The Hardest Part of This
Title: The Hardest Part of This
Raiting: PG-15 (swearing)
Pairing: pre-slash House/Wilson
Warnings: I got this idea from theunknownsoul's query on where Wilson was during pretty much all of Half-Wit - so spoilers, obviously. Oh, and it's unbeta'd, so...if you notice any gramatical issues, (which, since this is in present tense, there could be many) I apologize in advance and don't hesitate to bring them up so I can remedy them. :)
Story:
It's House’s signature entrance: the door swinging open impatiently without a knock, which is why Wilson is surprised to see a nervous Cuddy standing in the middle of his office, fidgeting quietly. “What’s up?” Wilson asks curiously, halting in his work as Cuddy makes frantic circles in his office. Whatever it is, it’s bad. What did House do now? Wilson thinks absently, but Cuddy’s next words have nothing to do with House.
“Do you know a Dr. Kupersmith in Boston?” she asks worriedly.
Confused, Wilson nods. “Yeah. He’s…an oncologist.” Cuddy knows that already, doesn’t she? “What’s up?” Wilson repeats, starting to feel unexplained fear seep into his skin as Cuddy walks over to the window.
“What’s his sub-specialty?” Cuddy asks quietly, and Wilson feels the back of his neck begin to sweat as he hears restrained tears in her voice.
“Brain cancer,” Wilson answers softly. “What’s going on?” Cuddy looks sadly at him, remaining perfectly silent for a moment. “What? What is it?” He’s beginning to feel hysterical. Why doesn’t she just say it? She never beats around the bush like this unless it’s something about…“House,” Wilson hears himself whisper before his thought process even has time to finish. His mouth is suddenly very dry, and he stands up with a jolt. He’s walking towards Cuddy without even realizing he’s moving. He wants to do something with his hands, but they feel eerily paralyzed “You-House has-how?”
Cuddy shrugs. She seems to have gotten a hold of herself, but the look on her face makes it obvious that Wilson’s mask is not working as well as he first thought it was. “He’s…he’s made several calls to Massachusetts General in the past month,” She says, as if that explains everything. “Apparently, he’s Dr. Kupersmith’s patient…I don’t know any details.” She pauses briefly and then snaps, “I don’t understand it, though! He doesn't look sick. He should have symptoms!” She sounds almost irritated by the fact that he hasn’t crumbled completely, and starts listing off a handful of symptoms, as if Wilson doesn’t know them all by heart: “Blurred vision, headaches, confusion, clumsiness...”
Wilson slumps back against his desk as Cuddy takes a seat, looking defeated. “Depends on how far along the cancer is,” Wilson offers quietly. “What kind, how aggressive?” He feels the pit of his stomach burn with the threat of vomiting, but he swallows thickly and forces it back. How can this be happening? House is the only friend he has-as depressing as that is; it doesn’t mean he wants anyone else.
“He didn’t tell you?” This seems to have just dawned on Cuddy, and Wilson can’t help but roll his eyes and give her a look that plainly states, are you kidding me? Cuddy looks back out the window and sighs. “House is House.”
“He’s no different than anyone else with cancer,” Wilson defends, slightly unexplainably insulted that everything about House has to be considered so different from everyone else, “once you tell, then every conversation is about that.” Cuddy nods, but then hesitates, scrutinizing Wilson’s face slightly before standing up.
“Are you going to be okay?”
Wilson tries to act nonchalant and nods, but he knows he can’t be convincing without speaking. He clears his throat. “Yeah,” he mumbles absently, “yeah, I’m fine. It’s not me we have to worry about, after all, is it?” He tries to smile, but it falters. He pretends he had meant for it to be brief and starts to turn back to his desk chair. Cuddy looks at him sympathetically, and reaches up to put her hand on his shoulder. The gesture feels odd and misplaced, and is apparently uncomfortable for both of them, for she drops her hand not even a second later and then she’s leaving the room.
The click of the door sliding closed brings everything crashing down on Wilson at once. Brain cancer. His best friend has brain cancer. His only friend. The only person he has left ever since Julie left him. Wilson stumbles back into his chair, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. Why didn’t you tell me? Wilson wants to shout, but he knows why-he just answered why. But that doesn’t make him feel any less ineffectual. “Damnit!” Wilson feels suddenly angry, and has to will down the urge to throw something against the wall. If he threw something, he would have to pick it back up later-not to mention the possibility of it shattering into too many pieces to put back together.
