Chapter Text
It starts as the most boring thing in the world.
One moment, Mildred Yeager was watering her garden out front of her quaint little one-bedroom house. Pretty impressive for seventy-six years old, but it made what followed a little less surprising. The next moment, neighbors spotted her face down in the dirt, unresponsive. An ambulance was called, dear old Mildred was brought to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, and now Mildred is his problem.
Unfortunately.
With a scoff, House slides the patient file halfway across the table. “An old bitty who had a stroke last year collapses in her garden. Seriously, does anyone have any cool attempted suicides? Schools have let out, there has to be one study-abroad kid who brought back a weird parasite. A weird fetish, something. ”
“It wasn’t a stroke.” Thirteen is the one to step forward first. She has a folder clutched between her fingers while the other two lurk just behind – not cowering, exactly, but certainly not leading the charge. “ER ordered a CT. When they saw what was on it, the attending physician transferred the case to you.”
If that doesn’t give House the slightest, slightest thrill. Thirteen slides the folder down and shoots it along the table towards him. He takes it and flips it open.
A second passes.
House stands up, his hand wrapping around his cane, and limps over to the film viewer. It’s not like he expects a leprechaun to come leaping out of it. This is just the sort of thing you don’t see every day, and it’s good to get it in full, crisp detail. Well, as much detail as a CT can give you, anyway.
When the pictures are situated, House takes a step back.
“Huh,” he considers. “ Mildred, Mildred. What have you gotten yourself into?”
There’s holes in her brain. Lesions is the correct medical term, but something about holes feels more visceral for what’s going on. After all, brain tissue is tissue like anything else is. There’s plenty of things out there that would love to feast on it, if given the possibility. The human body really is like one big buffet.
His first inclination is towards something external: bacteria, viruses, little critters. It’s also the least likely, and therefore most fun, option. “Start her on antibiotics, an antiparasitic.” If it is a parasite, then Mildred’s chances aren’t looking good. Frankly, with these lesions, none of it is looking good.
“And this is the first time she’s presented?” House asks quizzically. “Seriously, she’s got holes in her brain and it took her passing out to get to a hospital?”
Hell, he can even see the hole that led to her passing out. Something has taken a little nibble out near her cerebellum, but the other lobes - he spies one in the occipital, one in the parietal – have also been affected. She would’ve been experiencing symptoms for days. Granted, as his mind spins, a lot of them have to do with memory, with recognition, with confusion…
And Mildred is seventy-six.
His lips purse. “Check her for Alzheimers, Parkinson’s. She’s too old for Huntington's.” He’s aware of Thirteen shifting in his peripheral vision, but he doesn’t remark on it. “Check her copper level for Wilson’s. Lumbar puncture for meningoencephalitis. Speaking of –” House steps forward to snatch the CT from the wall, holding it between her fingers. “I’m going to rule something else out. While I go get lunch, for God’s sake, someone get this lady an MRI.”
***
It doesn’t take him long to drag Wilson out of his office, and he shoves the CT in his face while they’re walking. Unlike House, he doesn’t diagnose-and-ambulate – it takes, to House’s annoyance, until they’re sitting down in the cafeteria for Wilson to really take a good look at it. In his defense, House guesses, this is the only place that has enough light for Wilson to examine the CT.
“Yikes,” is Wilson’s only comment. He sets it down and tucks into his sandwich.
“Is that acute or chronic ‘yikes’?”
“Holes in the brain are never good, are they? But… no, I don’t see a tumor. I’ll want to wait until we get the MRI back before our official diagnosis, but unless she’s riddled with tumors, they wouldn’t explain all these lesions.” Wilson takes another bite. “And even if she was, she would’ve presented to the hospital beforehand.”
“I don’t know. Maybe the little old lady thought her time had come.”
“She’s seventy-six, House. People live well into their nineties.”
House makes a disgusted face.
“They can still be afraid of pain and loss. That’s one of the biggest concerns for some of my patients,” Wilson considers, twirling a fork in House’s direction. “That, while they’re dying, they’ll forget everything that makes them them. ”
“And what? You think anything else that would’ve caused this would’ve been gentler on her? It doesn’t matter if it’s herpes or a flesh-eating bacteria, she would’ve had symptoms for days up until now.” He slurps at his drink again. “Maybe she’s just stupid.”
