Retrospect Chapter 5, a house, m.d. fanfic

RETROSPECT

Part V

By GeeLady

Summary: A last case, a last breath, a last redemption. Wilson looks back and sets things right. (This is not a House's Head/Wilson's Heart related fic', it's something else altogether). Set POST Season 5 or 6 or 7 (or whatever number proves to be the final season).

Pairing: H/W slash implied.

Rating: NC-17. Mature. Language. Rape. Violence. Drug abuse.

WARNING! PRIMARY CHARACTER DEATH - that means, yes, Gregory House! But please try it out anyway.

Note: Some of the medical terminology and situations are made up. Some of this story is set five years from now and some forty years from now, so I'm allowing myself the space to be creative in what I think might someday be.

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"Lie still!" Bud snarled in his ear, and wrenched his hands up behind his back. "Stiff me for junk huh? Think you got a credit account with Bud, Scruff-man? I 'aint running no fucking bank."

Buds' Gun victim struggled vainly to free his arms, but he was weak from nearly a year of Gun use and squirmed helplessly. Bud twisted the thumb of the man he called Scruff up against the small of his back. He pushed the thumb into an unnatural bend until he heard a muffled, satisfying snap! Scruff-man yelled out and Bud clamped one meaty paw over his mouth. "I owe these people for that shit. You hear me? I owe them money for you. And, fucking useless waste of a human that you are, you're gonna pay 'em back for me." Bud ignored the cry of pain as he twisted Scruff-mans' broken thumb around, grinding broken cartilage and bone against the another.

"They've got certain appetites. You understand? More interesting than mine, and what you owe me they're going to take outta' your ass." Bud let him go and called his company from the adjoining room to Scruff-man's private, needle littered bedroom.

"He's all yours." Bud looked down at Scruff-man and kicked him hard in the leg he knew would hurt the most. "Behave for them. I've done shit loads more than break thumbs for a missed payment."

Scruff-man understood. His broken thumb and throbbing leg convinced him that Bud was serious.

Pain spoke clearly as it always had.

XXX

"So Gregory House started prostituting himself for the Gun."

"Gun made people do things to themselves and things for others nothing else would. I don't know how long he had been at it, but yeah, he was selling himself for the drug. I know he had to have been on Gun for several months at least if he was that far gone."

"Why would a doctor take a substance so dangerous and deadly if-"

"No one knowingly starts on Gun, honey. The dealers cut it into the regular stuff to hook their clients. They don't tell the junkies they're about to flush their lives away. A dealer with a Gun client had a life-long addict. The dealer could plan his retirement and put a pool in the back yard on a few Gun addict backs. House probably got it in prison and before he knew what was happening . . .

"And remember - Gun was new. Really new. Not even the medical community was entirely aware of its existence or the danger it represented."

"So what happened to the kid?"

"He died." He said as though she had forgotten.

"So House was right about the diagnosis but wrong in his actions."

Doc' Wilson smiled to himself. "The way you say it, it sounds like something extraordinary. But that was nothing new with House. He was an unusual man working in a one of a kind department helping people who had no where left to go. The man and the place were the definitions of extraordinary. That's why people were sent to him. Ordinary had failed them."

"And what finally happened to Doctor House?"

An grey haired nurses' assistant brought Doc's dinner in. His usual young girl must have gone home, Maria thought. Doc' lifted the heat lid and eyed the meatloaf with suspicion. "Any pork in it?"

"No, Doctor Wilson, just beef." The patient woman answered and left.

When she'd gone, he smelled it. "Smells like there's pork in it. I only like all beef meatloaf." But he picked up his fork anyway and hacked off a piece, chewing it contentedly. "I got a phone call - well, Lisa Cuddy got a call from the local precinct. They said a man named Gregory House was asking for me. You should have seen Cuddys' face. Pale and wide eyed as a ghosts. I told her to keep it under wraps. She already knew about house and the Gun and all the shit that had happened to him. But Lisa was a good sort. She kept her mouth shut.

"So off I went to the police station and there was House looking like one big bruise - all bloody. He'd been brutally raped and beaten."