Instead, he falls against his desk and hopes nobody comes in and hears him crying.
He doesn’t cry for long. He can’t-he has work to do, after all. He suddenly contemplates looking through House’s file to see how bad it is, but the idea makes him ill. Despite the fact that he is usually able to stare at a thousand brain tumors a day without flinching, the thought of actually knowing the brain that holds those tumors makes the crawling, nauseated feeling in his stomach return. This time he can’t hold it back, and races down the hall to the nearest bathroom-falling to his knees at the first open stall and retching, unable to even process if there are others in the bathroom, let alone care.
He feels dizzy and hears a concerned voice ask “Dr. Wilson?” but he ignores it. He gets up and forces himself out the door before the voice can become a person that feels the need to follow him. His knees still feel like rubber and his head is swimming. He hadn’t eaten anything recently enough to vomit, so it had been mostly bile. Wilson figures he should probably eat something, but he has no appetite, and at the moment, his own health seems less than entirely unimportant.
He wants to go home. He looks at the clock and decides it’s late enough. Forget the work he has in his inbox. Every x-ray he looks at from here on out will only remind him of the inevitable. He grabs his keys, coat and scarf and starts out of the hospital, careful to avoid walking by the diagnostic office, but he feels a clench in his chest anyway. He’s outside when he hears her voice, “Dr. Wilson.”
Oh, God. Wilson thinks, not her. Please, anyone but her. Cameron calls out to him again, louder and more forceful this time, but Wilson resolutely ignores her, marching faster towards his car, pleading silently for her to just give up. She defies him stubbornly and runs up to his side. “Just spoke to Cuddy.” She starts in almost conversationally, if it weren’t for the aggravated bite in her voice from knowing he had been ignoring her, “She can't confirm whether House is applying for a job at Boston.”
“Yeah, I-I'm late for a...” Wilson tries, but Cameron cuts him off, her usually patient, sweet demeanor mercilessly absent in his one time of need.
“If I have to look for work, I have a right to know!”
He stops walking. Her voice is sharp, and cuts into Wilson like a knife. If I have to look for work. Would she? Wilson is mortified as he feels his throat tighten again. How long does he have left? Once again Wilson wants to ask God why House didn’t come to him with something this important, but instead he turns on Cameron and shouts angrily, “He’s dying!”
The blankly horrified look on her face tells Wilson immediately that he went about telling her in the worst way possible. He tries to reprimand, but his voice is starting to shake again. He just hopes Cameron doesn’t touch him. “He-he has…he’s been diagnosed with brain cancer. He’s a patient in Boston. Doc-doctor-patient confidentiality keeps us from knowing any details about it but…” Cameron’s giving him the same look that Cuddy gave him, but hers seems disturbingly more empathetic than he wants it to be. “I really have to go,” he says, “I just-just leave him alone about it, okay? He has his reasons for not telling us.”
“He told you.”
“No.”
That damned bleeding-heart look is still plastered all over her face. Wilson has an irrational impulse to tell her to get the hell away from him. Instead, he turns on his heel and starts back toward his car. She doesn’t make a move to follow him. By the time he makes it to his car, he feels tears stinging his eyes again. Stop it; he thinks to himself stupidly, you’re being ridiculous. If the tables were turned, House wouldn’t be this worked up over you. The thought only makes it worse, and Wilson finds himself wishing the tables were turned.
“Damnit!” Without thinking twice, Wilson spins around and starts back toward the hospital, running though the halls to see House quietly playing the piano in his patient’s empty room. He can hear the music floating from outside the glass doors, and suddenly wonders if he’s ready for this. He had first anticipated flinging open the door and starting right into how angry he felt-the way House has always done it. But the sudden presence of House himself, it seems as if it would be disrespectful to try and imitate him. Wilson sighs and quietly steps into the room.
“Pretty.” He says off-handedly, standing awkwardly in the doorway a moment before stepping inside. House doesn’t turn to look at him, and his fingers are still gracefully striking at the keys. For a split second, Wilson wonders if House has even realized he’s there.
“I wrote this when I was in junior high school,” House says to confirm Wilson’s presence, “Could never figure out what came next.” Wilson stares at him, amazed at how infuriatingly normal he seems. “And Dimwit came up with this,” House continued, fluidly hitting the keys to finish out the melody beautifully.
