a familiar face might cheer him up."

Cameron pauses, and House clenches his fist. "OK," she says after a moment, and House pushes his fist against the wall, a very quiet celebration of victory. "Tomorrow afternoon?"

"Fine," House says. "And bring muffins. He likes the blueberry ones."

That's a lie, of course; Wilson is still eating pre-packaged food from the hospital, a diet that won't mess up his still delicate system in any way and that's easy for House to monitor. The last thing they need is to get his potassium out of balance while they're still trying to cure this whole starvation mess. But the muffins will be a good break for House, who's been eating the hospital stuff right along with Wilson, too lazy to make two dinners.

He walks back to Wilson's room and peeks in; Wilson is curled on his side, facing the open door, his eyes open, the blanket over him. "Hi," he says, looking up.

"You're awake."

"Yep."

House nods. "I just talked to Cameron. She's going to drop in tomorrow. Visiting hours."

Wilson's eyes flutter closed, just for a moment. "I don't really feel up to Cameron, yet," he says. "Could she wait a while?"

"Well," House says, walking in. He sits on the far side of the bed and leans back against the headboard. "I'm lying. She's actually coming to see me, but she's going to want to see you, too. No stopping the Cameron Caring Train."

Wilson groans and turns over, in a complicated, twisting movement, until he's facing House. "Fine," he says. "I'll fake sleep."

"You can run, but you can't hide," House says. "And actually, I'm not confident you can run, right now. You were wobbly this morning."

Wilson grunts. "By the way," he says. "Your leg."

House nods. They haven't talked about this yet, somehow. "Tried that whole Ketamine thing again. This time, it took."

"Huh." House thinks that's going to be it, that this is all the talk they'll have until Wilson's up and around and able to requisition House's medical records - at which time they'll have to have a Big, Serious Talk. He reaches for the television remote and turns it on, grateful that the TiVo is already recording General Hospital. He turns to set the remote back on the end table, on his side - where it belongs - and while he's turned he feels Wilson's hand land, just lightly, on his right thigh. House sets the remote down and turns back, looks down at Wilson, who is looking right ahead. He taps his fingers just over the old line of the surgical scar.

"Can you feel that?" he asks.

"Yeah," House says.

"Does it hurt?"

"No." It's still a surprise, sometimes. He still favors that side, still has a tiny, illogical fear that a wrong step or a careless twist is going to set off the pain again, that it's like a bad wire, temporarily patched, just waiting for a new jolt to break it apart again.

Wilson's hand curls, slowly, into a fist, and then slides back to the bed. "What happened?" he asks, and House has a flicker of fear, thinks maybe Wilson has slid back into confusion. "I'm missing more than a year, House. What happened, while I was gone?"

House takes a quick breath, then a slow one. "Life went on," he says. Wilson nods, just slightly. His knuckles brush against House's leg. "It wasn't the same."

"It still isn't," Wilson murmurs. His eyes are closed when House looks over, but he knows he isn't asleep.

"Wilson -" he starts, but he doesn't have anything helpful to say. His skin is still troublingly pale against his green sheets. House reaches over and touches his neck, checking his pulse, feeling his skin for fever or chill. Nothing is out of the ordinary, until Wilson's hand moves up from the bed and closes around House's fingers. "Hey," House mutters, but Wilson doesn't move, just presses House's hand to his own neck, then over to his shoulder. House sighs, feeling uncomfortable, but doesn't pull back. Wilson pets his hand, just once, then squeezes his wrist, as if trying to pin his hand there, and finally House squeezes his shoulder just slightly. He leaves his hand there until he's sure that Wilson is asleep, and even then, it's not so hard to keep it in place. If this is what Wilson needs, it's a lot easier to deal with than having Cameron come over.



Six Weeks Back

House stays home with Wilson for the next week, too, even though it's boring. He catches Wilson up on most of the plot of General Hospital - several back issues of Soap Opera Digest taken from the nurse's lounge will fill in the rest - and most of the hospital gossip, too. In the mornings, after House gets back from his run, he makes Wilson go through the complicated physical therapy routine that the evil bastards in PT have recommended for him. Wilson's getting a little stronger, a little more steady. House stops worrying that he'll fall in the shower. During the second week, House eases off on his hospital diet, satisfied by the results of some bloodwork he shuttles in one morning, and starts working to simply fatten Wilson up.

"So I can eat - anything?"

House shrugs. "Don't break out a bowl of salt to celebrate, but yeah. You're cleared for take off." He rubs his hands together. "Chinese?"

Wilson blushes, just slightly. House can't figure out if he does it more now than he used to, or if it's just that he's so pale it shows up like paint on his skin. "Actually," Wilson says, "I thought I could cook. Maybe."

House smiles. "Knock yourself out," he says, then pauses. "Though unless you can work wonders with a can of green beans and some really old Bisquick, you might want to hold off on that until I can get some groceries." Wilson nods, and tucks his hands back into the sleeves of his sweatshirt. "Or, tell you what," House says. "We can order them tonight and have them here first thing tomorrow."

Wilson smiles.

It takes them two hours to order groceries, because Wilson is very quiet at first - "whatever sounds good," he says over and over - and then too talkative by the end - "beets! I could roast those, and with a little bit of dill..." The final total is obscene, well over what House usually pays in a month for food, but he puts in his credit card number gladly. Seeing Wilson engaged by anything is gratifying, and that it's cooking - well, old habits die hard.

House runs the next morning but lets Wilson sleep in, for once. He needs a break from the PT, anyway. When the doorbell rings, House is just coming out of the shower; Wilson's door is open, and he seems to still be asleep, so House grabs a robe and answers the door.

"Hey," he says, knocking on Wilson's door. "You've got food to unload."

Wilson gets up amiably and starts to unpack the groceries while House dresses. By the time he returns to the kitchen, almost all of the bags are unpacked, and Wilson is trying to empty a new sack of flour into a large Tupperware container. "So what's for breakfast?" House asks.

"McDonald's, for you," Wilson says. "Cuddy called. They need you at the hospital."

House frowns. "You talked to Cuddy?"

Wilson shakes his head. "Machine got it."

That makes sense; Wilson won't go near the phone. "You can answer it, you know," House murmurs. "Your place, too."

Wilson shrugs. "I figured it was for you."

House walks out and listens to the message, then calls Cuddy back to confirm that he's actually needed. He is. They have two cases going down the tubes, far more than his little scattered team can handle. House finds his shoes and pulls them on, then goes back to the kitchen. Wilson is drinking a glass of orange juice and staring at the open cupboards. "Why don't you come with?" House asks. "We can get that final blood count I want."

Wilson doesn't look over, just blinks very slowly. "I think I'll stay here," he says, both hands on his glass. "If that's OK?"

House shrugs. "Suit yourself," he says. He leaves Wilson there, staring at all the food.

He calls around five to say he won't be home for dinner. "Pick up, Wilson," he says to the machine. "It's me. Come on." He waits. "Fine. I won't be home for dinner --"

Wilson's voice is thick with sleep. "I figured," he says. House is a little surprised he's answered. "I thought I could maybe make waffles tomorrow, if you want."

"Uh, yeah, I want," House says, just as Cameron and Chase walk in. "Go back to sleep. I gotta go."

Chase hands him a chart, and House glances at the results. They're just what he's been expecting. "Get him -"

"Foreman's already on it," Chase says. "You were right."

"Words I never tire of hearing. I'm thinking of getting a tattoo."

Cameron rolls her eyes. "Plenty of room for it on your ego," she says. Chase starts toward the conference room, but Cameron doesn't move. "Was that Wilson? Is he coming in?"

"Yes it was, and no he isn't," House says. "Don't take it personally, though, I'm sure he's really avoiding Cuddy, not you."

"When is Wilson coming back?" Chase asks. "Or, I guess, how is he coming back? Dr. Chen's pretty well settled in."

"Wilson was there first," House says. For him, that settles the whole discussion. Wilson was there first. It's only fair. He understands that the world may not see it this way, but he thinks, in the end, fairness will prevail. It's Wilson, for Chrissakes.

Then again, things don't always go his way; it never hurts to start checking things out early. House goes to Cuddy that afternoon. "When Wilson comes back, I think you should get him a new couch."

Cuddy looks up from her paperwork. "Is he ready to come back?"

House shrugs. "Maybe not yet," he says, thinking of Wilson's quiet voice and still often shaking hands. "But I wanted you to have some warning, so you could get the couch ordered. I'm thinking some kind of treated leather. Something ostentatious but also easy to clean puke off of."

She sets down a file folder. "When he's ready, you should have him come talk to me."

House's eyes narrow. "What are you going to tell Chen?"

"House -"

"I mean, she's gotta know her days are numbered."

Cuddy shakes her head. "I can't fire Chen just because Wilson is back."

"Uh, yeah, you can," House says. "I know she doesn't have tenure. And Wilson, Wilson like invented tenure."

"Wilson lost his tenure," Cuddy says. She says it quietly, but House hears it just fine.

"You can't -" he starts, surprised at the vehemence in his own voice.

"House," she says, both of her hands up. "He was gone for more than a year. His medical license has lapsed. There's not a lot I can do."

"So that's just - it?" Cuddy's eyes are wide but not sad, just sort of blank. This is her coldest administrative look, and one that House is used to getting for his own requests. But this is for Wilson. "He gets kidnapped, through no fault of his own, and for that he loses his job? I thought you put him back on payroll for the insurance."

She nods. "I did what I could. And, look, when he wants to come back, I'll find a way. He can work with Chen, or I can make an opening on the administrative side." She sighs. "You know I'll do whatever I can on this, for him. You know that."

"Yeah, because this has all really heightened my faith in your friendship," House snaps. He leaves without saying anything else.

In the hall, he stands for a minute, surprised to find himself winded. His fists are clenched. He looks down at them, slowly uncurls his fingers. OK, he thinks. Whatever. She'll come around. He's made Cuddy change her mind a hundred times before, about things way less obviously logical than this. He cracks his knuckles and starts toward his office. There's time. Wilson isn't ready to come back yet, not by a long shot, and House needs to make sure his medical license gets re-instated before any of this can happen. He'll call Stacy. Hell, he'll call the surgeon general if he has to. This is just not going to fly.




