A/N: So I have a little thing for Wilson. I know he's the sidekick, but he has a darkness to him that I hope they develop further. I mean, who can explain the three wives thing to me? So I am going to give this a shot between homework assignments. I hope to keep it less grandiose than some of my previous fictions. It is my first House fic, and so I will do my best to capture the characters, and as for the medical stuff, I will do the best I can, but I am not doing any extensive research. Please let me know if it gets glaringly obvious; the emphasis being on glaringly. Anyway, I hope to hear from you regarding any and all feedback you may have.

Sheila

Heart Cancer

Chapter 1

For a few minutes, he was able to lose himself in the oncologist's presentation. The doctor had started out rather vague, explaining circle around the central issues. Just when he had gotten to a point of frustration, the doctor settled into some actual findings. He carefully explained the procedures and the findings, and then abruptly seem to remember his audience. He quickly switched to a much more bare bones presentation of the case.

The oncologist posted CT scan results on the wall and began pointing out ghostly images on the film. The man stopped listening to the doctor and focused on the images himself. They spoke a language that he knew intimately, and he was not interested in the doctor's interpretation. This was a picture of his head, one he hadn't seen before, and he momentarily lost himself in its various features. At some point he took in a sharp breath and the oncologist stopped and waited, but the man merely shook his head and looked away.

So the doctor sighed and continued. The man became acutely aware of the cruel joke that life could be, and he had to stop himself from snorting out loud. Instead, he settled himself by roughing rubbing his stubbly chin. The oncologist stopped talking and looked at him again. The man noticed that this was the only time the doctor looked at him. The man waited for him to continue until he realized that the doctor was waiting for some sort of response.

He let out a heavy breath and spoke, "I'm sorry. I've lost track. You were asking me something."

The doctor nodded, "This is a lot to take in. Maybe you need a break, some time to absorb all this."

The man chuckled, "The headaches were obvious. I can't believe I ignored them."

"You have a history of migraines. I'm sure it never occurred for you to differentiate them. Believe me, this was not an easy catch. It was hiding well. We probably wouldn't have found it today if not for the seizures."

The man looked away for a moment. That wasn't true. There was no way they would have missed the tumor if they had done a CT four weeks ago when he had finally noticed how the headaches differed, but being the pain in the ass that he knew himself to be, he needed to wait until he blacked out and had a seizure outside a Walgreen's drugstore, waking up minutes later to find two overweight Hispanic women staring down at him and an ambulance blaring in the background. At least, he had the presence of mind to tell the paramedics to take him anywhere but Plainsboro.

"The biopsy results are conclusive. No reasoning my way out of this now, is there?" The man forced a chuckle.

The oncologist didn't even fake a grin. "I recommend we start on an aggressive course of chemo."

The man's expressive eyebrows rose, "Looks to me like immediate surgery is indicated."

The oncologist shook his head, "That's your emotions talking. Think about it. We need to dose it good to really see what we're dealing with. This picture doesn't tell us enough. We need to see what it looks like in two weeks after we throw all our big guns at it. If you were thinking clearly, you would be saying the same thing."

The man nodded reluctantly. It was true. Chemo first, then look at its size in a couple of weeks. Best course of action; hands down. He could see that, but he could also feel his hands grow clammy at the thought of chemotherapy. He watched people for years suffer through its effects, and now the hens had come to roost. He would know first hand what the sunken eyes, overwhelming nausea, and crushing muscle weakness could do to a healthy man.

"I need to think. Take a couple of days. Need to consider my options." The words came in desperate bursts.

The oncologist sat up straight. "I wouldn't recommend it. You'll get overwhelmed. Everyone does. You know that. I'd feel better if we had your first clinic appointment in the books."

The man was on his feet and glad to find them still sturdy and strong. "I'm sorry. I need to clear my head. I won't be stupid."

"Let's get a hold of a colleague. Nothing clears the head like a second opinion. Who do you want? I have Smith, Varma, and Cho in the house right now. I can have anyone of them here in five minutes. Or Plainsboro? Let's call someone. How about your friend? I hear he's excellent."

The man shook his head emphatically and held up a hand, "I gotta do this my way. You know that. I'm not your regular patient, okay? Let's schedule a course for Monday. I'll call you in the next couple of days to confirm. Scout's honor."

The doctor nodded. "I am available, night or day. You have my cell, my office and my home phone. We're not going to play dead on this thing. Do you understand? We're going back to school for this. I promise that you will have all resources at your disposal. Hell, we'll call people. Send some plane tickets for Swanson and his team doing research at Berkeley. We'll turn this thing into a case study in proactive treatments."

