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“By the way,” Dr Chase says, “there’s a lecture tomorrow you should all go to.”
His fellows look up in vague interest.
“Dr House,” Chase clarifies.
“Aren’t those lectures for, like, med students?” his newest fellow, Jenkins, asks.
“You wanna go to these,” Morgan - nine months in - assures her.
“I thought Dr House was retired,” Cooper, fellow the third, says.
“Nope. Like, the guy has seven different specialties,” Morgan says.
Chase is tempted to intervene. It’s three - four at most. But then he decides to shut up. He wants them to attend. He’s interested to see what they’ll make of him.
“So apparently I’m supposed to - impart wisdom - at these things.” House waves his fingers in a way that indicates disdain for the whole process. “But I’ve always believed in the Socratic method above all. So. Go.”
Most of the med students are used to this, by now. A hand flies into the air. “Dr House. You didn’t start off with oncology as a specialty. How did you find your way there?”
At the front of the room, Greg House begins to tell a story. At the back of the room, Robert Chase enters, and listens to what’s being said.
“Cancer’s boring… until you know someone with it. Then it becomes the most interesting thing on the planet.”
Chase allows himself a small smile.
“Case study. Mid-forties, thymoma stage two, treated with aggressive and - hell - probably illegal intensive chemo early on.” House shrugs in a whatcha-gonna-do manner. “Six months later, the guy turns up in a Chicago ER.”
“The guy’s partner said he wanted to see you,” is what’s reported to Cameron like it’s the latest financial report, as though it’s not unusual, when already her stomach fills with dread. She turns up, preparing for the worst - someone with a grudge, someone who hasn’t been able to handle a decision made by her, or her department. Someone who wants to blame her for the worst moment of their life.
“Hey,” a familiar voice says, and her knees crumple beneath her.
No. It can’t be. Except.
Of course it is.
“He’s fading,” House says, nodding toward Wilson, in the bed, sleeping, and he hasn’t yet explained what’s happening, but -
Of course she’ll do what he asks.
“We had morphine,” House says, “but there was this -” Here he stumbles. “I had a bad night. He - I wouldn’t have let him, but he did it anyway.”
“So now you need me,” she says, heavily.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll do what I can,” she says, honestly. And then she watches what happens next. House waiting next to someone’s hospital bed - she’s seen it. She knows he can be that guy, as much as he’d hate to admit it.
But she’s not expecting him to crawl into the bed next to Wilson, to put his arms around him, to press a gentle kiss on his forehead.
“I didn’t think he was capable,” she says, on the phone explaining to her husband why she’ll be home late. “I didn’t think he knew how to - love.” She corrects herself. Because she did know that. “I didn’t know he could show it, like that.”
“What were those guys - doing?” a med student asks. “On the road together all that time. Were they just friends, or -”
Other students are nodding.
House gleams. “Good question.”
Four weeks in. “Okay, what else?” House asks after a room-service breakfast.
“Hmm?”
“What else haven’t you done? What’s next on this bucket list?”
Wilson shrugs. “We’ve got an itinerary, right?”
House sighs. “That’s not what I mean.”
Wilson joins him in sighing-territory. “Is there a chance you might tell me what you actually mean? With your words?”
“What’s next on the bucket list?” House repeats.
"Skiing? Snowboarding? What is it that you're angling for, here?" Wilson sighs in exasperation. “If you have the answer, already -”
House leans in and kisses him.
“What the hell are you doing?”
"HIV could cure cancer," someone in the second row says.
“You’d need an inert form of the virus, though,” their neighbor jumps in.
"It's homophobic to assume HIV," someone in the fifth row says. “Even, like, back then.”
"What about lube?" someone in the sixth row says. "Certain chemicals -"
House laps it up.
"It's the flu," Cameron says.
House blinks. "But -"
"Cancer's in remission. This is the flu."
She's expecting House to roll his eyes, to question her judgment, her diagnosis. She's not expecting him to stare at her and then whisper, "You’re sure?"
She’s not expecting him to cry on her shoulder - she needs to replace her scrub top - and then hold Wilson’s hand as she delivers the news, ready with a warm grin so that Wilson knows it’s okay, it really is okay, it really is happening.
"Not HIV," House says gleefully to his audience. "But people think that. What keeps a guy alive under these circumstances? It's gotta be getting dicked down good, am I right?"
Chase senses the mood: half the med students are charmed; half of them want to file a complaint. "What about love?" he asks from the back of the room.
“Seriously, what the hell?” Wilson repeats, and stares at House. “You’re springing this on me now?”
“Shit.” House’s face falls. “I -”
Wilson puts up a hand. “I don’t need to hear it. I just - need a minute.” He pushes open the door that leads to a tiny balcony, and House is left in the room on his own. Thinking. Shocked. He’s got it all wrong. All this time.
He sits on the nearest bed - Wilson’s - and refuses to let himself think about the next place they’re going to stay, how the casual “whatever you have” will be replaced with Wilson’s firm, polite, “two rooms”. He’s absolutely not thinking about how much fun he was planning to have, embarrassing both Wilson and the staff, asking about honeymoon suites in ratty two-bit motels, and grabbing his ass on the way to the elevator.