Doc' ignored Marias' gasp and chewed his food, speaking through a mouth-full. She realized that Doctor Wilson had undoubtedly seen much worse during his career as an oncologist. blood and bruises would seem almost innocuous to him.

"The officer explained that an old couple out for a walk had found him in a dumpster and called nine-one-one. The police arrived before the ambulance and House refused a ride to the hospital. The officer insisted, House resisted and well, you know how that usually ends. House was arrested instead and placed in a holding cell."

"He asked for you?"

Doc' nodded. "The officer said he had no desire to charge House with Resisting and hoped I might shed some light on the situation. I told him what I knew and that I'd be glad to take responsibility for him. Then there was the matter of bail. Five thousand dollars later, House and I walked out of the jail."

"I'm glad he had you."

"I think he was glad too, only Gun had been a closer companion that previous year. The next thing I knew he was limping away on his cane as fast as he could go."

"Where was he going?"

"After Gun. What else?"

"Did you chase him?"

"No."

"Why not? He might have been out of his mind in pain or just stoned . . ."

He shrugged. "Maybe. Or he just wasn't ready to come home."

Doc' started on his mashed potatoes, adding a liberal amount of salt and butter. "Julia in the kitchen gives me all the salt and butter I want. She's a sweet, plump little thing that figures if I can survive two heart attacks, a stroke and congestive pulmonary failure, a little cow fat can't do me much more harm."

Maria was inclined to agree. She recalled her own grandmothers' diet of soggy vegetables, lean turkey stew, orange juice and hot water and felt a certain satisfaction that here Doc' Wilson was allowed to enjoy his food. For certain it was one of the few pleasures left to him.

"House disappeared again for about two weeks, then one day he came into the clinic. He just showed up out of the blue. No warning. Cuddy didn't even know who he was, he looked so bad. She didn't recognize him and lead him to an exam room. She even called for me when he asked. I think then she might have realized it was House."

"Did you tell her?"

"No. I wanted him to feel he could come there to find me any time. If anyone knew who he was, they might want to fuss or something - drive him off. And I wanted him to be able to keep his privacy; his dignity. But Cuddy didn't make a fuss. She had known him almost as well as I did and understood he would not want to be stared at. But she was so upset. She went to her office and cried I think."

"How was he?"

Doc' dropped his fork and swallowed. "He must have weighed maybe a hundred fifty pounds. He-" Docs' hand trembled over the fork. To Maria it seemed he was embarrassed to be eating while talking about a man who had all but starved to death. "He hadn't eaten in a week. He was the worst I'd ever seen him in my whole life. First he asked me if he could have some morphine. That's how I knew that he had run out of ways to get Gun and the pain had begun to take its toll on his system. He shook like a leaf in the wind."

This Gregory House who had consumed half her day suddenly seemed like a man she ought to care about. Somehow she could almost picture him, could almost hear his voice in the room. He felt real enough now for her to say, "I'm sorry."

Doc seemed pleased with her words but continued his narration without pause. "I got him the morphine. I couldn't think of a thing to say to him. I'd tried - so many times - I'd tried to get him to come home. I figured he wasn't ever going to and I had given up asking."

Doc' sipped his tea and placed the cup back on the saucer. "He looked at me with those eyes of his and, you know, Gregory House had telling eyes - beautiful eyes - the bluest anywhere - and honest. He'd tell you the truth whether it hurt you or not. I'd come to value that about him almost above all else. It's so rare now-a-days to know someone who respects you enough not to coat everything in sugar and spice. In that way House was . . .refreshing."

Doc' Wilson looked directly at Maria, staring into her eyes with his old man browns, like Gregory was right in the room with them - or somewhere inside Wilson himself. "Greg looked at me with those eyes that had never lost their blue - never changed - and whispered so politely: "I'd like to come home now." He said, "I'm ready."."

Docs' eyes watered again. "I knew that meant that the end wasn't far off. He'd reached the point, physically, where the Gun wasn't doing much good. See eventually the body gets so . . .utterly wrecked . . from Gun, no amount of the damn drug will bring the relief it once did. Then the pain begins and the descent into agony and death.

"My friend, . . ." Doc' said, a tear escaping again. . . .