The man smiled, "I know that. And I'm grateful. You'll hear from me Friday at the latest. I promise." He moved as fast as he dared, getting out of there without having to weather any physical contact or further sympathy. As he stood in the elevator, heart pounding in his ears, he looked down at the appointment card from the office of Dr. Vaughn Sloan. His own cards were better; bolder raised type on moss green linen card stock. Under the patient's name, he noted that the nurse wrote his name without his title in front. He frowned. He had worked too long and hard for that title. Taking a pen out of his breast pocket, he leaned the card against the wall, and scrawled Dr. on the card. The card looked angry now with a large title and then his name in flowery print, but at least it reflected who he was: Dr. James Wilson.

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"Chase, what do you look like a schoolgirl today?" House didn't even bother with a greeting. Despite being a man with a cane, he could swoop into a room suddenly and without warning.

Around House, Chase always tempered his reactions. He knew the man waited for the response so he could pounce on it and chew it up like a dog with a ball. He took a deep breath. A haircut was all that was different about him. The stylist was a looker, and he was so absorbed in chatting her up that he unwittingly let her blow dry his thick hair. He now felt like an Australian version of Mary Tyler Moore. Before House had caught him, he'd been frantically looking for a comb to dip in water and plaster the hair back against his scalp.

"You know Chase, what with that the flowers in your tie and your peaches and cream coloring, I think you should go for lavender eye shadows; maybe something from Loreal?" House had circled his desk and settled in, swinging his long legs onto his desk, and wresting his game boy out of his breast pocket.

Chase threw his head back and took a deep breath, "Another day with no patients, huh? Would you like me to run any errands, maybe pick up some dry cleaning for you?'

House raised an eyebrow and looked at him, "Uh, thanks for the offer, but that's what Cameron is for, you know."

Chase never seemed to imbue his responses with much zing. House always seemed to take his lob and slam into the inside corner.

Foreman and Cameron came in, white lab coats flapping, and Chase was grateful for the interruption.

"Nice hair," Cameron cooed, unable to hide grin creeping onto her delicate features.

Foreman raised his eyebrows, but couldn't seem to pinpoint the difference in Chase's appearance.

"Cameron," said House, "Chase wants you to pick up my dry cleaning today. Do you have time?"

Cameron deftly ignored him, opening the file in her hands. Chase noticed that she had been doing that a lot lately and was surprised to find that it shut House down completely. The man needed interaction in order to play his games and Cameron was cutting him off.

"33 year old female presenting with stiff, swollen joints and fatigue. She has a history of fevers over the last six months and a persistent dry cough. Her lungs are clear, but her chest x-rays show some scarring although no signs of tumors or lesions." Cameron rattled off the information without preamble.

House rolled his eyes, "Boring.'

'Well, not for her, it isn't," Foreman countered. "The cough is so intense, she's pulled muscles in her chest. She can barely sit up."

"She has chronic bronchitis. Get her some antibiotics." House started manipulating buttons on his game boy.

His staff stood silently, patiently watching him cycle through his avoidance strategies. Finally, House sighed and put the game boy on the table. "Tell me something interesting."

"She just got back from a year in the Peace Corps: Ecuador, South America." Cameron said.

House sat up, a gleam in his eye. "Tropical! I love tropical diseases. Why didn't you say something in the beginning? Don't just stand there! We need blood work. Foreman, trot those chest films out. And I want Wilson. Nobody reads a chest film better than he does. "

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Wilson ignored the first two pages from House's staff. He sat, holed up alone in his office, avoiding all human contact. He stared out the window on the barren, wet landscape of an early November day. A highway overpass was the highlight of this scenery, and he wondered why he had ever chosen to settle with such a pedestrian existence. Why had he chosen this life that, while professionally satisfying, left him emotionally and spiritually empty? He worked 70 hour work weeks and then weekends he would hide in his den watching sports and reading medical journals. His social existence consisted primarily of infrequent encounters with his frustrated spouse, a weekly call to his parents, occasional board dinners, and the odd baseball game with House.

Sometimes on Sundays, when Julie was otherwise occupied, he would return to the hospital and roam the hallways, checking charts and looking in on patients; this being the one place where he felt useful and fulfilled.

He had never been angry or depressed like House. Rather he was gifted with affability and a calm demeanor. It was his lot to be insufferably nice and patient with people around him. It was the perfect temperament for a doctor. Couple that with his gargantuan intelligence, and he had become one of the most sought after oncologists in the country. Unlike most people, he had truly found his calling, and it was one of the only things that gave him comfort.

His pager lit up again, and he hit the message button. An annoyed House sounded, "Wilson! I've had you paged twice. You know I hate it when you ignore me. What's the problem? Tough case? Or are you still mad that I told the oncology nurses that you had crabs? It was a joke! Besides, you said that you were feeling guilty about flirting and I thought it would give you a little breather from all the swooning they're always doing around you. It is not my fault that the rumor spread all over the hospital. Just tell a couple of them that you've been treated, and your matinee idol status should be restored within the next couple months. Listen, really James, I need a consult. I got chest films here that look like a black and white print of Fantasia before restoration. I can't make heads or tails of it."

