House M.D. Fanfiction: Stop, Drop and Roll
Title: Stop, Drop and Roll
Author: pgrabia
Disclaimer: : House M.D., its characters, locations and storyline are the property of David Shore, Bad Hat Harry Productions and the Fox Television Network. All Rights Reserved.
Characters/Pairing(s): House/Wilson friendship, mention of H/Cu and W/S.
Genre: Sick!Wilson; drama, hurt/comfort.
Word Count: 2363
A/N & Warnings: Written for the Badge Drabble/Fic Challenge for Camp sick!Wilson at the Sick!Wilson community on Livejournal.com. I chose the campfire badge as my prompt.
Spoiler Alert: Season Six up to and including episode 6:22 “Help Me”. Takes place in the summer following the Season Six finale.
Rating: PG-13 for disturbing subject matter, coarse language.
Dr. James Wilson trudged back to the campsite disappointed. He’d risen at the crack of dawn and spent nearly four hours casting for fish to no avail. Nothing was biting except for the mosquitoes and House’s sarcasm this trip; when the older doctor discovered that he returned empty handed Wilson knew he would be a target for mockery. House had been moody even before this mini-trip but, predictably, wouldn’t talk about what was troubling him. The younger doctor dragged his feet as he followed the well worn path leading from the lake to the campground carrying his new pole and tackle box.
Oh, well, he assuaged his own ego, there’s always tomorrow morning. He was glad he’d brought some groceries along so they didn’t have to rely on his ability to fish and gather in order to eat. He scratched at a mosquito bite just behind his ear that was driving him nuts.
The oncologist hoped House had the campfire started and was cooking breakfast like he’d offered to do. Wilson was hungry and the thought of bacon and eggs cooked over an open-fire made his mouth water. A hot cup of coffee would be a good thing, too.
This camping trip with House had been a very important one for Wilson. It was the first men-only activity he and House had done together in months. After Sam had skipped out on him with a proctologist working at Princeton General (they met at one of her seminars), he’d found himself depressed, questioning his own worth as a human being. It had been a blow to his ego to have his ex-wife turned girlfriend dump him for a guy who stuck his hand up anuses for a living. The man hadn’t been all that good-looking and as far as Wilson was concerned he had the personality of a wart. Sam hadn’t even had the courage to tell him to his face that she was ending their relationship; just as she had done with their divorce twenty years earlier, she had packed up and moved out all of her stuff while Wilson was at the hospital and had a letter couriered to him at work to notify him that she was doing the ass man and dumping the oncologist. He hadn’t had the courage to tell House yet about the break-up; he had planned on doing it this evening while they sat around the fire.
The truth was, Wilson was a little glad he and Sam were no longer together. That relationship had been the hardest on his friendship with House of any that he had had (he knew he was really the one to blame for that but even so) and, well, he missed him. Now that House and Cuddy were dating, the two friends were growing even further apart. He didn’t want to lose his best friend; the old adage ‘Distance makes the heart grow fonder’ actually had some truth behind it. Wilson’s office was just next door to House’s, but they had been emotionally distant for months.
It had taken quite a bit of convincing to get the world-famous diagnostician to go camping with him over the long weekend; House had found every possible problem with taking a cripple into the woods to be eaten by bugs and bears. For all of his bravado, he could be such a wuss at times. The winning argument had been Wilson’s; Cuddy’s sister was having her house renovated and had to be out of it for the weekend while it was being painted-she was quite sensitive to paint fumes. She was going to be staying with Cuddy over the weekend until the paint dried; since ‘Sis’ had adored Lucas and didn’t have a good word to say about House, it was going to be torture for the diagnostician. Going camping with his best friend was just as good of an excuse as any to avoid that trouble. When Wilson had presented it that way to the diagnostician, he knew he had him sold.
Wilson wanted to apologize to House for being such a jerk and he was prepared to be mocked by his friend and told ‘I told you so’ all weekend; he wasn’t prepared to be teased about his lack of skill as a fisherman. It was humiliating to be outwitted by something with a brain the size of a pea.
