Chapter Text
“For a star to be born, there is one thing that must happen: a gaseous nebula must collapse. So collapse. Crumble. This is not your destruction. This is your birth.” -Zoe Skyla
...
Violet sunset bled into the navy on the horizon. Thick, gray clouds danced, and a dense fog rolled into Princeton as House and Wilson climbed out of the car. The former led by a half-step, waiting a moment for the latter to lock his car and pocket his keys, before they approached the towering, ancient Euripedes Inn. Signage outside the historic building posted the quarterly Princeton Philharmonic Orchestra concert. Wilson carried two tickets, one for each of them, in his pocket. The fading sunlight cast their shadows long and dim.
No stars gleamed in the wake of the sunset. Cloud cover was too thick. A fitting end to the day, House acknowledged, leaning heavily on his cane at the base of the stone steps. They found the answer too late; his patient had died.
From the solemn line of Wilson’s lips, he assumed the oncologist had had an even shittier day.
But they attended the concert, anyway. The quarterly concerts of the orchestra at the Euripides Inn were something of a tradition for them. The classical music and old fixtures were a comforting routine, a consistency neither of them had in regular life, and after an exceptionally difficult day, they both needed to listen to some calming music for awhile.
One hand tight on his cane and the other clutching the handrail, House lumbered awkwardly, fighting to keep his balance. “Christ, I hate these uneven steps.”
His slow pace was marked, but Wilson didn’t speed past him, instead allowing him to set the tone and following suit. “It could be the uneven steps. It could be that you take uneven strides.” Wilson’s words had light intention, but he couldn’t manage to look jovial, and his smile didn’t meet his eyes.
Wilson was sad. Though he hadn’t said as much, House knew why. “Bad news for your lung cancer kid?”
He sighed. “Yeah.” At the top of the stairs, House paused to steady himself, and Wilson waited beside him without remark. “Her mom wasn’t a match for the lung lobe transplant. We all hoped she would be—Mom is O neg. But only one out of six HLAs match. Turns out Lila’s adopted.” They approached the entrance where a bespectacled employee checked the tickets of the entering customers. Wilson presented the two tickets, which were punched, and they were allowed inside. “She’s running out of time. The hypoxia killed her kidneys. Now her liver, too. Where am I going to find a lung, kidney, and liver?”
“You’re not.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” They entered the lobby, picture windows betraying the darkness of the sky. The mist obscured everything far beyond the building. A small crowd gaggled inside, most by the concession stand, a few by the restrooms. “The registry removed her name. They won’t consider her for anything now, not needing a triple transplant. The mortality rate is too high. They could save three lives with those organs instead of losing one.”
“So now you need a living donor to volunteer.”
“And no one in their right mind is going to volunteer to donate a lung, liver, and kidney. Three major surgeries in one. Who would agree to that?”
Wilson didn’t need House to answer him. He knew without hearing any words what House thought, what was going to happen. “Lila Fairgood is going to die.”
The sounds of the orchestra warming up echoed from the theater into the lobby. The Euripides Inn didn’t keep overnight guests anymore; instead, it served primarily as a performance hall and historical center. Very limited restoration had been done. The city left it exactly as it had been 200 years ago at first construction, for better or for worse. (For worse, as far as House was concerned, given how inaccessible the building was for his cane.)
At House’s words, Wilson shuddered visibly. House asked, “Did you think I was going to say something else?” They both knew House was not in the business of mincing words. Brutal honesty was a gamut he ran on the daily.
Wilson shook his head. “No. But I was still hoping you’d have an answer I hadn’t thought of yet.”
At the concession stand, Wilson bought them each a pop, and he bought House a soft pretzel with ranch dressing instead of cheese, his usual philharmonic meal which Wilson aptly described as “a bucket of barf” and House always joyously ate in front of him. They made their way to their seats: fourth row, furthest to the right in the center section. House took the seat beside the aisle, and Wilson sat to his left. This way, House had room to stretch his leg and place his cane without jabbing the person next to him and creating a scene.