“It’s good,” Wilson says distractedly. His mind suddenly jumps to his future without House-feeling an uncomfortable tightness in his chest every time he sees a piano. Wilson sighs and tries not to think about it.
“It’s perfect,” House amends smoothly.
He still hasn’t looked up from his hands, and Wilson is suddenly irate with him for not being more attentive to him. For acting like he is perfectly healthy and this is all just another day. “I could set up a tower on the roof during a lightning storm,” Wilson says darkly, “Help you switch brains with your patient. Then you would be the brilliant pianist, and he would be the doctor hiding brain cancer from his friend.”
House stops playing abruptly and looks resignedly up at the ceiling before snatching his cane. “It’s nothing,” he says pointedly, and Wilson wants nothing more than to believe him. Tell him you love him, Wilson hears his conscience insist; tell him you’ll miss him. Tell him he can’t die.
“You need to talk about it,” he says helplessly.
“You need to talk about it,” House revises.
Wilson knows he’s right, but doesn’t say so. “At least let me look at your medical file.” He doesn’t know why he said it-the words make it too real again, and Wilson feels briefly as if he might faint. He wants to sit down, but he can’t. He needs to block the doorway.
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” House growls, “Who else knows?”
“No one,” Wilson lies quickly, “And cancer is not nothing.”
“Sorry, didn't mean to offend your specialty,” House quips cruelly.
This isn’t about my fucking specialty! Wilson wants to scream at him, but he's too tired and broken to scream. Instead, he asks what he's been asking himself for the past twelve hours, “Why didn’t you come to me?” His voice is too hurt, and breaks on the last word. He flinches, feeling suddenly desperate.
He knows House noticed when his voice cracked-he notices everything; but for once he has the decency to say nothing of it. “Stein’s good,” House answers in a clipped voice, getting to his feet.
Wilson’s anger flares, and he feels his blood run tight in his veins. “Stein’s in Africa for the next six months!” He’s afraid that if he doesn’t shout, he’s going to start crying again, and in front of House that’s unacceptable.
“He's given me at least six months.” With House, Wilson can’t tell if this is a hyperbole or not, and his head suddenly swims so much he can’t concentrate on House’s words for a moment. “…Everything will be fine. No need to talk about it.” Wilson wants to yell at him. He wants to punch him; he wants to hold him down and force him to talk about it; he wants to hug him.
Before anything else can be said, Chase enters the room, talking very deliberately about the case that Wilson suddenly realizes he knows nothing about. House had called him a dimwit, which probably meant he was mentally challenged-and a savant, if he could play the piano the way he apparently had.
“You told him.”
House’s accusatory voice slices through Wilson’s abstract musings. “No I didn’t!” Wilson says automatically, but House gives him an even look, and suddenly he can’t lie. “I…I only told Cameron,” he stutters quietly. House throws his head back in frustration.
“Damnit, Jimmy.”
House’s voice was too quiet for Wilson to even be sure he was meant to hear it, but the nickname feels like a stab in his stomach, and he collapses in a chair as House leaves the room, Chase following him after a nervous glance in Wilson’s direction. Wilson gets up to follow them, but he sits back down almost immediately. He can’t even stand to see him right now. Wilson cringes at the realization that he’s one of those friends. He has always wanted to be the type that would be there through everything, not the type that would become avoidant at the first sign of real trouble. He sighs. “Damnit.”
At some point later that night, Wilson becomes aware of the fact that he’s in his hotel room. He doesn’t know how he got there; let alone how long he’s been out of the hospital. He glances at the clock. 1:45a.m. He frowns when he realizes this doesn’t help him. He has no idea when he left. He goes to his bed and lies down, staring vacantly at the ceiling.
He’s given me at least six months, House had said. How much longer than six months? Wilson takes a breath. Stop thinking about this, he tells his brain, but his brain tenaciously thinks back, what will you say at his funeral? His funeral. Wilson sits up, thinking for a moment that he may be sick again, but his sudden movement makes him lightheaded, and he falls back onto the bed with a low moan. He turns his head and watches his alarm clock slowly tick the minutes away.
He’s awake to turn off his alarm before it goes off. He steps blearily into the shower and lets the hot water run over him for nearly ten minutes before deciding to get dressed.
He walks into Princeton-Plainsboro dazedly, not even noticing where he’s going until he runs directly into Cameron. “Oh. Sorry,” he says flatly, slowly taking note of her expression. She looks positively furious. “Wh-what?”
“The bastard lied to us.”