Incredible how emotionally just the memory of this man House affected the old fellow. Maria wondered at it. She wondered at it more and more, and imagined that knowing Gregory House privately must have been something. House must have been something indeed.

". . .was coming home to die." Doc' looked at her the way the very old often do - that certain glance one who is close to death gives to one far away from it. "Have you ever seen someone die, sweetie?" He asked. "Ever watched as the life drained from his body, the light fading from his eyes? Ever been as close to a dying friend as you are to me right now?"

Maria felt a bit uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

The old were longer on the earth than the young. Docs' heart had beat four and one half billion times since his birth. Over a billion times had his lungs had taken in then expelled air. He had seen the sun rise and set thirty-two thousand, eight hundred and fifty times, witnessed three hundred and sixty changes of the seasons, helped thousands of people survive cancer and watched helplessly as thousands of others died. Maria respected that the old man had something to say about life but she resented a little the assumption that, just because she was young, she knew nothing about it at all. "I went to a funeral once. My aunt died when I was seven. My mother made me look at her in the coffin."

"Did you love your aunt more than anything or anyone else in the world? Was she somehow the part of you that was most alive? Did you feel your soul beg God to keep her? Do you now think of her everyday as though no time had passed at all? Do you ache for her?"

Maria didn't answer. Of course her aunt had been none of those things to her. She had only been seven years old. Her aunt had died of cancer at age thirty-three; her mothers' sister whom she had hardly known.

Doc' sensed her quiet disapproval of the questions. "I'm not trying to make a comparison or measure your heart against mine. I'm saying that my friend was so very much to me that to this day, to this minute, I miss him that much. The missing, the hole in my life after he went away is as large as it ever was. I don't know why House meant that much to me. If you asked me now to explain it, I couldn't. But I know I loved him. He was dear to me. Dearer than a mate or a father or any gift you could offer."

"Were you lovers?"

He slapped the dinner tray in delight and his cold cup of tea jumped in its saucer. "Hah! I wondered when you'd come around to that. Ha-ha!"

"It's because you talk like you lost a lover, not a friend."

"What's the difference?"

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Loving a friend, befriending a lover - a lover is a friend isn't he?" He wiped up the spilled tea with a paper napkin. "I'm going to answer that by not giving you an answer."

"You're being cryptic, Doctor Wilson."

"A yes or no would mean nothing. And it would only incite you to add a few silly paragraphs about the gay doctors or further spread the rumors that circulated for years about me and House. Something to juicy up the story for your readers. Sell more papers."

But Maria was not one to give up so easily. "So you're saying you weren't lovers?"

"I'm saying it wouldn't have made a hairs difference! Sleeping with Gregory House could not have made me love him more. Not sleeping with him wouldn't have taken away one speck of my feeling for him. So it's irrelevant. If it's a story about sex or a sordid affair you were looking for, there's plenty of those down the hall."

She seriously doubted it. "How were those last few months for him?"

"I brought him home and gave him my bedroom and moved to the guest one. My boss, the Dean Cuddy, she gave me six months leave to stay home with him. I left instructions at the hospital that no one was to visit him. That's the way he wanted it and by god that's the way it was going to be. Greg did not want people staring at him in pity. So I rented videos, we played cards, we drank beer and tried to laugh about the things we used to."

"And the pain? The Gun?"

"The Gun I injected into his poor body twice a day, and, near the end morphine injections in between. It wasn't an easy task - balancing the deadly poison that was killing him but which without he would have died sooner and also regulating the morphine to give him relief from the pain when the Gun wore off. In between the two, he would have about an hour twice a day where he would feel neither the craving for the Gun or the need for the morphine. Those were the hours he was most like the House I had known. Those were the hours when both of us could forget what was happening.

"He died when I least expected him to die. He was feeling well. But thin. So thin by then. Almost nothing left of subcutaneous fat, all bone and wasted muscle and sinew. For the previous three weeks he had been confined to a wheelchair and then to his bed. But we still watched the television and talked. I kept him fed on liquid proteins and nutrients. Even IV glucose. House lived longer than any previous Gun victim on record. Mind you, there were only three hundred or so.