To Wilson’s left, two middle-aged women perked up. House didn’t believe they had met them at the philharmonic before. One had kinky black hair and a kind smile, the other stone-faced with icy eyes. The friendlier one extended a hand for Wilson to shake. “Hi! I’m Sandy, and this is Barb.” Her grumpy-faced companion nodded curtly to them in greeting.
Wilson, to his credit, beamed. Meeting other philharmonic goers gave him a thrill. (House, on the other hand, would much prefer being wealthy enough to pay the philharmonic to perform for him privately, so he never had to interact with another person in the theater ever again.) “I’m Wilson, and this is House.” He gestured to House with his thumb as he spoke. “First time at the philharmonic?”
She giggled. “No, we just splurged on better seats this time, right, honey?” Her sunshiney tone contrasted starkly with her partner’s grating reply of, “Right,” before she launched back into an enthusiastic conversation. “House–that’s a strange name. What, were your parents Shingle and Window?”
Barb, the one with cold blue eyes, touched Sandy’s hand. “House is his last name, dear.”
She said that much more kindly than I would have. Sandy wasn’t perturbed. “Well, what’s your first name, then?”
House didn’t make eye contact. Instead, he focused on opening his soft pretzel. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” She laughed a bright, bubbly laugh, and from the corner of his eye, he watched her partner give a slight smile. House peeled the styrofoam back from the soft pretzel. “Goddammit.” He reached for his cane. “They forgot the ranch.”
Wilson sat up. “Do you want me to go?”
“No,” House growled. “You won’t be mean enough. The job isn’t done until the snot-nosed brat behind the counter is in tears.” He stood, limping through the patchy trail of people making their way into the theater, catching only the tail end of Wilson’s scrambled explanation to the women that House was just hungry and wouldn’t actually make the teenager working the concession stand cry.
The line had dwindled in anticipation of the show beginning. The boy behind the counter had a thick shock of hair dyed pitch-black with ugly sidebangs. Snakebite piercings and stretched ears grossly contradicted the ancient architecture surrounding them and the sounds of violins and flutes punctuating the background. The kid pushed a bucket of popcorn at a drunk couple who couldn’t stop groping each other long enough to order. Then, he raised his sullen gaze to House. “Let me guess: We got it wrong.”
“Is it all the rage in teenagers these days to look ugly and mess up concession orders? All in the name of individualism, of course.”
The kid didn’t even blink. Damn. I was hoping for a reaction. Apparently, he’d have to say something meaner to get under his skin. “What do you need to go away?” the boy asked him.
Mouth opening, House prepared to spit out a single word— ranch —but a deafening crack silenced him. In unison, their eyes shot toward the ceiling. Three great fissures blistered through the stone and plaster. With another crack, they split into six, and with another, twelve. Each sound resounded through the open lobby. Sounds like a femur cracking, House thought dimly.
He had no time to react. He flung the styrofoam container with the pretzel, seized the kid by the front of his polo shirt, and hauled him face-first over the counter. The boy’s entire stocky frame crashed into House. They both sprawled out on the floor, just as a tsunami of rubble consumed the counter and spat soot at their faces.
The bitter taste gagged them. The collapsing infrastructure whined, the sound a firework made just before it exploded, and dust piling through the air obscured everything from sight. A vice grip pinched down on House’s bicep. “Get up, man, we gotta run!”
A poison-barbed tongue began to snidely reply that he couldn’t run, but the ash smothered his words, and the teen’s insistent hand became a leash for a slow-moving dog—the boy would drag him out on his ass if his legs wouldn’t work. House scrambled with his cane and his one good leg to hobble alongside the teen. I hope we’re running toward the exit. Silt in the air obscured everything from view.
Ash blended into mist and clouds and nightfall. Sight didn’t tell him when they had escaped the collapsing structure. Smell did. The taste of clean air, the rattling of the first clean breath, signified when they crossed the threshold from devastation into safety. The uneven stone steps caught the better of House a second time, and this time, he didn’t have Wilson waiting steadily at his side. He stumbled. The kid didn’t have time to throw him back into balance; instead, he merely broke his fall, and they both toppled off of the steps into the street, House rolling onto his back while the boy crawled out on his knees.
