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Beta by Annie Booker, as always (thanks, Annie!)
Of Night and Light and the Half-Light
by Melody Clark
Part 1
Part 3
Part Two: Light
A brisk walk around the block hadn't helped at all. A half-hour of screaming digital jazz didn't touch it. Five full minutes under the cold water jets was helpless to cool him off. It wasn't happening. It just wasn't happening.
After it all, he still found himself walking the full-length of his place, from the front door to the bedroom and back again before forcibly wresting back the patently insane impulse to go back ... to go home to ... House.
So many crazed hallucinations of hope repeated themselves as if his brain had thumbnailed his dreams. Wilson saves House. House loves Wilson. House and Wilson love happily ever after.
It's not happening, Wilson had to scream at himself all over again.
And here he'd thought he'd tamped down and secured those profoundly idiotic dreams long ago.
And when you’re safely home, you’ll be so hard-up, you’ll have to masturbate to sleep.
He wasn't about to make House right about that one. (That's right, be up all night and endanger your patients by making House "not be right" -- and that admonition had come, of course, in House's voice).
At 2 AM, he was still staring at the inside of his eyelids.
At 2:15 am, his cell phone rang. He'd almost grabbed for it, grateful for the distraction, almost hoping it was his service. Then finally he did.
"Picked up on the first ring," House said, a dark laugh cutting right through him. "Still as wound up as an old porch spring. Why don't you admit I'm right and come back?"
"I've already told you that," Wilson said, steeling himself to the reactions going on in his body.
"I'm not giving up."
"And I'm not giving in."
House's smoky laugh in reply echoed through Wilson's gut. "The fuck you won't. You know how hot we’d be together. You know it and I haven’t even kissed you yet. Remember the wrist hickey I gave you tonight?"
The breath caught in his throat with a raspy sound. "What do you think?"
"Come home right now and I'll give you one anywhere else. Your choice. In fact, come home right now and I'll give you one everywhere else."
Wilson's thin reserve tore all the way through. Banished any calm he had pieced together. He swept away parasympathetic tears falling down his face -- a response to the dopamine bath House's words were pumping through him nerve by nerve. Early hyper-stimulation. On the way to vasocongestion. That's right, hide it under a medical cloud.
He had to cough hard to clear the way for his words. "I am home."
"That suitcase you live in isn't home. It’s an excuse for one so you can live in limbo. Want to shut me up? Fine. Hang up. But half of you doesn't want to. Half of you wants to sit there so I can phone fuck with your head until your balls ache so bad you have to come over and let me kiss it and make it better. So that I give you an excuse -- "
He slammed the phone against the bed.
He tore himself out of the bed and ripped open a window slide. He gulped at a bracingly cold New Jersey night. He refused to look toward Cranbury Road where it turned toward Princeton Junction. He knew what singular hazard lay in that direction.
We're possible, House had said. Not just it's possible, but we're possible.
Don’t assume. Don’t fall into that trap, he’d said to more than one fellowship victim of Dr. House.
If I let myself fall into you ... I'm never crawling out again.
He squeezed at his eyes to vanquish the phantom from them.
“Oh my god, Greg,” he whispered to the night sounds and the fairly empty room and the shadows all around him. He shut his eyes to try and not see them. He‘d cried alone so much over House. He was way, way beyond tears now.
He made himself go back to bed. He covered his head with pillows. He valiantly thought about nothing. And he managed to claim a few fitful minutes of sleep before morning.
He woke up trying to remember, amid all his fighting to forget.
He was known as a morning person, but that was after a fairly good night's sleep. That morning, he knew there wasn't strong enough coffee in the world to blast the fog out of his brain so he didn‘t even try. Dressing was a valiant battle with his closet. Driving was a focused contest of memory.
He let himself relax a little as he pulled into the hospital parking lot. Embracing the steering wheel, he leaned his forehead against his hands. He wished to hell and back he could go to bed again. But even if he did go to bed, he knew he wouldn't sleep.
He took the back way to the outside door that ran up beside his office.
He managed to unlock the door and enter without being seen. He locked the door behind him.
Constance had made good on her phone promise and dropped off his messages in his office mail slot. There were three messages including a returned call and another from a colleague to handle a follow-up. Just what he needed, subbing rounds. What fresh hell would be complete without a subbing round so, of course, he had one.
And the third one, in House's scribble: One long look at each other is all it will take.
Wilson crushed the note in his fist and flung it at the trash basket. Like he didn't fucking know.
So what do you do then? Sit in your locked office all day like a frightened adolescent? Spend all night escaping around corners like a kid? And then what? You'll have to walk to your car sometime.
He looked at his desk calendar. Oncology advisory on hospital budget with Brown and Cuddy in the boardroom. House wouldn't be there. Even if House had been supposed to be there, he wouldn't be there. House was very good at remembering to forget those kinds of things.