"One evening I heard him moaning from his bed. Much to my stupidity, my brilliant feeding program had extended his life so that he was around to experience the final stage of Morpheus Gun Degenerative Syndrome. "Morpheus" because of the god of dreams and sleep. Morphine puts a man to sleep, you see. Heroin puts him into a state of hallucinogenic sleep. And Gun of course puts a man to sleep forever.

"But, yes, the final stage. Once Gun has destroyed a victims body, it attacks the last thing that feels - his nervous system. The nerves, you understand? A pain with which Doctor House was intimately familiar. But these were all of the nerves through out his entire body collectively breaking down, sloughing their myelin, shedding their protective coatings, fraying, dissolving.

"Can you imagine the pain? Once I realized what was happening, I shot him up with morphine - as much as I dared. It wasn't enough. He was suffering more than any man should be asked to. I held him in my arms but what good did it do? - Nothing! He was begging me. Begging - pleading with me - to dose him. Understand, dear, that House was asking me to help him die."

"Did you?"

Doc' nodded, his tears escaped now and flowed freely. He nodded vigorously, the guilt fresh as the day it was born. "Yes. Yes, I killed my best friend. I ran to the bathroom and got the morphine. Filled the plunger to its limit. If I could stop it, he was going to suffer no more on this lousy planet. But when I got back, he wasn't yelling anymore. He was lying there looking up at the sky through the window and smiling."

"Smiling?"

Doc' nodded again, a small smile on his own tear-ed up face at the vibrant memory. "Smiling. I asked him, . . ." Old Doc' Wilson looked down at his upturned hands in his lap as though Gregory House were there laying in his arms as plain as day while Maria watched Wilson act out the final moments of his poor friends' life. It was a play performed just for her of a tragedy no one had ever known about until now.

Doc spoke to his friend. "I said: "Why are you smiling House?""

Doc' looked up to the stained ceiling tiles, now playing the part of his dear departed friend. "Wilson." he said, "Jimmy. My leg doesn't hurt. I can't feel the pain anymore."

Doc' looked at his hands, gently cradling a man who had not lived for forty-five years, but still holding him in his wrinkled, ninety year old arms. "That's good. I'm so glad." I said.

"I don't feel anything." House said to me, and smiling like not knowing where his body was anymore was a gift." Doc' cried freely. "Imagine being grateful for that? Imagine deriving even one particle of joy that you were adrift in your own mind, your body moments from death? How can anyone see such an event and be the same man after?"

Maria did not think she would have been able to look. "I'm glad he was out of pain."

"Yes." Doc' carelessly wiped at his eyes, the salty stuff marking trails down his dry cheek skin. "But I was afraid it would come back. So I wrapped my hands around him and kissed his forehead and said: "Do you want to sleep for a while?"

"He nodded at me. I don't think his tongue could form words anymore. The Gun had taken it." Doc' clasped his hands together in his lap. The ghost of Gregory House had disappeared from him once more and he was alone in the room with her. "I said: "I'll see you soon. I'll see you very soon." And I pushed the plunger home. A few seconds later, he stopped breathing and I took my stethoscope and listened to his heart. Then it stopped . . ."

Doc' trailed off. Maria felt her own eyes tearing up but disciplined them to behave.

"He died at eleven-ten PM, June sixth, two thousand thirteen."

"I'm so sorry."

Doc' seemed to recover his composure quite quickly. "Yes. He's been gone a long time now."

"Where is he buried?"

"He was cremated. Like everyone has to be now."

"Yes. But which State Yard?"

"He's not. I didn't have the heart to let him be put in the ground. I sprinkled some of his ashes on the grounds of the hospital - over by the park, near a picnic table he used to sit on all the time, down by the river - and I keep the rest with me."

Maria was surprised. "You know that's illegal?"

"Gregory House was family. I keep my family with me. The State be damned." Doc's eyes fell upon the purple vase and Marias' gaze followed.

"He's there? That's his urn?" She asked. A gaudy - an ugly choice.

"So what if it is!? Are you going to run off and tattle to the proper authorities?"