Two Months Back

Wilson doesn't think about them anymore. Hardly at all. He gets up in the morning in a comfortable bed and it seems normal. It seems like this has always been the way. The clock radio next to his bed plays softly; he never wakes to silence. When he gets out of the bed, he goes to the window, which is mid-sized and no longer seems huge. He leaves the room and no one stops him. He can take an hour in the bathroom if he wants, he can stand in the shower until the water runs cold, he can brush his teeth eight times a day and no one stops him.

Which is not to say he's alone. He's not. When he leaves his room he can turn right instead of left, go to House's room instead of the shower. He can sit on the edge of House's bed, lean against House's headboard, sometimes even fall back to sleep there if he wants. House doesn't say anything about it, other than the occasional grumble if Wilson accidentally nudges him. House's breathing is better than the clock radio. It soothes him.

He knows this is weird and he knows that soon enough time will have passed that House will push him away, make a crack about big boys sleeping in their own beds or something equally slighting and cruel, and Wilson will know it's gone on too long. Right now, though, House's indulgence feels like justification, like House saying it's OK for him to seek out closeness. It's just part of the recovery process.

They eat breakfast together every morning, even now that House has gone back to work. Wilson makes small feasts; House never says it's too much. Over the course of two weeks, they eat eggs scrambled with two kinds of freshly grated cheese and tomatoes and roasted green chili peppers; they eat hash browns with bell peppers and onions; they eat maple-crusted sausage and peppered bacon. They eat pancakes and waffles and cinnamon rolls. Wilson bakes bread and they eat that, too, as toast and then as French toast. He works his way through the thin breakfast section of the only cookbook in House's collection. After he's made pancakes twice in a row, he waits for House to leave for work and then Wilson calls his own mother for her biscuit recipe.

"How are you?" she asks.

"Fine," he says. He feels pretty good, really, except he gets tired. Sometimes, when House leaves for the gym, Wilson goes back and lays down in House's bed again for an extra hour. He wants the biscuit recipe because the biscuits freeze well, and he'll be able to heat them up fast in the mornings while House is showering.

"I've been thinking about you," his mother says. Her voice is low and heavy and emotional. "I worry."

Wilson closes his eyes. "I'm home now," he reminds her. "Greg is keeping a close eye on me." Which is true. Wilson knows House is watching him closely, monitoring his progress. This is how he knows that soon, House will make him back off. It's a little amazing that House has allowed Wilson to cling for this long.

"Well, for that I am grateful," she says. His parents love House. They find him charming and old-fashioned, "a serious doctor," in his father's words. "Thank him for me. Does he like banana bread? I could send some."

"I'm sure he would like that," Wilson says. His voice sounds small across the line. He doesn't like to talk on the phone; it makes him feel anxious. "Could you also tell me the biscuit recipe?"

His mother tells him the recipe and asks him to call more often. Wilson presses his hand against his neck, seeking the warmth of his blood. He hurries off the phone and sits quietly at the dining room table for a moment. May sunshine streams in through the window, and Wilson leans into the warmth. He's cold most of the time, too, all of this part of his anemia. House has proposed iron supplements, but they upset Wilson's stomach. Right now, adding weight is still important. His mother's biscuits call for real, unsalted butter. They'll be a great help.

He sits and thinks about the biscuits and what he'll need from the store to make them -- the butter, for one, and he's not sure there's any more baking powder -- and then he starts to think about the grocery store and the world outside. He hasn't left the condo since coming back from the hospital. House hasn't pushed this; Wilson thinks he may not even have noticed it, yet, or that he may think it has to do with Wilson's physical difficulties. Maybe it is that, some, maybe it is that it takes so much energy to walk across the room, but it's also that he doesn't want to leave. He is comfortable just where he is. The reason he doesn't think about his attackers anymore is that he feels safe here, with the door double locked and House always around. The condo is enormous, really, two bedrooms, a living room, two bathrooms, a whole kitchen and dining room. Wilson can sit in any of these rooms for hours and not be bothered. 

Sometimes, he still fades back into the cell. If it gets too quiet, or too still, if he feels too alone, if he gets too cold, sometimes, things get a little blurry. It's not every day, anymore, but every once in a while. The world closes in, and he has to do what he did in the cell: find the corner and keep his back pressed to two walls at once. From there, he feels the comfort of seeing the widest space possible in front of him. Sometimes that's enough, just being reminded that he's back in the world. And sometimes, like today, it has the opposite effect. Everything is overwhelming and troubling, and even the six chairs at the dining table are chaos, and the rumbles from the street beyond are too loud, and he has to duck his head and tuck back inside of himself for a while. He doesn't miss the cell, not at all, not really, except for in these moments when he thinks the world is too big and too much and too soon.

---

House comes home from work a little early, 4:30. He walks in but doesn't call for Wilson -- he's often napping at this time of day, and House doesn't want to disturb him. Wilson is still recovering, after all, and rest is important. House throws his jacket over an armchair and walks past both bedrooms, checks both bathrooms. No sign of Wilson. His heart picks up, just a little, and he goes back to the living room. No Wilson. No Wilson in the kitchen, either, though House sees the cordless phone lying on the counter, next to a piece of paper with Wilson's scratchy handwriting. And then, he sees Wilson, scrunched up in the corner of the dining room, his head bowed on his knees. There's a chair pulled out from the table, but nothing else in the room is out of place. No scary monsters; no men with knives or guns. 

"Hey," he says, kind of loud, and Wilson jerks, just slightly. He looks at House as though across a great distance. Wilson is still wearing the sweats he'd worn that morning to breakfast. "Wilson, what are you doing down there?"

His eyes widen, a little, and House watches him surfacing. "What?" he says. His voice is thin, high, barely a whisper.

"What are you doing?"

Wilson flinches, rubs his face. He looks small and afraid. Afraid of House, probably, towering over him as he is, but House can't back off. He stares, steps closer, barely fights the urge to nudge Wilson with his foot. He has to snap out of this. "Wilson?"

"I was -- cold," Wilson says. He turns, a little, so that he's almost facing the wall, and stretches his legs out, slowly. He winces and rubs his calf.

So it's been a while, House thinks. "How long have you been down there?"

"I don't know," Wilson says. "Since I got off the phone."

House picks up the phone. The last call was at 11:02 a.m. "You've been sitting on the floor staring at nothing for the last five hours."

Wilson turns and gapes. "Have I?" The fear returns to his eyes, though not of House this time: probably directed at himself. 

House holds out his hand, and Wilson takes it and stands up; House nearly pulls him over, he's so light. He's also unstable on his feet. "Dizzy?" House asks.

"My leg is numb," Wilson murmurs. His hand moves, catches House's forearm, like he's steadying himself. House knows better. He's seen Wilson wake from nightmares a couple of times since he's been back, and it's always like this: Wilson clings harder than even his usual clinging. It's normal, it's to be expected. House doesn't mind it, because he has an irrational desire to have Wilson closer. Maybe it's because every time, it's like getting Wilson back; maybe it's because, every time, he's worried that Wilson won't come back, that something has gone wrong.

"Couch?" House suggests. Wilson nods. He keeps his hand on House's arm, and when House sits down Wilson sits very close. House can hear his rushed breathing. "You want to tell me what happened?" Wilson shrugs. His eyes are closed and his hands are tucked into his sleeves. "Come on. You want to talk about it."

Wilson frowns. "You want me to talk about it?" he asks. "You care?"

"It's medically relevant," House says.

Wilson nods, after a second. He pushes his hands together, within their sleeves. "I was on the phone," he says. 

"With who?"

"My mom."

House makes a note to call Mrs. Wilson in the morning, find out exactly what went down. Medically relevant, after all. "She called?"

"I called her. I wanted a recipe for biscuits."

This is a big step, Wilson using the phone, but House can't make a big deal of it because Wilson's head is bowed so low his chin is almost on his chest. House nudges him. "And then," he prompts.

Wilson shrugs. "And we hung up. And -- I was tired. I sat down."

"On the floor?"

"No, at the table. And -- it was bright." As he says the last, his voice goes up, just slightly. "I don't know why that bothered me, but it was so bright. And I was cold, and -- everything was too much, all of the sudden. I just -- " He pauses, just at the moment that House wants to hear more. House shifts, and the brush of his elbow seems to remind Wilson to continute. "I wanted it to stop."

House clears his throat. Stop, he thinks, and his stomach turns. He watches Wilson's shoulders rise and fall with his breath. "I need to know," he says, his voice going low, "if you're suicidal. You have to tell me."

"No," Wilson says. It takes him a moment. "I don't think so. I don't think about -- that."

"What do you think about?"

"I don't know," Wilson says. "Nothing."

"But you want things to stop."

"God, yes," Wilson says, and he puts his head in his hands.

House's arm feels heavy, awkward, as he lifts it, but he does it anyway, and he puts it around Wilson's shoulders and Wilson presses in against him so fast it's like he was expecting it. He's crying, House can feel that, and it makes him feel sick to his stomach. "Wilson?" he says, quietly. "Jesus, Wilson."

"Sorry," Wilson says. His hands are clenched in House's shirt, against his ribs, and House's arm is trailing down his back, a straight line next to his bumpy spine. He is shivering and sobbing, and House doesn't know how they got here, to this moment, or how they can get out of it. He's been so sure that Wilson is getting better, but things can come out of nowhere. That's always the truth in medicine.

"I don't know how to help you," House admits. It takes everything out of him, to admit this. To say that he doesn't know the cure, that he can't see a solution, that he wouldn't be able to follow the map even if he had one. 

"It's OK," Wilson murmurs. He stays close. "I'll be OK, I think I'll be OK."

House closes his eyes. He thinks, you are a doctor. What are you missing? But it's not a case, it's Wilson, close against his side, Wilson whose breath is warm and too wet, Wilson who is thin and shivering and still spending part of his time living in a cement cell. House clears his throat. There's only one thing to do, then: basic medicine. Treat the symptoms. "We can get you some anti-anxiety medication," he says. Wilson nods, his head falling finally to House's shoulder. "I'll figure this out," House whispers, talking to himself.