Idiot.
He rubs a hand over his jaw. It was a good kiss, even if he wishes now he’d never done it. The taste of Wilson is still in his mouth. Toothpaste-minty-fresh, not quite canceling out the two cups of mediocre coffee -
Minty-fresh.
House pushes himself off the bed, and steps out onto the balcony. Wilson looks up from today’s newspaper, with mild curiosity.
“Breath mints,” House says.
“You want one?” Wilson reaches into his pocket, playing innocent.
“You knew I was going -”
Wilson smirks, and checks his watch. “Seven minutes. It took you seven minutes to figure that out. You’re slipping.”
House can’t help it. His face falls into a stupid grin. So does Wilson’s.
Maybe they’re both idiots.
"You know I -" he begins.
"Yeah. Shut up." Wilson gets up, and grabs House’s ass on their way back inside.
"Love is irrelevant," Dr House says, except he knows he's lying.
At the back of the room, Chase knows it too. Not least because another department head has joined him. “I’m such a lucky man,” James Wilson mutters, rolling his eyes.
“You know he doesn’t mean it,” Chase says.
“I know. I just wish he didn’t make a point of giving this lecture every Valentine’s Day.” Wilson sounds like he’s grumbling, but Chase knows him well enough to know that he’s not really complaining.
“He has to,” another voice says from behind. “It’s in his contract.”
"I need a good lawyer," Wilson says.
Stacy sighs heavily. She knew James wouldn’t have called just to let her know he’s doing better, health-wise, than since they last saw one another. "Okay, this divorce guy is good -"
"Not a divorce guy. A - rescuing lost souls kind of guy."
Stacy exhales. "James. What's going on?"
"I have a friend in a spot of trouble."
"So let him sort himself out."
"Stace. I can't."
Stacy breathes in deeply. She knows what that means. Who it means. "Shit."
"I'm sorry."
He tries to explain. She wants to yell at him, but she pulls back. Deep, calming breaths, like in their Thursday night yoga class. “I’ll go through my contacts. Should have a couple of recommendations by the end of the day.”
“Thanks. Seriously. Thank you.”
She hangs up the phone, and does the thing she least wants to do right now: goes into the kitchen to tell her girlfriend who exactly that was, calling just before dinner. Lisa Cuddy’s standing at the stove looking like something out of a glossy magazine, all poised and businesslike and beautiful, and the last thing Stacy wants to do is upset her.
No. That’s the second-last thing. The absolute last is to lie to her. It’s precious, what they’ve built together over the past couple of years, this thing that began as two old friends supporting one another through disastrous breakups, this thing that’s the best relationship she’s ever had. It’s given her stability, it’s given her an almost-step-daughter - she’ll be damned if she lets Greg and his insanity ruin that.
“So, good news, bad news,” Stacy says. Rip the Band-Aid off, she thinks.
Lisa turns around. “Everything okay? Is anyone -”
“No one’s dead,” Stacy reassures her. And then she almost wants to laugh. “Even the fuckers who should be.”
“Oh. House actually called you?”
Stacy blinks. What. “No, James - how did you know? Have you - have you actually spoken to Greg?”
“He called last week.” Lisa bites her lip. “I was going to tell you. I’m still trying to get my head around it.” She turns back around to the stove. “Don’t be mad,” she adds in a tiny voice.
“I’m not mad,” Stacy says. “If you’re okay. Are you?” She goes over to Lisa and slips arms around her waist.
“I’m okay.”
“Really?” The first few weeks of Lisa and Rachel staying here, after she left Princeton, consisted mostly of Stacy and Lisa trying to outdo one another with crazy-House stories over copious amounts of alcohol. “I know how much he hurt you -”
“I’m okay,” Lisa repeats, and then she turns around again, kissing her girlfriend. “I have you.”
Stacy decides James Wilson, good(ish) friend that he has been over the years, can wait another day for her response. She has her own priorities, and there’s a ring box in her nightstand that’s been waiting for just the right moment.
“Wait, seriously?” Chase turns around to look at Foreman.
“He has to give four of these things a year,” Wilson corrects. “He doesn’t have to do one as a special Valentine’s gift to me.”
At the front of the room, the silver-haired man adopts a stern look. “No talking at the back, children.”
“Did he just wink at the dean of medicine?” someone in the eighth row wonders.
“No, he’s winking at Dr Chase,” Morgan, Chase’s fellow, says knowledgeably. “Dr House used to run his department.”
“It’s probably just a twitch,” a med student hisses. “He’s old, he can’t help it.”
Wilson doesn’t tell him about the meeting until the morning it’s actually happening. House has been twitchy since he mentioned the possibility of going back to work, and he knows it’s not because House doesn’t get it. It’s because he gets it, too much. House lounges around reading medical journals for fun, and every time they go out to a bar, he pisses someone off by figuring out that they’re cheating on their significant other and/or have a sexually-transmitted infection.
He, too, needs to be back in work - maybe not his old job, but something, some safe outlet for his puzzle-loving brain.