"But the laws of identity theft, genetic tampering. Keeping a loved ones ashes is-"

"-I don't care."

"I won't tell anyone but eventually someone will figure it out and they'll confiscate it."

"Let them! I'll probably be dead by then anyway."

"Can you tell me one thing. How did you know House was right? About the kid Jason Parks? You've been a little vague on the details. Like the Medical Examiner for instance. He or she must have testified. What were the findings of the autopsy?"

"Parks tried to block the autopsy report. Interesting, that. Why would he do that do you suppose? Wouldn't knowing that the findings supported the prosecutions' case be welcomed by Parks Senior? I didn't clue in at the time what was happening. I was so busy trying to deal with the fact that House was about to lose his whole practice and his freedom. I think we were all in a daze. We figured, well, Houses' attorney knew all about everything to do with the case, right? What did we know? We were doctors, not lawyers."

"The autopsy was blocked then?"

"No. The court had the sense to see that a mans' whole life was at stake and wisely blocked Parks attempt to block the autopsy. He didn't have a hope in blocking such crucial evidence anyway and we were all frankly startled at the mans' hubris. What we didn't suspect was Parks wasn't trying to block the autopsy at all, just delay it's arrival into the maze that was the justice system."

Maria was startled now. "You mean Parks had the report intercepted? Why would he do that?"

"Why indeed? You see, the M.E. was out of the country just before the trial but his report was submitted as testimony on its own merit. Interestingly it said nothing about Houses' theory of Pernicious Anemia and Cholera."

"What? I thought you said - you assured me you knew-"

"Yes, yes. So you understand my puzzlement at the time. The report, from what it didn't mention, supported the prosecutions' statement that Jason Parks had suffered Leukemia and died as result of Doctor Houses' ill-advised treatment and persistent mis-diagnosis."

"So was House right or wrong?"

"I'm getting to that. The M.E.'s report also failed to mention the presence of the injection House had given the kid to treat him for the suspected P.A and Cholera. that information should have been present on the drug and tox' screen of the report."

"The M.E. screwed up?"

"That's what we thought. Or House was wrong. We didn't know which it was."

"Why were the drug and tox screens omitted?"

"They weren't, since you asked, they were deleted! They were removed. Parks had dump trucks full of money to spread around. He was a member of the City council, a friend of the Judge, and an all around pillar in the community. He intercepted the report and read it on his own before it made it to the courts. The drug and tox screens confirmed the presence of Cholera and prochloroperazine. The M.E. also stated his belief that Jason Parks suffered from Pernicious Anemia. See, the M.E. was never told any of Jason Parks medical history - to better keep him objective."

"Parks hid the fact that House was right?"

"His son was dead. He was in the middle of a court battle to punish the man he had publically accused of malpractice. Parks senior had hung his ass out on the line and if that report confirmed that he was wrong on all counts, well, I guess his carefully tailored reputation could not weather such a blow. So he let House take the fall for something he didn't do. He didn't kill that kid - he wouldn't have either. House went to jail for being right. And what was Parks going to do - admit he tampered with trial evidence? Not hardly."

"That's quite a theory. But how do you know for sure Parks tampered with the M.E.'s report?"

"About a year after House died, the M.E. came home from his sojourn and I looked him up. I asked him if he recalled the case and asked him all about it. He remembered it clearly because of how puzzled he was over it. You see, he had submitted the drug and tox screens just like he was supposed to. Then just prior to trial, he left the country. The prosecution of course allowed it for it was in their best interests. Parks lawyer didn't know that of course, but Parks was paying his huge salary and he did what his client told him."

"What about the defense lawyer. Why didn't he insist that the M.E. be made to testify personally?"

"Because he was a court appointed idiot of a greenhorn who earned his salary whether he won or lost. And he had no compelling reason to think that the prosecution had set his client up for a sure fall."

"Where did he go anyway? Seems weird the Medical Examiner would be off just as a trial in which he was a crucial part was about to begin."

