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It was when the singing telegram arrived that he finally decided he’d had enough.
The card with the overly-sweet and sickeningly sentimental message inside had been bad, the enormous bouquet of roses and babies’-breath on his desk worse. The five-pound (!) box of truffles had gone down to the Clinic admissions desk – why the hell would any single person need five pounds of chocolate? – but when the cheerful messenger in old-fashioned Western Union attire burst through the door of the board room and proceeded to carol “You Are My Sunshine” to him, James Wilson couldn’t take it any more.
Red-faced, he excused himself from the Finance Committee, not meeting the amused gazes of his colleagues, set his shoulders, and prepared to do battle with the Nearly Invincible Forces of Smartassery, presently incarnate in one Gregory House. Stopping a few yards down the corridor from Diagnostics, he took a few moments to center himself, breathing deeply, letting as much tension as possible drain out of his neck and shoulders, picturing himself as water: calm, flexible, able to absorb anything with only the slightest ripples showing on the surface.
He always tried this; it never worked. He kept on in the hope that some day it might.
He squared his shoulders again and strode toward the door of the Diagnostics Conference Room.
House and his team, surrounded by patient files, stacks of medical journals and empty coffee mugs, were arguing symptoms. The whiteboard read “CARDIOMYOPATHY” in large letters, and below that were notes like “non-ischemic”, “-hypereosinophilic-“, “takotsubo” and related terms. As Wilson came through the door, he could hear Thirteen saying, “But the patient isn’t reporting any severe emotional stress any time in the past month. According to her, nothing unusual has – ” She broke off and looked at Wilson inquiringly, then at House.
“House. I need to talk to you. Now.”
House looked at him, then made a sweeping gesture to his team. “Go! Fly! Fetch me doughnuts and decent coffee.”
Nobody moved. “Well . . . ?” House prompted.
“Uh . . . you didn’t say which of us you want to go,” Chase pointed out.
“All of you! Take five. No, it’s Valentine’s Day and I’m all big-hearted. Take ten.”
The four doctors got up and headed for the door in a straggling line. Wilson was almost sure it was Taub he heard whispering, “They want to be alone,” but beyond a glare intended to threaten death to anyone else foolish enough to comment, there wasn’t much he could do about it.
House was still sitting at the end of the table near the whiteboard, leaning back in the chair with his cane held up in front of him. “What’s up?”
“You know perfectly well what’s up!” Wilson burst out as the door closed behind Foreman. “Look. I was . . . I was stupid enough to mention, in a moment of weakness, that one of the things I missed about being in a relationship, being married, was Valentine’s Day. I should have known better. But it was an observation, House, not an invitation to you to . . . to . . . to do whatever it is you’re doing, here. Cut it out. Please.”
“What is it I’ve been doing? I mean, as far as I know I’ve just been here inside my own little kingdom all day. Fill me in on the actions of my alter ego.”
Wilson’s eyes rolled. Calm, he reminded himself. Deep breaths. Be water. “Card,” he said, listing items on his fingers as he went, “Flowers, candy, singing telegram. Just . . . stop. You’ve made your point.”
House’s face didn’t change. “I have? Cool.”
“Please. The telegram arrived in the middle of the Finance Committee meeting.”
This time, House snickered. “You think something I did got you out of the finance meeting, and you’re mad about that?” He leaned farther back and began twirling the cane in his fingers, looking innocently at the ceiling. “Most people would regard that as a true sign of my love.”
“Maybe I’m not most people. House, this is enough. Please.”
House straightened. “Okay. I won’t do anything more than I have done. See you at lunch?”
“Yeah,” he started for the door. “And House – I owe you for this.”
“Hey, I take cash!” House called after him, as he headed down the hallway to his own office.
He sat down at his desk, pushing the flowers to one side and sliding the card under a stack of files. Paperwork. Here it was, more than twenty years since the promise of the “paperless office”, and he was more up to his neck in paper than he’d ever been. Sighing, he pulled the first folder off the stack and got started. There was no way he was going back to the Finance Meeting at this point.