"How?" Wilson asks. It's the old Wilson and the new all at once, the helpful and the helpless. House tips his head to the side and his cheek rests on top of Wilson's head, and he hopes this closeness can be an answer, for Wilson. It's not enough for House, but it's all he has to offer.

Chapter 7

Ten Weeks Back

House prescribes Xanax and Wilson takes it. It makes him dizzy for two days but he keeps taking it, makes sure he always takes it in front of House. House stays home from work for the rest of the week, just two days, and keeps watching him with wide eyes. It's not his usual curiosity but something more fragile and fearful, so Wilson works very hard to act like the medication is making a difference. He's not sure that it is, but he wants it to work. Living with a little less anxiety sounds great.

On Monday Wilson tells House to go back to work and House does. He calls once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and both times he complains about his staff and the food at the hospital and Cuddy's interference in his business. Wilson knows he's just checking in and he appreciates it. House does the same thing the next morning, but at lunch he calls and says, "I just had a call from the district attorney's office. They want to send someone over to talk to you."

"Oh," Wilson says. "When?"

"This afternoon," House says. "Do you want me to come home?"

"No," Wilson says, though he does, really. But House has just gone back to work, and he has a patient. Wilson can sense that he's getting tired of holding Wilson's hand. "It's fine."

"Because I can."

Wilson smiles, just a little. "Enjoy your clinic hours."

He hangs up and takes a shower and shaves. He hasn't seen anyone but House for a while, now; Cameron's visit never materialized, and Wilson has a feeling House is holding everyone else off. That's fine, actually, Wilson appreciates it. He changes into a T-shirt and a sweatshirt and a pair of track pants that he finds in House's closet. They're a little loose on him. He can't really believe that House's clothes are too big for him.

The woman arrives at 2 and she shows Wilson her DA badge before he lets her in. Her name is Katrina Kennison, and she's slender and blonde and two years ago Wilson would have hit on her. Now, he shows her to the living room and offers her a cup of coffee, which she accepts, and then sits in the armchair, as far away from her as he can be.

"So," she says, "I wanted to talk about the trial."

Wilson holds his tea in both hands, warming his fingers. All he knows is what House has told him: that the kidnappers were all arrested at the same time Wilson was found, that they've all been in custody since then. "I'll have to testify?"

"Actually, that's why I'm here. The statement you gave to the F.B.I. has been passed to us, and the Hallorans have asked to make a deal. We're going to plead them out."

"Out?" Wilson says, his voice softer than he intended.

She explains the plea deal slowly: one of the brothers' girlfriends has turned state's evidence, and with her statement and Wilson's, they have an air-tight case for attempted murder, aggravated kidnapping, and a few other things that have nothing to do with Wilson. "They were facing life," she says. "That tends to make people talk."

The new deal will put them all behind bars for at least 25 years. "And Dr. House has volunteered to show up at their parole hearings, so I can't imagine there's much chance of early release," she says.

Wilson nods. His tea has cooled, and he sets the cup on the coffee table. "So -- what do you need from me?" he asks.

"Actually, just your signature," Katrina says. She pulls a folder out of her briefcase and slides it across the coffee table, flips it open. There's a neatly typed form with an official-looking State of New Jersey stamp across the top. "This is the transcription of the statement you gave to Agent Bettes. I just need you to read over it and see if there's anything you're not comfortable with, or anything you'd like to add."

"It's fine," Wilson says, not looking at the statement. "It was all true."

She nods. "Take your time, Dr. Wilson," she says.

He looks at the paper and lets his eyes unfocus, traces his fingers across the blurred lines so it looks like he's reading. His eyes catch anyway on a few words, "cement" and "cell" and "starved" and "alone."

"Yep," he says after a moment, "looks good." He accepts a pen from her and signs his name across the bottom, on three different copies. She offers to fax him a copy for himself, and Wilson says she can send it to House's office because he doesn't know the home number. 

"Thank you, again," she says, standing.

"Of course," he says. "Anything I can do to help."

Katrina smiles. "You look much better," she says, and Wilson tries his best to smile back. He sees her to the door. When she's gone, he feels very, very alone. He checks the locks on the door, then goes into the bathroom and locks the door there, too. He thinks of calling House, asking him to come home, but he can't think of why that would make sense. Everything is fine, he tells himself. They're gone, they can't hurt him. Twenty-five years is a long, long time. And a lot can happen over twenty-five years in prison. Just look what can happen in a year.

He splashes water on his face and then looks at his own eyes. Clear enough, not red. His pulse is even when he checks it. Maybe the fact that he isn't curled up on the dining room floor is a victory for the Xanax. Maybe things are getting better.

He goes back to the living room and sits on the couch, flips on the television and tries to find something completely bland. Food TV fits the bill, and he watches a cake marathon for hours, with a blanket wrapped around him. The phone rings in the afternoon, but he doesn't answer; House will think he's napping.

When the door opens, Wilson flinches hard, and he's on his feet within seconds, the blanket clutched around his shoulders. House walks in, looking at the mail. He looks up. "Hello," he says.

Wilson swallows, with some difficulty. "Uh, hey," he says.

House sits on the couch, just where Katrina sat before. Her mug is still on the table; Wilson forgot to clear it. He feels awkward, standing while House sits, but he's jumpy, he can't make himself settle down again. "How'd the meeting go?"

"Fine," Wilson says. "You knew they made a deal?"

House nods. Wilson finds himself nodding back. "They'll all be at least 55 by the time they get out," he says. "Older, if the parole board can be made to see reason."

Wilson has a flash, suddenly, of House going to the parole board every year, of him putting up pictures of Wilson during his hospital stay, reading his chart, talking about him to these strangers. He imagines House telling them why these men deserve to stay in prison.

"You all right?" House asks.

It's hard, but Wilson manages to swallow. He's sure his face is showing things he'd rather it didn't, but he focuses, instead, on keeping his breathing even. "Yeah," he says, nodding.

It's weird to hear House even ask the question, but this is how they function, now. House takes care of him. They aren't really friends, at this point; it's not quite a doctor-patient relationship, but it's certainly not what they used to have, either. "They deserved life," House says, looking down at the mail in his hands.

Wilson can't reply; he can't even move quite yet. He thinks he should sit next to House, maybe, try to calm down. How has he gotten here, though, where House feels like comfort? He remembers Katrina saying the men were facing life, for the things they'd done, and he thinks, it's just like murder, it's like they've killed me.

"Junk," House says. He puts the mail down on the coffee table and gets up, the mug in hand. He starts for the kitchen. "You want a drink?"

Wilson can't answer. His throat is tight. He's going to cry. Even after two months, he recognizes the symptoms. He drops the blanket, turns, quickly, and walks to the bathroom, shuts the door, grips the sink. Fuck, he thinks, bending over it. 

He hears a tap on the door. "Wilson?"

"Fine," he says. He drags his sleeve across his face and reaches over, flushes the toilet for effect. He washes his hands on autopilot. No way he can go out and face House, not like this. House is too worried as it is. He turns on the shower and takes off his shirt and pants, then sits on the edge of the tub and watches the water run. He thinks about eating take-out with House, sitting on the couch and laughing; he thinks about how House used to tease him about being too dressed up all the time; he thinks about how tired House looks and how tired Wilson feels, now, how it's like sharing a house with a stranger because they both seem to be frightened of the other's reactions to everything. He thinks about being alone, again. Cement, cell, starved. He ducks his head and sees his thin legs and the crying starts, hard, heavy, nearly-silent crying, the kind that makes his stomach hurt. It's been two months and he should be getting better, but he's not going to gain all of the weight back and he's not going to get back to where he was with House. He's not getting his job back. He's not getting his life back. Every few minutes, it feels like something else happens to shake him up. There will never again be a stable, steady, safe moment. Maybe there never were stable moments, but now he knows the difference and it's impossible to think that worry, that awareness, will ever go away.

When he can breathe, again, when his head hurts and he feels dry, even in the steamy room, he ducks his head under the spray and rubs soap over his forearms, hoping the smell will be enough to fool House. He dries off, then wipes the mirror and looks at himself. His face is red, but it could be the steam. 

He opens the door. The television is singing in the living room, and Wilson turns in that direction but feels a quick, unexpected wave of sadness and instead crosses to his bedroom. He doesn't close the door, because that would look suspicious. His pajamas are draped over the dresser, and he puts them on automatically. He sits on the bed. OK, OK, he thinks, you're OK. His voice in his own head is soothing. He listens to the sound of House snorting at something on TV, and that's soothing, too. He tips onto his side, his eyes open, still listening, and tries taking deep breaths and thinking of nothing.

The bed dips and Wilson realizes he fell asleep. He turns and sees House settling in beside him. His stomach flops. House is eating something from a bowl. "Go away," Wilson murmurs, rolling back to his side.

"Nope." 

He hears the television turn on and sighs. He tries to touch his eyes surreptitiously, feeling for swelling around the lids, any sign of crying. Seems clear. He may have been sleeping for a while. He rolls on to his back, then sits up next to House. He's eating cereal, a brown milky mush in his bowl. "What time is it?"

"Eight something," House says. "You slept through dinner."

"You seem to be surviving."

House grumbles and eats another spoonful. 

Wilson leans his head back against the headboard. He says, "Why do you think they deserve life?"

House's spoon clanks against the bowl, and Wilson watches him take a bite and swallow. "Because I will never get over this," House says. "And neither should they."

Wilson opens his mouth, then closes it. He looks away, down at the bedspread, at his own thin fingers. He's cold, he's tired, and he knows what House isn't saying, that Wilson will never get over this, either. "Would you mind staying in here, tonight?" Wilson asks.

House nods. "I was lonely, anyway," he says. It comes too easy and feels like pity, but Wilson decides he won't care, for once; he'll take House's kindness in stride.

---

After two weeks on the anti-anxiety meds, Wilson has a good day. When House wakes up, Wilson is already cooking breakfast, and there's no sign that he's been in House's bed. House pokes his head into the kitchen and Wilson smiles, and it's a big broad Old Wilson grin. He's wearing jeans and a T-shirt instead of pajamas, and he's clean shaven and showered. He looks like stick figure, still, but he also looks like himself. "Morning, sunshine," he says. "You want pancakes?"