"Weird is the word. He said he had gone to work for a year in England for a pharmaceutical company called "Shelton-Miller-Shelton". Shelton was Parks' wifes' maiden name. Parks had married into her very wealthy family and made the running of the company his own. The M.E. had been sent away by her father to work for him away from all the muss and fuss of the trial. Parks' wife had no idea that her son died of Pernicious Anemia and Cholera. To her death, she believed Doctor Houses', not her husbands, actions had brought about the death of her only son."

"But why would Parks even want to intercept the autopsy report if he was so sure House was wrong?"

"He was sure I think, but he was a calculating man. He had married a woman fifteen years his senior, been granted the presidency in a multi-billion dollar institution. He wanted to make certain that the prosecution would have the upper hand all the way - that he was in the right. But when he found out he had been wrong. That we had all been wrong . . .imagine what his wife's reaction would have been?"

"He couldn't risk losing the millions; the life-style; the position. . ." Maria reasoned. "But wouldn't the court have suspected something was amiss when the drug and tox screen went missing?"

"They weren't "missing". If a drug or tox' screen supplied negative results, those negative results are not submitted along with the autopsy. No drug or tox screen means the M.E. had obtained negative results for both. No drug-tox report meant no drugs, no toxins and so no need to submit any statement stating so."

"That's ridiculous."

"That was the law at the time. It was new. Some bean-counters idea to speed up the court system I guess."

"So all this means Doctor House had no proof what-so-ever that he had actually helped the kid. And the prosecution had all the reasons it needed to support the autopsy' findings that Jason Parks had leukemia. So no drug or tox' information made the prosecutions' case stronger."

"Bingo! Don't let it ever be said that a lack of an answer tells us nothing."

"And by that same line of reasoning the defense had no basis for contending that House didn't harm that kid."

"Right again. The M.E. was puzzled. He said to me: "Why did the attending stop the treatments for the kid's cholera? And why the hell wasn't he being treated for his anemia?" You see? The M.E. had done a drug and tox' screen and had found evidence for both conditions. House was right. The kid didn't have leukemia. Two more injections and regular B12 treatments would have saved his life. Cured him."

"But you still didn't kill Doctor House. Not really. It wasn't your fault that he was tried or found guilty. You said yourself you had no idea what Parks was up to."

"No. But we could have looked into Jasons' case ourselves. We could have checked Houses' theory out. We could have gone to the kid and asked: "Did you and your parents eat raw clams or oysters while you were in Newfoundland two months ago?"

"We didn't do anything to help House. We assumed Jasons' physicians' original diagnosis was correct. Therefore all of the following doctors who attended to his case thought that too. Their job was to treat him for Leukemia and that's exactly what they did. Doctors are not in the habit of questioning the diagnoses of other physicians. Makes for very bad blood."

Doc' could see Maria was still unconvinced that they had any bearing on Houses' fate so Doc' held out pinched fingers to her, as though he held the reasons in his hands for her to see clearly. "We didn't question the kids' diagnosis of leukemia, even though the kid was bleeding from his bowels and showing symptoms that something else going on. But House did! The kid was brought to House because his treatment for Leukemia wasn't doing the job and because he was bleeding and bloating and wasting away from Diarrhea.

"Jason was brought to House because House possessed a genius for figuring out medical mysteries. They had a mystery. House solved mysteries. And then we all gathered around and presumed to know better."

"So one mistake was compounded."

"Yes. Jasons' family doctor suspected leukemia. He was sent to an oncologist who had a single test done that confirmed it. But that test was wrong. It does happen, you know. More often than people realize."

"No one ever questioned the leukemia."

"No one except House."

"But hadn't he first suspected that other thing? The Micro-Inclusion Whatever?"

"Sure. House was trying to find the underlying cause of the kids' new symptoms. He was wrong about the MID. So what? Jasons' first doctor was wrong and he was never prosecuted for putting that kid through years of agony. That's how puzzles are solved. You try something. If it doesn't work, you try something else. But House wasn't taking shots in the dark, he was testing his diagnoses. He would have found out the MID was incorrect and gone on to something else."

"But it might have harmed the kid more."

"The kid was dying! How much more harmful is that? Our mistake was refusing to believe that the leukemia could be a mistake. The man's whose business it was to discover mis-diagnoses we prevented from diagnosing his patient."