As the oncologist neared his and House’s campsite he heard the sound of a child giggling from the site next door. He could barely see the other site from his for all of the trees in between the two but as he came up this path from the lake there was a break in the trees and he could see the neighbors without obstructions in the way. There was a tent-trailer set up with a van parked alongside it. A campfire was roaring with flames; two adult-sized and one child-sized canvas chairs were set up and placed around it. The picnic table was covered with a pretty red-checked tablecloth on top of which food sat ready to be consumed. A small dog-perhaps a Chihuahua-was running around the fire in circles, barking tauntingly at a toddler, no more than two years old. She was giggling back at the dog and Wilson, in passing, absently noticed that he didn’t see the child’s parents anywhere around. They were probably in the tent trailer he had reasoned and thought no more about it as other concerns pressed on his mind.
His own campsite came into view and he could see his older friend sitting on a folding chair stoking a campfire of their own as he put a black cast iron frying pan on the grill suspended over the fire pit. Wilson was relieved to see that House was up and about and starting breakfast as he had promised. He smiled and was about to announce himself to his friend when he heard the most blood-curdling scream he had ever heard coming from the neighboring campsite.
Instantly Wilson knew what must have happened and his blood went cold in his veins. What he did next was done by instinct alone. Dropping his fishing gear Wilson sprinted over fallen logs, undergrowth and through bushes to get next door. If he had had time to think over what had happened he would have been so sickened that he wouldn’t have been able to function; fortunately he hadn’t.
The two-year old girl was lying in the flames, burning to death as the dog barked at the scene incessantly. There were no parents coming running to the child’s cries, just Wilson. Later he would remember the event as if everything took place in super slow motion but in truth, it had all begun and ended in a matter of a minute or less.
The oncologist rushed to the campfire and without any thought about being burned himself he grabbed at the screaming child and pulled her out of the flames, trying to ignore her cries of agony the best that he could. He brought her to the ground and began to roll her on the ground in an attempt to put out the flames that continued to burn away her clothing and the tender, young flesh underneath. Out of the corner of his eye he could see House limping as quickly as he could the long way around to the neighbor’s sight because it meant he didn’t have to contend with hazards that would have surely tripped him up. In the distance, coming from the direction of the bathrooms he heard a woman’s scream and sneakers pounding against the asphalt pathway leading from there. Wilson couldn’t allow himself to focus on that, however. He had to put out the fire that was devouring the child and that’s all that mattered.
It seemed like an eternity but it was really only three or four seconds before the fire on the child was extinguished and she laid whimpering and mewling pathetically. Wilson was about to pick the girl up off of the disease-ridden dirt when he felt something connect hard with the side of his body and send him reeling sideways off of his knees and to the ground. His head banged hard on the earth and stunned him, but not enough that he wasn’t aware of hands on his body rolling him like a log, back and forth over and over again as well as beating on him repetitively. He managed to focus at one point during it all and saw House’s face looking down at him, his mask of indifference gone and replaced by one of abject fear.
The diagnostician was yelling something to him but Wilson couldn’t really hear him over the deafening sound of his own heart beating and blood rushing in his ears. A moment later he felt the shock of cold water being dumped over him, and then another bucketful even as House’s hands continued to roll and slap him. He began to register the sensation of warmth, and then burning, followed thereafter by excruciating pain that assaulted every nerve and brain cell in his body, or so it fel, it caused him to scream . Never had he experienced pain like he did right then. He was lucky though; the bliss of unconsciousness over took him quickly, blocking out everything, including the pain.
(“~*~”)
He opened his eyes and then shut them again quickly against the assault of the bright lights around him. On the periphery of Wilson’s hearing he could detect the sounds of movement around him, of the steady beeping of a heart monitor, and of whispers being spoken too softly for him to comprehend. He swallowed and his saliva felt like battery acid as it went down his throat and esophagus. He could detect pain, especially on his back, his right hip and around his waist to his upper abdomen. Likewise his hands and arms stung dully through a haze of what he knew had to be powerful narcotics in his system.