He does. They eat breakfast and House gets ready for the day. It's Saturday, and House has no patients, but he'd told Wilson the night before that he might have to go in to work. Sometimes he needs to get away. He checks Wilson's Xanax bottle and makes sure the appropriate number of pills are missing, then finishes brushing his teeth.

Wilson is watching television, something where people are buying and selling houses. "Oh, you idiot," Wilson says to the television, "they don't care about the trim." House decides he probably doesn't need to stop by the office. He sits on the couch with Wilson for a while, watching stupid weekend TV and half-heartedly sorting through their bills. It's nice. It's relaxing.

After a while, Wilson gets up and starts puttering around, organizing things. He picks up House's shirt from the back of the living room armchair.

"It's so hard for you to find your way to the hamper?"

"I'm just making sure you have something to do," House says.

Wilson shakes his head. He's annoyed, not apologetic. House is grateful. "What do you want for lunch?" he asks. "There's turkey left from last night."

"No more turkey," House says. He rubs his stomach. "If I get any more tryptophan in my system, I'll go into a coma."

"There's more spaghetti sauce, too."

"Huh-uh. No more leftovers." House decides to start an argument he won't win. "Remember waiters? I think that's what I want. A waiter -- maybe a waiter with a burrito."

Wilson puts his hands on his hips. "Fine," he says, "if you want to go out, let's go out."

House grabs his jacket and almost sprints to the door, before Wilson can change his mind. He doesn't ask if Wilson is sure; he doesn't offer any escape, just tosses Wilson his jacket and waits with the front door open. And Wilson follows him, like it is the most natural thing in the world, like they go out all the time. In reality, he's only left the house once in the last two and a half months -- a week ago, when he'd gone with House to the hospital on a Sunday afternoon to have blood drawn, to make sure his potassium levels are OK and to check on his anemia. House had slipped him a valium before that trip, just to make it easier on them both.

"So where do you want to go?" he asks, locking the place up.

"You're the one whining," Wilson says. "You decide." He stays close to House as they walk to the car, but not so close that House is worried.

In the car, House decides he really does want Mexican, and Wilson says that sounds fine. They go to Manny's, which is small and not very busy at that time of day, and House gets a big burrito and a margarita, and after a moment's pause, so does Wilson. They haven't done any drinking since Wilson's been back, and House does a quick mental scan of Wilson's medication interaction warnings. He should be fine.

He's lost so much weight, though, that House can see the alcohol hits him fast. When they get up to leave, Wilson stumbles, just slightly, and grabs House's arm to steady himself. "Lightweight," House mutters, and Wilson grins.

Outside, Wilson keeps his hand on House's arm as they walk to the car but lets him go when they get inside. "Buy me some ice cream," Wilson says, resting his head on the seat back, looking beautifully relaxed.

What Wilson wants, House decides, Wilson gets. He drives through an ice cream place, gets Wilson a hot caramel sundae with cashews and a peanut butter shake for himself. He drives around, aimless, just swinging down various thoroughfares until he finds a route that leads them home. It's nice to be out. When he pulls into the parking garage at his complex, Wilson is bent over his sundae, trying to coax the sticky caramel up from the bottom with his plastic spoon. He looks over at House and laughs. "Better than leftovers," he says, grinning big and wide. "I haven't had ice cream in so long."

House wants to respond, wants to say something funny and sharp, but all he can do is smile back, because he's so fucking glad to see Wilson. So when Wilson sets his sundae down in the cup holder between the seats, and then leans over and kisses House on the mouth, it feels OK. For just a moment, they're both there, in the kiss, and then House thinks drunk and whoa and new Wilson all at the same time and he pulls back.

"What are you -"

"I haven't kissed anyone in almost two years," Wilson says. He touches his mouth, and House looks away. "I'm sorry," he says after a minute.

House isn't sure what, exactly, Wilson is sorry for, but he doesn't want to quiz him on it. He doesn't want to know. "It's fine," he says. "Two years, that'll mess a guy up."

"Hmm."

It's probably the alcohol, and the sugar, the new medication and the first trip out. It's probably nothing, House thinks. It's just another way of Wilson seeking comfort. So what if House's body responded? Maybe, maybe with Old Wilson this would have been OK, but New Wilson -- House can't think about it more. It's like taking advantage. He grabs the door handle and lurches out of the car; his leg holds his weight, and that feels strange.

They go back inside and back to the couch. House talks like it never happened. He says he'll have to go into the office tomorrow, since he didn't go today. He thinks about leaving now. Wilson sits close as they watch TV but that's probably just habit, now; he doesn't seem timid or frightened or needy. House lets himself relax, lets his guard slip. They joke like they always have, and when it's time to go to bed Wilson gets up first and goes, on his own, down the dark hallway. He certainly doesn't try to kiss House again. And that's good, because House isn't sure what would happen if he did try, if Wilson said this was what he wanted, if Wilson -- the Old Wilson -- were asking House for more, like this, more than friendship. He learned to live with what ifs while Wilson was gone -- he can probably handle one more now that he's back.

The next morning, House wakes up when Wilson climbs into bed next to him. Wilson is shaking, just a little. "Nightmare?" House asks.

"Sorry," Wilson murmurs, in his tiny quiet voice. House sighs and turns on his side so he's facing Wilson. Wilson's eyes are closed, his face pale against House's dark pillowcase. He has his hands tucked up under his chin.

"You could just stay in here at night," House mutters, and Wilson's eyes open just slightly, then close again. House watches him for a moment more, then glances at the clock -- 5:20 -- and decides to get more sleep. He can deal with New Wilson in the morning.

When he wakes up to the alarm, he can tell Wilson is wide awake next to him. House shuts off the clock and stares at it for a long minute, not quite ready to turn around and see which Wilson will be with him. Finally he rolls onto his back and glances over and sees Wilson giving him a curious stare. "What?" he asks.

Wilson shakes his head, and then smiles, just a little. He's leaning on one elbow, and then suddenly he's leaning very close to House, and then he kisses House again.

House isn't sure what to do, but his body has ideas, so he latches on, with his mouth and then his hands, and within a minute he has Wilson on his back and Wilson's hands on his chest, his shoulders. "What," House says, but Wilson leans up and kisses him again, and House decides that what Wilson wants, Wilson gets is still a very good policy. Right now, Wilson seems to want him, with some urgency; he can feel Wilson's hard-on against his thigh, and he rocks forward slightly so Wilson can feel his. That earns a groan that House tastes, and they rock and kiss and rock until Wilson puts one of his hands between them and rubs himself, and House decides to do the same, and then they switch, House's hand on Wilson's erection, and then they both come.

When House pulls his head back from Wilson's shoulder, he looks down to see which Wilson this will be. He can't tell; it's both, it's neither. It's a new Wilson altogether, this Wilson they found. "I can stay here?" Wilson asks.

"Yeah," House says, rolling on to his back. Wilson keeps his hand on House's arm. "OK."


Three Months Back

Cuddy goes to House's place -- House and Wilson's place -- on a Tuesday morning, when she knows House is tied up with a patient. She knows Wilson knows this, too, which makes the invitation all the more interesting. He opens the door before she knocks. "Hi," he says, letting her in.

The apartment is immaculately clean -- all Wilson's doing, she's sure. Wilson looks very neat this morning, too: he's wearing tan cotton slacks and a nice brown sweater with a tee underneath. The fit of the clothes is good, which means they must be new. He doesn't look as desperately thin, anymore; he doesn't look healthy yet, either, but she thinks that's just the overlay of what he used to look like. And, maybe, it's an awareness of how he holds himself, now, how he bends his shoulders forward when he sits, how he keeps his hands drawn in close. It's only been three months. She should be surprised to find him standing. "How are you?" she asks, settling on the couch.

"Eh," he says, and shrugs. He takes a seat in the armchair. "How are you? Busy?"

She nods. That's easy. She's always busy. There's no seasonal difference, really, though right now things are a little crazier as the end of the fiscal year is a approaching. They chat about this, about other stupid hospital gossip, about his parents -- who she's met -- and hers, who he's never seen. They talk like people who barely know each other, and people who desperately want to. She hasn't seen him recently, not since he left the hospital, and it only just occurs to her that maybe House hasn't been completely honest about Wilson's desire to be left alone. Maybe he thinks she's been flat-out avoiding him. She can't think of a way to ask that won't sound self-excusing. "I'm glad you e-mailed," she says. "I've been wanting to come by."

He smiles and tips his head, slightly, toward the back of the condo, as though House is there. "He's been guarding my privacy," he says. "If this doctor thing doesn't work out, I really think he may have a promising career as some kind of bouncer." Cuddy laughs. It feels good to laugh with Wilson, even if her laughter seems to echo and bounce off the hard, clean walls. "And he thinks I probably have a solid start on a career in homemaking. Which, speaking of, I'm a terrible host. Out of practice. Can I get you a drink? Coffee?"

"Coffee would be great."

Wilson hurries to the kitchen, and his movements are so quick and sure that Cuddy feels relief. He's not unsteady, he's not brittle or fragile. He's settled in. He's getting better. She gets up to go to the bathroom while he makes the coffee, and on her way back she stops and peeks in at his room. Everything is neat inside, almost exactly as it was when she'd helped House decorate. There's a book on the bedside table, now, and a pair of slippers lined up neatly on the rug by the bed. The curtains are open, letting in the light. It's a nice room, warm, and it makes her smile, makes her feel better. House is taking good care of him. 

Wilson brings a mug for her and a cup of juice for himself. When he sits down, Cuddy feels like the real discussion needs to start.

"We're replacing Gerner in Anesthesiology," she says. She says it carefully, wanting him to take the bait. She wants to know whether this meeting he's called is going to be about the hospital, about his coming back to work. That's what she's prepared for.

"Yeah, House said that," Wilson says. 

"I'm sure he keeps you up to date on the hospital gossip."

Wilson nods. "He also seems to think I should be pestering you about giving me my job back." Cuddy doesn't move, though her stomach flips. She's ready for this. Really. Wilson has always been good about seeing logic. Wilson smirks. "I don't want my job back, Lisa," he says.