Shrieking women and bawling children set the backdrop for the scene. Streetlamps and headlights reflected off of the mist and residue in the air, creating lit clots of fog. Sirens resounded in the distance, but no cherries and berries shone nearby; first responders hadn’t arrived yet.
The boy found his feet before House did. He used his palms to push himself up like a baby. Glass cut into his hands when he pushed himself up. He staggered a few feet, then stood over House, hands on his knees, gasping for breath. “Oh my god.” House closed his eyes, waiting for the world to stop spinning around him where he lay on his back in the center of the street. “All those people—” Why is he still here? The kid wasn’t going anywhere; he hovered protectively above House, the ugliest guardian angel ever known to man.
Flames of pain licked up and down his leg. Firelight danced among the wreckage, ruptured gas lines and sparking electrical ends creating outlet fires. Several damaged water lines inundated the wreckage. All of the ten great plagues of Egypt danced before them in synchronization.
Behind them, a woman screeched, “ My babies! My babies! My babies are in there! ” while a man held her back, repeating, “Ma’am, ma’am, ma’am,” as if a calm tone could cut through her horror.
As House sat up, the teen extended a hand to him. “You alright, man? You saved my life.”
The fragmented moments played back before his eyes, that split second decision he made to drag the boy over the front of his desk as the wall collapsed and consumed him. “And you saved mine.” House knew he wouldn’t have moved fast enough if not for the kid dragging him along like a naughty, tantruming toddler out of the supermarket. He took the boy’s hand, and this time, he pulled him to his feet much more gently. “What’s your name, kid?”
House’s gaze didn’t leave the wreckage as he asked the question. The smoking rubble held him in total fixation. Wilson. His mouth dried up. All of his internals shriveled. The woman behind them kept screaming. Some part of him wanted to join her.
“Matthew.”
“Matthew,” House repeated. He couldn’t look away. “You forgot my damn ranch.”
…
Dust clotted in Wilson’s lungs and eyes. Everything is quiet now. He lay very still, prone on the ground, listening to the dim twitches of the rubble settling itself; the occasional pops and whines were crickets compared to the roar that had overtaken him moments ago. Blinking rapidly, he was unable to clear his eyes. “House!” he bleated, unthinking. “House, are you there?” They had entered the Euripides Inn together; he remembered that. No. The voice rang through his head; it sounded like House’s. No, he went back to the concession stand. He isn’t here. You won’t find him here.
Bits and pieces of memory accumulated. The two women in the adjacent seats—Sandy and Barb. He had been talking to them. Then, the ceiling cracked. They looked up. An ocean of stone swallowed them.
He must have moved, he assumed, to still be alive; he must have gotten under something. The weight of the collapsing building hadn’t crushed him to death on impact. But the silt in the air and blackness of nightfall blinded him. His body ached a dull throb—not a crippling, broken bone type pain, but the type of pain a forty-year-old man had after getting knocked on his ass.
He lifted his head, knocking it onto the bottom of the theater seats above him. That’s it. He had either jumped or been swept under the theater seats. The seats had caught the enormous weight of the collapsing building and spared him a horrible death.
Had House been so lucky?
The thought twisted his insides. He couldn’t know, not for now; he had no way to find out, and worrying about it would do no good.
Wriggling forward, he dragged himself on his belly, using his elbows and feet to army crawl. In his wake, steel and wood settled, caving in the seats behind him. I need to stop. If I upset something, it’ll crush me. He had survived this much. He didn’t want to get smashed now.
Ragged breaths interrupted his train of thought.
“Hello?” Wilson called.
The breaths paused, then continued, with no one answering his greeting. “House?” he repeated, tentative, knowing it couldn’t be true but calling his name desperately anyway. “Who’s there?”
Worming around in the dirt, he reached his penlight in his pocket. It clicked on. It cast a faint illumination in the air around him, including the face of a little girl only a few feet away.
Disappointment and tenderness mingled. A trapped child—not House, not rescue, someone just as stuck and frightened as he was. But round tears streaked her cheeks in gray, and her dirty hair had big knots with clots of soot. “Hey…” The softness to Wilson’s own voice surprised him. “Hey, it’s okay.” She used the heels of her hands to push back away from him. Above them, the wreckage cracked and moaned. “Hey—wait, don’t move. It’s not safe.” The slightly sharper tone froze her in terror. “We need to stay here until someone comes to get us,” he tried to explain, though her terrified face showed no change.
