fic: The Cuckoo -- Chapter 6

[readingrat]

 

Part II
Chapter 6: Wilson's Secret

May 2016

"You're what?" Cuddy said inelegantly.

"Retiring," Arthur Rosenbaum repeated. "I'm sorry to spring it on you like this, Lisa, but – I have my reasons. Mabel …" He paused, sighing and staring out of the window. "Mabel hasn't been well lately."

You can't do this to me! I can't handle it yet – you were supposed to stay another two years, until Rachel turns ten! Cuddy screamed silently as she formed her features into something less akin to panic and closer to eager interest. "I'm sorry to hear that," she heard herself say. "I hope it's nothing serious." Of course it's something serious if he's retiring because of it!

"Dementia," Rosenbaum said briefly. He gave her a pained smile. "We've decided to be pro-active about it and inform our friends and family, so that she can have as active a life as is possible under the circumstances."

"That's great, and very brave," Cuddy said, calling up a mental image of Mabel Rosenbaum. A short pretty woman of no more than fifty-five, she estimated. Dementia at that age – what a diagnosis! When had she last seen her? She hadn't been at the Christmas party or at the last fundraiser.

"I've talked to the chairman about it and to HR: you are to take over as interim dean until the board confirms your appointment as my successor."

"Thanks," Cuddy murmured. She schooled her expression to mirror a delicate mixture of commiseration for Rosenbaum's personal problems and muted delight at the position being offered to her.

Rosenbaum held up a warning hand. "That could take some time since hospital policy demands that the post be publicly advertised."

"So I may not get it," Cuddy stated. This was bad news. She was way past the age where she'd be considered a dynamic and innovative candidate for the post; her main asset was her experience as former dean of PPTH, whereas her present post as head of Family and Community Healthcare didn't carry much clout.

"Oh, I don't think you'll have much competition. You have years of experience, and your efficiency is much appreciated," Rosenbaum said benignly.

But then, he'd hardly tell her that she was to keep his chair warm for someone else for an indeterminate period of time, after which she would be relegated to the sidelines again. If he did, she'd hand in her resignation, as he well knew, and go looking for greener pastures. She mightn't be able to land a top administrative post, but a position similar to her present one should be well within her grasp.

"I'll be announcing my resignation in a week's time; my contract obliges me to give at least two months' notice, but I'm counting on you …"

Cuddy zoned out. This was exactly the sort of situation she'd striven to avoid. Rosenbaum wanted her to take over straightaway, with no on-the-job training at all. Once she was interim dean, she'd have to keep her own department running, because they wouldn't find a successor for her there until she'd officially gotten the job as dean. If she got the job, because if she didn't, she'd be putting in months of double workload, all for the doubtful pleasure of handing over a well-organised hospital to the lucky bastard who did get the job.

But if she refused the post, that would be it. She'd spend the rest of her life holding talks at local high schools about safer sex and contraception, distributing fliers on the benefits of vaccinations, and trying to sweet talk the board into increasing the funding for her perpetually understaffed clinic.

She got home without noticing where she was driving, her prefrontal cortex compiling lists of things to do: people to contact, appointments to schedule, responsibilities to delegate, and so on. She couldn't send Rachel to stay with Julia because she'd miss school, but maybe she could go to Emma's place after school for the next one or two weeks; she'd up her household help's working hours for a few months and she could employ a student nurse to babysit a few times per week. With a bit of supervision her deputy should be able to run her department. She'd reduce department meetings to a bare minimum for the next month and her assistant would have to take over the unloved task of preparing her budgeting. That was what assistants were for, wasn't it?

Wilson was in the kitchen, sorting dishes from the dishwasher back into her cupboards. She paused at the door, watching him. Wilson was another source of perpetual worry. She'd persuaded him to come over to Philly for the weekend before driving down to Baltimore, a wise move judging by what she'd seen the last forty-eight hours, but not one calculated to increase her peace of mind.

Wilson looked up, probably alerted to her presence by the whirring noise the cogs in her head were making.

"Shouldn't you be on your way to Baltimore?" she asked.

"I'm not going," he said.

Cuddy looked at him enquiringly.

"To the airport to pick House up," Wilson elucidated.