"You - what?" She leans forward.

"I'm not up to running that department. Not now. Maybe, I don't know." He looks down at his hands, and so she does, too. His fingers are thin and pale.

"Not now," she prompts. For all her prepared arguments, she feels a flutter of disappointment, of discomfort, at the idea of Wilson just giving up. This will make her life easier, but the price suddenly seems very high. "But -- at some point?" 

He shrugs. "Maybe not for a long while."

"You still want to come back, though," she says. How can there be any other answer than this? she thinks, but when he looks up, she sees grim exhaustion on his face. "Wilson?"

"It takes everything I have just to get up in the morning, sometimes." He says it quietly, but firmly. His hands curl around his glass, and she wonders if they're shaking. "Which is actually what I wanted to talk to you about."

She takes a slow breath. "You think -- are you having trouble? Anxiety?" she asks. PTSD, depression, panic disorder, agoraphobia -- she can think of half a dozen other things that could be bothering him.

"Yeah," he says. "House has me on Xanax, but that's treating the symptoms. I'm -- I'm kind of fucked up," he says. The words come out in a rush. It's funny to hear them in Wilson's voice, this same voice that used to be so reliable and confident and strong. "I need a referral."

"Dr. Stone is --"

"No," Wilson says. "No one at Princeton. I mean, aside from the intra-hospital weirdness, I just -- there's a reason you're here while he isn't." He looks up, his mouth a thin line. "You know?"

She nods. She's heard hints from Stacy of what exactly Wilson might fear. "I'll check with Statler, see who's good over at PG."

"Thank you." He shakes his head. "I'm sorry to lay this on you," he says. "I didn't know who else to ask."

"Hey, we're friends," she says. "It's what friends do." He nods. "You know I'm happy to help. I've been feeling bad, House has been bearing the brunt -" she stops, realizing what she's said as surprise, and amusement, flicker across Wilson's face.

"The brunt of looking after me," he says.

"Well," she says, and she shrugs. "He missed you so much," she says. "While you were gone --"

"We don't really talk about it," he says, almost demurring, but Cuddy suddenly wants him to know. She's seen these two through so many rough patches in the past, she's seen Wilson bend over backward for House, and she wants him to know, really, how deeply House cares.

"He was -- lost," she says. "I thought we'd maybe lost you both, for a while."

Wilson ducks his head. "You know," he says, "he could probably use someone to talk to, as well."

Cuddy laughs. "He's House," she says. "He could use any number of things."

"I think I've messed him up, a little."

She shakes her head. If he could have seen House, if he could have understood the lows, the desperation in his eyes, the anger twitching under his skin, he would get it. House is better with Wilson. Wilson is the cure. "Actually, he seems happier, recently," she says. "You shouldn't worry about him. He takes care of himself. He always has."

"Yeah," Wilson says. He rubs his own neck.

"Seriously," Cuddy says. "Please don't worry about House."

"I know." Wilson sips his juice, and Cuddy leans back in her chair. 

It's so Wilson, she thinks, to worry about House when it's Wilson who's falling apart. It would be heartening if it weren't so troubling. "None of this is your fault," she says.

"Oh, some of it is," he says, but in a very low voice. She's not sure she was supposed to hear it.

"Wilson -"

He shakes his head. "It's fine," he says. "Anyway. Thank you, for helping me. I appreciate it."

They make small talk again until she's finished her coffee, and then she has to go. She has an appointment at 11. Wilson sees her to the door, and standing there, she hugs him. He doesn't feel brittle, just shrunken, under her arms. "I want you to come back," she says. "However you want to. I miss you."

He nods against her shoulder. "Thank you, Lisa. Really."

As the door closes, she hears the locks slide. She feels better about that, too. Knowing Wilson is safe means more than it used to. She feels a rush of gratefulness, like she should take House out to dinner and apologize for all of the accusations of selfishness she's made over the years. Instead, she'll do what she can to help him, to help them both: she'll make the call to Statler on the way to the hospital. 



Four Months Back

House comes home from the hospital and finds Wilson sitting at the dining room table, reading a magazine and drinking orange juice. He can't get enough orange juice. House drops his jacket over a chair and walks over, takes a seat next to Wilson at the table. The chairs are hard.

"We have a couch," he says. "Two of them, actually."

Wilson nods. It looks like an absent nod, just acknowledgement, but House catches the slight lowering of Wilson's eyelids. Things are getting better, though; he doesn't take everything as an admonishment. He's stopped apologizing all the time. This may be the work of the therapist that Wilson's been seeing, that he thinks House doesn't know about. House knows, of course, but not as much as he'd like.

When Wilson looks up, he has a smile that's almost believable. "How was your day?"

House tells him about his current war with radiology, and Wilson's smile stays fixed. When House pauses, he closes the magazine, very carefully, and tucks his hands under the table. "I'm sure you'll win," he says, his eyes focused somewhere to House's left.

House stares at Wilson until Wilson's eyes flicker toward his face, and he watches as Wilson immediately flinches back from that contact. He sees Wilson's shoulders tense under his sweatshirt, and he thinks, I should have stayed later. House puts his head down on the table. He's tired of everything being so fragile, between them, of never knowing when it's going to be a good day or a bad one. He wants to know more about Wilson's therapist so he can find the guy and beat the crap out of him, because things aren't better. There are more bad days, now, than there have been in weeks, more nightmares, more moments with tears. Wilson has been back with them for four months. Things should be better.

"House?" Wilson says after a moment. His voice is soft, not a voice House should be mad at, except he is because Wilson, the Wilson of old, would have never been so tentative.

"I feel like I should bring you cookies and milk and a puppy every day," he says.

He hears Wilson moving but he doesn't look up. The radio is playing in the kitchen, so quietly that House can't even make out the tune, just that there's a soft hum of background noise. Wilson's fingers rest softly on his head. House stays still, and so the fingers start to move, stroking, softly, across his scalp, and then down to his neck, just careful, feather-light touches. Wilson seems to be trying to soothe him. House turns his head, finally, and sees Wilson's eyes widen. He catches Wilson's hand before it can move completely away.

"It's OK," House says, holding Wilson's hand to his own neck. Wilson's fingers are like ice. "I'm OK."

Wilson nods. He looks House in the eye and holds the look, and then he blinks, and closes his eyes, and leans in. He kisses House's temple, and then presses his face against House's neck. House puts his arm around Wilson's back, and it's a precarious position but it seems to be what Wilson wants and House doesn't mind. "What would I do with a puppy?" Wilson asks, and House smiles. "Let's go to bed," Wilson murmurs, his lips moving against the skin just behind House's ear.

House turns, so that Wilson has to pull back just a bit. They have sex every few days. It's mostly when Wilson asks for it; House understands this for what it is, some kind of Wilson coping mechanism. He's not sure what it says about him that he accepts it so readily -- oh, fine, yes, he's completely sure what it says about him. He wants Wilson. He wants Wilson well, he wants Wilson back, he wants Wilson beside him in the bed. He missed him for a year and he's taking what he can, now, everything Wilson will offer him, and he keeps hoping it will fill the holes in both of them.

"You really want -?"

"No," Wilson says, "I want to talk."

He says so little, anymore, that when he does speak, and when he sounds like himself, House is jarred. It takes him a moment to nod, and then another moment to stand up. He lets Wilson take the lead, follows him through the kitchen and down the hall to the bedroom, stopping in the bathroom on his way. When he gets out, Wilson is in House's bedroom, already sitting on House's side of the bed, in the place where the covers are still pulled back from the night before. House unbuttons his shirt and tosses it over a chair, then takes off his shoes and sits on the other side. He lays on his back. Again, he lets Wilson take the lead, because sex is great however it happens, and he wants Wilson to get what he needs, here. Wilson turns onto his side and runs his hand up House's chest, then kisses him, and House kisses back and helps Wilson move so that he's straddling House. Wilson unzips House's jeans and pushes them down. House can feel Wilson's ribs when he runs his hands over Wilson's chest, and that almost makes him lose his hard-on but then Wilson pulls back and away and goes down on him. He's good, and it's surprising to House on some level, every time, that Wilson's mouth is so goddamned warm. And as he's working House with his mouth, his fingers slide a little lower, and House thinks, OK, and then he says it. Wilson looks up, pulls away for a moment, finds the lubricant and then goes back to what he was doing. Multitasking is so Wilson, House thinks, and he grins and then he comes.

Wilson smiles, too, and it's an actual smile with a little tinge of smugness. House would do anything - particularly if it involved having sex every night - to see that smile more often. It is absolutely the Wilson of old who leans up and lays wet kisses up his chest and then on House's mouth. And it's that same Wilson who takes his sweatpants off and pushes House's legs up - he can do this now, thank God - and slides into him. It hurts a little and he probably won't come a second time but it still feels good and watching Wilson's face is fucking great, it's everything House wants. Wilson looks hungry and raw and needy, but this time in a way that House can fix. "Come on," he growls, his hands tight on Wilson's shoulders. "So fucking good."

Wilson grunts and presses his mouth against House's, kisses him, and House holds Wilson's face close to his and looks him right in the eyes. "Wilson," he says, "all the time, always want --" and Wilson's eyes widen and then close and he shudders and comes.

Afterward, House lets Wilson cling, Wilson's head pressed into his neck, both of Wilson's arms tight around his chest, the blankets pulled up over them both. He doesn't say anything about the sweatshirt having stayed on, but he does rub his hand up Wilson's spine, feeling every bump, checking him in a way that Wilson doesn't allow anymore. He wonders what Wilson's therapist has to say about this. His hand pauses at the small of Wilson's back, where there's softness, a little bit of flesh. He's fine, he's getting better. House actually says this, softly, his lips in Wilson's hair. Wilson doesn't respond, and he might be asleep. That's what House hopes for.

Chapter 8

Five Months Back

Wilson takes a cab from the mental health center at PG to Princeton-Plainsboro. Cabs work for him; driving doesn't. He feels too exposed in his own car, because driving requires parking and parking requires a long walk across the dead space of the parking lot. Cabs, on the other hand, take him neatly from one door to the other. And in a cab, Wilson can sit in the back seat with one hand on the door knob and the other on his cell phone, ready to dive out or call for help. He won't be fooled again.

