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readingrat) wrote2014-05-01 03:19 pm
fic: The Cuckoo -- Chapter 8
Part II
Chapter 8: Unwanted Growths
The scans were clear high-definition ones, done by expert technicians with state-of-the-art equipment. The biopsy results were unequivocal. The entire file was worth both the money he'd laid out for it and the hassle of dealing with Lisa's pain-in-the-ass PI.
"You've got stage II thymoma," Pete said to Wilson by way of greeting, dropping the file on the coffee table and lowering himself onto the couch beside Wilson.
Wilson looked up from his book. "You've got a problem with the concept of privacy."
"You've consulted with three specialists and they all suggested resection followed by radiation."
"You're confusing cancer with early-onset Alzheimer's. I'm quite capable of recalling what the specialists with whom I consulted told me. You don't need to repeat it."
"You don't seem to be capable of acting on their advice. Why aren't you doing something about your thymoma?"
"My thymoma, my choice. That's a concept that you, of all people, should be able to comprehend."
"Your 'choice'," Pete said with heavy emphasis, "is misinformed and stupid. And by 'stupid' I mean suicidal."
Wilson tossed his book onto the coffee table. Pete noted with detached surprise that it was a biker's guide – not the kind of book you'd expect Lisa to own or Wilson to read.
"I happen to be an oncologist in my own right," Wilson said, "and I know exactly what I'm doing. That may 'only' be a stage II thymoma, but it's a type B3 …"
Pete widened his eyes, waving his hands hysterically. "Oooooh, Type B3! Now I'm really scared!" That wasn't too far away from the truth: B3 was bad news. It meant that Wilson needed to swing into action fast if he wanted to get it under control.
For a moment Wilson looked annoyed, but then he shrugged. "Deal with it your way and I'll deal with it in mine."
"How is doing nothing 'dealing with it'?" Pete yelled.
"I am doing something," Wilson said. He picked up his book and opened it again, pointedly ignoring Pete.
Pete squinted at the title. "Great American Motorcycle Tours. Is this the 586th of the 1001 Must-Reads Before You Die? Wow, I'm impressed: you're going to spend the last months of your life on Lisa's couch, reading."
Wilson looked smug. "No, I'm going to spend the last months of my life riding a motorbike instead of lying in a sterile neon-lit hospital puking my guts out while bored, bleary-eyed nurses change my sheets and empty my bedpan. I've sent in my resignation and I'm taking unpaid leave until I'm officially released from my contract, so there's nothing to stop me from leaving." He turned a page and pretended to be immersed in a description of the route from Gettysburg to Fredericksburg.
Nonplussed, Pete scratched his eyebrow with a thumbnail. "You … can ride a bike?"
Wilson didn't look up. "It can't be too difficult – you did it with a gimp leg."
"Nice," Pete drawled.
Wilson relented somewhat. "I've had a few lessons," he admitted. "Besides, it wouldn't matter much if I ended up wrapped around a telegraph pole."
"So that's your great plan: committing suicide under the pretext of working your way through a bucket list."
"No, that's what your plan would be if you were in my place. My plan is simply to spend my last months with as much dignity as possible."
"There is no dignity in death!"
"I knew you'd say that," Wilson said with his 'I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself' expression. "But you're wrong."
He continued in a low voice, "I've seen this often enough: patients going through round after round of chemo, first the light fire, then the heavy artillery, and finally the palliative stuff. By the time they accepted that they were going to die, it was too late to live anymore. And God help me, I was the idiot who advised them to go that way. All their energy went into fighting the cancer instead of going along with it. I'm going to have fun for as long as I can."
"And then?"
"And then the plan for palliative care that I've drawn up takes effect. It's at the back of the file."
Pete leafed to the last page. It was a DNR. He slammed the file shut and tapped it thoughtfully.
"Have you thought about Lisa and the squirt? They're kinda dependent on you."
Wilson dog-eared his page and closed the book. "Nice try, but as you know quite well, they'll be better off without me. Cuddy doesn't even trust me to babysit Rachel anymore."
"That's because you drink, not because you have cancer. You can quit the booze; you've done it before." Like he'd stopped taking Vicodin. And then started again. And stopped. And started again. And parked a car in Lisa's house.
Wilson didn't seem convinced either. "I think you were the one who said that addicts don't change. I'll always be an addict, even when I'm sober. I'm an additional responsibility for Cuddy, just like Rachel is. Only difference is, I'll never outgrow my neediness."
Neediness could be combatted with more neediness. "What about me?" Pete asked.
"What about you?" Wilson asked right back.
"What if I need you?"
"You don't. You've got a job, …"
"Been fired." Might as well use the humiliating fact to gain leverage.
That stopped Wilson short, but only for a moment. He continued staunchly, "You'll get a new one. You have friends, …"
"Acquaintances," Pete corrected. He'd be the last to admit it, but he'd taken to friendship with Wilson like a fish to water. It was a benchmark against which his other 'friends' fell short.
"Whatever. From your perspective you've known them for longer than you've known me. You'll do fine with them."
