Title: I am the Walrus (Part 1/2)
Author: hwshipper
Pairing: House/Wilson. Reference to Wilson/OMC.
Beta: I give you the amazing, magnificent, srsly_yes
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions and Bad Hat Harry Productions in association with Universal Media Studios.
A/N: Set in a slightly alternative season 6. Written for an old sickwilson_fest prompt. A new head of the board has it out for Wilson and makes his life as miserable as possible without having to fire him. Oh yeah, he was an "ex-boyfriend", or at least, he thinks. ObsessionVictim!Wilson.

I am the Walrus (Part 1/2)

Cuddy's six months off work, unpaid leave to spend time with Rachel, was possibly the worst kept secret ever. Wilson had already heard the news from four different people before House came swinging by to report that he was exempt from the new guy's jurisdiction.

"She says she'd never be able to relax knowing I would be tyrannizing her temporary cover," House said with obvious pleasure. "I get a direct line to her at home, so she can authorise insane medical procedures as necessary. Her words. Meanwhile the new guy gets landed with all her admin and paperwork. Cool, huh?"

"Very smart," Wilson agreed gravely.

"I should do the same, take six months to stay home and bond with the organ," House fantasized. "Foreman can do all the admin and Thirteen can report to me on the patients."

"You do that. I'm sure Cuddy would authorize it," Wilson agreed, deadpan. "So, any word who the new boss is going to be? For the rest of us mere mortal doctors, I mean."

House shrugged, "Do I look like I care?"

Curiously, nobody else seemed to know either. Wilson headed into the management board meeting for the introductory handover meeting the next day, full of anticipation.

But when he saw who was sitting at the head of the table with Cuddy, he stopped dead in his tracks and just managed to stop himself saying "Oh shit!" out loud.

"Dr. Kevin Walrus?" House said. "Never heard of him."

"It's Walvin. No reason you'd have come across him, he's from the West Coast, spent almost his whole career in California." Wilson was offhand. "He's a cardiologist by training but decided to specialize in hospital administration early in his career. He's the perfect person to sub for Cuddy."

"Why? He's got big breasts and wears short skirts?" House asked.

"'Fraid not." Wilson pushed away the mental image. "He likes administration. He's gotten excellent results running two hospitals out West over the last fifteen years. He has a new job lined up to go in six months time back in California, when someone retires; this is the perfect filler for him."

House's lack of interest was palpable. "Fancy a game of musical chairs?"

Wilson found himself clinging on to a vague pathetic hope that Walvin would have forgotten him. After all, it had been a long time ago. Lots of water under the bridge since then.

Two day into the reign of the Walrus (as he was inevitably known), it became apparent that no, Walvin hadn't forgotten him, and hadn't forgiven either.

Nothing was said. But a series of crappy tasks and responsibilities began to rain down upon Wilson's desk. Fundraiser breakfast. Doctor's representative on the internal communications group. Training liaison coordinator. Every day there was something new.

When new roles were doled out putting Wilson on the appeal board and the health and safety committee, followed by responsibility for a hefty audit report, Wilson took a deep breath and went to Walvin's office.

"Dr. Walvin, I seem to have been given rather a lot of extra tasks recently." Wilson tried to be diplomatic. "Now of course I'm very happy to do my share, but I'm afraid this amount of additional work is going to affect the performance of my department."

Walvin sat back in his large desk chair and fixed Wilson with a penetrating stare. He looked good, Wilson couldn't help but think. He'd filled out since Wilson had last seen him, but that face was still handsome, and he still had all his hair (unlike House, whose bald spot grew by the day-)

"Come come, Dr. Wilson, it's not like I'm making you scrub out toilets with a toothbrush," Walvin drawled. "Dr. Cuddy gave you high praise. I understood you like doing these kind of things."

"Not all at once!" Wilson protested. "The audit report, it's a huge amount of work. Last time Cuddy gave me that she relieved me of almost everything else while I got it done."

"Not my style," Walvin said simply.

Wilson didn't want to ask, hated to acknowledge a past they were both gladly ignoring, but had to. "Is this because of… back then? You're not still angry…"

"Of course not." Walvin's iciness would have frosted a cake very nicely. "I expect no less from any of my staff. Now, I need that audit report by next Monday and no excuses."

Wilson comforted himself with the thought that the extra workload must at least mean that Walvin considered him to be competent, capable even. He talked lightly to House about his raft of new responsibilities one evening; House told him he was a sucker and an ass-kisser to take on so much. Wilson smiled it off and challenged House to another round of Pictionary.

He was disabused of the competence illusion the following day when he was summoned to Walvin's office to find him with the last month's oncology department statistics in front of him.

"Ah, Dr. Wilson. I didn't find this report of yours at all clear and I was hoping you could clarify some points for me."

The Walrus spent the next half hour picking over Wilson's report, challenged half the figures, and ended by demanding that he do the whole thing again. By the next day.

Wilson took it home, stayed up half the night and did it again. House was happily occupied playing with his latest toy, the organ, and not taking much notice of what Wilson was doing. House headed off to bed at midnight, complaining, "Are you stillworking on that thing?"

"Not much more to do," Wilson said breezily, not letting on it was the second time he'd done it.

He crawled into bed at 4.00 AM, then was up at six to be in early and ensure the report was on Walvin's desk before he arrived that morning.