He worked on in relative peace until just before noon, when a series of bumps and rattling noises ended with a knock at his door, and he opened it to be confronted with a brisk female caterer, her assistant, and two carts full of food.
“Dr. James Wilson?” the woman inquired perfunctorily, before pushing the first cart past him and into the office. “‘Someone who loves you very much ordered lunch for you today. Please enjoy our Valentine’s Day Romantic Meal for Two’,” she continued formulaically. “Did you want this set up on the desk?” She looked at the flowers and the stacks of paper, then back at him, her expression clearly indicating that it was a poor choice if he did. Her assistant shoved the second cart right in after her, leaving almost no room for Wilson himself in his own office.
“Wait – what? What is this?” Wilson managed, although he already knew, with a sinking feeling, exactly what it was.
“It’s our Valentine’s – ”
“Yes. Yes, I got that. Could you wait just a minute, please? I have to go murder someone.”
The caterer simply looked at him as he backed out the door and let it close. He thought for a moment of trying again for calm, but really there was no point. He stomped off to House’s office, filled with a mix of exasperation and the sense that everything he was about to say was futile.
“House!!!” he burst out, as soon as he had the diagnostician’s office door open.
House looked up at him with a patently false expression of innocent sincerity. “Oh, is it lunchtime already? Time really flies when you find the good porn sites.”
“You said you weren’t going to do anything else!” He heard the hysterical note starting to enter his voice and took a deep breath, only then noticing that he had his hands on his hips, something he knew full well House took as a sign of weakness. He settled for waving them at shoulder height instead. “What the hell is wrong with you today?”
“I said I wasn’t going to do anything more than I’d already done. I’d already ordered lunch,” House offered, in a reasonable tone.
“In my office? Where the hell am I supposed to put two cartloads of food?”
“You’re the one who opted for a sofa instead of a table.”
“You’re the one who spends all his time sleeping on it!” Wilson snapped in response. The back of his neck, he noted, was getting a little raw: maybe he shouldn’t rub quite so hard.
“Here,” House said, turning in his chair and reaching for something behind him. “Try this.”
“This” turned out to be a collapsible, foldable aluminum table, the kind sold for camping trips or beach parties. How House had managed to unearth such an object in the dead of winter, much less sneak it into his office, was more than Wilson could figure out. He glared at the other man, but took it, snapping, “Well, come on!” over his shoulder as he turned and left.
With the table in place, the caterers made quick work of setting up the meal: soup, croissants, paté, salad, brie, fresh fruit, crackers, chocolate mousse and tiny pastries, all in disposable containers and accompanied by a bottle of a decent brand of champagne. It wasn’t until they had finished and gone that Wilson realized House hadn’t joined him after all. He sighed and headed back to the other man’s office to find House still at his desk, staring into space with the thoughtful expression that said he was puzzling over his current patient. “Aren’t you going to eat?” Wilson asked, “I thought we were having lunch together.”
“Right,” House agreed, getting up and following him out the door.
“Sorry about the girlie food,” he continued, looking over the table, “but it seems that’s all you can get catered on Valentine’s Day.”
Wilson shrugged, sat down, and set about dishing out soup for the two of them. “What happened to your team?” he asked a few minutes later, through a mouthful of paté-laden croissant.
“Gave them a long lunch. Patient’s in the cardiac ICU, she’s doing well enough for now. From the presentation it’s a classic case of Takotsubo Syndrome, but the patient and everyone who knows her insists that there’s nothing in her life to cause it – her friends, her family, everyone close to her is fine; she’s never been married, even all her pets are healthy.”
“Seems odd,” Wilson agreed.
“Yeah. I’m sure there’s something to account for it, we just haven’t uncovered it yet. I don’t know if it’s because she’s lying or just that we aren’t asking the right questions. So far everything she’s told us checks out.”