"And that's for you to decide?"
Wilson sat up and twisted to face House. "Actually, it is. It certainly isn't for you to decide that I have to stay alive to suit your personal agenda. I'm not some … piece of real estate that you can dispose of as you please."
Wilson was pissed, that was for sure. The question was why. What clues had he given? 'Real estate' – what did that mean? Pete didn't own any real estate – he'd had an apartment in Princeton, but it had been sold in order to cover the costs of the procedure that had wiped his memory.
Ah, there it was! He'd disposed of their friendship along with his memory and his apartment.
"You're still mad at me for nuking my hippocampus, leaving you here alone," he stated.
Wilson enunciated clearly, as though talking to a child. "No, House, I'm not mad at you for nearly killing yourself. I'm mad at you for nearly killing me!"
This was ridiculous. It reminded Pete of those notes in his Mayfield case file about Wilson's dead girlfriend (amantadine poisoning after her kidneys got trashed in a bus accident). Then, Wilson had also blamed him for something that hadn't been his fault, not according to logical criteria.
Fortunately he'd read the court files dealing with the car crash and knew what had happened. "I didn't 'nearly kill' you. You fell and sprained your wrist."
Wilson jumped up and stared down at Pete. "That's not quite what happened!" he said, his voice tense.
Tons of subtext there, of the kind that Pete disliked immensely. People tended to deliver revelations about his past – those bits that he preferred not to know about – in that tone of voice, tinged with disapproval. "What, I was trying to kill you, not Lisa?" he joked rather lamely.
"You were driving straight at that tree, so I stepped in front of it. But you just kept on coming. You didn't slow down one bit!"
Okay, that was a legitimate grudge, nearly being turned into roadkill, but it didn't mean that he'd tried to kill Wilson. From what he'd heard about that time, Wilson had been supportive (even if his efforts had been unappreciated and his advice largely spurned), so it was unlikely that he'd been the target.
"I imagine I was hoping you'd jump out of the way if I didn't swerve. And you did, so I was right. Furthermore, I did swerve – into Lisa's house," he added rather bitterly. "So what's your point?"
"My point," Wilson said, pointing an unsteady finger at Pete, "is that if I'd jumped in the other direction, the one you swerved into, you'd have run me over and I'd be dead now."
"But you didn't. You're going to let the cancer to kill you because you believe your escape four years ago was somehow fortuitous, cheating the gods?" Pete had the disconcerting feeling that he'd lost the plot.
"No, House, I'm going to let the cancer kill me because I won't subject myself to months of futile suffering for the sake of someone who pointed his car straight at me with no concern for the consequences. If you'd tried to kill me, then maybe I could have forgiven you, because murderous intentions indicate some level of emotion. But it wasn't that; you simply didn't care whether you killed me or not. You didn't care about what was happening to me at that moment."
"I swerved to avoid you," Pete said desperately. "You said so yourself."
"I don't know whether you swerved to avoid me or whether you got cold feet at the last moment and were avoiding a collision with the tree. But if you'd been concerned for my safety, you would have braked or changed course much earlier. You didn't. You didn't care about me. Why should I care what your future looks like?"
Five years later, and Wilson had to bring it up now of all times? Couldn't he have fought this out earlier, when his health wasn't a consideration? "Isn't it a bit late to take a stand on this?"
Wilson rubbed his hand wearily over his face. "It has always been too late to take a stand, but it's never too late to make decisions for my own good instead of yours. You're on your own, House."
Wilson's cell phone rang. He took it out of his pocket, squinted at the display and frowned, but took the call nonetheless, turning slightly away from Pete as though that gave him more privacy. It didn't: if anything, it made Pete all the more eager to listen in.
"Hello, Amy," Wilson said.
A woman. A love interest? Probably not – Wilson's tone was calm and soothing, without the upward lilt that indicated an adrenaline surge. Were he still an active physician, then Amy could be a patient. She could, of course, be a neighbour who'd asked for his medical opinion.
"Yes. …. Yes." Wilson listened, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Well – that's good news, isn't it?" he finally said, his voice exuding cheer, his face slightly puzzled.
A neighbour who'd found out she didn't have cancer and was cut up about it? Sure, why not? Full-blown Munchhausen's was fairly rare, but there were gradations – people who didn't actively make themselves sick, but who craved the attention that being sick brought them.
"Yes, I know, it can be a bit of a downer. … Yes, I'm sorry, Amy, but maybe it's better this way." Wilson didn't look utterly convinced himself as he mouthed the last platitude. "But you're still young, and this really isn't the best way …. No, no! I'm not saying you were trying to …"
He looked hunted now, and he'd given up all pretence at privacy, pacing the living room as though it was a cage. "I just think it might be better if you found someone … Amy, you're a lovely young person; you're sure to find someone …"
Amy, no matter how lovely, was clearly not in the habit of letting her conversation partners finish their sentences. Wilson seemed to have given up. He listened for a few minutes without commenting at all, other than a few yesses and hums to indicate that he was still listening. Then, finally, he said, "Yes, Amy. I'm very sorry. And thanks for letting me know. … No, I don't know. Maybe next week. … Have a good week. … Bye."