That would buy Wilson an hour of decompression. From there, he had the pinch-hit consult. And he would just improvise the rest of the day. And eventually all this intensely coiled-up hunger would gradually, well, be less coiled-up. And then maybe he could sneak away.
He desperately wanted to believe that he desperately wanted to sneak away.
He leaned his face for a moment into his open hands as he listened to the rushing tempo in his heart and head. Burning in his eyes. A memory on his skin.
Get hold of yourself.
He turned a little to the window that gave him a blinded view of the annex corridor. Far enough down the hall, he could see the subject of his inquiry standing looking in the direction of his office. At the first flash of pain, Wilson moved back from the window. There was no way House could have seen him in that instant. Anyway, House had been talking to Chase and a radiologist. They were focused on PET scan images.
House then conveniently turned to look in the opposite direction.
Wilson slipped out into the hallway and almost ran toward the boardroom.
He opened the boardroom door quickly and shut it behind him.
Cuddy was scratching a pen ambitiously at one of two healthy folders of spreadsheets. She looked up and around with a little surprise. She looked at her watch, but then squinted at him in concern. "You do look like crap."
"Gee, thanks." He relinquished his guarded posture near the door to lower himself into one of the very necessary chairs. "I didn't sleep much last night. No, strike the much. I didn‘t sleep last night."
"Yeah, House told me," she said casually. She tapped the pen on her eyebrow, continuing to read over figures. "I was going to tell both you and Brown, but I'll let you know early. I think we can afford a new linear accelerator if you can continue sharing IMRT and IGRT with general radiology."
"That's great," he said, truly if vaguely. "What did House tell you?"
She looked up, looked at him, shrugged a little. "Just that, you know, you didn't sleep well."
"He didn't tell you ... why?"
"No. Should he have?"
Footsteps were suddenly coming up the outside corridor from the direction of the annex. Careful, heavy, methodical, slow footsteps. Wilson was almost too scared to listen. Too frozen in place to try to move, especially when the footsteps slowed beside the boardroom door.
The door handle moved. The door opened slowly. Wilson fought the urge to move away.
Jorge Brown stuck his head in the room. "Am I late?"
Wilson almost melted in relief. He laughed, smiled, shook his head. "No, no, I was early."
Brown considered him a moment. "Yeah, House said you didn't sleep. You look like shit."
"Actually, there seems to be a split consensus on that. Fifty percent vote for crap, fifty percent say shit. What the hell happened? Did House make an announcement over the hospital channel or something?"
Brown shrugged. "No. He just mentioned it."
“He didn’t say why?”
“No.”
The Cuddy smirk went ambitiously wide. “Maybe not, but I’m really beginning to wonder.”
Wilson shook his head. “It’s nothing. It’s ... House. Never mind.” He nodded to the door. “Anyone mind if we lock that till after the meeting?”
Cuddy gave him her as if look. “Why?”
“It’s a long story.”
“It must be. Okay, sure, suit yourself.”
Wilson quickly reached over and clicked the button, not wanting to admit to himself how relieved he was at the locking sound. “Thank you. I guess we‘re ready for the meeting now.”
“Yeah,” she said, laughing as she shook her head. “I guess.”
Not that Wilson was listening fully. He was mainly listening to the sounds outside in the hall. He heard only enough conversation to keep track of its content.
“You guys have your new linear accelerator,” Cuddy said, sounding far away.
Brown distantly answered, “Thank you, Santa.”
But Wilson’s attention was drawn back to the hallway by light, fast footsteps, clearly too young and happy to be House’s, slowing at the boardroom door. Somebody knocked. Wilson jumped up to his feet again.
Cuddy held up a hand to stop him. “Allow me,” she said, loudening her voice for dramatic purposes, “Who goes there?”
“Sid’s Dial-a-Cookie,” Chase called back through the door, sounding like he was eating something.
“Try land shark next time,” Wilson said. “It’d be more believable.”
Cuddy shook her head. “No. Sid’s Dial-a-Cookie is real. We use them all the time to send get well wishes to sick employees. You know, if they’re allergic or philosophically opposed to flowers or something.”
“Oh, okay.” Wilson turned back to the door, asking Chase, “Are you alone?”
“Sure,” Chase replied, his voice puzzled. “Just me and the giant biscuit. Sorry, cookie.”
Wilson opened the door. It was in fact Chase. Alone. Alone and holding what looked like a medium sized pizza box emblazoned with Sid’s Dial-a-Cookie: We deliver.
“It’s for you,” Chase said, handing it over to Wilson. He then bit again into a smaller-sized sample. “Sid gave me a free one. They‘re not too bad actually.”