That was – unexpected. Unless, of course, Wilson was being sensible about driving in his present state. She entered the kitchen and moved casually to the sink right next to him. His eyes were clear, but there was a faint whiff of alcohol emanating from him.

"I can drive," Cuddy offered, mentally compiling a list of arrangements to be made before she could leave for Baltimore. Rachel would have to spend the night at her neighbour Louisa's place. Then she'd need to buy gas, and oh, she was supposed to phone her lawyer, but she could do that from the car. And damn, she'd been hoping to get the groceries done this evening, but she guessed they could survive off the contents of her freezer for another day. But how would they get Wilson's car to Baltimore if he drove down with her now and stayed there? Because she had no intention of doing more than dropping him off; she wouldn't foist her presence on Pete. If he wanted to see her, he'd have to say so – a glaring omission on his part so far.

"Thanks, but there's no need. I … I don't feel up to it."

Cuddy stared at him. "You've been looking forward to Pete's visit for months, you've taken the week off to have time for him, and now you tell me you don't feel up to it?"

Wilson wouldn't meet her eyes. "I've been tired and run-down all week. I think I should take it easy," he finally said. "And you know that House won't take it easy."

Cuddy backed down. Wilson was somewhat pale, and he had lost weight. Then there was that persistent cough of his. He insisted that he'd caught it jumping into some pond in England, but that had been weeks ago. He really should get it looked into, but Wilson had always had the tendency to neglect his own health, focusing his attention on other people's ailments instead.

"When are you going down to Baltimore then?" she asked, thinking that if he was staying another night or two, he might as well put in a visit to Nolan the next day. She had contacted Nolan the moment she'd realised that Wilson had relapsed, and although Nolan had refused to get involved as long as the initiative didn't come from Wilson, he had indicated that he'd fit Wilson in at short notice as soon as Wilson showed an inclination to seek help.

Wilson sat down at the table and studied his hands. "I think I'll drive back to New York tomorrow, if that's okay with you."

Cuddy sucked in a sharp breath.

"I can also leave now, if you'd prefer," Wilson added, misinterpreting her reaction – probably deliberately, she decided.

She sat down opposite him, propping her chin on her hand. "What's going on here?" she asked.

"Nothing," Wilson said evasively. "I haven't been in to work all that regularly lately, and I need to show my face there more often. I'm not a maverick like House, who can afford to come and go as he pleases."

Now that she came to think of it, Wilson had at no point said that he was spending the weekend with her in order to facilitate his trip to Baltimore. She'd invited him over assuming that he'd want to kill two birds with one stone, but he'd accepted her invitation without commenting on his further plans. True, he hadn't expressly denied that he'd go to Baltimore to meet up with Pete, but neither had he stated that he'd do so.

She came to a quick decision. "It's no problem; the sheets are still on your bed in the guest room. You can stay for as long as you like."

"Thanks."

"No problem." She got up. "There's some lasagna in the fridge – don't wait for me."

Wilson gaped at her. "Where are you going?"

"Baltimore."

––––––––––––––-

His suitcase was larger than cabin baggage was supposed to be, but he'd played the cripple card by exaggerating his limp and twirling his running prosthetic, the Ossur blade, very blatantly in front of the check-in desk, so he was one of the first to exit the baggage return area. As a result, he wasn't really surprised not to spot Wilson, even though he had him down as someone who'd come to the airport well in advance, park his car in a remote corner of the parking deck so that no one would scrape his paint, suss out the arrival area, and position himself where he couldn't be overlooked. Then again, maybe Wilson had come so early that he'd opted for a cup of coffee and was now being entrapped by some well-endowed barista.

He'd just put down his suitcase in order to search his pocket for the address of his conference hotel when a well-known voice hailed him.

"Pete!" Lisa, slightly out of breath, was hurrying towards him. He hadn't spotted her earlier because he'd been scanning the crowds roughly ten inches above her head. She was dressed casually in jeans and flat shoes, which was unflattering but unsurprising. If anything was surprising, it was her presence here. Not to mention awkward.

"Where's Wilson?" Wilson was supposed to meet him at the airport and stay for the conference. He'd booked a flexible ticket back to London so as to be able to extend his stay for as long as Wilson had time for him …

"Good to see you too," Lisa said drily, not even trying to hug him. So Wilson had told her about Gail. She finally settled for a quick squeeze of his arm before turning away to the terminal exit.