Wilson gives him his patented you’re-not-supposed-to-say-that look, which absolves him of all legal liability. “If it is a brain tumor, let me break the news to her.”
“Aw, no, I really wanted to.” He takes the CT scan and examines it again. There is something about this that strikes him as odd. It’s the symptoms, House thinks. The brain is a big switchboard for the rest of the body, and things must have been ringing off the hook for days. Weeks, maybe, depending on what this is.
If it was a congenital condition… it could’ve been years. Her entire life. It doesn’t take a lot to convince yourself that everything is perfectly normal. Of course, there’s always distrust in doctors. House distrusts doctors.
“Well, if you need me to talk with her, I won’t be home until late tonight. Which means that you’re going to have to scavenge dinner on your own.”
House quirks an eyebrow. “And what are you getting up to? Hot date? Should I find a motel for tonight?” The eyebrow lowers. “Should you find a motel for tonight?”
The laugh Wilson replies with is really a little louder than it has to be. Yeah, okay, House knows it’s not a date, and Wilson knows House knows. Wilson hasn’t been doing any dating at all, even the casual kind. Which, that does surprise him, particularly when there’s a new nurse who’s also a recently-abandoned single mother. That has Wilson catnip written all over it.
And yet, nobody’s even been turning Wilson’s head. Sure, maybe the guy’s spirit has been crushed into disrepair. It’s not like House has been getting any action recently, either, but he also hasn’t been spending an inordinate amount of time outside of their house.
Working, apparently. He’s even asked the custodial staff to confirm it. Wilson really is just… working, constantly. Taken on new patients, joined a couple of committees in the hospital, and his bookshelf in his office has never looked more alphabetized.
He doesn’t get it. House starts to chew on the straw of his drink.
It has occurred to him that this is the slow death nell of Wilson wanting House to move out, get his own place. Which, yeah, House has certainly been living there a lot longer than he should, and he’s surprised Wilson hasn’t tossed him out already, but –
But, god damn it, he likes living there. He likes being with Wilson. Sometimes he even remembers to make an effort to be approximately one hundredth less of an asshole, and that should prove it more than anything else. Either way, House refuses to confront Wilson about it until the guy gets the balls to bring it up directly, and Wilson – clearly – is ball-less.
“I’ll share the trash can with the raccoon.”
“Yeah, okay. Don’t watch the next episode of Grey’s Anatomy without me.”
House has watched the next four. “Never. We’ll watch it together.”
(He doesn’t like it as much as his usual medical drama. Too high quality. Though, they’re a little more explicit about the sex, which he appreciates.)
“Well, I should head back, I have an appointment at –”
Just as Wilson gets up from the table, House’s phone starts to buzz. He reaches for it, frowning, and…
Okay. He’s actually very, very grateful that Cameron brought the case to him. Almost instantaneously, his thoughts shift away from his troubled domestic life. Now, the apple of his eye is the former seventy-six-year-old Mildred Yeager.
“The patient’s dead,” House relates, and Wilson’s expression drops. “Vitals blew out during the MRI, they couldn’t get her back, and –” Wow, that is a lot of exclamation points. “And apparently, there’s something on the MRI I have to see.”
***
It’s a full house in the examination room. House is surprised they haven’t dragged any of the med students in. That’s always exhausting. A bunch of hungover, lusty college students who want to learn about zebras more than horses. That, House can sympathize with, but you have to learn about the horses first. Otherwise, zebras are just really weird bicycles.
There’s him, Taub, Thirteen, Kutner. Cameron, Chase, Foreman. Wilson. The last one to enter was Cuddy, who stands in front of the MRI now with her arms crossed. A faint blue gives her an almost ominous look. House has to wonder if that’s how the newbies see her. Big scary Cuddy.
“Any recent travel?”
Cameron shakes her head. “No. She doesn’t even have a car, House. Definitely not a passport. I talked with her daughter, she says her mother hadn’t so much as left Jersey in a decade.”
That would’ve been a nice, easy answer to everything. House starts forward, leaning heavily on his cane while he inspects the new scans. Next to him, Cuddy raises her fingers to her lips. “We have to call the CDC,” she says, so softly that only House can hear it.
“We’re not calling the CDC,” he shoots back, loud enough for everyone to hear it. “Unless you want to throw the hospital on lockdown for a hunch.” Which, House is willing to do a lot of things for a hunch. Risking the life of his patients? For a hunch? Not anything he loses sleep over.