Lisa grimaced, shaking her head. “Please. They taste like old road apples.”
“Well, Mum wasn’t a particularly gifted biscuit baker,” Chase observed. He grinned knowingly at Wilson before walking away and said, “Interesting sentiment written on it, by the way.”
“What sentiment?“ Wilson called after him, but Chase was already gone.
Wilson closed the door and locked it again.
He plunked the huge cookie on the table then very slowly and carefully lifted the lid. In cake icing, across the cookie, it said: Thanks for the wild ride last night. Love, Mr. Toad.
Cuddy arched a knowing eyebrow toward Wilson. “Sleep debt can cause paranoia, you know.”
“So can House,” Wilson replied.
She nodded her agreement then leaned across to squint at the cookie. Her mouth squiggled into a smile. “Chase was right. Interesting sentiment there.”
“It’s a joke,” Wilson said.
Cuddy held up both hands in a gesture of commission. “Hey, your personal preferences are none of my business.”
“It’s a joke,” Wilson said again, pushing it aside. “In fact, I’ll be taking that to the nurses station for them to divide.”
She shrugged. “If you say so. Anyway, we’ll have the same budget plus ten percent so gauge your service spending accordingly, gentlemen. That said, I think our work here is done. Wilson, what flavor is the cookie?”
He looked back, surprised. He lifted the lid again to examine it. “Well, I haven’t tasted it, but judging from its overall appearance, I’d say chocolate chip. Why?”
She nodded. “Good. My favorite. You can leave it here.”
Brown was moving his way out the door, but Wilson stopped well before it. He grinned back at Cuddy. “I thought you said their cookies taste like road apples.”
“You can develop a taste for road apples. Besides, it contains chocolate. It’s that time of the month. I’ve got a killer budget to whittle down. Set it down, man, and step away from the cookie.”
Wilson plunked it down before her. Then he leaned stealthily out the door to look in both directions, seeing no cane-bearing hallway occupiers.
“You know,” she added, crunching at her first section of cookie. “Even if he is House, I don’t know I’d be running away from Mr. Toad if he gave me a giant cookie.”
Wilson laughed wryly. “As you said, your personal preferences are none of my business, Cuddy.”
“Ha-ha, very funny.“ She smirked again. “You know what I mean.”
He looked both ways down the hall once more. “Look, I know this sounds like a Kindergarten Melodrama, but please don’t tell House where I’m going.”
“I don’t even know where you’re going. Where are you going?”
“My old friend at Receiving is sick again. He’s having me pinch-hit for a follow-up. I always use Exam Seven so I slated it for Exam One. House won’t know to look for me there. You’ll keep that between us, right?”
“Of course,” she said, mildly offended.
He smiled gratefully. “See you later,” he said and left down the hall.
Five minutes and another section of cookie later, the boardroom door was filled again by a tall man bearing a smile and a cane. He leaned a little into the room. “Where is he?”
“Exam One,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.“ She saluted him with the section of what she was eating. “Thanks for the cookie.”
The follow-up was a benign biopsy.
"William Shepton," Wilson said, walking into Exam One to find a teenage boy sitting on the table with his mother standing at his side. The boy was fidgeting nervously with the sleeve of his sports jersey. His eyes were far away, clearly staring at something far behind Wilson. Wilson went on, "Dr. Gaynor is ill. I'm Dr. Wilson, I'll be your attending. First, your labs all came back very normal. It was just a benign fatty tumor, as your doctor thought. At your age, I doubt you'll see a recurrence of infantile cancer so I gather he was just being careful ... " Wilson noted the boy was only partly listening, still staring at something behind him. "May I ask ... what are you looking at?"
"Your weird story hour guy." The boy pointed toward the far TV wall.
"What weird story hour ..." Wilson's voice trailed away as he slowly looked around.
On the TV screen blazed forth the overly smiling countenance of one Dr. Gregory House. The image itself solved the strange case of the missing lab-coated teddy.
It was balanced on House's chest. He was petting it covetously. "Now that we're all present and accounted for, it's time for Story Hour with Dr. Bear. Today, we're going to tell some of the stories overheard in a certain doctor's office, aren't we, Dr Bear? That's unless that certain doctor hits the blinking line and puts it on speaker phone so he can talk to me like a grownup."
"You guys seriously need a new TV show," the boy said. "I mean, this blows chunks."
Wilson laughed darkly. He was cornered. He knew he was cornered. And the all-too sick and twisted fact of the matter was that he really was kind of glad.
"Please excuse me for a moment," he said to the other two people. He reached over and pressed the line button twice to flip it to speaker. "House, can your current fugue state hold for a minute or two? I'm with a patient."
"Long as you leave me on speaker," House said brightly back to him.
"Will you be quiet?"
"As a mouse."
