House has come to believe that Wilson dreams more than other people. Sometimes he lies awake at night, his head turned, watching James's closed eyes flicker in REM sleep like storm shadows racing across a rolling plain. On the rare occasions he's wakened his friend from an obvious nightmare, the young doctor has stared at him, unblinking for a moment, and then insisted he doesn't remember.

House knows he's lying, but doesn't push it. The next day Wilson is always fine, and if he's a little quieter at work, a little more secluded in his office, it's only House who notices.

What House doesn't know, and what Wilson will never tell him, is that he's dreaming of David.

One dream in particular repeats itself at monthly intervals, like clockwork.

James is twelve, already beginning his bar mitzvah studies. David is sixteen, tall and lanky from the growth spurt that arrived a few years earlier. Jimmy idolizes his older brother, who often seems to be seeing something in the distance no one else does. Sometimes at dinner, David talks about politics, and their father is angry at the oddly grandiose theories of world peace from his eldest son. Their mother tries to soothe the emotions rising fast in anger, but all too often the family meals end in a tense silence with David leaving the table, stomping off to his room to scribble for hours in his journal. His handwriting has dwindled to a crabbed, microscopic script. Lately, James has been finding minute, almost ant-like words scratched into the paint on the walls of his brother's room. He's used the big magnifying glass from his science kit to look at them, but all he sees are the names of the primary colors -- red, blue, yellow, repeated in ever-diminishing circles. He considers asking David about it, but dismisses the idea almost immediately. David hasn't been speaking to him much anymore.

His brother's grades have been slipping. The school counselor has made an appointment to talk to their parents, and Jimmy is afraid this is all going to go on his brother's Permanent Record.

The dream speeds up, an onrushing train James can never flag down. It's the same way, every time. They're in the garage, late afternoon, a hot, humid summer day. In the distance thunder rumbles. James watches his brother move around, looking for something.

"David, what'cha doing?" James asks. His brother doesn't seem to hear. "The Mets are on TV tonight", Jimmy offers helpfully. He feels the need to distract his brother; from what, he doesn't know. The thunder rolls again, closer this time.

David has found what he's looking for. Something in James's stomach twists when he sees that it's a hammer. His brother looks at him now, his eyes empty blue pools. He lays his right hand on the garage workbench.

"It has to be done", he says, "They told me."

"Who?" James's chest is tight. "Who told you, David?" The coming storm seems to have sucked all the air out of the room. His brother doesn't look up.

"Mom and Dad", he says, and brings the hammer down, once, twice on his index finger. He doesn't even flinch. Outside, the rain begins to fall in huge, spattering drops, like the drops of blood falling on the garage floor.

After the trip to the emergency room, David tells his father he was repairing the birdhouse that's been in their backyard since before he was born -- the roof was rotten on one side, and he wanted to fix it. To fix everything. James can't understand why his brother is lying, but he doesn't contradict him.

All these years later, Wilson dreams, never remembering that this actually happened. He's locked it away like a toxic fable, and in some deeply-buried labyrinth his mind tells itself the tale, trying and failing again and again to find the moral of the story.

On these nights, when James wakes with a whimpering gasp from the thunderous hammer-blow, House says nothing, but holds him close until the shivering stops and the young oncologist falls again into a restless sleep.

He tells himself if he were Jimmy's brother, this is what he would do.

fin