"Parks used his money contributions to the hospital to manipulate events."

"And we let him. Cuddy choose funds over Jason Parks life and over Houses' career and freedom. We didn't even ask the kid: "Hey- did you eat raw clams?" How hard would that have been? We may not have ferried House to court or locked the cell door but we sure as hell helped paddle the canoe.

"We stopped House from doing what he did best - what he was born to do - solve the puzzle. Save the person. One and the same."

Maria thought about it. One simple question might have prevented all of it. Maybe.

Doc' added. "When Parks' son died, Parks withdrew the funds to the hospital. Cuddy lost nearly a quarter of her budget overnight. Two departments were shut down. Obstetrics and - no surprise - Diagnostics."

Maria capped her pen, thoughtful. Parks would have of course. Why contribute any money to a hospital that kills your only son? That is how it would have to look for posterity. That is how Parks needed it to appear to save his place in the world. "What kind of a man was House personally? You've spoken a lot about his skills as a doctor, but what about him? That was what you wanted. Occasionally you've spoken of him as though he were some kind of saint or hero."

"House was no saint. But he was the best doctor I have ever known. And he was my friend." Doc' sat up straighter when a thought came to him. "Would you like to see his picture?"

"Yes." She had seen the photo used in the local papers during the trial. A typical drivers' license or ID photograph showing a middle-aged, scowling man.

Doc' Wilson went to his wood chest in the corner by his bed and, using a small key, turned it in the lock. He opened and fumbled around inside until he found an old-fashioned photo album. The kind with the yellow, faded sticky pages covered in plastic. Doc' found and removed a much thumbed two by three inch photo of himself and his friend, handing it to her with an almost comical reverence.

Maria accepted it, holding it carefully by its edges. For the first time, she looked at the subject of her afternoon interview - the man Greg House who had been so wrongly accused and ruined. The photo was from some function at the hospital. Years and years ago. A young Doctor Wilson was sitting at a table crowded with drinking glasses. Yes, she had been right, old Doc' had been a very good looking man with melting pot eyes. Small wonder he had walked six different women down the aisle.

And there on his right sat his friend, Greg House. An older man - which surprised her. The photo in the newspaper archives had been faded and indistinct and from Doc' Wilsons' descriptions, she had imagined a younger, impulsive man, someone given to quick, ill-considered actions. But here was a man ten years Wilsons' senior. A seasoned doctor of skill and training.

Here also was a handsome man with the bluest eyes she had ever seen. Eyes that laughed and smiled at his friend Wilson. A joke or comment had been said in which House had delighted. Greg House possessed a face alive with emotions and intelligence.

She found it difficult to tear her eyes away from the face that had once been so living and real; content in his surroundings; satisfied in life. A man of unusual actions perhaps, a trifle reckless, but respected never-the-less. Cared about by someone. Valued.

Loved by this old man of ninety who had not forgotten his friend for a moment, who had loved him and missed him every day.

She handed the photo back and Doc' replaced it in the album. "Do you believe in heaven?" He asked her.

"Um. I don't know."

"You mean you don't know whether it exists or whether you believe it might or might not exist?"

"There is no direct evidence that it exists so I guess I don't believe in it." She watched his face gaze at the photo of Greg House under the yellow plastic. "Do you?"

"I let myself believe."

"Let yourself?"

He closed the album and put it away. "If there is no heaven or after-life I have missed my friend to no purpose. He has ceased to exist and I have the same fate. So what he did, everything he was, means nothing forever. No more life means my love for him was of no use or good. If there is no heaven I will never see my friend again, and I knew I could not live with that knowledge.

"For forty-five years I have remembered him each day; thought about him; missed him. Through all my marriages and work and vacations, and retirement years, every day I have fondly remembered him. I would not have been able to live those years well if I believed he was gone forever. So I allowed myself the freedom to believe that I will see him again. I needed to know then as now that I will see him again."

Maria thought it a most unusual way to gain comfort. "A sentiment I hope I someday share."

"House would call me a moron for believing it. But he's not here right now to argue the point."

"I am sorry for what happened to your friend."