At Princeton-Plainsboro, he walks in the visitors' entrance and keeps his head down, takes the stairs up to the third floor. He's been here on the weekends recently with House, but never during the day like this. His therapist has been encouraging him to take some bigger steps, so here he is. It's been five months; nearly half a year. It doesn't seem like that long, because the memories from the cell are still so present -- more so since he's been seeing Dr. Baker -- but the fact that he's climbing the stairs on his own is a good sign. He clears his throat and pushes the stairwell door open, and he's back on his floor.

Only it's not his floor, anymore. He tries not to look over at his old office door, but he can't help it. ERICA CHEN, M.D. -- Oncology. He doesn't pause, because he doesn't want to be caught staring and because he wants to believe that his name has left an impression, that there's still a shadowy trace of JAMES WILSON, M.D. on the door.

He thinks, sometimes, that there are shadowy traces of that James Wilson hiding around many corners. His therapist has been asking about this. "You talk about yourself almost like you're two different people," he'd said that afternoon. "Why?"

The easy answer is the truth: he feels like two different people. He feels like the Wilson who used to work in this hospital and he feels like the Wilson who takes the stairs because there are fewer people to face that way. He feels like the Wilson who can make House laugh and the Wilson who makes House work long hours, sometimes, because he doesn't want to come home. He is the Wilson that House sleeps with and the Wilson who makes House tired.

He taps on the glass door of House's office instead of barging in, seeing there are people with House. House opens the door. "Hey," he says. He looks surprised, and maybe worried.

"Are you in the middle of something?" Wilson asks.

"Just finishing up an interview," House says. "Do you need -"

"I can wait," Wilson says. He feels strangely underdressed, in his polo shirt and new jeans. Even on the weekends, before the kidnapping he'd hardly ever come to the hospital in anything less than khaki slacks. He tips his head toward the conference room, and House nods.

"Watch out, Cameron's in there trying to eavesdrop," he says, and Wilson smiles. He wants to reach out and touch him -- press his hand against House's flat, T-shirt-covered stomach, maybe, or plant a kiss on his forehead. Instead he steps back, and House lets the door close. It's funny, this physical thing between them. Wilson keeps expecting it to end. He's waiting for House's pity to run out. Wilson has mentioned it to his therapist, but only in passing, has only said that his best friend has been letting him blow off some physical steam. It's another way in which he feels divided from his old self. These feelings were there, before, but he never acted on them. Now he has, but only under the guise of seeking comfort. House is neither his boyfriend nor his lover; he's doing Wilson a favor, and Wilson is just taking what he can get. Maybe that's a sign of recovery, too.

Cameron stands up when Wilson walks in. "Dr. Wilson!" she says, and before he knows it, he's wrapped in a hug. 

"Hey, Cameron," he says, feebly patting her back. People are generally a little afraid to touch him, now, so this is surprising. She smells like vanilla lotion and antibacterial soap.

"You look good," she says, pulling back. "I mean -- not that you didn't before, but -"

"I've gained about twenty pounds," he says. It's closer to 15. Some days, food sounds good; some days, not so much. But he's getting healthier, he knows this. "House won't let me eat salad."

"Good," she says. "Do you want a muffin?"

"Not you, too," he says. He okays a cup of coffee and takes a seat at the table while she fills two mugs. Through the glass, he can see House staring across his desk at a guy with a crewcut. No way is he getting the job, Wilson thinks, looking at his slick shoes and expensive pants. "He's interviewing alone?"

"For the moment." Cameron sits across from him. She's cut her hair to shoulder-length, and it's curled neatly in at the ends. "Foreman sat in this morning, until he got frustrated, and House won't let Chase or me near them."

Wilson nods. That seems logical to him, though he can't explain precisely why. He takes a sip of the coffee, which is shocking and strong. "How's the interviewing going?" he asks.

Cameron groans. "Every good candidate, he scares away. And the rest -- ugh." She gestures toward a stack of folders on her desk. "I'm supposed to narrow it down for the next round, but it's ridiculous. It's impossible to know what's going to set him off. Plus, we actually have a patient."

Wilson smiles. It's nice to know that some things don't change. "Yeah, I practically had to bribe him to interview you guys."

"I remember that," Cameron says, and Wilson raises an eyebrow. "I mean, I remember you were in on my interview."

"I used to be in on all of them," he says. "Cuddy made a rule, after the near-miss on the lawsuit." Wilson wonders if her List Of Things You Can't Ask, House, I Mean It is still taped to House's desk.

"The -- you know, I don't want to know," Cameron says, shaking her head.

It's nice to see her, Wilson thinks. He's surprised, in a way, that she's stuck it out this long. It's good she's still smiling and fighting the good fight against House. Maybe she's picked up some of the slack for Wilson. He probably owes her.

"Actually," Cameron says, leaning forward with a devious little smirk that he doesn't remember, "would you mind taking a look at some of the applications?"

He sets his coffee mug down. "What?" 

"You know what he wants better than anybody," she says, and Wilson blinks. He wonders, suddenly, how much Cameron might know about him, about him and House, about -- "Really, it'd be doing me such a favor. I --"

"OK," Wilson says, mostly because he can't come up with a reason to say no, and he wants Cameron to stop talking. "I could take a peek through."

Cameron blinks and then nods, fast. "That would be great," she says. "If you don't mind. I mean -- "

"It's fine," Wilson says. When she smiles, it's sincere and he relaxes a little. "It's not like I have anything else to do."

He stays at the hospital for three hours, looking through files in House's office while House and Cameron work on their patient. It's the most time he's spent here (other than as a patient) since he was gone, but it doesn't feel weird. He keeps his head down and the blinds closed and plays music so he can't hear anything from next door. It's nice, actually. He would come back to work tomorrow if this was all it meant, sitting calmly, looking at papers, waiting on House.

Wilson makes notes on good candidates on a piece of legal paper until House and Cameron return. Cameron goes to her desk and House comes in and sits on the edge of his desk. He asks Wilson to take a look at the results from a PET scan, which seems to show conclusively that there's no liver tumor. "Did you ask Chen?" Wilson asks, handing the scan back.

"Why would I do that," House says, "when I have Princeton's best oncologist right here?"

"Best unlicensed oncologist," Wilson says.

"Actually, not true." House reaches over Wilson and opens his bottom desk drawer. He pulls out a hanging file and slides it over. "I had Stacy look into your licensure. There's actually a provision for serious injury or illness, where you can appeal the revocation."

Wilson opens the file. A letter on Princeton-Plainsboro letterhead is at the top. Re: James E. Wilson, M.D., license renewal. "What's --"

"I appealed," House says.

"Without asking me?"

He shrugs. "They just needed a note from your doctor. And I still have power of attorney."

Wilson rolls his eyes. "When I'm incapacitated."

"And according to your doctor, you were."

Wilson closes the file. "So -- wait. I'm current?"

"You need to go to the usual refresher courses by the end of the year, but yeah. The minute you want to start practicing again, you're set." House raises an eyebrow. "Any idea when that minute will be?"

"What's Chen done to you?" he asks, trying to dodge the question. He hasn't thought too much about this, yet; he figured he had time, because re-obtaining his medical license should have taken months.

House shrugs. It's a very small shrug. "She's not you," he says.

Wilson nods. He slides the folder across to House. "Well," he says. "I'll let you know. And in the meantime, if you don't mind, I'm going to help you get a staff." He taps the stack of folders. "This is ridiculous."

House grins. Wilson likes his smile, and he smiles back. "That's my boy."


Six Months Back

Wilson goes in to see Cuddy on a Monday morning. House waits outside. He's not sure, exactly, why he can't go in, but Wilson was firm about it and Wilson being firm is rare enough that it has to be respected. He leans on the reception desk until the receptionist suggests a new, darker place for him to go, and then he walks over and just leans on the glass wall outside Cuddy's office. Finally, Geoffrey, her new assistant, steps out and says, "Dr. House?"

He walks into the main office. Cuddy is sitting on the couch, the couch House sat on to ask about his surgery, and Wilson is sitting in her armchair. They both have slightly devious smirks, which makes the hair stand up on the back of House's neck. "All right, what?"

"You want to sit down?" Cuddy asks.

"I'm just fine."

Wilson's eyes are lit up. Whatever's about to happen, it seems he's going to enjoy it. "Oh, God," House says, looking at Cuddy's amused grin. "You told her, didn't you?"

Wilson blinks. "What?" House watches him click into understanding; his face flushes a brilliant pink. "No! God, House."

House smiles. Never fair to let Wilson have all the fun. "Told me what?" Cuddy says, turning slightly to Wilson.

"Nothing," Wilson says, and House sing-songs the same word back.

"Can we just -" Wilson says, and Cuddy, who's looking between them with growing curiosity, nods.

"House," she says, her voice trying hard for professional, probably, but sounding to House more like barely strangled victorious, "I've been getting some complaints."

He snorts. "There's an easy solution for that," he says. "I could not see patients."

"These complaints are coming from the staff, not the patients," she says. "You're months behind on your paperwork. Your new fellows barely got hired -- two of them will be lucky to get paid until their second month. Your clinic attendance is spotty -- no, spotty implies there are times you engage. Which is not true. Your staff, while growing in size, is also growing in antipathy. In short, you need a keeper."

"Old news," he says, and then he glances at Wilson. "Wait --"

"Yeah," she says, and he sees her look at Wilson, too.

House closes his eyes. He thinks about his new hires: an endocrinologist, because he can't keep running to Cuddy; a cardiologist; and a vascular specialist. No oncologist on board. In fact, he'd turned down three promising candidates simply for having that specialty, because he couldn't see the need for one on staff if he had Wilson at his disposal.

Having Wilson on his team -- it's a good idea. House sees this almost immediately. Wilson is great at all of the administrative bullshit House hates. He's good with people. He's good with fundraising, which could be a real boon. And he's not a bad doctor. "You want to work for me?" he asks, opening his eyes.

"Not for you," Wilson says. He looks up, and his face is perfectly calm, professional. "With you."