"Fine." Wilson fought to turn his mind around and redirect his thoughts. He forced a smile at the boy and his mom and opted for a generic bedside manners question. "So, Billy, what do you want to be when you get older?"
"A doctor," the boy said, fidgeting with his sleeve. "I had cancer when I was little, so it fits. You really don't think I'll get it again? Is that because the body regenerates itself every seven years?"
Wilson smiled. "Where did you hear that?"
"My mom."
Wilson forced up another smile with an indecisive nod. "Let's just say that even cancer cells eventually wear out and are replaced by new ones. Just like doctors. And yes, I'm quite secure in the fact you'll grow up to replace a doctor someday, if you want to."
The boy shrugged, smiled. "I gotta bring up my grades first."
His mother beamed proudly. "I always tell him, he can do anything, if he puts his mind to it. We only use 10% of our brains, isn't that right, Doctor?"
"No, it's not right!" House’s voice blared out like a foghorn through the speaker phone. "We use 100% of our brains. At least some of us do. The ones who don't learn science off of cereal boxes.”
Wilson stopped. Swallowed. Took a deep breath. He called back toward the speaker phone, "Mice are quieter, House."
"But that's ridiculous," the boy's mother said with a scowl. "Everyone knows we only use ten percent -- "
"And everybody knows that Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy, too, but that doesn't make it true,” House snapped back through the phone. “We use 100% of our brains. And by the way, there was no 100th monkey and we do know how bumblebees can fly."
Wilson exhaled in order that he might inhale a roomful of patience. He signed off the chart. "If there are any questions, Mrs. Shepton, don't hesitate to call."
“I have one,” William said, sliding off the exam table to follow his mom to the door.
The boy pointed out the adhesive left over from his biopsy dressing. “How do I get this bandage crud off my arm so it won't stick to my uniform?”
"Rub it with vodka," House called over the phone again.
Wilson squinted back at the phone. "You're joking."
"Don't you watch Mythbusters?" House replied.
Wilson shook his head to himself yet again. "If I disclose my ignorance regarding what that is, will you still mock me?"
"Of course."
"In that case, darn, I missed it that week."
“We’ll try the vodka,” the mother said to the boy, pulling him along with her though stopping tentatively beside the telephone. She peered at the phone as if it might contain some all-knowing oracle that could explode on contact. She asked slowly, “Do you mean Lincoln's secretary wasn't named Kennedy?"
“Yes, I mean that. He had two secretaries, both dudes, neither one named Kennedy,” the speaker came to life again. "But the weird truth is that when Lincoln died, he was in Monroe, Maryland. When Kennedy died, he was in Marilyn -- "
"House," Wilson said sharply. He quickly tore free the charge slip and handed it to the mother. “It was nice meeting both of you. Please pardon our ... weird story hour guy. Have a nice day.”
The patient and his mother left the exam room and as if suddenly, Wilson realized he was all alone with the ear of House at the opposite end of the phone. He waited a moment, thinking House might have hung up, but then he watched the TV spring to life again.
"In a moment, we'll go back to story hour with Dr. Bear." House brandished a big, thick stogie before the camera while he continued to cuddle the teddy. "But first, a message from our sponsor. Dr. Bear, did you know that two out of three doctors say that sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar? What's that, Dr. Bear? You say I'm not supposed to smoke in a hospital? I’m not smoking it, silly, I'm sucking on it." House slid the cigar into his mouth, his tongue tasting the end -- an action Wilson only glimpsed before he was forced to turn away. "Emphasis on suck. Sublimation. Oral fixation."
Wilson thought any moment his body was going to combust. "House, I give. Stop molesting Dr. Bear, quit the ludicrous TV blackmail and go to the phone then tell me what you want. I'll agree to it just ... tell me."
The TV image flickered away. The speaker phone crackled to life. "What do I want? I want what you want. But no wait, I forgot, there is something wrong with that in Dr. Wilson’s Church of Perpetual Self-Denial. The only time you have sex is when it’s a public service. But sex isn’t what this is about. If it was, the world-record for priapism wouldn't be rapidly approaching inside my dick."
"Rub some vodka on it."
"You first," House said. "No, what this is about isn't sex. Your celebrated humping frog of Missisquoi County goes down on you when you’re at med school, it’s exploration. You fuck some guy you meet on occasion, it’s a hiding place from misery. You have sex with a man you love -- and it means as much as this is going to -- then maybe the great white doctor, Wonderbread’s own Jimmy Wilson, is really just a big Jewish fag.”
That one had hurt. Hurt more than he could allow himself to confess in the sound of his voice. He whispered the broken pieces of "You son of a bitch."
