Author's note: This will be the last chapter of this story. Thanks to everyone who has read along the past two weeks. :)
I know House and Wilson have been a pain sometimes, not being able to decide which way to go and fighting with each other.
Have fun reading the last chapter. And I would just love to read some final reviews. +hint hint+
Summary: The day after. They have big plans for the evening, but Wilson doesn't quite make it out of the hospital at 5 pm firm
House was late the next day. He knew the ducklings were waiting for him already, he had scheduled the meeting at 10 a.m. himself. Actually he had planned on visiting Wilson before the meeting, but it was past 10 already. House was worried a little, that he would pretend that the last evening had never happened. He knew Wilson long enough to know that he could go out on a date and then go on as if nothing had happened. At least he had done that with some of the girls he went out with. House better saw him early today to remind him of their date.
He almost ran across the parking lot towards the entrance, his leg hurt, but he didn't care very much. House had just opened the door when from the corner of his eye he noticed Wilson walking towards him. House smiled, Wilson was late, too. Not a thing that happened often.
"Morning Wilson," he grinned knowingly. Wilson probably had been up half the night thinking, just like he had been.
"House," Wilson answered, nodded shortly and raced through the door that House held open for him. House caught back up with him at the elevator and they slipped in just before the doors closed.
"Good morning," Wilson said to the group of doctors they had joined, House barely nodded. "Giving signs already?" Wilson grinned and pointed to House's sneakers. Across the light grey fabric were pink stripes. Some of the other doctors turned and glanced at the shoes, too.
"They were a different color on the picture on the internet," House pouted. He turned to the other doctors. "I wanted blue stripes. Pink is for him." He pointed at Wilson.
The doctors smiled sheepishly and turned away, while Wilson punched his fist into his side.
House starred at him with innocent big eyes."What?"
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When Wilson trotted along close to him on their way to their offices House couldn't help but smile. He felt Wilson's hand brush against his own and wondered if he had done that on purpose. It didn't matter.
"Will you pick me up for lunch?" House asked.
"Your treat?"
"No, that would be way too suspicious." He shook his head and Wilson sighed.
"Okay, but you have to make up for that!" Wilson walked on when House stopped in front of the meeting room, staring after Wilson slightly stunned, his mouth open.
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"You're late." Foreman frowned. He had watched his boss and Dr. Wilson through the glass and was a little confused to see House literally gaping at Wilson.
"Did you start without me?" House walked through the room and got himself a coffee.
"No, we thought –" Cameron started, but House interrupted her.
"Good, then I didn't miss any of the fun, did I?" He cast a smirky look at Forman.
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The morning was rather eventless. They talked about the case, House sent his minions away to do tests, they came back and they discussed the symptoms once more. The case wasn't really interesting. House was pretty sure it was some kind of bacterial infection that caused the various symptoms, they just had to wait a little until the test results were ready. He tantalized his ducklings with differential diagnoses anyway. A little practice couldn't do any harm. House was in an unusually good mood. He ignored Cameron's affecting, lash-beating looks, let Foreman write on the white board and even Chase's rather stupid comments did not bother him.
Cameron disappeared for a few minutes to check on test results and House got a little bored watching Foreman doing crosswords and Chase staring at his hands – or whatever he stared at under the table. He thought about paying a visit to Wilson, but before he could decide if it was a good idea, Cameron returned with sheets of paper.
She had tested positive on several infections. House was not surprised, but let the young doctors go through them anyway.
Wilson suddenly stood in the corridor, smiling and pointing at his watch. House nodded, but wanted to finish the discussion with Foreman about which antibiotic to use. Obvioulsy the discussion took too long for an impatient Wilson. He opened the door and put his head in.
"Are you coming?"
House looked up at him in mocked bewilderment. "Here and now? Not in front of the kids, but we can work on it later."
Cameron and Chase stared at House open mouthed, Foreman couldn't suppress a chuckle and Wilson blushed. House grabbed his cane and hobbled to the door.
"Give him both antibiotics, that should do him … - it. Sorry." He winked at the ducklings and stepped into the corridor
"Lunch. In the cafeteria," Wilson said loudly towards the ducklings to clear things up.
"Dinner will be more interesting," House added grinning and Wilson blushed again.
They turned and walked to the elevator.
"Why did you do that?" Wilson hissed.
"To keep them busy over lunch," House pushed the elevator button with his cane. "And to let you know about dinner…" he added. Wilson rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything.
"Don't worry about the talk too much." House turned to him, when they stood in the elevator. Wilson was very much aware of the fact that they were all alone.
"I don't," he answered and took House's face in his hands to kiss him. His lips barely touched House's when he noticed the elevator slowing down. He gave him a quick, almost innocent kiss and released him just before the doors opened. A group of people came in and they recognized some of the doctors from the group they had already met in the morning. They had to step back and behind the other people's backs House reached for Wilson's hand to give it a short squeeze.
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"Will you please try to behave in the cafeteria," Wilson whispered when they reached the ground floor and got out.