Wilson almost picked up the phone. It was simple. He would call him and tell him to get up here. He needed help; big help, and who better than his best friend to help steer him through this mess. It was a whale of a good idea, and yet he couldn't do it. He wasn't ready to face this, and House would demand nothing less.

He shut off his pager and turned his chair back to the window, swinging his feet up on the ledge and staring out into the bleak existence before him.

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"Wilson is ignoring you," Foreman said.

House rolled his eyes. "He can't take a joke."

"We can read these without him."

"That's not the point!"

"I don't see any tumors. Looks like some scarring from an infection and nothing more."

"Any idiot can see that!"

"I think we should focus on the stiff joints. Let's test her for rheumatoid arthritis."

House looked at Foreman out of the corner of his eye. "Well, don't just stand there then. Test her!"

…………………………………………………………………………………………….

He leaned against the door and pressed the buzzer, peeking in the window. It was very possible that House had gone to bed. Lights were off. He swayed back and forth, and then hit the buzzer again. When he still got no response, he let himself slide down the door and onto the ground. Awkwardly, he propped himself against the brownstone façade and closed his eyes. It seemed logical that this place was as good as any for a little rest. He was just drifting off when the door opened, and a bedraggled House appeared in boxers and a robe.

"You paged me," Wilson said from the ground.

House rubbed at his eyes and looked down at his friend. "You're drunk."

"I know. I wanted to be really wasted like back in college when I woke up in the front yard of the dean's house with his gardener standing over me with a garden shears. I thought he was going to trim me. Any, I feel like I'm almost there."

"What are you doing here?"

"You have good whiskey, and the bartender said I had enough. I was outraged with him, and told him that I would never patronize his establishment again, and then I tipped him 50 because I felt bad. Then I thought about doing some drunk driving; you know, something really out of character, but I couldn't do it. I'm such a wimp! So I drunk walked here. I hit a lot of signposts and fire hydrants so you could still define it as reckless, I think."

"Okay, Evel Knievel, let's get you in the house." House reached down and helped his friend pull himself up. House ignored the screaming in his leg over the extra weight Wilson added. Together, they stumbled nto his living room. House dumped him onto the couch, and Wilson immediately rolled off, landing on the floor with a thump. He looked up at House from where he lay and said, "Bring me a whiskey! Something expensive and smooth that I have no chance of appreciating just now."

House reached down and pulled him to a sitting position and helped him onto the couch again. This time he propped him against the back and helped him remove his coat. "Are you sure about that whiskey? You have to be to work in five hours. At this level, you'll still be drunk."

"I'm taking the day off," Wilson slurred. "I'm going to the zoo, and then I'm going to go find some flowers that need smelling."

House disappeared into his kitchen for a moment, and came back with a decidedly small whiskey for Wilson and a much larger one for himself. Wilson grabbed at the large one, but House held it out of his reach and deposited the small one into his hands. He settled into an armchair across from him. "Alright, Wilson, spill. What's eating you? A patient die? One of your kids? That's usually what's going on when you have one of your infrequent bouts of wanderlust."

"Yup. That's what happened. She was a little girl and she died yesterday. That's what happened."

House leaned forward. "Tell me about her."

"Um, her name was…Rosalie something. And she had leukemia and she died as so often happens with the big tumors. It was very sad and I questioned my worth as an oncologist."

"She had leukemia with tumors?"

Wilson furrowed his brows and tried to concentrate. "Yes…very rare. Untreatable unless the tumor can be reduced through a rather huge, ugly dose of chemo."

"Tumor or tumors?"

Wilson shook his head angrily. "Stop it! I don't remember everything. It was sad and confusing, and I am unclear what to do about it."

"James, what's really going on?"

"Cancer kills! Isn't it obvious? Why did I fool myself? Why did I think I wouldn't have to pay for it myself?"

"I don't understand. What are you paying for? What happened?"

Wilson closed his eyes and let his breathing settle. "Cancer is tough. I was an idiot to think that I knew what I was doing."

House felt fear rising up in him. "Wilson, please tell me what happened."

James Wilson turned his face into the cool leather of the sofa. His breathing got heavy and the whiskey in his hand tilted and gently poured out onto the wood floor. He began to snore softly. House sat there for a while nursing his drink. He was unable to dislodge a sense of dread growing within him. Finally he walked over and pried the glass from Wilson's hands. He grabbed his legs and swung them onto the couch. An afghan was within easy reach and he spread over his friend. Then he stood and stared at him for a long time, but no matter how many times he went over the conversation they just had, he couldn't put the pieces together.

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