But the hospital will be crawling with CDC agents for days if they report it…
And House isn’t entirely convinced.
“You’re thinking naegleriasis,” Foreman says. It’s not a question. From Wilson’s soft intake of breath, he hadn’t even been considering it. Poor guy’s brain was probably looking towards cancer, even still. Specialization is a brain-rotter.
“It can’t… progress this fast. She wouldn’t have just – what was the time from the CT to the MRI? An hour? Two? Hell, even if she tricked everyone and did catch it somewhere else… she wouldn’t even have time to leave the country,” House finally exclaims, pointing towards the MRI. “What did she do, snort her brain-eating amoeba over breakfast?”
“All the more reason –” If Cuddy says the words – “We have to alert the CDC. If there’s a local outbreak.”
“Learn a couple more letters of the alphabet, we have a very good reason to suspect it’s not naegleriasis.” Unless there’s something in her body that amplifies the effects – cart before the horse. He looks over to Chase. “Perform an autopsy of her brain. Check the affected lobes and the cerebrospinal fluid, see if you find any flagellates.” And then, to Foreman: “Confirm it with the textbook in my office. Unless you’re secretly an expert on the flesh-eating amoeba.” He gives a careless wave of his hand. “ Shoo. I know she’s not getting any deader, but you heard the lady. Princeton might be sinking into hell.”
That’s enough to get them to move, until the only three people left in the room are him, Cuddy, and Wilson. Wilson crosses his arms over his chest. “Doesn’t that amoeba thrive in warm environments? It’s January in Jersey. ”
That’s his favorite Christmas song. Wilson isn’t wrong, though. “Most US cases happen in the South,” House agrees. “During the summer. Nevermind that you can’t just drink contaminated water. It has to enter your bloodstream somehow. Most people get it up their nose.”
“Did she have any puncture wounds?”
That’s not an unfair point. He flips through the medical papers, and – “Wilson, I could kiss you.” That earns him a scoff. “Here. Cameron documented a scratch on her wrist. Some minor cuts on her fingertips. They assume she got it from the fence as she fell, they found blood on it, but…”
“We’re talking like it is the brain-eating amoeba. And if we continue to talk like it is the brain-eating amoeba, I have to make some phone calls that will make the rest of everyone’s week very difficult. So –” Cuddy does bend down to pick up her bag, holding it under her arm. Yes, House takes a peek. “Let me know when you find out if it is is or isn’t.”
Her heels click along the tile floor as she exits, the door swinging shut behind her. Wilson pushes himself away from the table and walks to stand shoulder-t0-shoulder with House. Together, they both stare at the MRI on the wall.
“Do you see any shapes? A dog? An ice cream cone? Maybe a clown.”
“I can tell you what I don’t see. Definitely not a brain tumor.” Wilson takes a long breath to the full extent of his lung capacity. He lets it out in two simple words. “ Jesus Christ. ”
Yeah, that sounds about right.
“I also don’t see most of her brain stem. ”
“Looks like those paper snowflakes. Remember, as a kid? With construction paper and hang on, let me… “ He walks up to the X-Ray viewer and dials up the brightness until what remains of her brain matter is a scalding white. “Here. There you go.”
What is shown on the screen is a white snowflake of a brain, but even the brightness setting can’t hide the dark holes gaping through. Wilson’s right. The brain stem is almost entirely missing. Most of the parietal has been chomped away. The edges are ragged and decayed, ovular little holes making lattice-work of the brain tissue.
In the hour between the CT and the MRI, something has been eating its goddamn fill. He’s never seen a brain degrade so fast, with anything.
Wilson doesn’t appreciate his metaphor, clearly, and is a little blinded by the viewer. He puts a hand over his eyes until House turns it back down. Only then does he ask: “Do you really think it’s the amoeba?”
“I’m…” Well, he doesn’t like to say this part out loud. Would ruin his street cred. But hey, Wilson has seen him be more sentimental, though not often. He reaches for his cane again. There’s a few people he wants to call – experts in brain-eating amoebae, for one. “ Really hoping she’s got Parkinson’s and extremely bad luck.”
***
It’s late. House has flipped through all the channels in deep boredom, watched another episode of Grey’s Anatomy, and has finally settled on an old science fiction film. It’s in black-and-white, roughly involving a gray UFO coming down and stealing all those unsuspecting farmers and their cows. There’s something vaguely calming about it.