Wilson made no move to advance toward her. She was terrified; he wouldn’t exacerbate that, not deliberately. “Hi.” Tilting his head, he cleared his throat, trying to cough the bitter taste out of his mouth. “Can you tell me your name?”
She avoided eye contact, not looking directly into the brightness of the penlight. “My mommy says I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”
Astute advice. Wilson doubted her mother had intended it to apply after a building caved in on her. “That’s okay.” He turned the light around, out of her face and into his own, so she could make out his features in the darkness. “Your mommy is very smart. You definitely shouldn’t talk to strangers.” With the light in his eyes, he couldn’t see if her expression changed. “My name is Jimmy. I’m a doctor.”
Careful not to jostle the heavy weight above him, he reached for his pocket again, this time nabbing his wallet. He felt around for the picture he carried, took it out, and held it up to the light. “See?” The picture showed him and House together in white coats at a conference several years ago.
She held her breath for a moment, considering. Then, she asked, “Who’s that with you?” The intrigue overwhelmed her sense of stranger danger. She reached out with both hands.
He allowed her to take the matte image from him. “That’s my friend, Greg. He’s a doctor, too.” He licked his lips. The filth had caked itself to them. The taste nearly made him gag. “Can you tell me your name?” he asked again, hesitantly, turning the harsh light away from his eyes.
“Maya.”
“Maya,” he repeated. “That’s a very pretty name. How old are you, Maya?”
“I’m seven.”
She clutched the picture of him and House in her hands tightly, like she feared he would take it away. “You’re seven,” Wilson repeated again. “Are you here with your mommy?”
This time, it took her a moment to answer. She sniffled once, hard, voice trembling with tears. “Yeah.” The ragged breaths began again. “She said she was gonna get us some soda. She told me to watch George.”
“George? Is George your brother?”
“Yeah. He’s four.”
Wilson swept the area with the light. He saw nothing remotely human in the wreckage surrounding them, living or otherwise. “Was he next to you when the ceiling fell?”
“When—” Her voice cracked. “When the noise started, he tried to run. He tried to run after Mommy. I told him not to, but he did. Then things started to fall, so I got under the seats. I didn’t see him after that.”
He ran. He didn’t have any cover. His stomach twisted. “That’s good—That’s good, Maya. It was very smart to get under the seats. You did a good job.” Her decision was probably why she was still alive. He didn’t dare tell her that; she was scared enough. He loathed to think of what had happened to her brother. “I need to turn off the light now so we’ll have enough battery if we need it. Is that okay?”
She sniffed. “I–I guess so.” He clicked off the penlight. Darkness swallowed them again. Her sob grew louder. “Dr. Jimmy?”
“Yes?”
“Is Georgie gonna be okay?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“Is Mommy?”
“I don’t know.”
“They’re dead, aren’t they?”
Biting the tip of his tongue, Wilson considered his options. He didn’t know if her mother or brother were alive. He didn’t know if anyone had escaped alive. Including House. “I don’t know, Maya. They could be. But they could be fine, too.” She made a broken, familiar sound, one Wilson had heard dozens of times from patients with a terminal diagnosis. “My friend Greg is here, too. And I don’t know what happened to him. But I’m here with you. And as long as we’re here together, we can find out what happened when we get out of here.” Her quaking breaths were the only answer. “I know you’re scared. Does your mommy tell you to do something to help you when you’re scared?”
Her voice peeped through, unable to catch her breath. “We–We pray.”
“Will you show me how your family prays? Then we can pray together.”
Small hands reached out to him through the darkness. His hands enveloped hers. Together, they bowed their heads, and Maya began to speak. “Dear God, please help Mommy and Georgie and Dr. Jimmy’s friend Greg. Please let them be okay. Let someone come find us quickly and take us home…”
She continued speaking in a lull. Prayer. House would laugh.
Wherever House was, Wilson knew he would reject the idea of his best friend praying under several tons of rubble for his well-being. But trapped under the debris, there was nothing else Wilson could do but pray, hope, and wait.