"Exactly. Now you know how high the stakes are. So meet me at the car in five minutes and let's get this party started. Or else."
part three shortly
Of Night and Light and the Half-Light
by Melody Clark
Part 1
Part 3
Part Two: Light
A brisk walk around the block hadn't helped at all. A half-hour of screaming digital jazz didn't touch it. Five full minutes under the cold water jets was helpless to cool him off. It wasn't happening. It just wasn't happening.
After it all, he still found himself walking the full-length of his place, from the front door to the bedroom and back again before forcibly wresting back the patently insane impulse to go back ... to go home to ... House.
So many crazed hallucinations of hope repeated themselves as if his brain had thumbnailed his dreams. Wilson saves House. House loves Wilson. House and Wilson love happily ever after.
It's not happening, Wilson had to scream at himself all over again.
And here he'd thought he'd tamped down and secured those profoundly idiotic dreams long ago.
And when you’re safely home, you’ll be so hard-up, you’ll have to masturbate to sleep.
He wasn't about to make House right about that one. (That's right, be up all night and endanger your patients by making House "not be right" -- and that admonition had come, of course, in House's voice).
At 2 AM, he was still staring at the inside of his eyelids.
At 2:15 am, his cell phone rang. He'd almost grabbed for it, grateful for the distraction, almost hoping it was his service. Then finally he did.
"Picked up on the first ring," House said, a dark laugh cutting right through him. "Still as wound up as an old porch spring. Why don't you admit I'm right and come back?"
"I've already told you that," Wilson said, steeling himself to the reactions going on in his body.
"I'm not giving up."
"And I'm not giving in."
House's smoky laugh in reply echoed through Wilson's gut. "The fuck you won't. You know how hot we’d be together. You know it and I haven’t even kissed you yet. Remember the wrist hickey I gave you tonight?"
The breath caught in his throat with a raspy sound. "What do you think?"
"Come home right now and I'll give you one anywhere else. Your choice. In fact, come home right now and I'll give you one everywhere else."
Wilson's thin reserve tore all the way through. Banished any calm he had pieced together. He swept away parasympathetic tears falling down his face -- a response to the dopamine bath House's words were pumping through him nerve by nerve. Early hyper-stimulation. On the way to vasocongestion. That's right, hide it under a medical cloud.
He had to cough hard to clear the way for his words. "I am home."
"That suitcase you live in isn't home. It’s an excuse for one so you can live in limbo. Want to shut me up? Fine. Hang up. But half of you doesn't want to. Half of you wants to sit there so I can phone fuck with your head until your balls ache so bad you have to come over and let me kiss it and make it better. So that I give you an excuse -- "
He slammed the phone against the bed.
He tore himself out of the bed and ripped open a window slide. He gulped at a bracingly cold New Jersey night. He refused to look toward Cranbury Road where it turned toward Princeton Junction. He knew what singular hazard lay in that direction.
We're possible, House had said. Not just it's possible, but we're possible.
Don’t assume. Don’t fall into that trap, he’d said to more than one fellowship victim of Dr. House.
If I let myself fall into you ... I'm never crawling out again.
He squeezed at his eyes to vanquish the phantom from them.
“Oh my god, Greg,” he whispered to the night sounds and the fairly empty room and the shadows all around him. He shut his eyes to try and not see them. He‘d cried alone so much over House. He was way, way beyond tears now.
He made himself go back to bed. He covered his head with pillows. He valiantly thought about nothing. And he managed to claim a few fitful minutes of sleep before morning.
He woke up trying to remember, amid all his fighting to forget.
He was known as a morning person, but that was after a fairly good night's sleep. That morning, he knew there wasn't strong enough coffee in the world to blast the fog out of his brain so he didn‘t even try. Dressing was a valiant battle with his closet. Driving was a focused contest of memory.
He let himself relax a little as he pulled into the hospital parking lot. Embracing the steering wheel, he leaned his forehead against his hands. He wished to hell and back he could go to bed again. But even if he did go to bed, he knew he wouldn't sleep.
He took the back way to the outside door that ran up beside his office.
He managed to unlock the door and enter without being seen. He locked the door behind him.
Constance had made good on her phone promise and dropped off his messages in his office mail slot. There were three messages including a returned call and another from a colleague to handle a follow-up. Just what he needed, subbing rounds. What fresh hell would be complete without a subbing round so, of course, he had one.
And the third one, in House's scribble: One long look at each other is all it will take.
Wilson crushed the note in his fist and flung it at the trash basket. Like he didn't fucking know.
So what do you do then? Sit in your locked office all day like a frightened adolescent? Spend all night escaping around corners like a kid? And then what? You'll have to walk to your car sometime.
He looked at his desk calendar. Oncology advisory on hospital budget with Brown and Cuddy in the boardroom. House wouldn't be there. Even if House had been supposed to be there, he wouldn't be there. House was very good at remembering to forget those kinds of things.