In front of him is a mostly empty jar of peanut butter and a half-packet of crackers, as well as… two beers. There’s more waiting for him in the kitchen, but his leg has started to twitch in a pretty insectoid like way. The thought of going to the kitchen is bad. His bed is even worse. He kind of wants to jerk off, but that’s always a 50/50 when his leg starts twinging like this.
Maybe he’ll just fall asleep here. Wilson always puts a blanket over him, like something out of a Hallmark movie.
Speak of the Devil.
“Jesus, are you still up? It’s past midnight. You have work – you know, there should be a graph or something. The more people get close to you, the more they start to sound like your mother.”
He hears Wilson’s bag hit the floor as he hunches forward. The blue-white of the television screen reminds him of the X-Ray viewer, which makes him crave another beer. Wilson sits down with a hard flop that displaces House from his seat. He looks at his friend – Wilson does look tired. It’s the long nights that’ll get him.
What are you so worried about? House wonders. He gives it a week, maybe two, before he starts rifling through Wilson’s belongings for the answer. The only reason he’s waiting so long is that he doesn’t think it’ll yield anything. Wilson’s too smart to leave behind physical or digital evidence, these days.
Even so, he’s been able to gather evidence in other ways. Wilson’s patients are his patients, sometimes dying, sometimes not. Nothing earth-shattering has happened in his personal life, so far as House knows. Bonnie gave him a Christmas card.
If Wilson’s sick of him, he’s taking an unusual route for it. He hands over the sleeve of crackers. Wilson takes one and chews it thoughtfully. “I can make dinner if you want,” Wilson offers through a mouthful of crumbs.
“No, it’s my turn to make dinner,” he says, gesturing at the peanut butter, the crackers. “You’re welcome. Bon appetit.”
Wilson smiles nevertheless. His gaze soon drifts back to the TV, where House does, too. On more than one bad weekend, they’ve sat here and watched TV for the whole damn day. House doesn’t like those days, because they’re usually when his leg is so bad that he can’t leave the house, but he has to admit that Wilson is … as per his usual … a silver lining.
Until he isn’t.
“I take it that, since you’re not being strip-searched by the CDC right now, that you didn’t find evidence of your amoeba and I can drink the tap water.”
Ugh. House retreats back. “No,” he says simply. “They searched her brain, the fluids. They didn’t find any evidence of anything. Her brain eaten the way it was, they should’ve been saturated. ”
“Which is a good thing, isn’t it?”
“She’s dead, Wilson. Good and bad is a matter of perspective.”
“Uh-huh.” He eats another cracker. “So what are you thinking?”
“Honestly? I got no idea.”
He’s always surprised by what makes Wilson laugh. “Seriously? You, you’re out of ideas? That’s – wow. I don’t hear you say that often before. What about your team, what are they thinking?”
“Your average parade of things that don’t cover all the symptoms. Or ones that are physically impossible.” House lets his head tilt back on the couch. “There’s still some tests that haven’t come back yet. We’ll see if we get anything interesting tomorrow.” A pause. “Maybe one of them can get a paper out of it. A little Christmas bonus.”
“We’ve both wrote papers, House. I don’t think you can call that a gift to anyone.”
“ You wrote papers, I bribed people. Besides, whatever this is…” House sighs, his eyes falling shut. He swears he can see amoebae floating just behind his eyelids, every different shape and color that he can imagine. The issue with dead people is that you can’t really test meds on them. As much as he wants to test every antibiotic and antiparasitic under the sun… “It’s unique. I only found one case that even looks similar.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“They had their brains dissolved by acid. Experimental psychiatric technique in the 1960s.”
“ Mm. Well, let’s hope Mildred wasn’t trying an at-home lobotomy through her ear canal.”
They fall into comfortable silence. He hears Wilson eat the occasional cracker, spoon the occasional peanut butter. On the screen, the sound of aliens taking the lives of good honest hard-working American farmers overwhelm all else. House doesn’t open his eyes – even when he feels Wilson’s arm stretch across the back of the couch, brushing the top of his head tenderly.
It’s a complicated feeling. House doesn’t think he’s had a single uncomplicated feeling for a long, long time. Sometimes – even if it’s something good, something he should be happy about – he finds himself running away from it, because who really has the energy to pick apart their own head?
Now, though, he doesn’t have the energy to fight it in a good way. He just lets himself think about what he likes best in the world, all the while who he likes best in the world’s arm is warm across his head.