He flicked his phone shut and sank back onto the couch next to Pete, giving him a sideways glance.
"Someone not happy not to have cancer?" Pete asked casually.
Wilson harrumphed. "You could put it that way, if you equate cancer with unwanted growths in the body!" He leaned forward, picked up the remote control and switched on the television, flicking through the channels at a rate that precluded his actually seeing what was on the screen.
Pete did the differential on a growth in a woman that was not cancer, but nevertheless unwanted. "She was pregnant," he said, "and now she isn't."
Wilson found something stupid to watch – a documentary on the effects of globalisation on African rural life. "Wrong. She wasn't even pregnant." He swung his feet on the coffee table and stared at the screen in concentration.
This was a game two could play at. Pete swung his feet up too, crossing his ankles and leaning back comfortably.
The Nile Perch, a voracious predator, extinguished almost the entire stock of native fish species in Lake Victoria. Its white fillets are exported all around the world, but the local population profits little.
Wilson's pensive expression, although suited to this depressing piece of information, was hardly caused by the plight of the indigenous population on the shores of Lake Victoria. After a few aerial shots of fish processing plants accompanied by dirge-like music, he finally broke.
"After I got back from England, I … There's this lab technician at work, Amy. She was having a rough time, like me … We ended up in bed, and I didn't take proper precautions." Wilson shrugged at the television. "It was stupid. Anyway, when I realised, I asked her to contact me if, you know, anything came of it."
"You mean, if you'd put a bun in her oven," Pete supplied helpfully.
Wilson raised his eyebrows. "If you want to put it that way." He tipped his head to watch a fish being gutted. The camera panned along the processing line in a factory, and then cut to a pile of waste festering in the sun. "I don't think I want to eat fish again."
"Not wanting to have sex again would be a healthier reaction."
"My health is unlikely to be affected either way," Wilson pointed out. "It's not like I'd be around to raise a kid."
Pete tipped his head to acknowledge the point. "But Amy wouldn't have minded a positive outcome," he said.
Wilson rubbed his forehead. "Apparently not. She seems to think that once you've reached twenty-five, it's all downhill and your life is as good as over. Of course, I didn't tell her that I have cancer and won't be much of a father figure, but I doubt that it would make any difference."
"It explains why she didn't use contraception. It doesn't explain why you didn't."
"I was upset. I wasn't thinking straight. … Okay, I was drunk!"
Pete said bitingly, "That was obvious from what you told me before: very young colleague making doe eyes at you with I want you to be my baby daddy! printed across her forehead."
"It wasn't printed … She talked about her parents, her dad's death, her recent break-up. She never mentioned kids – at least, I don't think she did," Wilson said weakly.
"Or you have selective hearing." Pete scrunched up his mouth and frowned.
"You're saying I want a kid when I won't even be around to see it grow up?"
"How often have you 'forgotten' to use a condom, even when you were drunk?"
Wilson was silent.
Pete wagged a finger to rub in the point he'd scored. "We're hardwired to pass on our genes. Knowing that you could be dying, your subconscious decided to make a last-ditch attempt to ensure that James Evan Wilson's DNA will be preserved for posterity."
Wilson looked at him with a mixture of disgust and amusement. "That's the most selfish reason for having kids that I've ever heard – leaving my genes behind for others to deal with."
"There are no unselfish reasons for having kids," Pete mused. "It's always about yourself. Kids don't ask to be catapulted into this existence; all those millions of eggs and sperm that never partner up are probably a lot better off than their paired-off counterparts."
The documentary cut to a pile of perch roe being prepared in a French gourmet restaurant.
"You're grossing me out," Wilson remarked.
"Who, me? I just justified your little outing into sperm donation as an act of self-preservation rather than the manifestation of total stupidity that it was. … Sperm donation," he said thoughtfully. He swung his feet off the coffee table and got up. Something was festering at the back of his brain, and he couldn't access it with the television blaring in the background and Wilson being a total dumb-ass about babies.
… Babies …. Sperm … Gestation period. God, was there no tennis ball in this whole place? Probably not – it wasn't as though Rachel would ever play.
It was a blastocyst of an idea. He had everything he needed, although he couldn't recognise as yet what it was growing into. And he wasn't sure whether he had sufficient time to wait for this embryo to develop.
"When are you leaving?" he asked Wilson.
"As soon as I've finalised my travel itinerary and gotten myself equipped for the road."
"Have you got a bike?"
Wilson hesitated. "Not yet."
Pete smiled, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. "You'll need advice, expert advice. I know a place."
| Chapter Index |
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I like how you preserved the finale touchstones in this chapter. Seriously, I'm intrigued how this will play out.
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"Your 'choice'," Pete said with heavy emphasis, "is misinformed and stupid. And by 'stupid' I mean suicidal."
You definitely have their voices down pat. And some of their actions too - I could completely see Wilson seething about something for years before throwing it at Pete/House.
Loved the canon tie in of the motorcycles. :)
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More motorcycles coming up.