Archive of Our Own

   If only he left later. That’s all that House can think of as he stares at Wilson’s lifeless body. The man in front of House died by sacrificing his life for one he did not know. Wilson died for a stranger. The moment after House left the hospital and made his way to his shared condo was when the accident occurred. A stranger was in the hospital’s parking lot, not paying any attention to their surroundings, when a car sped towards them. And as fate would have it, just before the stranger was ran over, Wilson pushed them out of the way and took the hit. 

   It’s humorous and ironic that in spite of the fact the accident happened right outside a hospital, the staff didn’t get to Wilson quick enough. The good hearted man bleed to death; his body surrounded by his blood in the dark night as if straight out of a movie. 

   When House got the call, Wilson was announced dead seeing as his heart had stopped minutes earlier. That didn’t stop Cuddy from having Wilson set up in a room, it would be torturous for House to have to say goodbye to his loved one in the morgue. 

“The evil it spread like a fever ahead
It was night when you died, my firefly
What could I have said to raise you from the dead?
Oh could I be the sky on the Fourth of July?”

   It was evil that life took Wilson away. Wilson died doing something pure and yet he was punished for it. House found it cruel, evil always spreads like an ill person’s fever. 

   The night Wilson died will always be a nightmare for House. The person he loved died. That night will forever haunt House, he knows that eventually it will even drive him insane. 

   Oh how he wished it was the stranger instead. Oh how he wished it was him instead… He would even give himself instead—if that’s what it meant for Wilson to raise from the dead. 

“Sitting at the bed with the halo at your head
Was it all a disguise, like Junior High
Where everything was fiction, future, and prediction
Now, where am I?
My fading supply”

   House ended up sitting in a chair next to the bed where Wilson lies, the older man’s hand holding onto the younger man’s hand with a tight grip. Wilson, kind as ever, might as well lie on the bed with a halo over his head. After all he died for a total stranger, if anyone earned a halo, it was the oncologist. Two hours have passed since the younger man was pronounced dead, rigor mortis is starting to set in, which marks the little time House has left to spare with the corpse of the man he loved. House knew that even though Wilson was dead, that didn’t stop him from loving the younger man; he still loves the man even if his heart no longer beats. 

“Did you get enough love, my little dove
Why do you cry?
And I'm sorry I left, but it was for the best
Though it never felt right
My little Versailles”

   When the hospital staff started to move Wilson’s body to the morgue was the moment House fully broke down. He started to question if he showed the man enough love. After that internal question House started to doubt the amount of love he truly gave, and that made way for guilt. Now all the older man wishes is that he has shown the younger man enough love. 

   In an instant after he wished as such he started to cry—no, he started to sob. He hated crying, let alone crying in front of people. But at the moment he didn’t care if in the hallway of the hospital he had an audience, all he cared about was the fact Wilson was gone. He didn’t even care that someone might glance at him and think, “why is he crying?”, no, that did not matter to the man, not when he just lost the love of his life.  

   Oh why did he leave the hospital ten minutes earlier than Wilson did, why didn’t he just wait for him. He should’ve of waited. 

“The hospital asked should the body be cast
Before I say goodbye, my star in the sky
Such a funny thought to wrap you up in cloth
Do you find it all right, my dragonfly?”

  The hospital asked House if he wanted to create a death mask for Wilson before he finally parts ways and says goodbye. But why would he want to? Just so he could be reminded daily of what he had lost?

   House didn’t want to think of the fact Wilson’s body was about to be covered up by cloth. It was simultaneously a funny and a bitter thought, one that pained him, one that only poured salt into the fresh wound. 

   And of course Wilson being Wilson had put himself on an organ donor list if he should ever die, that thought only hurt House more. Oh how the older man already missed the younger one.