That would buy Wilson an hour of decompression. From there, he had the pinch-hit consult. And he would just improvise the rest of the day. And eventually all this intensely coiled-up hunger would gradually, well, be less coiled-up. And then maybe he could sneak away.
He desperately wanted to believe that he desperately wanted to sneak away.
He leaned his face for a moment into his open hands as he listened to the rushing tempo in his heart and head. Burning in his eyes. A memory on his skin.
Get hold of yourself.
He turned a little to the window that gave him a blinded view of the annex corridor. Far enough down the hall, he could see the subject of his inquiry standing looking in the direction of his office. At the first flash of pain, Wilson moved back from the window. There was no way House could have seen him in that instant. Anyway, House had been talking to Chase and a radiologist. They were focused on PET scan images.
House then conveniently turned to look in the opposite direction.
Wilson slipped out into the hallway and almost ran toward the boardroom.
He opened the boardroom door quickly and shut it behind him.
Cuddy was scratching a pen ambitiously at one of two healthy folders of spreadsheets. She looked up and around with a little surprise. She looked at her watch, but then squinted at him in concern. "You do look like crap."
"Gee, thanks." He relinquished his guarded posture near the door to lower himself into one of the very necessary chairs. "I didn't sleep much last night. No, strike the much. I didn‘t sleep last night."
"Yeah, House told me," she said casually. She tapped the pen on her eyebrow, continuing to read over figures. "I was going to tell both you and Brown, but I'll let you know early. I think we can afford a new linear accelerator if you can continue sharing IMRT and IGRT with general radiology."
"That's great," he said, truly if vaguely. "What did House tell you?"
She looked up, looked at him, shrugged a little. "Just that, you know, you didn't sleep well."
"He didn't tell you ... why?"
"No. Should he have?"
Footsteps were suddenly coming up the outside corridor from the direction of the annex. Careful, heavy, methodical, slow footsteps. Wilson was almost too scared to listen. Too frozen in place to try to move, especially when the footsteps slowed beside the boardroom door.
The door handle moved. The door opened slowly. Wilson fought the urge to move away.
Jorge Brown stuck his head in the room. "Am I late?"
Wilson almost melted in relief. He laughed, smiled, shook his head. "No, no, I was early."
Brown considered him a moment. "Yeah, House said you didn't sleep. You look like shit."
"Actually, there seems to be a split consensus on that. Fifty percent vote for crap, fifty percent say shit. What the hell happened? Did House make an announcement over the hospital channel or something?"
Brown shrugged. "No. He just mentioned it."
“He didn’t say why?”
“No.”
The Cuddy smirk went ambitiously wide. “Maybe not, but I’m really beginning to wonder.”
Wilson shook his head. “It’s nothing. It’s ... House. Never mind.” He nodded to the door. “Anyone mind if we lock that till after the meeting?”
Cuddy gave him her as if look. “Why?”
“It’s a long story.”
“It must be. Okay, sure, suit yourself.”
Wilson quickly reached over and clicked the button, not wanting to admit to himself how relieved he was at the locking sound. “Thank you. I guess we‘re ready for the meeting now.”
“Yeah,” she said, laughing as she shook her head. “I guess.”
Not that Wilson was listening fully. He was mainly listening to the sounds outside in the hall. He heard only enough conversation to keep track of its content.
“You guys have your new linear accelerator,” Cuddy said, sounding far away.
Brown distantly answered, “Thank you, Santa.”
But Wilson’s attention was drawn back to the hallway by light, fast footsteps, clearly too young and happy to be House’s, slowing at the boardroom door. Somebody knocked. Wilson jumped up to his feet again.
Cuddy held up a hand to stop him. “Allow me,” she said, loudening her voice for dramatic purposes, “Who goes there?”
“Sid’s Dial-a-Cookie,” Chase called back through the door, sounding like he was eating something.
“Try land shark next time,” Wilson said. “It’d be more believable.”
Cuddy shook her head. “No. Sid’s Dial-a-Cookie is real. We use them all the time to send get well wishes to sick employees. You know, if they’re allergic or philosophically opposed to flowers or something.”
“Oh, okay.” Wilson turned back to the door, asking Chase, “Are you alone?”
“Sure,” Chase replied, his voice puzzled. “Just me and the giant biscuit. Sorry, cookie.”
Wilson opened the door. It was in fact Chase. Alone. Alone and holding what looked like a medium sized pizza box emblazoned with Sid’s Dial-a-Cookie: We deliver.
“It’s for you,” Chase said, handing it over to Wilson. He then bit again into a smaller-sized sample. “Sid gave me a free one. They‘re not too bad actually.”
Lisa grimaced, shaking her head. “Please. They taste like old road apples.”
