Two Wishes

Summary: House and Wilson are each given their heart's desire, but House's wish surprises everyone, including himself. [House/Wilson]

Author's note: This story contains mpreg (male pregnancy). Wait! Stop! Don't automatically hit the back button. Give it a chance, will you? It's a pretty good story (of course I am a bit biased). I never thought I'd write a story with mpreg, but once I had the idea, I had to write it. My goal in this story, was to write an mpreg story that felt medically accurate, provided you could accept the initial premise (which obviously, is never going to happen in real life). I leave it to you to judge whether I have achieved my goal. The other warning is that this story contains a loving gay relationship. If that isn't your thing, then this isn't the story for you.

Acknowledgement: Thank you to ML, whose proofreading and constructive criticism have made this story what it is today. I couldn't have done it without you.

Timeline: This story begins near the end of season 2. This is mainly because this is when I began writing this story. Three years and over 50,000 words later, the story is finally ready to be posted.

Disclaimer: Don't own anything. Don't sue.

Chapter 1: Wants and Needs

Gregory House sat on his balcony, watching as the last traces of light finally left the sky. God, what a shitty day it had been. It was his own damn fault; it had been almost lunchtime and he'd gone looking for Wilson. Wilson's office had been empty, but lying on the desk had been an intriguing piece of paper—creamy stationary threaded with a light blue ribbon. Automatically, he had leaned over to read it – Mark and Stacy Warner are proud to announce the birth of their son, Kyle Edmund Warner – he had pushed himself away from the desk before he read the details. It was just over a year since Stacy had left PPTH. Guess it hadn't taken long for her to patch up her marriage, he thought cynically.

The day had only gotten worse from there. His leg had felt like someone was driving a knife into his thigh, and the Vicodin didn't seem to help. He'd yelled at three nurses who had been slow to follow his orders, and had been snapping at anyone else unlucky enough to cross his path.

The final straw had been his last clinic patient. "How can anyone be stupid enough to think that a stomach flu can last for over two months!"

His voice must have carried to the nurses' station, because someone stuck their head into the room, and he heard a female voice ask, "is everything all right in here?"

"Fine," he snarled, but it wasn't the truth. His hands were shaking so badly that he could barely hold the ultrasound wand steady on the teenager's abdomen. "See that. It's a heartbeat. You're pregnant."

She had looked shocked for only a minute, before she gathered her wits and stated, "then I need to have an abortion. Can they do that here?"

Without speaking, he wrote a referral to the OB/GYN department and handed it over. Then he left the clinic, 20 minutes before his shift was scheduled to be over. No one stopped him.

As he watched the sun set, he had marveled at how easily the decision had been made. He imagined that she probably spent more time each morning deciding what to wear than she had given to the decision to get rid of her child. He wondered if she would ever think back to that image on the ultrasound, and wonder what might have been if she had made a different decision. Maybe the image wouldn't haunt as much if the choice was hers, rather than fate taking the choice away.

Even eight years later, every time he picked up an ultrasound probe, he was forced to remember. How foolishly happy he had felt, seeing the tiny life inside Stacy's body. How they had walked around for three months, enjoying having this secret that only they shared. The trip to Honolulu for the infectious disease conference, where the afternoons were spent lounging on the beach, sipping non-alcoholic drinks with umbrellas and Stacy wearing a bikini, despite the fact that her waistline was completely non-existent. And then the blood, and the frantic trip to an unfamiliar hospital, where another scan showed that there was no longer a heartbeat. Things like that weren't supposed to happen in paradise. The pathologist's report was still sitting at the bottom of his file drawer, but he didn't need to read it to remember what it contained: no genetic abnormalities, no defects, no reason that his son should not have been carried to term.

He sat for a long time, and he was about to push himself off of the uncomfortable wooden bench when a flash of movement caught his eye. He turned his head. "You know, dead patients aren't allowed on my balcony."

For some reason, this seemed to amuse the girl in the white dress, who came and sat beside him, pulling her legs up so she was sitting cross legged on the bench. "Am I to be confined to the morgue just because I'm dead? Boring!"

House had to smile; even in death, she was as feisty as ever. In life, she had baffled the oncology nursing staff, who had no idea how to deal with a twelve year old girl who refused to accept their sympathy or their support. In her, he had found a kindred spirit. "So why aren't you haunting Wilson? He was your doctor, not me."

"Because you were one of the few people in this world who actually gave a damn about me."