House looks back at Cuddy.

"Wilson is a department head without a department," she says. "He and I have both agreed that oncology is probably a little -- large."

"Intense," Wilson says.

"For him right now. But you -- you have an expanding department."

"Am I losing my job?" House asks.

Cuddy grins. "You have tenure," she says. "And I have no desire to make you my enemy, because I don't have the time to check my car for bombs every morning. I'm proposing you -- share."

"Share," House says. The word actually tastes foreign on his tongue.

"With Wilson."

He looks at Wilson. He feels a surge of heat up his spine, the usual anger and righteousness rising, but for Wilson, right now, he can beat that down, because there's something else in the mix: pride, maybe, and desire. If he's going to share with anyone, well. "He gets his old office back," House says.

Cuddy narrows her eyes and looks at Wilson, who shrugs. "Fine," she says.

"OK."

Wilson sits up. "That's it? No -- no argument? No tantrum? No questioning my qualifications, my parentage?"

House rolls his eyes. "I save my arguments for my patients and my tantrums for my underlings. You're overqualified. And I know your parents. I like them better than my own." He shakes his head. "When can you start?"

Wilson stands up and catches House's arm. "Don't do this out of pity," he says.

House looks back at him, down at his hand and then up into his eyes. Cuddy laughs, behind them, and House sees something flicker through Wilson's eyes that makes him uncomfortable. "House doesn't know what sympathy feels like," she says, and House turns away from Wilson to sneer at her. Wilson's hand stays on his arm until House looks down at it pointedly and Wilson draws back. House watches him smooth out his shirt. He's turning back into the old Wilson, he thinks, and he's a little sorry because he knows what that's going to mean.

"Wilson," Cuddy says, "I'll let HR know. Just stop in there next week."

"Thank you." He's talking to Cuddy, not House, though House feels that's misdirected. They walk out to the hall together, and House looks over at Wilson, really looks. Wilson smiles, almost beams, at him. "Lunch?" he asks.

House swallows. Everything is almost back to normal. "Yeah," he says. "That sounds good."

---

Wilson catches a ride home from the hospital with House. He's still pleased at how well the meeting with Cuddy went. He'd expected shouting, or at least some kind of cruelty. Neither Wilson nor Cuddy had really expected him to go for it -- Wilson had been shooting for Associate Director of Diagnostics. That he's getting the full position feels like victory, but also very frightening. Nothing with House comes without cost.

He walks into the living room and takes off his jacket, hangs it in the closet. House has stopped in the middle of the entryway, looking down at the mail. Wilson turns to ask if there's anything good, anything for him, but before he can speak House says, "So, I guess this means we should stop having sex."

Wilson takes a step back. He grabs the closet doorknob with one hand behind his back. "What?"

House shuffles one envelope under the rest. "Working together, living together -- that's probably enough closeness, even for you." He glances over, and his eyes are narrowed. "Right?"

It's hard, but Wilson manages to swallow. He's sure his face is showing things he'd rather it didn't, but he focuses, instead, on keeping his breathing even. "OK," he says, nodding.

He knew it was going to end. House's pity has limits, of course -- and maybe that's why the job was so easy to get. Maybe that was his final grand gesture. He has a second of shuddery regret, and his free hand floats forward, ready to grab House's sleeve, his shoulder, ready to say, I'm sorry, I take it back, please don't end this, but House looks over again and Wilson clenches the hand into a fast, nervous fist and drops it to his side. This is the price? he thinks, and then he can't think about it anymore. He clears his throat. "What do you want for dinner?" Wilson asks.

House shrugs. "Pizza, I guess."

Wilson goes to the phone, to order, but he can't quite pick it up. He stands there, with his hand on the receiver, and takes a few slow breaths. House is in the living room, and Wilson hears the television turn on. He leans against the wall, just his shoulder pressing on the doorframe, and for a moment he focuses just on the slow steady sound of his own breath. Then he looks at the kitchen, really looks, sees everything in its place. He has his hand on the phone. He's going to get dinner tonight, and he's going to sleep in a bed -- his own bed, the bed House bought for him. Maybe the sex is over but he's still safe. It's going to be OK, he tells himself. OK, OK, OK. He says it aloud, quietly, and hearing his own voice makes him feel a little better. He picks up the phone.

They eat quietly in front of the television. Wilson wants to go back to his room, to pull the covers over his head, tuck his hands up under the soft pillow. Healing means working through things, though, not hiding from them. So he sits at the end of the couch and keeps his eyes on the television. For once, House doesn't try to make conversation -- doesn't even try to force it upon him -- and Wilson is grateful. House turns in early, so Wilson does, too. He hasn't slept in his own bed for weeks. He's almost disappointed that he sleeps through the night; a nightmare would have given him a good excuse to climb in beside House.

The next day, after House leaves for work, Wilson takes a cab over to his therapist's office. He's been seeing Baker once a week, but they're going to back down to every other week, now, and Wilson's being weaned from the Xanax. They agree he'll back off to one a day starting next week. He tells Baker he's stopped sleeping with House, and he nods like this is a good idea, and then they talk about Wilson going back to work.

"Just don't do too much too soon," Baker says. "No one expects you to be completely healed yet."

Wilson nods like this is true.

In the afternoon, he goes home and takes a nap. Cuddy calls and Wilson answers the phone on the third ring. "I talked to Chen. The office will be ready for you next week," she says. "Is that too soon?"

"I thought I'd start back on the first," he says. "So that seems fine. I'll go in and get resettled."

"I ordered you a new couch," Cuddy says. "It's nice. I think you'll like it."

"Thanks," Wilson says. He hangs up, thinks about calling House, and decides against it. He skips his evening dose of the Xanax and works on making pizza dough from scratch instead.

House comes home late, but not too late. They eat dinner in the living room, and Wilson isn't sure where to sit. He finally chooses the armchair. Usually, he sits next to House on the couch, and he likes it there -- the view of the television is better, for one, and the closeness to House isn't bad, either. But despite what Baker says, Wilson wants House to think he's all better, and that means no more clinging. It means that if House is done with them being together, Wilson will accept that and move on.

A few times, he catches House looking at him. House has been keeping an eye on him for months, but things have been better recently. Until now. He wants to ask him about it, to find out if he somehow saw Wilson hesitating in the kitchen, but instead, he says, "I'm weaning off the Xanax."

House nods. "Probably a good idea," he says. "Though we should keep some around."

Something about the way he says "we" makes Wilson's throat get a little tight. He clears his throat, but the feeling doesn't go away. Finally, he says, "It's still OK if I stay here, right?"

House looks at him, and Wilson sees a small spark of real fear in his eyes. "This is your home," House says, and Wilson nods, feeling grateful. "I can't kick you out. You own half the stuff." He grunts and turns back to the TV. "The nicer half, I should add."

Wilson smiles. "That's reassuring," he says. It is reassuring, really, to hear House say it. But what Wilson really wants is not just to know that he's welcome in the condo, but that he's welcome in House's bed, and next to him on the couch. That's asking for too much, though. He should be happy with just what he has. 

He goes to his own empty bed that night and pulls all of the blankets over himself, and with the radio playing softly in the background reminds himself that he's almost gotten everything he's wanted. Things are almost exactly back to where they were.

---

House decides not to mention Wilson's return to his staff until it actually happens. It's not that he doesn't think Wilson will come back; Wilson is getting better, he's more and more Wilson-like every day. He just wants to keep them in suspense for as long as possible.

He goes to the clinic on Wednesday morning, two days after Wilson's meeting with Cuddy, and sees ten patients before lunch. Every complaint is average: colds, a slow bronchitis, a broken toe. Nothing exciting. One man complains through the entire appointment about how his wife's cooking is giving him not just heartburn but heartache. They've been married twenty years and the man won't tell her that he can't tolerate her cooking, not at this point. He wants House to fix things or to give him a medical reason not to eat her casseroles. House sends him for an EKG and a stress test and a battery of other cardiac tests just to shut him up. He tells the receptionist to call the man's wife so she can see him through the procedures.

Upstairs, House glances in at Chen's office. Most of her books have been boxed up. She's moving to an office closer to the Oncology Wing, a new space carved out in the latest renovation. It's an office Wilson turned down a few years back. At the time, he'd said he didn't want to be closer to his patients, and House had believed him. Now, he thinks it was probably Wilson's way of keeping an eye on him, and he's grateful for that and for the lie. He understands this protective need.

He's looking forward to Wilson being back at work, or he should be and so he will be, eventually. Right now, though, the idea of Wilson being back in the hospital, of things returning to normal, produces instead an ugly, empty feeling in his stomach. He tells himself he's worried, legitimately, medically concerned about Wilson's readiness to be surrounded by so many others, and about their readiness to be around him. Wilson isn't as fragile as he has been, but there are still clear scars. There are still problems. When he visits the hospital he stays fixed in House's office most of the time; he's loathe to prowl the halls. He doesn't seem to have nightmares anymore, at least not of the violent intensity that he once did. Sometimes, though, in the mornings or late evenings, when Wilson is sleepy and less guarded, House sees him drift into memory, his hands clenching or his eyes fluttering closed. House has been with him every day for six months, and he knows exactly how to treat these moments of returned pain. He's worried that not everyone will be so well prepared, and he's worried about what it will do to Wilson to realize that House has been treating him so gently for all this time.

Wilson isn't nearly so healed as even Wilson thinks. That's what has House worried. He's doing all he can, though. He's stopped the sex, because it was time, and because he can see that Wilson doesn't really need that comfort anymore. The closer to fine that Wilson gets, the less he'll need House, and that should be comforting. That's something else he should be looking forward to.

Cuddy pages him that afternoon, and so he goes to her office instead of staying in his own, staring at the phone, not calling to check in on Wilson. "Two thousand dollars to prove the guy shouldn't eat so many onions?" she asks, her arms crossed.

House shrugs. He opens his mouth to tell her what a jackass the guy was, what an ungrateful and dishonest partner he is to his wife, and instead what he says is, "I had sex with Wilson."

Cuddy's mouth drops open, but she puts her hand up over it quickly, as though she can wipe away the surprise. House sits in one of the facing chairs. He misses his cane, at moments like these, because there's nowhere good to rest his chin when he doesn't want to make eye contact. "When?" she asks. "Before or after?"