“Put on this suit,” Wilson tells him after breakfast. He picked it up the day before, and hid it in the wardrobe.
“I knew you were hiding that,” House says grouchily.
“So put it on. You’ve a meeting with your lawyer in an hour.”
House lets out a sharp laugh. “I don’t have a lawyer. I’m dead.”
“Can’t practice medicine if you’re dead,” Wilson says. He takes a deep breath, while trying to hide the fact that he’s taking it. “Can’t marry me if you’re dead. Put the suit on.”
House stares at him. He nods. He puts the suit on.
“You should probably put this on, too.” Wilson holds out a ring. “Play up the lovesick idiot thing. It’ll cut down on your jail time.”
“I’m only wearing it so they’ll let us have conjugal visits,” House insists.
Near the front of the room, Jenkins and Cooper throw out their suggestions for what might have sent the patient’s cancer into remission, and Chase looks on like a proud father.
“Any chance any of those ideas are right?” Foreman murmurs.
“Nope,” Chase says, settling back. “Watch, he’ll tear them down now.”
And House does, one by one, pointing out the flaws and presumptions in each argument, but there’s something -
“He hasn’t called either of them an idiot yet,” Foreman realizes.
Chase grins. “Wilson asked him not to make anyone cry when he gives this lecture.”
“Baby steps,” Wilson says.
“Six lectures a year,” Foreman says.
“One.”
“Four.”
“Sold,” House says, smirking slightly at Foreman’s shocked expression. It’s the last detail in their agreement; he’s okay with not playing hardball on this one. He knows that he’s hit the point where his reputation for being a menace outweighs his brilliance; he knows that the mix of researching and consulting he wants to do is only possible in a teaching hospital like this one; he knows that Foreman is one of the few people on the planet who knows, without him needing to spell it out, why he wants to move into oncology.
He used to think the diagnosis was the only puzzle worth solving. Identify the disease, and cure it, if possible. But what if the cures are more complex than he’s ever let himself imagine?
“Is there an answer? Did you ever figure out what saved the guy?” one of the med students asks.
“Or are you just tormenting the med students again?” Dr Park suggests from the doorway, a little smile on her face. Chase turns around to give her a brief nod and wave. It’s been more than a decade since she’s been on his team, but he still counts her as a close colleague. She’s a good department head, but she’s even better at what she’s doing now: looking out for the med students, the interns, the residents, the fellows.
“Torment?” House pretends to be offended. “Educating!” He turns to the med student who posed the question. “But, yeah, that one’s still a mystery.”
The room groans - even Chase, Wilson, and Foreman get in on it, from the back row, and they knew where it was going already. It’s a tradition, at this point.
“So you still haven’t figured it out,” the student says, almost aggressively.
“Nope,” House says cheerfully. “Keep trying. Every day.”
“Wait a second,” Jenkins says, and Chase has another moment of being pleased with his fellows. “So - all the work you’ve done in the past fifteen years. All those discoveries, those experimental treatments -”
“Not even just in cancer, but, like, treatment of neurological disorders,” Morgan chimes in.
“- that’s all, just, ancillary to figuring out this one case?” Jenkins continues in disbelief.
House shrugs.
“Holy shit,” she says, a sentiment echoed from various corners of the room.
Foreman claps Wilson on the back. “Maybe it is kind of romantic.”
Wilson chuckles, and raises his hand. “Who was this guy? What made him so special?”
“Excellent question, Dr Wilson,” House says, nodding in what Chase recognizes as his best attempt at seeming professional. “But my esteemed colleague has, as usual, missed the point. The guy’s not important. It’s the mystery, the disease, the recovery. That’s what keeps us going, as important doctor-y types doing doctoring.” He waves a hand. “And we’re done for today, folks.”
Chase notes the tiny little smile in there, the fondness, the details he knows he’s not supposed to spot - that no one else but Wilson is meant to notice, and sometimes, he suspects, not even him.
But he’s been trained in diagnostic medicine by the very best; he’s now regarded as one of the best in his own right. So when he gathers his fellows the next morning, he’s curious if they’ll give the right answer. “What did you think of Dr House’s lecture?” he asks - an open-ended question, not directing them one way or another.
Jenkins, Morgan, and Cooper exchange glances. “We figured out Dr Wilson was the patient two minutes in,” Cooper says.
“Two minutes ten seconds,” Jenkins corrects, holding up her phone. “Timed it.”
“Neither of them wear a wedding ring in the hospital, but I tracked down their marriage license,” Morgan adds.
“House changes the details every year, but he always gives a lecture like that around Valentine’s Day.”
“Also, did you see that little smile? He was flirting.”
“Is it flirting if they’re married?”
“I hope whoever I end up married to looks at me that way twenty years in.”
“Fifteen years married -”
“- but how long do you think they were together before that? You should take a look at House’s file -”
“Isn’t that confidential?”
Chase watches with amusement, and pride once more, and then asks for a one-line summary of what they’ve learned. He records his team saying, “Dr House is a gooey romantic” as a voice note, and hits send.