They continued to chat over the meal. House, Wilson noted, seemed a little subdued, not even trying to sneak the last pastry from Wilson’s plate. Now that he was full, Wilson was feeling a bit calmer himself, but not so much so that he wasn’t surprised when House actually helped him clean up the remains of the meal and set his office to rights again. Finished, House stood by Wilson’s office door for a moment, frowning thoughtfully. He looked at Wilson, seemed about to say something more, then shook his head and left.
“What’s got into him today?” Wilson asked the air at large, and went back to his paperwork. It was only when he was into his third set of insurance approvals and authorization forms that he noticed that an entire hour and a half had gone by with no further pranks. Maybe House really had decided to call a halt to the whole thing; after all, what he’d done so far had to have cost –
Oh, my god.
His stomach twisting in dread, Wilson scrabbled for the wallet in his back pocket. But all his credit cards were there and everything else was accounted for, too. In a haze of disbelief, he signed on quickly and checked his account balances, but nothing new had been added. It would normally have been the pièce de résistance, the best joke of all, for House to force Wilson to pay to have himself pranked this way – but, incredibly, it seemed that House had actually used his own money for everything. Wilson found himself wondering, a bit feverishly, if he was just still asleep and would wake up to find none of this had really happened.
At last he sighed, and started in on another authorization form.
Twenty minutes later he realized he couldn’t concentrate. The strain of waiting for the next prank to happen, coupled with his growing curiosity about the whole campaign, was just too much. He stood up, stretched, and went over to House’s office.
House was sitting and staring into space again. There was still no sign of his team; knowing House, he probably had them running fifty thousand tests and/or badgering the patient in the hope of turning up one more symptom. Wilson pushed the door open and stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe with his hands in the pockets of his white coat.
“What brings you here?” House asked when he realized Wilson wasn’t going to initiate the conversation.
“Oh, getting tired of sitting in my office, waiting for pink balloons to drop from the ceiling or a six-foot Cupid to walk in the door,” Wilson retorted. “So I thought I’d come over and just ask what I can expect to happen to me next.”
“Sorry,” House replied. “What there was is all there is.”
“Seriously?” Wilson asked, still suspicious.
“Of course. Honestly, Wilson, you wound me. If you keep doubting me this way, you’ll break my heart, the way Jake – ” He broke off suddenly, his eyes narrowing, then widening. Grabbing for his cane, he pushed past Wilson and out the door, heading for the elevators at a brisk pace. Wilson, who had seen House in the throes of an epiphany enough times to recognize it for what it was, followed after.
Foreman and Taub were just coming out of Cardiac ICU as House and Wilson arrived. House, stretching his cane across the wall to bar Foreman’s way, snapped, “When you did the history on our patient, did she say what her favorite recreational activities are?”
“House, we’ve been over this,” the neurologist answered impatiently. “She knits, she sings in her church choir, and she watches TV.”
“What’s her favorite show?”
“I have no idea, and it’s not medically relevant in any case.”
“Uh, she seems pretty fond of The Young and the Restless,” Taub offered from behind Foreman. “Oh, and that one you like – Prescription: Passion?”
House pulled the cane away from the wall. “You want medical relevance?” he asked Foreman. “Follow me, and I’ll show you some.”
Bursting into the ICU, he pushed his way past Chase to the patient’s bedside. “Miss Hamilton!” he boomed, genially. “I’m Dr. House. And may I say it’s always a pleasure to meet another fan of the soaps. Dr. Taub, here, says you watch Prescription: Passion.”
“Oh, I never miss it, Dr. House,” the patient assured him, earnestly.
“Neither do I. Wasn’t it a shame about Jake, though?” Wilson could see House watching the woman intently as he asked the question.
“Oh . . . oh! Oh, Dr. House, I just can’t think about it without crying. He was such a good man, it was all so unfair . . .” Alarms began sounding as the woman suddenly collapsed into a sobbing heap on the bed.
“There’s your medical relevance,” House told Foreman, turning away again. Foreman was gaping at him.
“A . . . a soap opera?” he finally managed to get out.