"After," he says, and watches that bomb hit her.

"Last night?"

"For a couple of months." He rubs his thumb across his eyebrow to look like he's thinking, but he knows the number exactly, precisely. He still tracks the days like he did when Wilson was missing. "Four months, in fact. After he moved in."

Cuddy exhales. "You're sleeping with Wilson?"

He shrugs. "Not anymore." He risks looking up and sees exactly the confusion and concern and disgust that he's expected. "Don't worry, this isn't an office romance."

"How -" she starts, then she pauses. His mind fills in the blank: how could you? It's not a question he has an answer to. He watches her fingernails drum twice on the tabletop. "Why are you telling me this?" she asks.

"There are some things you need to know before he comes back to work," House says, leaning forward.

She flinches. "You're here to tell me how to take care of him?" House shrugs. "I thought you were taking care of him."

"Oh, I was," House says. The sneer he puts into the words turns his own stomach, but he makes himself meet her eyes. She's angry, and that makes him feel good, somehow. Makes him feel better, more like himself. "I've been takingexcellent care of him."

"House," she says, her voice sharp, "if this is a joke -"

"He can't do clinic hours." Cuddy is staring at him, her eyes wide. House mimes closing a door. "Every one of those rooms is like a tiny cell."

"If you have reservations about him being here, you should have said something on Monday," she says. "Just because you don't want him here, you can't just -"

"I want him here," House says. He's surprised by how soft his voice is, and he tries to cover by clearing his throat. "It's time. But he's not -- he's not as ready as he thinks."

She leans in on her elbows. "You know, I talked to him. I know he's still struggling. That's why I thought him working with you would be a good idea. But if you're trying to tell me that there's something going on with you two, House..." She spreads her hands, and she looks baffled and helpless and angry. These are emotions House understands well. "I don't know what you want from me."

"He's seeing a therapist," House says. "He'll need time off for that."

She nods. "I know." 

He looks up at that and wonders when, exactly, Wilson mentioned this to Cuddy. Maybe during their meeting? "He doesn't know that I know," House says. He clears his throat again and focuses on a glass paperweight on Cuddy's desk, one that has a tiny explosion of red inside. "He comes here after his appointments. He'll probably be by this afternoon."

"So, what, you want me to tell him he can't come back?" She leans back and crosses her arms. "I don't know what you're asking me, or why you're telling me all of this."

"You can make sure things aren't hard for him," he says, looking up at her. He holds her gaze for a moment.

"So can you," she says, and he looks away. After a moment, he nods, because he's not sure what he really had expected to get here. Cuddy can't promise him that things are going to be okay. She runs the hospital, not the world. He stands up and turns for the door. "House," she calls, and he stops but doesn't turn. "What else should I know?"

He shrugs. "Nothing," he says, pushing open the door. He's done all that he can. "He'll be fine."

---

Wednesday afternoon, Wilson steps out of the cab by the visitors' entrance at Princeton-Plainsboro and freezes. He'd had the cabbie bring him here just out of habit, running on autopilot. But he's not sleeping with House anymore and things are weird between them. He's still standing on the sidewalk, trying to decide what to do -- get a ride home, go upstairs and hope House is in the clinic -- when Cuddy walks up to him. "I thought I might find you here," she says, smiling.

"Really?"

"You come by almost every afternoon. Always through this way." She points up at the cameras just outside the doors. "Margaret in security has a little crush on you, I think." Wilson smiles and ducks his head. "You want a cup of coffee?" she asks.

"Love one."

He follows her to her office, where she dispatches her assistant to get them each a cappuccino. She sits in the armchair, and he takes a seat on her sofa. "How's it going with Baker?" she asks, then holds up a hand. "And I'm just asking as a friend, so feel free to tell me to go to hell."

"It's fine," he says. He doesn't mind talking to her about it. In a way, it's a relief -- he doesn't talk to House about these things, because he thinks House doesn't actually want to know. He also thinks it may be better that House doesn't know. So it's good to have someone to whom he can talk. "Actually, it's good. I'm down to once a week, now, and I'm almost off the Xanax. Feeling a lot -- better," he says, for lack of a better term. "More like me."

"That's great. The anxiety is better?" 

"Much," he says. "I should have signed up for therapy a long time ago, I think."

She smiles and presses her hands together. "Still ready to get back here?"

The assistant brings in the coffees, and Wilson takes his cup before answering. "I think I am," he says. "I'm ready for a new routine. Or less routine, maybe."

"I can't imagine living with House is ever routine," Cuddy says, and Wilson manages a laugh. "Though I guess, it's probably gotten pretty comfortable, the two of you."

Wilson pauses with his cup to his lips and replays the last phrase in his head. He looks at the knowing tilt of Cuddy's smile. Oh, he thinks, and lowers the cup. "He told you."

She dabs at foam on her lip. "We had a very interesting conversation earlier today," she says. 

Wilson groans. "I'll just bet." He wants to know what she knows, but he doesn't know how to ask without giving something away. Finally, he just says, "What did he say?"

"He told me he's been taking advantage of you," she says.

He sits up straight, glad he wasn't trying to drink. "It wasn't like -"

"I know," she says. "I think he may be in love with you." 

Wilson nearly drops his coffee. She laughs. "That's not funny," Wilson says.

"You're telling me. House in love, that's no fun for anyone." She leans forward, setting her cup on the coffee table, and keeps smiling. "I don't think I've ever seen him so -- worried."

Wilson sighs. "Worry isn't love," he says. "He feels -- bad. About everything, about how he can't fix what's happened, what's wrong."

Cuddy shakes her head. "I wouldn't have given you a therapy referral if I knew you'd start talking like a therapist," she says. "I don't know what's going on between the two of you, but you need to understand something: you fixed him. While you were gone, he was a wreck, Wilson. We all missed you, but House -- House was destroyed. He was despondent." She shakes her head. Wilson makes himself swallow. He doesn't want to think about House like that. "I should've realized it sooner, the way he was acting. It wasn't like his friend was gone, it was like he'd lost someone he loves."

He stares at the coffee table. "I know he loves me," Wilson says, very quietly. "He's my best friend. He's seen me through -- all of this. I know that."

"Wilson," Cuddy says, and her voice is so gentle that Wilson wants to recoil. It's a voice like the one that everyone used when he was in the hospital, everyone but House. "He loves you and he's in love with you. House doesn't do things from pity." She sighs. "Not that I can't guess, but why did you end things?"

"I didn't," Wilson murmurs. He looks up. "I started things." Cuddy looks surprised and taken aback by this, and Wilson feels vaguely triumphant. "He ended things Monday. When I got the job." He crosses his arms, feeling chilled. He doesn't want to talk about this anymore; he doesn't want to talk at all.

Cuddy's eyes narrow. "You should talk to him," she says.

Wilson nods, then stands up. "Thanks for the cappuccino," he says.

In the hall outside, he walks across the lobby without thinking about it and stands in front of the staff elevator. Two doctors he used to know -- an oncologist and a surgeon -- step up next to him and immediately strike up a conversation, glad to see him, looking forward to having him back. Wilson hits the button for his floor five times, nervously, ready to be out of the small space and the glare of these men's attention. When the doors slide open he hurries out and into the hallway, nearly knocking down two familiar, chatty nurses. He pushes past them with barely a wave, even though they've stopped to talk, and right into House's office.

House sits up behind his desk and pulls out one of his earbuds. "Wilson?"

His breath is coming fast. His head hurts just a little, and Wilson closes his eyes and swallows; his throat is dry. When he looks up, House has stood and is approaching him with a hand outstretched. "Wilson?" he says, again, his eyes full of concern.

Wilson takes two steps forward, grabs House's T-shirt in his fists, and pulls him in. He kisses him, holding him still until House starts to respond, until House's arms slide around Wilson's back and his tongue slips into Wilson's mouth. Then Wilson closes his eyes and moves one of his hands to House's face. When House pulls back, Wilson doesn't let him go far. "This is stupid," Wilson says, and House blinks.

"What's that?"

"Were you sleeping with me out of pity?"

"I don't do things from pity," House says. "Certainly not you."

"Then why are we -- no. Why aren't we still together?" Wilson flexes his grip on House's shirt but doesn't let him back away. They're standing so close Wilson can feel the warmth of House's breath on his neck. His hands are very warm through Wilson's shirt. "I think we should be."

"Wilson," House starts, but Wilson silences him by kissing him. House kisses back, and this time Wilson watches his eyes close. When they break apart, House is smiling. "You thought it was pity fucking?" Wilson shrugs. "Clearly, you've never actually had a pity fuck."

Wilson frowns and draws his eyebrows together. "That may actually be true," he says.

House pushes lightly on his shoulders, and Wilson nods and steps back, leans against House's desk. House doesn't try to smooth his shirt, and Wilson finds it endearing. He's happy when House leans next to him. "You told Cuddy," he says, and House shrugs. "House. Why did you break up with me?"

"I didn't really break up with you," House says.

"What did you think -"

"I thought you needed -- I thought you just needed," House says, shrugging slightly, his head tucked down. "I didn't think we were together."

He looks sad and lonely and afraid, all emotions Wilson understands well, and all things he can, at this moment, fix. He leans forward, turns, stands just in front of House. "We were," he says, then rests his hands on House's shoulders. "We are."

House meets his eyes, and Wilson smiles and then, finally, House does, too. "OK," he says, and Wilson can feel his smile grow. He cups House's face in his hands and leans forward. "Wait, so, together like, let's have sex sometimes, or together like, let's go to the prom?"

Wilson freezes, his mouth millimeters from House's skin. "The prom, absolutely," he says. "I'll buy you a corsage."

House laughs, laughter so hard it shakes Wilson, too, and he reaches out and pulls Wilson in close. He can feel House's chest rising with breath and laughter, and underneath he can hear the beat of House's heart. His face is wet under Wilson's fingers and mouth, and he's holding on to Wilson too tight, but God. God, House. "I missed you," he says. "I -"

"I know," Wilson whispers. He's holding on just as tight. "Me, too."