"I wasn't the one kissing in there," House pointed back to the elevator.
"Shhh now." Wilson opened the door and they went in to get their lunch.
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Wilson could hardly believe that House did behave quite well. Of course he made fun of other people, insulted the girl at the food counter, blew bubbles in his milkshake with the straw and stole plenty of food from Wilson's plate. But that was the usual stuff, and Wilson wasn't in for more humilation than he was already used to.
"I guess I drop by later," House said casually when they reached the conference room.
"Don't you have any cases or clinic duty to keep you busy?" Wilson asked. He had plenty of work and he wanted to get out of the hospital early today. He felt a little stupid about that, but still he was extremely nervous about tonight.
"Cuddy already has four doctors working in the clinic today and my only case turned out to be what I suspected all along: a boring bacterial infection."
Wilson sighed. "Send the ducklings home and go play."
"That's what I intended to do, but you don't seem to be too pleased with me coming over to your office."
"I was talking about your Nintendo." Wilson turned and walked to his office.
"Oh that!" House shouted after him. "That's kid's stuff!"
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It wasn't House who paid a visit to the other office later on. Wilson decided to beat him to it. "I need your help," he said as he walked through House's office door.
House looked up from his Nintendo. It wasn't only kid's stuff after all.
"Yeah, I can lend you a hand," he grinned.
"Let me put this clear. I need help on a diagnosis of a patient."
"Easy. It's your patient. Diagnosis: cancer." House looked a little disappointed.
"Yes, cancer it is. But the cancer's still curable and does not cause these symptoms." Wilson handed the file to House's outstretched hand. "Thanks." He was glad House seemed willing to help.
"Her electrolytes are a mess and what did the lab do to the blood tests? Shuffled some numbers?" House frowned and Wilson could see, that he was already interested in the case. "I have to call the team back to work. I am not repeating all those tests myself." House reached for the phone to call the ducklings back and had already forgotten about Wilson who silently went back to his own office.
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"Where is House and what is he doing?" Cuddy asked suspiciously. She had just come into Wilson's office to hand him some more paperwork.
"He is working on a case. And please don't send anymore of these files over to me today. I don't know when to work on them anymore." Wilson pointed to another stack on his desk. He was tired and his mood would have been on an all time low hadn't it been for his new relationship with House.
"House doesn't have a case. The only patient he's got, has a huge amount of antibiotics pumped into him and he'll probably will be okay again by tomorrow."
"He's assisting me with one of my patients. Sarah Landerson obviously got worse problems than her cancer." Wilson put aside the last file he had been working on and looked up at Cuddy.
"Did you blackmail him or something like that to take over the case?" Cuddy's eyes were big with surprise.
"Something like that," Wilson answered shortly.
"What's the deal?" She couldn't believe Wilson could hand over a case to House just like that.
"The deal?" Wilson stuttered. "That's just something – uhm, personal."
"What is going on with you two?" Cuddy inquired. "I heard new rumors about you. Your private life's kind of … adventuresome lately."
"Jealous?" House stood in the open door, grinning broadly.
"You're part of that gossip, too." Cuddy shot at him.
"Oooh!" House mocked. "And you wanna be in it, too? I'm sorry, you can't! We won't share."
Cuddy rolled her eyes. "It's impossible to have a normal conversation with you." She cast an angry glance at House. "Wilson, I want to talk to you later. Could you please come over to my office when you're done here." She pointed at the stack of papers and squeezed past House through the door.
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"You're not going to finish all those files, do you?" House walked through the office and flipped his fingers through the papers. "Those'll take you forever."
"I'll leave some for tomorrow to get out of here soon." Wilson tried to smile.
"Dr. James Wilson will leave work at 5pm?" House drew his finger across the top file and then let it drop to Wilson's desk and drew it over Wilson's hand. "Any special plans for tonight. Got a date?"
Wilson forced a smile. "Kind of. It's more like a sequel to the last one, I guess."
"You're tired already," House stated. "I'd spare you the bad news, but your patient needs some urgent treatment." He placed the file onto Wilson's desk. "The cancer has spread already."
"No, we checked. Lymphnodes were clean," Wilson protested.
"It's in her lung or in her head. She has Schwartz-Bartter." House wished he could have postponed this conversation until tomorrow, but the patient would be in a coma by then.
"She's not a kid. Schwartz-Bartter would've been diagnosed about twenty years ago." Wilson already knew he had lost. If it wasn't idiopathic, it was most probably from the cancer.
"Check the lungs for a small cell carcinoma and the head for a tumor again. It must be there somewhere unless we overlooked severe burns that caused the electrolytes to go out of control."
Wilson groaned and started to massage his neck with his right hand. This was not going well. House walked around the desk, hung his cane on the shelf and pushed Wilson's hand away. "I'll send the kids to check for the tumor," he said, pressing his fingertips into Wilson's neck and shoulders. "You do whatever is necessary here and I take care of Cuddy. You don't have to talk with her today."