“Well, Mum wasn’t a particularly gifted biscuit baker,” Chase observed. He grinned knowingly at Wilson before walking away and said, “Interesting sentiment written on it, by the way.”
“What sentiment?“ Wilson called after him, but Chase was already gone.
Wilson closed the door and locked it again.
He plunked the huge cookie on the table then very slowly and carefully lifted the lid. In cake icing, across the cookie, it said: Thanks for the wild ride last night. Love, Mr. Toad.
Cuddy arched a knowing eyebrow toward Wilson. “Sleep debt can cause paranoia, you know.”
“So can House,” Wilson replied.
She nodded her agreement then leaned across to squint at the cookie. Her mouth squiggled into a smile. “Chase was right. Interesting sentiment there.”
“It’s a joke,” Wilson said.
Cuddy held up both hands in a gesture of commission. “Hey, your personal preferences are none of my business.”
“It’s a joke,” Wilson said again, pushing it aside. “In fact, I’ll be taking that to the nurses station for them to divide.”
She shrugged. “If you say so. Anyway, we’ll have the same budget plus ten percent so gauge your service spending accordingly, gentlemen. That said, I think our work here is done. Wilson, what flavor is the cookie?”
He looked back, surprised. He lifted the lid again to examine it. “Well, I haven’t tasted it, but judging from its overall appearance, I’d say chocolate chip. Why?”
She nodded. “Good. My favorite. You can leave it here.”
Brown was moving his way out the door, but Wilson stopped well before it. He grinned back at Cuddy. “I thought you said their cookies taste like road apples.”
“You can develop a taste for road apples. Besides, it contains chocolate. It’s that time of the month. I’ve got a killer budget to whittle down. Set it down, man, and step away from the cookie.”
Wilson plunked it down before her. Then he leaned stealthily out the door to look in both directions, seeing no cane-bearing hallway occupiers.
“You know,” she added, crunching at her first section of cookie. “Even if he is House, I don’t know I’d be running away from Mr. Toad if he gave me a giant cookie.”
Wilson laughed wryly. “As you said, your personal preferences are none of my business, Cuddy.”
“Ha-ha, very funny.“ She smirked again. “You know what I mean.”
He looked both ways down the hall once more. “Look, I know this sounds like a Kindergarten Melodrama, but please don’t tell House where I’m going.”
“I don’t even know where you’re going. Where are you going?”
“My old friend at Receiving is sick again. He’s having me pinch-hit for a follow-up. I always use Exam Seven so I slated it for Exam One. House won’t know to look for me there. You’ll keep that between us, right?”
“Of course,” she said, mildly offended.
He smiled gratefully. “See you later,” he said and left down the hall.
Five minutes and another section of cookie later, the boardroom door was filled again by a tall man bearing a smile and a cane. He leaned a little into the room. “Where is he?”
“Exam One,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.“ She saluted him with the section of what she was eating. “Thanks for the cookie.”
The follow-up was a benign biopsy.
"William Shepton," Wilson said, walking into Exam One to find a teenage boy sitting on the table with his mother standing at his side. The boy was fidgeting nervously with the sleeve of his sports jersey. His eyes were far away, clearly staring at something far behind Wilson. Wilson went on, "Dr. Gaynor is ill. I'm Dr. Wilson, I'll be your attending. First, your labs all came back very normal. It was just a benign fatty tumor, as your doctor thought. At your age, I doubt you'll see a recurrence of infantile cancer so I gather he was just being careful ... " Wilson noted the boy was only partly listening, still staring at something behind him. "May I ask ... what are you looking at?"
"Your weird story hour guy." The boy pointed toward the far TV wall.
"What weird story hour ..." Wilson's voice trailed away as he slowly looked around.
On the TV screen blazed forth the overly smiling countenance of one Dr. Gregory House. The image itself solved the strange case of the missing lab-coated teddy.
It was balanced on House's chest. He was petting it covetously. "Now that we're all present and accounted for, it's time for Story Hour with Dr. Bear. Today, we're going to tell some of the stories overheard in a certain doctor's office, aren't we, Dr Bear? That's unless that certain doctor hits the blinking line and puts it on speaker phone so he can talk to me like a grownup."
"You guys seriously need a new TV show," the boy said. "I mean, this blows chunks."
Wilson laughed darkly. He was cornered. He knew he was cornered. And the all-too sick and twisted fact of the matter was that he really was kind of glad.
"Please excuse me for a moment," he said to the other two people. He reached over and pressed the line button twice to flip it to speaker. "House, can your current fugue state hold for a minute or two? I'm with a patient."
"Long as you leave me on speaker," House said brightly back to him.
"Will you be quiet?"
"As a mouse."