Wilson blinks. “Huh?” is the most intelligent response he can come up with before Cameron is suddenly shouting, her voice filling the entire lobby.
“He lied about having cancer. He wanted to get some fancy new drug implant-all the CT scans and blood work, everything was from some patient in the damn Witherspoon Wing!” Wilson is taken aback by not only Cameron’s tone and volume, but the fact that she’s referred to a patient in this hospital as ‘some patient’. It takes him a moment to realize what she’s implying. Relief floods every one of his senses, and he can’t hide his grin.
“He doesn’t have cancer?”
His voice is too excited for Cameron’s liking. She glares at him. “Of course he doesn’t. He was pretending to have cancer. For drugs.”
The severity sinks in this time. “He…he faked this whole thing? On purpose?” Disbelieving anger washes over his face. Cameron seems more pleased with this reaction, but before she can say anything, Wilson runs past her, towards House’s office.
As he rounds the corner, he can see House through his glass doors, fiddling with a pen as he sits lethargically in his chair. Once again, the sight of him causes Wilson to momentarily forget why he’s there. He walks into his office and stares at him a moment, feeling the elation of his friend’s good health already squashing his fury again. He clears his throat in an effort to stay focused.
“Heard Patrick's hemispherectomy went well,” Wilson forces himself to say calmly.
House still doesn’t focus all of his attention on Wilson, but he responds, “He survived the surgery. He's unconscious, but-”
Wilson interrupts him, not caring in the slightest about Patrick or his surgery. “How depressed are you?” Wilson suddenly explodes, and despite his rage, he’s disgusted to find that he is truly concerned. His predictability is laughable. House looks up at that.
“I’m not depressed,” he says unconvincingly, and Wilson simultaneously feels the need to slap him and tell him he loves him. He does neither.
“You faked…cancer.” Wilson says with contempt, but he can already start to feel it again-that unbelievable bliss that this was all some stupid ploy. Six months from now, he won’t be writing a eulogy, and seeing pianos won’t make him flinch in emotional agony.
“It was an outpatient procedure. I was curious.” As always, House is completely flippant about the whole situation. He turns his attention to tapping his cane rhythmically against the floor. Wilson stares at him. House reminds him of a four-year-old child with his hands over his ears, singing a loud tune to block out what he doesn’t want to hear his parents tell him.
“Are you curious about heroin?” Wilson quips snidely, talking over his attempt.
“Not since last year's Christmas party,” House responds without missing a beat. Then he adds, “I know this goes against your nature, but can we not make too much of this?” Wilson feels the anger suddenly hit him full force. How dare he.
“YOU MADE PEOPLE THINK YOU WERE GOING TO DIE!”
“I didn’t make them! I tried to hide it! You idiots needed to get into my business.”
Wilson opens his mouth to come up with a retort, but suddenly he realizes how right House is, and without meaning to, he’s laughing. He can’t stop, and House is staring at him, wanting an explanation. He ventures to ask for one, and Wilson forces out, “It’s ironic.”
“I'm sure I'll regret asking, but why...?”
Suddenly, Wilson feels the need to switch to Dr. Wilson mode. He controls his laughter and says as professionally as he can muster, “Depression in cancer patients…it’s not as common as you think.” House raises an eyebrow, and Wilson continues, “It’s not the dying that gets to people. It’s the dying alone. The patients with family, with friends…they tend to do okay.” Wilson longs for House to say something, but he remains silent, almost as if he knows what Wilson wants and is disregarding him on purpose.
As Wilson presses on, anger begins to flicker in and out of his voice, and his professionalism slips. “You don’t have cancer. You do have people that give a damn. So what do you do?” He stops to laugh again, this time because it’s the only thing he can think to do that doesn’t involve hurting House. “You fake the cancer…then push the people who care away.”
House looks at him coldly and mutters, “Because they’re boring.” Wilson pretends his words don’t feel like a gunshot. “Go home to your hotel room and laugh at that irony.” Wilson represses the yearning to yell, punch, talk and hug again.
He wants to ask House why he’s so depressed-what could he do to help. He smirks and decides to rephrase the question. “Start small, House.” He says wryly, “Take a chance. Maybe something that doesn't involve sticking stuff in your brain.” He pauses, then adds pointedly, “Pizza with a friend,” he emphasizes the word ‘friend’ and gestures to himself with an ironic bow. “A movie. Something.” He leaves House’s office before House can respond-knowing that he wouldn’t, anyway.