Two days later he dared ask Walvin's secretary what he'd done with it. She stalled him, and Wilson was left with the strong impression that he hadn't even bothered to look at it. Bastard.

Wilson didn't dare complain to anyone, not even House. (Especially not House). He couldn't risk people cottoning on to their shared past, especially as Walvin clearly didn't want this to be known either,

He kept his ear to the ground, and found he was not alone; other doctors also felt the Walrus picked on them. Not House; House had his hotline to Cuddy, and insofar as Wilson heard any opinion from Walvin it was that Dr. House was a Good Thing as he attracted high-profile patients and donations to the hospital.

No, the others that Walvin picked on were different; they mostly deserved it. Deadwood, slackers, doctors that Cuddy had been threatening for a while, were suddenly out of time. They were given extra tasks and when these weren't done, found themselves quickly on a warning, then on probation. One half-good pediatrician was suspended.

Everyone else upped their pace and worked harder. Walvin's tactics, Wilson realized, were effective.

But he wasn't deadwood, so why was Walvin picking on him? Wilson searched his soul, evaluated his work objectively, and could come to no other conclusion. Despite his denial, Walvin was still angry about that night in Penn, nearly twenty years ago.

Things began to escalate one day when Wilson hurried in to a transplant board meeting five minutes late.

"So glad you decided to grace us with your company, Dr. Wilson," Walvin grumbled.

"I'm sorry, I was unavoidably delayed." Wilson didn't want to talk about the middle-aged woman with no hair and no family who had just died right there on his watch, alone, holding his hand.

"No excuses," Walvin boomed, and the board resumed hearing cases,

Wilson blotted the dead woman from his mind and focused on the business at hand, only to find whatever he tried to suggest during the board, Walvin took the opposite point of view. Cases that Wilson thought undeserving, Walvin supported; Wilson's arguments in favor of patients with better cases were dismissed as superfluous or wrong.

It was ridiculous. And childish. It reminded Wilson of House. Except there were real people at stake, and House wouldn't have played with lives like that (oh okay he would, but not with one of his own patients).

Afterwards he hung back to mutter in Walvin's ear, "Thanks for challenging my professional competence in front of everyone. It would be better if you just ignore me."

"You think so, Dr. Wilson?" Walvin said with a smile.

The following day Wilson got his wish; Walvin ignored him. Unfortunately the situation was quite different.

It was an average day in the oncology department, where Wilson was doing his rounds. Walvin suddenly appeared, giving some visitors a tour. Wilson smiled across the room, ready to meet and greet and expound on the valuable work of his department. Instead Walvin completely ignored him and walked across to the other side of the hall, to talk to Brown.

The insult meant nothing to the visitors, but everything to the doctors and nurses around. Brown shot Wilson a startled look, and Wilson felt it like a body blow.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as Brown entertained the visitors, not daring to kick up a fuss in front of everybody.

Pumped up with righteous fury, Wilson went straight to see Walvin afterwards. "Dr. Walvin, I must protest. As head of Oncology you should have brought your visitors to see me."

"Should? Should?" Walvin sat back in his chair, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Dr. Wilson, you're treading a fine line here. You're barely one step away from an insubordination warning."

Wilson was still simmering. "But—"

"I brought those visitors to see Brown because they were specifically interested in bone cancer, his speciality." Walvin rolled on. "And that is the end of that. If you dare question my judgment again, Dr. Wilson, I will invoke the formal disciplinary procedure."

Wilson didn't dare say anything more, just turned on his heel and left.

He thought that incident would get back to House, but it didn't seem to. Oncology staff, including Brown, were keeping their heads down. Meanwhile House was wrapped up in an insomniac patient with mysterious fainting fits that were apt to strike in the middle of the night, and not spending much time at home, or in the office at the same time as Wilson.

The final straw broke Wilson's back the following week, when Walvin killed off an oncology funding bid that Wilson had been working on for some time, by simply not signing it off.

Wilson chased him on the deadline day, but Walvin wouldn't take his call. His assistant assured Wilson that it was all in hand and the forms had gone out. Wilson's assistant made a call to the funding body and was assured that the paperwork had arrived. But the following day they got another call; the forms hadn't been signed by the hospital's chief exec, and without the signature they were void.

"So we missed the deadline." Wilson couldn't believe it. "He did it deliberately!"

His assistant grimaced. "I'm sure it was just an oversight."

Wilson didn't contradict her, but knew it had been done to spite him. He went to see Walvin again, to no avail. Walvin denied he'd avoided signing the document, claimed it hadn't been clear that was required. Wilson didn't believe him, but how to prove it?

"I'm keeping a log of all staff inadequacies, including yours," Walvin warned him as he turned to leave. "The failure of this funding bid is your fault. You're one step away from suspension for incompetence and insubordination."

"You can't do this to me," Wilson could not believe it. "I'm a good doctor. You know that."

"Everything I've written up about you and every doctor here is true," Walvin said grandly. "It's my duty to be objective and point out the weaknesses of the good medical staff, as well as the obvious inadequacies of the bad ones. There are always better doctors to be hired."

This was baloney. Wilson knew it was really about him.

He left Walvin's office in a fuddle, walking slowly through the hospital and out to the parking lot. His mood turned from anger to despair. What to do? He couldn't allow his department to suffer on his account. Patient care would deteriorate. People could die…

He was so deep in thought he failed to hear the blare of a horn as an ambulance screeched to a halt, a fraction too late.

TBC