"Fine." Wilson fought to turn his mind around and redirect his thoughts. He forced a smile at the boy and his mom and opted for a generic bedside manners question. "So, Billy, what do you want to be when you get older?"
"A doctor," the boy said, fidgeting with his sleeve. "I had cancer when I was little, so it fits. You really don't think I'll get it again? Is that because the body regenerates itself every seven years?"
Wilson smiled. "Where did you hear that?"
"My mom."
Wilson forced up another smile with an indecisive nod. "Let's just say that even cancer cells eventually wear out and are replaced by new ones. Just like doctors. And yes, I'm quite secure in the fact you'll grow up to replace a doctor someday, if you want to."
The boy shrugged, smiled. "I gotta bring up my grades first."
His mother beamed proudly. "I always tell him, he can do anything, if he puts his mind to it. We only use 10% of our brains, isn't that right, Doctor?"
"No, it's not right!" House’s voice blared out like a foghorn through the speaker phone. "We use 100% of our brains. At least some of us do. The ones who don't learn science off of cereal boxes.”
Wilson stopped. Swallowed. Took a deep breath. He called back toward the speaker phone, "Mice are quieter, House."
"But that's ridiculous," the boy's mother said with a scowl. "Everyone knows we only use ten percent -- "
"And everybody knows that Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy, too, but that doesn't make it true,” House snapped back through the phone. “We use 100% of our brains. And by the way, there was no 100th monkey and we do know how bumblebees can fly."
Wilson exhaled in order that he might inhale a roomful of patience. He signed off the chart. "If there are any questions, Mrs. Shepton, don't hesitate to call."
“I have one,” William said, sliding off the exam table to follow his mom to the door.
The boy pointed out the adhesive left over from his biopsy dressing. “How do I get this bandage crud off my arm so it won't stick to my uniform?”
"Rub it with vodka," House called over the phone again.
Wilson squinted back at the phone. "You're joking."
"Don't you watch Mythbusters?" House replied.
Wilson shook his head to himself yet again. "If I disclose my ignorance regarding what that is, will you still mock me?"
"Of course."
"In that case, darn, I missed it that week."
“We’ll try the vodka,” the mother said to the boy, pulling him along with her though stopping tentatively beside the telephone. She peered at the phone as if it might contain some all-knowing oracle that could explode on contact. She asked slowly, “Do you mean Lincoln's secretary wasn't named Kennedy?"
“Yes, I mean that. He had two secretaries, both dudes, neither one named Kennedy,” the speaker came to life again. "But the weird truth is that when Lincoln died, he was in Monroe, Maryland. When Kennedy died, he was in Marilyn -- "
"House," Wilson said sharply. He quickly tore free the charge slip and handed it to the mother. “It was nice meeting both of you. Please pardon our ... weird story hour guy. Have a nice day.”
The patient and his mother left the exam room and as if suddenly, Wilson realized he was all alone with the ear of House at the opposite end of the phone. He waited a moment, thinking House might have hung up, but then he watched the TV spring to life again.
"In a moment, we'll go back to story hour with Dr. Bear." House brandished a big, thick stogie before the camera while he continued to cuddle the teddy. "But first, a message from our sponsor. Dr. Bear, did you know that two out of three doctors say that sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar? What's that, Dr. Bear? You say I'm not supposed to smoke in a hospital? I’m not smoking it, silly, I'm sucking on it." House slid the cigar into his mouth, his tongue tasting the end -- an action Wilson only glimpsed before he was forced to turn away. "Emphasis on suck. Sublimation. Oral fixation."
Wilson thought any moment his body was going to combust. "House, I give. Stop molesting Dr. Bear, quit the ludicrous TV blackmail and go to the phone then tell me what you want. I'll agree to it just ... tell me."
The TV image flickered away. The speaker phone crackled to life. "What do I want? I want what you want. But no wait, I forgot, there is something wrong with that in Dr. Wilson’s Church of Perpetual Self-Denial. The only time you have sex is when it’s a public service. But sex isn’t what this is about. If it was, the world-record for priapism wouldn't be rapidly approaching inside my dick."
"Rub some vodka on it."
"You first," House said. "No, what this is about isn't sex. Your celebrated humping frog of Missisquoi County goes down on you when you’re at med school, it’s exploration. You fuck some guy you meet on occasion, it’s a hiding place from misery. You have sex with a man you love -- and it means as much as this is going to -- then maybe the great white doctor, Wonderbread’s own Jimmy Wilson, is really just a big Jewish fag.”
That one had hurt. Hurt more than he could allow himself to confess in the sound of his voice. He whispered the broken pieces of "You son of a bitch."
"Exactly. Now you know how high the stakes are. So meet me at the car in five minutes and let's get this party started. Or else."
part three shortly
Threat Level: 
calm
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