Wilson closed his eyes and felt his muscles relax. "Thanks," he mumbled. House's fingers stroke through his hair once, then he dropped his hands. Wilson reluctantly open his eyes only to see the stack of paperwork in front of him. He sighed and opened the first folder while House limped out of his office.
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It wasn't until two hours later when House came back to see Wilson. "We got the treatment for Schwartz-Bartter going. The tumor infiltrated most of her left lung, but is really hard to see." He held the MRI image up and pointed to some of the tumor parts.
"Oh shit," was all Wilson could say. He stared at the MRI. Now that House had pointed out the small shadows he could see them, too. They were about everywhere within the left lung.
"Right lobe looks clean though", House mused. "Surgery in combination with chemotherapy might help."
Wilson pinched his nose and rubbed his eyes, he had stared at those files for way too long. "We have to be sure. We can't take out half her lung and then leave her with chemo and an infiltrated right lobe."
"Cameron and Foreman are working on the biopsy and the lavage, we'll have the results tomorrow. We are going home now."
Wilson wanted to protest, but House closed the file and put it back on the stack.
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They drove to House's apartment in silence.
"She's gonna die," Wilson said exhaustedly when they closed the door behind them. House turned around and opened his arms. Wilson sank gratefully against his chest.
"She might as well make it and live for another twenty years," House lied. The possibility to survive cancer in that state was low. He started to rub Wilson's back. He wanted him to relax and forget about work, but he knew how hopeless this wish was. Doctors could never forget about their work for very long. "Come on," he said hoarsly. "Relax." He gave him a soft kiss on his hair.
Wilson took a deep breath. "Okay, I'll try. It's been a horrible day."
"Hey you've been to lunch with me. Doesn't that make up for some of the other shit?" House teased, pushing Wilson away a bit so he could look him in the eyes.
"Thanks for your help." Wilson smiled a little. House couldn't resist to pull him closer again and kiss him.
"What'll we have for dinner?" House mumbled, his lips still on Wilson's.
"I thought we'll have –" Wilson couldn't finish his answer. His pager went off.
"Turn it off," House advised. "Don't even look at it." But it was too late, Wilson had already read the message.
"She's coughing blood. I have to go back to the hospital."
"To help her cough?" Anger dwelled in House's voice, but he quickly suppressed it. He would have returned to the hospital as well. "I'll drive."
Wilson shook his head. "I'll just check on her and get the test results. I'll be back in a bit."
House followed Wilson with his eyes as he turned around and walked back out of the door. So far for the big evening. This day really got in their way.
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Stepping through the dark of his apartment, House went to the kitchen first. He got a beer out of the fridge and then made his way to the sofa to turn the tv on. They would have to order Chinese food later on when Wilson was back. He closed his eyes, the flickering light from some game show still on his lids and drifted into a light slumber.
The pain in his leg woke House hours later. He blinked at the bright light from the tv and then listened into the darkness. There was no sound and no sign of Wilson. Hoping he had just left him sleeping he pulled himself up and limped into the bedroom, but Wilson had not come back yet. He looked at his watch. It was way past midnight, he missed Wilson and he was worried. Still ignoring the pain in his leg he hubbled over to the phone and dialed Wilson's cell phone number. Mailbox. He tried the office. Mailbox again. House called the reception. "Dr. House here. I'd like to speak to Dr. James Wilson." It took the receptionist a minute to check, then she returned to the phone.
"Dr. Wilson is not available right now. I'm sorry. Emergency surgery. Can I take him a message?"
House didn't answer. He let his hand sink and put the receiver back. "Poor Jimmy," he whispered and then loudly cursed his newly discovered softer side. He should just go to sleep.
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It was almost three in the morning when Wilson opened the door and stepped into the quiet apartment. He dropped his coat on the coatrack and stuffed the keys into the pocket. Silently he tip-toed past the bedroom and looked at the bed, but House was not there. He shuffled to the living-room, finding him asleep on the couch. Wilson could hardly keep his eyes open, but the sight of House sleeping in front of the tv made him smile. He had obviously waited for him. Two bottles of beer stood on the table, still unopened. Wilson did not want to wake House, but he sat down and couldn't resist leaning against him. House shifted a little and put his arm around Wilson's shoulders.
"Are you still awake?" Wilson asked softly.
"No," came the prompt but sleepy reply.
"Right lung is okay. She'll make it for a few more months," Wilson whispered and put his arm around House's waist. He closed his eyes, content that he had saved a life – at least for now, and even though House would not admit it, Wilson knew he was proud, too. Proud of himself for finding the carcinoma and proud of Wilson for doing the surgery right in time. It didn't matter much anymore that the surgery had ruined their evening. Wilson doze of, feeling good and safe in House's arm.
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The tapping of House's fingertips against his own woke him up again. Wilson smiled in confusion, then felt House's other hand slip down his back. House kissed him and Wilson could feel his mouth twist into a mischievous grin onto his lips. "You didn't think you could get away with sleeping tonight, did you?"
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