Raiting: PG-15 (swearing)
Pairing: pre-slash House/Wilson
Warnings: I got this idea from theunknownsoul's query on where Wilson was during pretty much all of Half-Wit - so spoilers, obviously. Oh, and it's unbeta'd, so...if you notice any gramatical issues, (which, since this is in present tense, there could be many) I apologize in advance and don't hesitate to bring them up so I can remedy them. :)
Story:
It's House’s signature entrance: the door swinging open impatiently without a knock, which is why Wilson is surprised to see a nervous Cuddy standing in the middle of his office, fidgeting quietly. “What’s up?” Wilson asks curiously, halting in his work as Cuddy makes frantic circles in his office. Whatever it is, it’s bad. What did House do now? Wilson thinks absently, but Cuddy’s next words have nothing to do with House.
“Do you know a Dr. Kupersmith in Boston?” she asks worriedly.
Confused, Wilson nods. “Yeah. He’s…an oncologist.” Cuddy knows that already, doesn’t she? “What’s up?” Wilson repeats, starting to feel unexplained fear seep into his skin as Cuddy walks over to the window.
“What’s his sub-specialty?” Cuddy asks quietly, and Wilson feels the back of his neck begin to sweat as he hears restrained tears in her voice.
“Brain cancer,” Wilson answers softly. “What’s going on?” Cuddy looks sadly at him, remaining perfectly silent for a moment. “What? What is it?” He’s beginning to feel hysterical. Why doesn’t she just say it? She never beats around the bush like this unless it’s something about…“House,” Wilson hears himself whisper before his thought process even has time to finish. His mouth is suddenly very dry, and he stands up with a jolt. He’s walking towards Cuddy without even realizing he’s moving. He wants to do something with his hands, but they feel eerily paralyzed “You-House has-how?”
Cuddy shrugs. She seems to have gotten a hold of herself, but the look on her face makes it obvious that Wilson’s mask is not working as well as he first thought it was. “He’s…he’s made several calls to Massachusetts General in the past month,” She says, as if that explains everything. “Apparently, he’s Dr. Kupersmith’s patient…I don’t know any details.” She pauses briefly and then snaps, “I don’t understand it, though! He doesn't look sick. He should have symptoms!” She sounds almost irritated by the fact that he hasn’t crumbled completely, and starts listing off a handful of symptoms, as if Wilson doesn’t know them all by heart: “Blurred vision, headaches, confusion, clumsiness...”
Wilson slumps back against his desk as Cuddy takes a seat, looking defeated. “Depends on how far along the cancer is,” Wilson offers quietly. “What kind, how aggressive?” He feels the pit of his stomach burn with the threat of vomiting, but he swallows thickly and forces it back. How can this be happening? House is the only friend he has-as depressing as that is; it doesn’t mean he wants anyone else.
“He didn’t tell you?” This seems to have just dawned on Cuddy, and Wilson can’t help but roll his eyes and give her a look that plainly states, are you kidding me? Cuddy looks back out the window and sighs. “House is House.”
“He’s no different than anyone else with cancer,” Wilson defends, slightly unexplainably insulted that everything about House has to be considered so different from everyone else, “once you tell, then every conversation is about that.” Cuddy nods, but then hesitates, scrutinizing Wilson’s face slightly before standing up.
“Are you going to be okay?”
Wilson tries to act nonchalant and nods, but he knows he can’t be convincing without speaking. He clears his throat. “Yeah,” he mumbles absently, “yeah, I’m fine. It’s not me we have to worry about, after all, is it?” He tries to smile, but it falters. He pretends he had meant for it to be brief and starts to turn back to his desk chair. Cuddy looks at him sympathetically, and reaches up to put her hand on his shoulder. The gesture feels odd and misplaced, and is apparently uncomfortable for both of them, for she drops her hand not even a second later and then she’s leaving the room.
The click of the door sliding closed brings everything crashing down on Wilson at once. Brain cancer. His best friend has brain cancer. His only friend. The only person he has left ever since Julie left him. Wilson stumbles back into his chair, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. Why didn’t you tell me? Wilson wants to shout, but he knows why-he just answered why. But that doesn’t make him feel any less ineffectual. “Damnit!” Wilson feels suddenly angry, and has to will down the urge to throw something against the wall. If he threw something, he would have to pick it back up later-not to mention the possibility of it shattering into too many pieces to put back together.