He trailed behind her, trying to gauge her mood from what he could see of her, which wasn't much. She was marching at a rapid pace ("I was in a rush, so the car's in a no-parking zone") a few steps in front of him, so he only had her stance and her movements from which to draw his conclusions. She was late and Wilson wasn't here, so something must have gone wrong. No emergency, because she wasn't emotional or haggard, merely tense. But whatever it was, it was upsetting her over and above what was to be expected, even taking into consideration that she was here to pick up her ex-ex-boyfriend. (Or was it ex-ex-ex-boyfriend? He was beginning to lose count.) She'd relaxed instead of stiffening further on seeing him, almost as though she was relieved to see him here. So whatever the crisis, it wasn't connected to him. There was, however, the unnerving possibility that she expected help from him, otherwise why be relieved at the sight of him? In fact, it was practically a given that she wanted something from him, because even idiots who'd fried their hippocampus to the extent that they could hardly find their own bathroom without GPS didn't need to be escorted from the airport to a hotel located in the same city.

He tried again when they went through the doors of the terminal and out into the mild May evening. "Why are you picking me up?"

"Because Wilson is in no state to drive," she answered shortly.

He digested this. Had there been complications after Wilson's operation? It struck him that he had no idea when Wilson's resection had taken place. Wilson had been pretty uncommunicative recently, but he'd put it down to the stress of having to deal with the thymoma. (Besides, he'd been distracted himself.) Had some idiot doctor put him on chemo instead of resecting the tumour? Wilson was an oncologist of note, but even doctors were idiots about their own health. He amended that: doctors especially were idiots about their health.

"What's the problem?" he asked.

Lisa swung round to face him, stopping him short. "I was hoping you could tell me that," she said.

"Who, me?" he said, his innocence not faked for a change.

"He toppled off his flight from London three days before he was due to return, plastered to the gills, and he has been drinking ever since," Lisa snapped. "You want me to believe that this hasn't got anything to do with you?" She stared at him accusingly.

Drinking? Oh, crap! But was this his fault? Pete resolutely blocked out the memory of his last conversation with Wilson before Wilson's departure. Wilson had called to inform him that he'd booked a flight back to New York that evening at eight, and he'd asked whether he'd see Pete again before he left. But he'd had tickets for the opera; they'd cost a mint, and Gail loved Puccini …

He tried to ignore the jolt in the pit of his stomach when he thought of Gail, focusing on Lisa instead. "It wouldn't have anything to do with his thymoma," he countered sarcastically.

Lisa's eyes widened. "Thymoma? Wilson?" she said. "Are you sure? … How do you know?"

"Diagnosed him," he said shortly. "Well, technically my job applicants diagnosed him, but since they weren't employed by the hospital at that point, I guess it counts as my diagnosis."

Lisa rubbed her forehead. "How bad is it?"

Pete grimaced. "We didn't do a biopsy, but judging by the scans it was Stage I or II. He's an oncologist; he knows what he's doing," he added, not allowing his unease at the news of Wilson's relapse and his absence at the airport to surface.

"He didn't tell me," Lisa said. "I thought you and he had some sort of misunderstanding, but this?" She gestured helplessly. "Why wouldn't he tell me?"

"Why would he?" Pete asked. "You'd probably nag at him to stop drinking – even more than you already do – and be twenty sorts of irritating." Since Lisa still looked worried he added, "He's probably taken care of it and doesn't want you to get your panties all in a twist about a fairly harmless tumour that has excellent survival rates."

Lisa looked unconvinced, but dropped the topic – for the moment.

In the car Lisa took the slip of paper with his hotel's address from him, programmed it into the Satnav, and drew away from the curb without any further comment. She was deep in thought all the way to the conference venue, her only utterances a few expletives directed at other drivers.

He didn't mind; Wilson's relapse was enough food for thought, because no matter what he'd said to Lisa, he had a bad feeling about this. A simple resection should have done the job, but now he came to think of it, Wilson had been oddly silent about his carcinoma in their few recent communications, and Lisa would have noticed if he'd gone MIA for a few days to get the procedure done. Then again, maybe she wouldn't. Philly wasn't exactly next door to New York, and they probably didn't see each other all that regularly.

