For
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cold_clarity:
Can I ask for House and Wilson? Can I ask that it be bitter, painful, and completely loveless?'Hey there, Boy Wonder,' House said, and then snapped his fingers at the intern trailing behind him. They headed off at House's usual rocket-fast pace for the lifts.
'That man is such an ass,' Monica muttered at him. 'I don't know what Stacey sees in him.'
'I don't know,' James answered. 'I think he's kind of funny.' He squeezed her hand. 'You ready for this?'
Monica curved her hand to her belly. She was just starting to show. 'It doesn't feel real yet. You know? I touch it and I feel like I just put on weight.' She gnawed her lower lip, wiping away the coral lipstick she'd carefully put on in the car. 'Do you think it's a sign? What if I can't connect to it?'
'Relax.' He kissed her temple. 'You'll be a great mother.'
'Because I saw so much great mothering when I was a kid?'
'Because you know exactly what kind of mother not to be.' Same as he knew what kind of father not to be. What kind of husband not to be. 'We're going to be great at this,' James told her, and knew it in his gut. 'The first sonogram will help. Seeing our baby. The nurses all said so.'
'You were talking to the nurses about us?' Monica turned red. 'I hate when you do that,' she hissed. 'It's embarrassing.'
'Not about you in particular.'
'Oh, because you have so many other pregnant wives for them to suppose it could be?'
One of said nurses appeared in the lounge, chart in hand. 'Mr and Mrs Wilson,' she called. 'We're ready for you now.'
**
'Boy Wonder,' House said, and slapped a chart onto his desk. 'My patient has metastatic colorectal cancer. Fix it, will you?'
'I've got a full plate, House.' He meant it metaphorically, but House was already taking a seat and making free with his untouched lunch. He didn't bother to protest. He had several years of evidence it wasn't going to make a difference. 'I'll have to pass it off to someone else in the department.'
'But I only trust you.' House made cow eyes at him, which would have been more effective if his cheeks weren't bulging with tuna salad. He managed not to choke on a massive swallow. 'What're you working on?'
'Files.' He immediately closed the window he was looking at, but whether by chance or fate House was ideally positioned to have seen the screen already.
'You're not wearing your ring.'
'I take it off at work.'
'Yes, and you always have an impression or a white patch where you wear it the rest of the time. All your little piggies match now. Now you're surfing the web for a lawyer?' There's more keen predatory instinct than sympathy in House's face. 'You're getting divorced.'
'You're getting annoying.'
'Blush off the old rose already?'
'House, please shut up.'
'You shut up.' House took another bite of James' sandwich. 'It's about the baby. It's not your fault, it's not her fault, sometimes a foetus just isn't viable--'
'Don't.'
He almost didn't trust the silence. He didn't risk a look. But House didn't say anything else, and even put his sandwich down.
A week later he caught himself saying something about his friend, this guy House at work, and-- And realised it was true.
It sucked, but it was true.
**
'Boy Wonder,' House said, 'get the fuck out of my room.'
It took House exactly two minutes out of a chemically-induced coma to realise what Stacey had done, and that included the time it took him to end their relationship in no uncertain terms and toss her out with the threat of a law suit at her back.
James said, 'I approve, if it matters.'
'It doesn't.' But it did. Some-- a very little some-- of the tightness in House's drawn pale face went away. Everyone needed someone to just understand; even House.
James didn't say anything else. House didn't. Maybe James did need to be needed, a bit. Maybe it was just that James was more accomplished at being human than House was, and he didn't need to air it, when it was time to step up. It was time to step up.
House was never the same, after the infarction. The thing was that James really did understand. There were some things you didn't come back from.
**
They didn't pretend to be drunk. House didn't joke about experimenting. James was twice divorced and gearing up for a third try that even he didn't expect to be the charm. House was alone because he couldn't trust anyone anymore and he'd earned the right to feel that way, earned it with daily, hourly reminders. Some days they were good men, fighting for justice, healers, menders. Most days they were just average, average men at a job with average stresses and the average kind of failures.
Some days they were not good men at all. Some days they were, actually, very bad men, and when you knew that what you'd done was that bad, you knew there wasn't anyone going to sit in a room with you and understand.
Except there was. House and Wilson. Sometimes the universe just evened out, and gave you what you needed, even when you didn't deserve it.
'I'm sorry,' House said, and it was one of only a tiny handful of times that he would say those words and mean them.
'I know,' Wilson answered, and did.
'I didn't lead you on.'
No, he hadn't. Anyway-- 'It's not about that. Wasn't. I didn't-- think--'
'It was a mistake, Boy Wonder,' House said, and those were the last words he ever did say about it.
Maybe the universe wasn't that giving, after all.