Instead, he falls against his desk and hopes nobody comes in and hears him crying.
He doesn’t cry for long. He can’t-he has work to do, after all. He suddenly contemplates looking through House’s file to see how bad it is, but the idea makes him ill. Despite the fact that he is usually able to stare at a thousand brain tumors a day without flinching, the thought of actually knowing the brain that holds those tumors makes the crawling, nauseated feeling in his stomach return. This time he can’t hold it back, and races down the hall to the nearest bathroom-falling to his knees at the first open stall and retching, unable to even process if there are others in the bathroom, let alone care.
He feels dizzy and hears a concerned voice ask “Dr. Wilson?” but he ignores it. He gets up and forces himself out the door before the voice can become a person that feels the need to follow him. His knees still feel like rubber and his head is swimming. He hadn’t eaten anything recently enough to vomit, so it had been mostly bile. Wilson figures he should probably eat something, but he has no appetite, and at the moment, his own health seems less than entirely unimportant.
He wants to go home. He looks at the clock and decides it’s late enough. Forget the work he has in his inbox. Every x-ray he looks at from here on out will only remind him of the inevitable. He grabs his keys, coat and scarf and starts out of the hospital, careful to avoid walking by the diagnostic office, but he feels a clench in his chest anyway. He’s outside when he hears her voice, “Dr. Wilson.”
Oh, God. Wilson thinks, not her. Please, anyone but her. Cameron calls out to him again, louder and more forceful this time, but Wilson resolutely ignores her, marching faster towards his car, pleading silently for her to just give up. She defies him stubbornly and runs up to his side. “Just spoke to Cuddy.” She starts in almost conversationally, if it weren’t for the aggravated bite in her voice from knowing he had been ignoring her, “She can't confirm whether House is applying for a job at Boston.”
“Yeah, I-I'm late for a...” Wilson tries, but Cameron cuts him off, her usually patient, sweet demeanor mercilessly absent in his one time of need.
“If I have to look for work, I have a right to know!”
He stops walking. Her voice is sharp, and cuts into Wilson like a knife. If I have to look for work. Would she? Wilson is mortified as he feels his throat tighten again. How long does he have left? Once again Wilson wants to ask God why House didn’t come to him with something this important, but instead he turns on Cameron and shouts angrily, “He’s dying!”
The blankly horrified look on her face tells Wilson immediately that he went about telling her in the worst way possible. He tries to reprimand, but his voice is starting to shake again. He just hopes Cameron doesn’t touch him. “He-he has…he’s been diagnosed with brain cancer. He’s a patient in Boston. Doc-doctor-patient confidentiality keeps us from knowing any details about it but…” Cameron’s giving him the same look that Cuddy gave him, but hers seems disturbingly more empathetic than he wants it to be. “I really have to go,” he says, “I just-just leave him alone about it, okay? He has his reasons for not telling us.”
“He told you.”
“No.”
That damned bleeding-heart look is still plastered all over her face. Wilson has an irrational impulse to tell her to get the hell away from him. Instead, he turns on his heel and starts back toward his car. She doesn’t make a move to follow him. By the time he makes it to his car, he feels tears stinging his eyes again. Stop it; he thinks to himself stupidly, you’re being ridiculous. If the tables were turned, House wouldn’t be this worked up over you. The thought only makes it worse, and Wilson finds himself wishing the tables were turned.
“Damnit!” Without thinking twice, Wilson spins around and starts back toward the hospital, running though the halls to see House quietly playing the piano in his patient’s empty room. He can hear the music floating from outside the glass doors, and suddenly wonders if he’s ready for this. He had first anticipated flinging open the door and starting right into how angry he felt-the way House has always done it. But the sudden presence of House himself, it seems as if it would be disrespectful to try and imitate him. Wilson sighs and quietly steps into the room.
“Pretty.” He says off-handedly, standing awkwardly in the doorway a moment before stepping inside. House doesn’t turn to look at him, and his fingers are still gracefully striking at the keys. For a split second, Wilson wonders if House has even realized he’s there.
“I wrote this when I was in junior high school,” House says to confirm Wilson’s presence, “Could never figure out what came next.” Wilson stares at him, amazed at how infuriatingly normal he seems. “And Dimwit came up with this,” House continued, fluidly hitting the keys to finish out the melody beautifully.
“It’s good,” Wilson says distractedly. His mind suddenly jumps to his future without House-feeling an uncomfortable tightness in his chest every time he sees a piano. Wilson sighs and tries not to think about it.