At the hotel she handed her car keys to the valet and followed him inside. He wasn't surprised; she had driven over from Philly with an agenda that undoubtedly included browbeating him into having a heart-to-heart with Wilson about his drinking, and she was unlikely to give up on that just because Wilson's case had just proved to have a further level of suckotage.

He got his room key and his conference package from reception and turned to Lisa. "I'm taking my stuff upstairs," he said.

She nodded. "I'll wait for you in the bar."

He didn't hurry; he unpacked, took a longish shower, inspected the contents of the mini bar, fortified himself with bourbon, and then went down again. Eyeing the hotel's front entrance he briefly considered making a run for it, but jet lag was beginning to kick in and he probably couldn't avoid Lisa forever. So he made his way to the bar where a decidedly pissed Lisa was sitting on a stool, nursing something that looked disgustingly non-alcoholic. He slid onto the stool next to her.

"I've been hit on by at least three creeps," she remarked. "You'd think they attend conferences for the sole purpose of picking up women for one-night stands."

"Is there any other purpose?" he asked, giving her the once-over.

"Let's not even pretend that this isn't important for your career," Lisa said, ignoring his leer. It was his first conference since his reinvention; if he did well here, it would cement his shaky standing in the medical community. "You're a brilliant talker when you put your mind to it," she added, placing her hand on his forearm as though sensing the nervousness he was sure he was concealing well.

He stared down at her hand, not sure whether he wanted to allow himself to be reassured or whether he'd rather eschew the comfort and the closeness that the gesture implied. Lisa gave his arm a quick squeeze, and then withdrew her hand, sparing him the bother of making a decision.

The barkeeper brought him his drink, a double whisky. He'd anticipated Lisa's disapproval – to be honest, irritating her had been one of the items on his agenda when ordering the drink – and he supposed she had a point. As an addict he should be keeping a close eye on his intake of potentially intoxicating substances, but hey, he wasn't a saint. And life sucked.

"How's work?" Lisa asked innocently.

He stared at her suspiciously, but her expression was bland. She had no idea that she was rubbing salt into an open wound. He opted for deflection. "Practicing your small-talk skills on me in anticipation of your future position as dean?" he asked.

"Small talk is like driving: you don't forget it, and I had fifteen years at PPTH to hone my skills."

They were silent again, Pete sipping his whisky with a constancy engendered less by the quality of the drink than by the desire to be solidly plastered before he had to face a lonely hotel room. If Wilson had been here … but he wasn't, so there was nothing much else to do.

Lisa twisted and turned her glass. "He's hiding something," she finally said. "If he's had the resection done and everything is fine, then why didn't he tell me anything about it? And why is he still coughing?"

"Maybe he's on chemo to shrink the tumour before they do the resection: it was a pretty big bastard." That didn't explain why he was keeping Lisa in the dark. Thymoma was no big deal as far as cancers went. Maybe he'd gone for some experimental treatment, something that would worry Lisa. But Wilson was not the type for experiments. He was your poster boy for safe, proven, 'what's good enough for everyone else is good enough for me' medicine.

"In that case he shouldn't be drinking," Lisa stated, apparently forgetting that Wilson shouldn't be drinking anyway. But she was right: the thymoma treatment protocol recommended cisplatin in combination with doxorubicin, and the latter wasn't exactly easy on the liver. "If I manage to bring Wilson here, will you talk sense into him?"

"Sure," he said, not meaning it. He'd worry about talking to Wilson if and when Lisa managed to drag him to Baltimore. "What makes you think he'll heed my good advice? It's not like I practice what you want me to preach." He lifted his drink in a mock salute, emptied his glass and signalled to the barkeeper for another one, ignoring the first hints of wooziness. He should have eaten something before going for the on-board drinks, he supposed.

Lisa was sitting very straight, very tense. She tapped her fingernails against her glass. "I get why Wilson wouldn't be keeping you updated on his thymoma, but that doesn't explain why you haven't been keeping tabs on him."

"He's a big boy; he can look after himself. Oh, and what was the name of that famous oncologist again?" He rubbed his chin as though pondering the question. "Weston? Watson? No, I think it was Wilson, James Wilson."