"It's all dead and gone long ago. Now I wait. But I'm tired of waiting. I want to go now. I'm tired of this life and I want to go meet him and have a few drinks."

"I promise I'll write a good article. I'll tell them what you've told me. I'll tell them about the man, not just the doctor. We can't change the past, but maybe we can help his memory."

"You're a good girl."

She gathered up her recorder and note pad, shaking his hand. "Better hide that urn. A more law-abiding citizen than me might snitch on you."

Doc' Wilson chuckled appreciatively. "That sounded like something House would say."

Maria said goodbye and left his room.

Old Doc' Wilson rolled his chair to the door of his room and watched her walk away down the hall. When he was sure she was gone, he closed the door and wheeled himself back to his wooden chest, glancing at the cheap purple vase on the shelf. If they came to take it away, he could not care less. In fact, he counted on them taking that one away. Their ridiculous law could be satisfied.

Doc' fished around inside his wood box and withdrew four items. A whiskey bottle, two shot glasses and a heavy square, block with a lid made of dark green marble. On one side was a silver plaque that read "Doctor Gregory House. April 18th, 1959 to June 6, 2013. Beloved friend."

Doc' Wilson poured out two shots of the burning amber liquid. One he set carefully beside the green urn just so they touched. The other he raised in a salute. "I'll be seeing you soon, Buddy. Real soon."

XXX

"Roger. Got a minute?"

Maria McLellans' boss and Senior Editor, a round man of no hair and good humor, looked up from his magazine. "Sure."

Maria walked into his office and sat in the chair opposite him, crossing her legs. She knew he liked her legs. "Um, about this House article . . ."

"Your Saturday feature?"

"Yeah. I think it's going to be better than either of us expected. There's some question of a cover-up."

"Splendid! A conspiracy's always better copy."

"Right. As an addition to the story, I'd like to apply for a Posthumous Character Pardon on behalf of Doctor House."

"Really? You think he was innocent?"

"I think he was keel-hauled. A character pardon would make a bang-up wrap. And from what Doc' Wilson told me, House is owed that much. The trial alone - "

"- Whatever you think, Maria. You've got good instincts with these things. Do what you need to. Just make sure it's all legal."

"It will be."

Maria McLellan, based on her interview and every fact she could scrape together on the matter, applied for a received a Posthumous Character Pardon for Doctor Gregory House. She dialed the Care Facility where Doc' Wilson lived, anxious to tell him the good news.

"What? When?" Her heart sank. "I see." She swallowed a lump in her throat. "Where will he be interred? And which Crematorium is performing the cremation?" She wrote down the name. "Thank you."

She climbed in her car and broke every speed law to arrive before the perfunctory State-funded funeral. She stepped into the Funeral Parlor/Crematorium ill-dressed. She didn't care. Locating the manager, she stated her business and handed him five one hundred dollar bills. "I just want a tiny part. Just a few ounces. That's all."

The manager, not particular to silly laws either, pocketed the money and lead her to a small room. "He's right there." He pointed to a square grey metal urn. "You're in luck, it hasn't been sealed yet."

Maria withdrew a small brown paper bag and opened the urn. Inside were the ashes of Doctor James Wilson. Jimmy, good friend to Doctor House. She shook out about a third into the brown bag, folded it over and left.

In the park, she searched for and located the picnic table. It was old, but had been constructed of thick beams so had well stood the test of time.

Her article she would end with the Posthumous Character Pardon on behalf of Doctor House. But this is how she would, away from the public eye, end their personal, private story. The tale of two men whose friendship had also stood the test of time, and who would find one another again, she hoped, somewhere. Somehow.

Maria tipped up the bag and let the ashes drift in the tiny wind to the grass. Around the table they settled down forever.

"Have that drink, boys." They could be together again.

She imagined Wilson walking up to his friend in a place she did not know, and shaking his hand. She imagined a healthy Greg House nodding, maybe smiling at his friend, and them walking away discussing an old medical case or deciding which bar to go to. Maria heard them laughing on the wind.

She let herself believe.

XXX

END

See the story Spermotacele and a Rubber Nose for my take on the explanation behind Doctor Houses' testicle problem and his first meeting with James Wilson - Oncologist.