“Sometimes people get very involved with the characters,” House replied, limping back out of the ICU bay.
“But . . . but . . .”
“If you can come up with a better explanation, go ahead,” House told him. Foreman simply shook his head and turned back to deal with the patient.
On the way back up in the elevator, Wilson said, “So let me see if I understand this. Your theory is that the patient developed takotsubo because she was devoted to a soap opera character and he died?”
“It’s the only logical explanation. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy typically follows extreme emotional stress. Apparently, to her, Jake’s death was extremely stressful. She has a classic presentation, and there’s nothing else in her life to account for it. Ergo, she broke her heart over a soap opera character.”
“And it didn’t occur to her to mention that when your team were taking her history?” Wilson asked a little disbelievingly.
“Sometimes it’s hard for people to admit how much something means to them,” House observed, quietly. As the elevator doors opened, he added, apparently out of nowhere, “You never even opened the card, did you?”
“The Valentine?” Wilson asked, standing, confused, in front of his office door. “I opened it. Why?”
“Not that card,” House replied, as his own office door closed behind him.
Bewildered, Wilson let himself into his office. Looking around, he tried to figure out what House could be talking about, if not the Valentine he’d shoved under the files earlier. House had specifically said it wasn’t that, though. What the hell . . . ?
Then it hit him, and he began poking through the enormous bouquet on his desk. Buried in the center of it was a florist’s card, sealed in an envelope and stuck on one of those plastic spikes. Wilson tugged it free and opened it.
Wilson – This is real, but you’ll probably never believe it.
– H.
He read the words over three times, and they still didn’t make any sense. Unless . . .
But it couldn’t be that.
No.
It couldn’t.
Numbly, he dropped the card on his desk and walked out the door and over to House’s office for the fifth time that day, not sure he really wanted to know what kind of prank House thought he was pulling this time.
House was standing staring out the window at the balcony. He didn’t turn as Wilson entered; there was a weary droop to his shoulders that hadn’t been there a few minutes before. Wilson stood irresolutely between him and the door for a moment before moving closer. He came all the way up behind the other man before House said quietly, “What?”
“The . . . card. I – I found it.”
“And . . . ?” House asked, his voice toneless, his eyes still focused on the snow drifted along the wall that separated their two balconies.
“I don’t – if this is your last prank of the day, then it’s – ”
“No.” House turned toward him then, setting the cane aside to grab the back of Wilson’s head and pull him, suddenly, into a kiss. An intense kiss, full body contact, his left arm reaching around to pull Wilson close to him while his right continued to immobilize his head and neck. Wilson, crowded against House’s desk and with nowhere to go, tried to find something behind him to lean on, shocked and intrigued by the soft warmth of House’s lips on his own, suddenly intensely aware of the other man’s body heat, the tight firmness of muscle against him, the strength in House’s arms, the taste of the other man as he pushed Wilson’s lips apart and ravished his mouth with a sort of savage gentleness that was a shocking turn-on.
This was . . . it was wrong. It was . . . wrong . . . it was . . . was . . . was it wrong?
It didn’t feel . . .wrong. Not really. It felt . . . good. The warm, floating feeling that always came with kissing, but somehow warmer, more buoyant than usual. It felt right to let House do this, right to kiss back He hardly noticed when his arms went around the other man, except that it made him feel even closer to House, and that was good, too. Something inside him said, Yes. Why didn’t you do this a long time ago?
Now that he thought about it, he had no idea why not.
Now that he thought about it, he didn’t want to bother thinking just now. He was too busy just being.
When the kiss finally ended, he was practically entwined around House, sitting on the desk with his legs around the other man’s and his hands clutching House’s shoulders. His mouth was bruised, his chin was a little scraped by House’s stubble, and his heart was pounding madly in his chest, which felt too small for all the emotion that had suddenly been packed into it. He tilted his head back to look up into the blue eyes above him.
“Happy Valentine’s Day?” House whispered.
Wilson could only nod.