She gave a low, incredulous laugh. "Pete, you're the nosiest person I've ever met. I can't even count the number of times you've hacked into my computer and I know you did the same with Wilson's. There's no way you'd stay off his back after diagnosing him, unless …."

Struck by a sudden thought she examined him intently. She was going to come to one of her irritating conclusions in a moment, the same way Wilson did regularly, and it bugged the hell out of him. It wasn't that either of them was particularly good at putting two and two together; they just benefitted from years spent observing him coupled with a few lucky guesses. If he couldn't shut her up, he could at least shut her out. He toasted her mockingly with his glass before tipping it down his throat in one gulp, a gesture that he regretted instantly.

Lisa regarded him with a hint of mockery in her otherwise grim smile. The smile faded when he raised a hand to catch the barkeeper's attention. "This isn't just about Wilson," she surmised thoughtfully. "You aren't getting wasted because of Wilson, because you weren't sober when you reached here, before you knew he wasn't coming."

Definitely time to distract her. He propped his chin on his hand so he could leer comfortably down her top. "Could we talk about something more pleasant?" he suggested.

"Like getting you up to your room?" Lisa suggested, intercepting his drink and giving the barkeeper a glare. She rose, tugging at his elbow.

"Sounds great," he said with a lecherous grin and rose in turn, his irritation at being deprived of his liquor receding as he considered the possibility of getting into her pants. True, she wasn't escorting him up with the intention of landing in the sheets with him, but intentions could change and resolves could alter. Lisa hadn't been good at resisting him the last time he'd been in the US.

As he straightened, however, the ground under his feet shifted disconcertingly, and he was forced to cling to Lisa tighter than he'd intended. He quickly masked his steadying grip as a grope, but judging by her eye roll she wasn't fooled. She dug one hand into the back pocket of his pants ("Whoa, not so fast!" he said), pulled out his wallet, and tossed a bill onto the counter. Then she draped his arm over her shoulders and steered him towards the elevator.

Once inside, he let his hands roam further down, but she untangled herself, pushing him back.

"Keep your hands to yourself," she said. "God, you're wasted!"

Really, he wasn't as drunk as Lisa thought he was; as a matter of fact he was just a little tipsy, nicely blurred around the edges.

"Which room number?" Lisa asked.

He drew the key card out of his pocket and handed it to her. Those electronic key cards could be tricky things even when you were stone-cold sober. She marched out of the elevator and down the corridor, not waiting to see if he was following her. By the time he caught up with her – bloody death trap, that carpeting, for people with prosthetics! – she'd swiped the key card through the slot in the door and was holding it open for him.

"Bed for you, I think," Lisa said in a tone that broached no argument.

Damn, but she was sexy when she was bossy. And 'bed' was absolutely the right cue. Instead of moving towards the bed (or the bathroom, which was where he really needed to go) he embraced her clumsily, nuzzling her neck while his hands roamed down to her ass.

Lisa huffed an annoyed, "Pete!" at him, tugged his hands off her ass and pushed him away at arm's length, from which distance she contemplated him. "What's going on?" she asked.

Did they really have to talk? She used to be eager enough to do the dirty with him; what was her issue now? "What does it look like to you?" he asked.

"She's dumped you," Lisa stated. "Your colleague, the tall red-head."

"Look, if you're going to keep talking, you can go."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing," he muttered, his eyes sliding away to a spot on the wall. Why did everyone believe it was always his fault?

Lisa bit her lip worriedly. "She found out about – how you lost your leg?"

Nice euphemism for 'nearly killed your ex-girlfriend'! "She's not an idiot – though you could say she was insane to date me – and my reputation preceded me. She checked me out on the internet before she took up with me."

Lisa tipped her head sideways, scrutinising him. "You dumped her," she said. "Oh, Pete!"

He searched her face for condemnation, but found commiseration there instead. He didn't need that. What kind of weird was that, anyway, to pity him if he'd ended the relationship rather than if he'd been kicked out on his sorry ass? Besides, the facts were different. "She found someone else, okay?"

Lisa looked plain incredulous. "What?"

Her amazement at his simple explanation was flattering, but what was so surprising about an attractive woman deciding that she deserved someone better? He flopped down on the bed, swung his legs up, crossed his ankles and clasped his hands beside his head. "It happens."

"Not to you," Lisa said with conviction.