“It’s perfect,” House amends smoothly.
He still hasn’t looked up from his hands, and Wilson is suddenly irate with him for not being more attentive to him. For acting like he is perfectly healthy and this is all just another day. “I could set up a tower on the roof during a lightning storm,” Wilson says darkly, “Help you switch brains with your patient. Then you would be the brilliant pianist, and he would be the doctor hiding brain cancer from his friend.”
House stops playing abruptly and looks resignedly up at the ceiling before snatching his cane. “It’s nothing,” he says pointedly, and Wilson wants nothing more than to believe him. Tell him you love him, Wilson hears his conscience insist; tell him you’ll miss him. Tell him he can’t die.
“You need to talk about it,” he says helplessly.
“You need to talk about it,” House revises.
Wilson knows he’s right, but doesn’t say so. “At least let me look at your medical file.” He doesn’t know why he said it-the words make it too real again, and Wilson feels briefly as if he might faint. He wants to sit down, but he can’t. He needs to block the doorway.
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” House growls, “Who else knows?”
“No one,” Wilson lies quickly, “And cancer is not nothing.”
“Sorry, didn't mean to offend your specialty,” House quips cruelly.
This isn’t about my fucking specialty! Wilson wants to scream at him, but he's too tired and broken to scream. Instead, he asks what he's been asking himself for the past twelve hours, “Why didn’t you come to me?” His voice is too hurt, and breaks on the last word. He flinches, feeling suddenly desperate.
He knows House noticed when his voice cracked-he notices everything; but for once he has the decency to say nothing of it. “Stein’s good,” House answers in a clipped voice, getting to his feet.
Wilson’s anger flares, and he feels his blood run tight in his veins. “Stein’s in Africa for the next six months!” He’s afraid that if he doesn’t shout, he’s going to start crying again, and in front of House that’s unacceptable.
“He's given me at least six months.” With House, Wilson can’t tell if this is a hyperbole or not, and his head suddenly swims so much he can’t concentrate on House’s words for a moment. “…Everything will be fine. No need to talk about it.” Wilson wants to yell at him. He wants to punch him; he wants to hold him down and force him to talk about it; he wants to hug him.
Before anything else can be said, Chase enters the room, talking very deliberately about the case that Wilson suddenly realizes he knows nothing about. House had called him a dimwit, which probably meant he was mentally challenged-and a savant, if he could play the piano the way he apparently had.
“You told him.”
House’s accusatory voice slices through Wilson’s abstract musings. “No I didn’t!” Wilson says automatically, but House gives him an even look, and suddenly he can’t lie. “I…I only told Cameron,” he stutters quietly. House throws his head back in frustration.
“Damnit, Jimmy.”
House’s voice was too quiet for Wilson to even be sure he was meant to hear it, but the nickname feels like a stab in his stomach, and he collapses in a chair as House leaves the room, Chase following him after a nervous glance in Wilson’s direction. Wilson gets up to follow them, but he sits back down almost immediately. He can’t even stand to see him right now. Wilson cringes at the realization that he’s one of those friends. He has always wanted to be the type that would be there through everything, not the type that would become avoidant at the first sign of real trouble. He sighs. “Damnit.”
At some point later that night, Wilson becomes aware of the fact that he’s in his hotel room. He doesn’t know how he got there; let alone how long he’s been out of the hospital. He glances at the clock. 1:45a.m. He frowns when he realizes this doesn’t help him. He has no idea when he left. He goes to his bed and lies down, staring vacantly at the ceiling.
He’s given me at least six months, House had said. How much longer than six months? Wilson takes a breath. Stop thinking about this, he tells his brain, but his brain tenaciously thinks back, what will you say at his funeral? His funeral. Wilson sits up, thinking for a moment that he may be sick again, but his sudden movement makes him lightheaded, and he falls back onto the bed with a low moan. He turns his head and watches his alarm clock slowly tick the minutes away.
He’s awake to turn off his alarm before it goes off. He steps blearily into the shower and lets the hot water run over him for nearly ten minutes before deciding to get dressed.
He walks into Princeton-Plainsboro dazedly, not even noticing where he’s going until he runs directly into Cameron. “Oh. Sorry,” he says flatly, slowly taking note of her expression. She looks positively furious. “Wh-what?”
“The bastard lied to us.”