Once again Wilson tried to open his eyes and successfully kept them open, even if they did tear up to the point where he couldn’t see out of them very well. He could see a suspended ceiling overhead as well as an IV pole with two bags of fluid dripping down thin plastic tubing towards his body. He tried to see what the label said on the bags but his vision was too blurred. He was lying with his head slightly elevated, so he could see most of his own body. There were heavy cotton dressings on his arms, hands and belly. The dressings on his torso wrapped around him completely and after a little while Wilson could tell that they covered most of his lower back. Wilson looked over to the side to see House sitting in a chair staring at him silently, one of his hands resting comfortingly on his upper arm where there were no dressings.
A flash of memory came to him, and the oncologist opened his mouth to speak. He found it difficult to expel the breath out through his larynx and when he did the only thing that came out was a gravelling whisper.
“The…baby!” he gasped to the diagnostician. House perked up and then frowned. Hesitantly, he shook his graying head.
“She was D.O.A.,” House told him with uncharacteristic gentleness. “The burns were too extensive.”
“Damn,” he murmured and closed his eyes in an effort to block out the mental images of a sweet little toddler smiling and giggling one moment, and a charred, ruined little body in the dirt the next. He felt a lump form in his throat and before he could swallow it, it escaped out of his mouth as a whimper. He felt House’s hand squeeze his shoulder gently for a moment.
“What happened…me?” Wilson croaked weakly, his eyes still closed.
“You rescued her right out of the fire pit.” House told him. “You managed to put the fire on the child out but you were on fire yourself.”
Nodding slightly in acknowledgement, Wilson opened his eyes again and fought through the morphine fog in his head. “How bad?” he asked thickly. Despite needing to know, the younger doctor was also terrified to hear the answer.
“You suffered second and third degree burns over approximately twenty-five percent of your body involving both arms and hands, abdomen, and most of your lower back,” the older doctor told him in forced calmness. “The burns have been cleaned and dressed. When Dr. Morse determines that you’re strong enough, the burns will be abraded and skin grafting will be done where it’s necessary. For now, you have to rest and stabilize a little more. How’s the pain? Do you need me to up the morphine?”
Wilson shrugged in response. Dr. Morse was PPTH’s top intensivist, so at least he knew he was in good hands. The thought of having one quarter of his body covered in agonizing, scarring burns was overwhelming. It was all for naught; the little girl had died anyway.
“I failed,” he murmured sadly, “everything. The girl…you…Sam.”
“That kid was dead before you got to her,” House told him, sounding harsher than he intended. “You did everything you could. Her idiot parents failed her, not you. We’ve both failed each other so that doesn’t fucking matter anymore. I have no idea what you mean about Sam, and Cuddy can’t locate her to notify her of what happened.”
“She left,” Wilson told him, closing his eyes in shame. “Another guy. You…were right.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” the diagnostician asked him, appearing to be taken aback by the news.
“Ashamed to,” the younger man confessed hoarsely.
House seemed uncertain what to say to that so he was silent for a few moments before telling his friend, “Her loss, Wilson. If she couldn’t appreciate just how…how lucky she was to have…you…shit, then the bitch didn’t deserve you in the first place.”
There was so much emotion in the diagnostician’s voice that Wilson wondered if he hadn’t just hallucinated what the older man had said. The pain of his burns, however, convinced him that this was no delusion.
“I’m sorry…for pushing you…away,” the oncologist told the other man, feeling so weak. He knew he was fading. “It…hurts.”
“Don’t worry about that right now,” House answered gently, the deep creases around his eyes and mouth seeming to disappear almost immediately. He rose from his seat, went to the morphine pump and upped the dosage a little. “Right now you need to rest. Everything will work out, Wilson. You’re not going to face this alone. I promise.”
“Thank you,” Wilson told him gratefully as he drifted off to sleep feeling safer and more cared for than he had in weeks.
~fin~