"I believe it's happened before," he said pointedly.

"Neither Stacy nor I left you for another guy," Lisa said. "We left you because of you." She sat down on the edge of the bed and laughed a little self-consciously. "I didn't notice other guys when I was with you, and I doubt Stacy did."

She wasn't going to let this go without an explanation, so he said, "The Prodigal Husband came home," and shrugged nonchalantly, as though this wasn't much of a deal.

"Wilson said her husband left her for a student of his," Lisa half asked. He nodded. Lisa's face scrunched up in disgust. "He screws a woman half her age right under her nose, and then she takes him back?"

"'He drives a car through her house, and she takes him back?'" he mocked, imitating her. She merely rolled her eyes.

He contemplated his fingernails. "Twenty years of shared history, two kids, and a house. Can't blame her." He felt her hand on his shin, squeezing gently.

He looked at her; that was a mistake, he quickly realised. Her eyes were shining with sympathy, but that was the last thing he needed now. He didn't want to think about Gail; he wanted distraction, and she'd already denied him his liquor. He leaned forward and twisted a lock of her hair around one of his fingers, pulling her face towards his until it was almost close enough for him to kiss her. She pulled back sharply.

"This – is no solution," she said, rolling her hand.

"It's a great solution," he contradicted her. "We both have fun. And a happy ending." He waggled his eyebrows at her.

"You've got to be kidding."

"I'm always serious about sex."

"Pete," she said, rising from the bed, "I'm not a consolation prize, someone you go to bed with when you can't have the woman you want." She stared down at him, biting her lip. "If there's no more to this than rebound sex, then …"

"There isn't," he said with intentional brutality.

The effect was all that he could have desired. She turned on her heels and left the room.

---

	Chapter Index

Comments

[yarroway.livejournal.com]

Look, if you're going to keep talking, you can go.

LOL!!

So Wilson in this ficverse isn't getting his very treatable cancer treated? Please don't leave me hanging!

[readingrat.livejournal.com]

There are about twenty possible answers to that, such as, let's not ruin the suspense by giving you hints in advance, etcetera, etcetera. But since my summary in the comms says that Wilson refuses to get his cancer treated, I'm not giving anything away by affirming your question. The last chapters sort of answered the question why he might make a decision like that -- I found canon incomprehensible in that respect, which was one of my motives in picking up the canon plot and adapting it to my AU. I also found canon House's reaction to Wilson's decision somewhat mystifying, so my AU has a different take on that. (I could, of course, have changed Wilson's reaction, but then I couldn't have addressed the issue of House's behaviour adequately and the fic would have been very short: Wilson is diagnosed, Wilson gets treatment, Wilson is well again.)

If this fic were a 'death' fic or an 'implied death' fic, I'd have warned. I'd hesitate to call this fic fluffy -- every time I call one of my fics fluffy, someone gets sarcastic and points out all the awful things that happen in it -- but it isn't any more angsty (awful word, that) than my other long fics.

[(Anonymous)]

By "last chapters" do you mean previous chapters to this? Or the last chapters of the fic (which haven't yet been posted)?

I'm not seeing why in this ficverse Wilson makes the decision, so am thinking I must have missed something. (In canon, Wilson's reasons for the decision were mystifying/unreasonable, but I firmly believe that was done on purpose, so that House could at last put his best friend's preferences above his own need to be right.)

[yarroway.livejournal.com]

No, please, whatever you do, don't give anything away!!!!!!!!!

Have we talked about the no-treatment question before (the one from canon, I mean, not what you are doing in this excellent fic)?

FYI, the anon comment isn't from me. I do sometimes forget to log in, but this instance isn't one of them.

[readingrat.livejournal.com]

Have we talked about the no-treatment question before (the one from canon, I mean, not what you are doing in this excellent fic)?
I think we did, but I've finally read the clinic_duty transcript of the first cancer episode. Wilson was already acting decidedly odd there, before the diagnosis became a death sentence.

FYI, the anon comment isn't from me. I do sometimes forget to log in, but this instance isn't one of them.
That should teach me not to make assumptions. Thing is, there aren't that many people commenting on LJ (two, to be exact), so it seemed a reasonable bet. But Dee has outed herself as the author.

[readingrat.livejournal.com]

You posted your last comment anonymously, so I'm replying here.