Wilson blinks. “Huh?” is the most intelligent response he can come up with before Cameron is suddenly shouting, her voice filling the entire lobby.
“He lied about having cancer. He wanted to get some fancy new drug implant-all the CT scans and blood work, everything was from some patient in the damn Witherspoon Wing!” Wilson is taken aback by not only Cameron’s tone and volume, but the fact that she’s referred to a patient in this hospital as ‘some patient’. It takes him a moment to realize what she’s implying. Relief floods every one of his senses, and he can’t hide his grin.
“He doesn’t have cancer?”
His voice is too excited for Cameron’s liking. She glares at him. “Of course he doesn’t. He was pretending to have cancer. For drugs.”
The severity sinks in this time. “He…he faked this whole thing? On purpose?” Disbelieving anger washes over his face. Cameron seems more pleased with this reaction, but before she can say anything, Wilson runs past her, towards House’s office.
As he rounds the corner, he can see House through his glass doors, fiddling with a pen as he sits lethargically in his chair. Once again, the sight of him causes Wilson to momentarily forget why he’s there. He walks into his office and stares at him a moment, feeling the elation of his friend’s good health already squashing his fury again. He clears his throat in an effort to stay focused.
“Heard Patrick's hemispherectomy went well,” Wilson forces himself to say calmly.
House still doesn’t focus all of his attention on Wilson, but he responds, “He survived the surgery. He's unconscious, but-”
Wilson interrupts him, not caring in the slightest about Patrick or his surgery. “How depressed are you?” Wilson suddenly explodes, and despite his rage, he’s disgusted to find that he is truly concerned. His predictability is laughable. House looks up at that.
“I’m not depressed,” he says unconvincingly, and Wilson simultaneously feels the need to slap him and tell him he loves him. He does neither.
“You faked…cancer.” Wilson says with contempt, but he can already start to feel it again-that unbelievable bliss that this was all some stupid ploy. Six months from now, he won’t be writing a eulogy, and seeing pianos won’t make him flinch in emotional agony.
“It was an outpatient procedure. I was curious.” As always, House is completely flippant about the whole situation. He turns his attention to tapping his cane rhythmically against the floor. Wilson stares at him. House reminds him of a four-year-old child with his hands over his ears, singing a loud tune to block out what he doesn’t want to hear his parents tell him.
“Are you curious about heroin?” Wilson quips snidely, talking over his attempt.
“Not since last year's Christmas party,” House responds without missing a beat. Then he adds, “I know this goes against your nature, but can we not make too much of this?” Wilson feels the anger suddenly hit him full force. How dare he.
“YOU MADE PEOPLE THINK YOU WERE GOING TO DIE!”
“I didn’t make them! I tried to hide it! You idiots needed to get into my business.”
Wilson opens his mouth to come up with a retort, but suddenly he realizes how right House is, and without meaning to, he’s laughing. He can’t stop, and House is staring at him, wanting an explanation. He ventures to ask for one, and Wilson forces out, “It’s ironic.”
“I'm sure I'll regret asking, but why...?”
Suddenly, Wilson feels the need to switch to Dr. Wilson mode. He controls his laughter and says as professionally as he can muster, “Depression in cancer patients…it’s not as common as you think.” House raises an eyebrow, and Wilson continues, “It’s not the dying that gets to people. It’s the dying alone. The patients with family, with friends…they tend to do okay.” Wilson longs for House to say something, but he remains silent, almost as if he knows what Wilson wants and is disregarding him on purpose.
As Wilson presses on, anger begins to flicker in and out of his voice, and his professionalism slips. “You don’t have cancer. You do have people that give a damn. So what do you do?” He stops to laugh again, this time because it’s the only thing he can think to do that doesn’t involve hurting House. “You fake the cancer…then push the people who care away.”
House looks at him coldly and mutters, “Because they’re boring.” Wilson pretends his words don’t feel like a gunshot. “Go home to your hotel room and laugh at that irony.” Wilson represses the yearning to yell, punch, talk and hug again.
He wants to ask House why he’s so depressed-what could he do to help. He smirks and decides to rephrase the question. “Start small, House.” He says wryly, “Take a chance. Maybe something that doesn't involve sticking stuff in your brain.” He pauses, then adds pointedly, “Pizza with a friend,” he emphasizes the word ‘friend’ and gestures to himself with an ironic bow. “A movie. Something.” He leaves House’s office before House can respond-knowing that he wouldn’t, anyway.