He was about to deny it, but at her raised eyebrows, he realized that apparently, bullshitting the dead was impossible. It was a sad statement, that so few people had cared about her. Wilson had told him the story of how three months ago she had been removed from a foster family that was abusing her. Which was why the leukemia that had killed her had gone undetected until it was too late for the treatment to work. Not that Wilson had ever given up.

Because there was no reply to her statement, House did what usually worked in awkward situations; he said nothing at all, and waited for this strange situation to resolve itself. The girl seemed to be considering something. "I want to do something for you. Give you what you need."

House looked at her skeptically. "Is this where I get three wishes? I thought that was genies, not," he paused, "whatever the hell you are."

"Oh come on, it's no use asking people what they need; they will only tell you what they want. People rarely actually know what they need."

"Ah. Another fan of the philosopher Jagger." At her puzzled look, he shrugged. "Never mind. So, do you know what I need?"

She was looking at him intently, as if trying to figure out a particularly challenging puzzle. At last she smiled. "I think I do." She uncrossed her legs and then stood up. She moved so she was standing directly in front of him. She reached out her hand, and without thinking, he reached out to shake her hand. "Goodbye, Dr. House. Thank you." As her last words faded, his hand closed on empty air and she was gone.

James Wilson was sitting in his office. It was late, and he didn't want to go home to his cold, dark, empty apartment. So he was sitting in his cold, dark, empty office watching Greg out on the balcony, apparently having a conversation with himself. Wilson must have fallen asleep, because that would be the only explanation for the fact that one of his former patients, who had died a week ago, had just appeared in his office. "Hello Kayla."

"Hey Dr. Wilson." She smiled. "I wanted to ask you something. After I died, you whispered some words that I didn't understand. What was that?"

"Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning. I hope you don't mind. I know you're not Jewish."

"No, it was nice. No one ever did anything like that for me before."

He was sad, because her statement was probably true. "Is there anything else that I can do for you? I know I failed you. I couldn't heal you." His voice broke.

"No, Dr. Wilson. You didn't fail. There was nothing more you could have done. It was my time to die. You were always so nice, coming to see me, telling really lame jokes to make me laugh. You even introduced me to your friend. Which is why I was allowed to come to see you. So that I could do something for you."

"Like what?"

"I am allowed to give you what you need, but it turns out I don't have to do a thing," she said happily.

"I don't understand. What is it that I need?" Wilson was confused.

She looked pointedly out the glass door that looked out onto the balcony, where House was still sitting on the bench. She turned to look into Wilson's eyes. "He already loves you as much as you love him. All you need to do is find a way to tell him. I'm sure you'll think of something." She grinned at the flabbergasted look on his face. "Goodbye, Dr. Wilson!"

"Goodbye" he replied, but she was already gone. What an odd dream he was having, and he willed himself not to wake up. With the courage that comes with knowing that it is all a fantasy, he pushed open the door and stepped over the low wall that separated the balconies. Without saying a word, he leaned down and kissed House. After an initial hesitation of surprise, the other man responded and began kissing him back.

When James awoke a few hours later, he smiled at the wonderful dream he had just experienced. As his various senses began to check in, he couldn't help but notice that something had happened that hadn't occurred since he was a teenager. Not too surprising given the graphic nature of his dream. He was about to smile, when he noticed a few other important details – he was naked and lying on the floor of his office, and most importantly, there was an arm resting on his hip. What the hell? If the sex was real, did that mean that the conversation with Kayla was real? He remembered her words – "he already loves you as much as you love him."

With a sigh, he turned over, and saw House's blue eyes watching him intently. He was still trying to formulate something to say when House leaned in to kiss him. After a very thorough and enjoyable kiss, it was House that finally broke the silence. "Of all the times I pictured us having sex, I never pegged you for a carpet man."

Charmingly, Wilson blushed. "It was, well, uhm, convenient."

House laughed at the embarrassment of his friend, and now lover. "Do you think that next time we could be boring and use a bed?"

"Sure. And hopefully someplace that has a shower," Wilson suggested, pulling on his clothes.

"How about my place? We still have," House checked his watch, "seven whole hours until it is time to come back here for work."

Not wanting to waste any time, Greg allowed James to help him off the floor. He donned his clothing, and then they both drove to Greg's place, only breaking a few traffic laws to get there in the shortest possible amount of time. The seven hours were well spent.

"You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, well you might find, you get what you need." -- The Rolling Stones