By "last chapters" do you mean previous chapters to this? Or the last chapters of the fic (which haven't yet been posted)? I'm not seeing why in this ficverse Wilson makes the decision, so am thinking I must have missed something.
I'm getting a bit confused myself, because I'm editing the next few chapters while posting the present ones, but basically I mean the last posted chapters and the next one or two chapters.

In canon I didn't see how Wilson went from being reasonably normal and balanced to being unwilling to fight for his life. His life seemed no worse than in previous seasons, both his job and his friendship with House -- according to S1-Wilson the only two constants in his life -- were in calm waters, we heard of no private problems (bereavement, a relationship gone wrong), there's no mention of him being particularly down. If he had in recent times come to doubt the efficacy of cancer treatment, shouldn't we have been shown this in some manner, for instance in a reluctance on his part to advise his patients to submit to rigorous chemo? We saw the opposite in the second episode of S8. What changed in the few months between that episode and the cancer arc? The people he mentioned as having died despite a good prognosis had mostly died before S8, IIRC.

My fic doesn't make much more sense than in canon, because as you say it probably wasn't meant to be understandable to outsiders, but IMO I've at least laid the groundwork for Wilson to be depressed enough that not fighting seems a sensible option. There's no 'friendship' worth mentioning, he's working in research because Nolan doesn't trust him to work with patients as yet (that's the one thing you might have missed, as it's a carry-over from The Kelpie), and he has relapsed, which would be depressing even without the cancer diagnosis. In The Kelpie he attempted suicide, so suicide by neglect wouldn't be such a big step further.

Hope that helped.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Hi, it's Dee! The anon poster was me.

OK, totally see what you mean with Wilson in this fic. It harkens back to S1: "I've only got two things that work for me: this job and this stupid screwed-up friendship." If he doesn't have either of those (I would say the relapse is a result of the depression, not a cause of it), then he wouldn't consider himself to have really anything.

To put a guess to Wilson's "why" in canon: his self-esteem is totally wrapped around helping other people (his efficacy at that notwithstanding), and he'd rather die than be the one who gets helped, especially because -- I believe -- he didn't think he had anyone in his life who would really take care of him while ill. House could be a great friend in a lot of ways, but long-term-care nurse is not one of them. Everyone else in Wilson's life was an acquaintance.

So he decided that either it gets fixed VERY quickly and everything goes back to normal, or fuck it, he'd just die. As hallucination-Cameron said to House, "You've suffered enough. You've given enough. I think you deserve a chance to just… give up. ... Like Wilson did. You accepted his choice — that ending the pain was better than the pain. Why can't you give yourself that gift?"

[readingrat.livejournal.com]

To put a guess to Wilson's "why" in canon: his self-esteem is totally wrapped around helping other people (his efficacy at that notwithstanding), and he'd rather die than be the one who gets helped, especially because -- I believe -- he didn't think he had anyone in his life who would really take care of him while ill. House could be a great friend in a lot of ways, but long-term-care nurse is not one of them.
That sounds logical and is the sort of thing House would say to explain why Wilson did what he did, but IMO that isn't how mentally healthy people react to a death threat. I've posted a reply to one of yarroway's comments which I don't want to repost in full length with my opinion how healthy people react in such a case. You note that hallucination!Cameron says much the same to House, but -- he refutes her advice and chooses to live, although he had more than enough reasons to call it a day. I think that's what people do, what we're hard-wired to do: to fight death to the end, no matter that it costs us more than we ultimately gain.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

There we get to the crux of it: I don't think Wilson was ever completely mentally healthy. I think he was chronically depressed and had other disordered thought patterns too.

[readingrat.livejournal.com]

I agree with you there. I'd have liked canon to have shown that more clearly instead of leaving us guessing. And if that is so, it doesn't reflect well on House that he pretty much ignored it.

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Having chronic depression myself, Wilson "read" as depressive from the time he moved into the hotel room. Different writers wrote him different ways (with the 'House has only one friend' construct, it was inevitable but still sucked), but the threads were there in RSL's acting pretty consistently.

As I said, House is not really a 'long-term nurse' kind of guy, so he was going to ignore what he could.

[yarroway.livejournal.com]

In canon I didn't see how Wilson went from being reasonably normal and balanced to being unwilling to fight for his life

I didn't think he did. Wilson, House and Thirteen all tell us viewers that Wilson's case is terminal. The treatment is to prolong his life for a while, 2-3 years IIRC. The treatment will not cure him, and it will significantly worsen his quality of life. I realize that in RL the medicine doesn't work that way for thymomas in Wilson's stage, but apparently that's how it works in Houseland.

While Wilson's situation may not reflect reality for his diagnosis, it does reflect reality for 3 of the 5 cancer patients I have known (for whatever that's worth).

[readingrat.livejournal.com]

Wilson, House and Thirteen all tell us viewers that Wilson's case is terminal.
But that was after his one round of death-by-chemo. Before that (if I understood the clinic_duty transcript correctly) it wasn't clear at all, but even then Wilson opted for a course of treatment that was, according to House, as dangerous as the cancer itself, instead of the course that five oncologists, House and he himself would have recommended. Now his argumentation that he didn't want months of hospitalisation might sound logical at face value, but that's not how people act in RL. When faced with a death threat, humans are hard-wired to fight till the end, no matter how nobly they talk about accepting whatever curved balls life throws at them. Of the admittedly few people I have known with terminal cancer, two-thirds refused to accept that they were dying and the last third, while resigned to dying, nevertheless fought death every inch of the way. They planned for the next round of chemo, the next rehab, the next month, when it was clear to everyone that none of those things were likely to happen anymore. I've also watched and read Twelve Years a Slave recently; the reason the slaves endured a lifetime of severest abuse and suffering was that runaway slaves were almost certain to be caught and executed. That's the reason why I consider Wilson's original decision to combat his cancer with a course of treatment that does not reflect current medical opinion decidedly odd. The following decision to not extend his life is in line with the first one, but seen in that line it also indicates a depressed state of mind, not a well-reasoned or healthy decision. JMO, but that's the conclusion I came to when pondering the end of S8 and the result is what you see in this fic.

[yarroway.livejournal.com]

Yeah, C Word never made a lick of sense. But it was in the service of a massively excellent episode, so I didn't mind.

I do agree that Wilson is depressed. He always struck me as sad and lonely. I'm not arguing against that at all. And I love the issues you are exploring here. I wish the writers had thought about them.

We won't see eye to eye on these issues, but if your ruminations lead to this fic then I'm content.

[readingrat.livejournal.com]

We won't see eye to eye on these issues, but if your ruminations lead to this fic then I'm content.
No, we don't have to. It's when different writers 'see' different aspects of a character that we can learn from each other. And fanfic allows for a certain amount of interpretative licence -- it's about adding something original to canon. I'm happy to hear that you've liked this fic so far.

[barefootpuddles.livejournal.com]

Very good chapter, even without Wilson being a big part of it. So he has relapsed, huh? Cuddy's reaction to go get House/Pete is interesting. And I do denote some sort of guilt forming in Pete over not following through with Wilson, perhaps just plain human concern, but maybe the stirrings of another part of memory?

Cuddy's comment of "I'm not a consolation prize" reminded me of House saying that about Wilson to Nolan. :)

[readingrat.livejournal.com]

Cuddy's reaction to go get House/Pete is interesting.
I think Cuddy is aware of how important Pete/House is to Wilson, even though Pete is choosing to ignore this. And yes, Pete is feeling guilty here. He may have problems showing the forms of caring and affection that the situation demands, but that doesn't mean that he isn't aware that these things are expected and needed. (He has no problems identifying and naming in his patients and their families those shortcomings of which he himself is guilty.) And although he may not feel for Wilson what Wilson feels for him, he knows that Wilson is tied to him by twenty years of common history and that this will affect Wilson's response to his behaviour.

"I'm not a consolation prize"
I probably yanked it from there. If I'm to write idiomatic American English, I have no choice but to yank from House MD, because that's the only show I've watched in decades. But it's also a motif that I attribute to Cuddy. In S2 she mentions to Stacy that she was mad about coming second in her year and in S7 she's in a constant battle for her mother's respect and affection, because she feels she takes second place to her sister. I believe she has feelings of inferiority, of always being second best. I was going to expand on this in the fic, but it's had to make place for other plot bunnies.

Thanks for commenting.