(Of course he loves Wilson. Of course it’s always going to be Wilson. That’s something he’s known for years, when the rubble of his fucked up life clears and Wilson is always the only one standing there. Wilson, who keeps him from sinking too far under. Wilson’s existence proves that House can’t be a total nihilist, and he hates that about the guy.
Everything about Wilson is the reason why House won’t ever make a pass at him. He doesn’t even let himself dwell on it too much - or when he does, he makes a firm divide in his mind. When he thinks about being in love, he’s in love with James. Wilson is the guy who excuses himself from the room to fart. If he mixes the two, he’s going to do something stupid.)
“Why are you working so late?” House finally mumbles, barely moving a muscle. His leg has stopped its twitching, but a spreading heat has replaced it. Feels like his leg has pissed itself. One hand goes down to massage it, lest the pain start.
“I thought you might like the alone time.”
“No. If that was it, you’d go out and have fun.”
“When’s the last time I had fun without you?”
That feels like it was meant to be an insult, but how could it be? “That’s the point,” House answers, a little cross. “Why do you need to distract yourself so bad? What’s going on?”
Wilson huffs out a breath at him. “I hope you get another patient tomorrow,” he shoots back. “You like to make too many problems when you don’t have something else to focus on, House.”
And somehow, House doesn’t think that applies to only him. Wilson likes to reveal the truth and pretend he’s just talking about House. He’s cute that way.
“I hope more of your patients get cancer.”
“I’m an oncologist. They all have cancer.”
“Then you should be perfectly fine.”
“I am.” Wilson’s voice is growing softer by the minute, probably taking into account how much House is fading. And… he is. Insomnia’s always plagued him. If he falls asleep like this, he’s going to be up in the next hour or so anyway, but that doesn’t always convince him to get off the couch. He’s right here, trading barbs with Wilson, and he doesn’t want to go to bed.
Wilson doesn’t exactly encourage him, either. He just lays there, their bodies shadowed in the light spilling from the television. House’s mouth lightly parts as his body begins to drift…
Before his phone buzzing breaks the spell entirely. Like his father’s just come in to spy on them, Wilson takes his arm back. House is pretty offended. He reaches for his phone anyway, doesn’t look who it is, and brings it up to his ear.
“ ‘Yello?”
“Dr. House –” Chase? What the hell is Chase calling him after midnight? As House opens his eyes, he sees that Wilson has moved a person-space away from him on the sofa. Come on. It’s not like Chase has waltzed into the apartment himself to call into question their admittedly close proximity. “Are you busy right now?”
“No, she can keep working. What do you want?”
Chase doesn’t miss a beat. That might’ve stunned one of his new underlings, but Chase has known him too long. “We’ve got a case here that you might want to look at. Twenty-four year old male, presenting with sudden onset cortical blindness and a progressive form of aphasia.”
It’s nice to have a confidante, because Wilson’s expression matches how House is feeling right now. “I’m not coming in the middle of a night for cortical blindness and aphasia. Make sure he doesn’t stroke out and I’ll be there in the morning –”
“He’s got lesions,” Chase blurts. “In his brain. Six months ago, he had an MRI for a concussion, and there’s no evidence of them. He’s developed advanced lesions in six months. House, you –”
But House’s mind is already a thousand miles away. A second case. A second case with entirely separate symptoms - cortical blindness and aphasia means the guy came into the hospital conscious. Whether he is not, whether he’ll be awake – whether he’ll be alive – when House gets there is another question, and he’s already rising up the couch. His phone falls with a thump onto the sofa cushion.
“What’s going on?”
Wilson hasn’t even taken off his shoes; he only needs to get his jacket from over the side of the sofa before he’s as ready to go as House is.
“I don’t want to alarm anybody,” House tells him, reaching for his cane. “But maybe we should have called the CDC.”
***
“ Mil-dred Yea-ger,” House repeats in a slow, emphatic voice. He stands at the very foot of Andrew Roberts’ bed, leaning forward on his cane. “Do you know her? Have you seen her? Ever mowed her lawn, ever watched her cat? Andrew.”
Andrew Roberts is not having a very good day. According to Chase, he was walking home from his second shift as a gas station attendant, only for all the lights to wink out. When he tried to call an ambulance, he found that he couldn’t get the words – and when Cameron received him in the ER, she could confirm. The words weren’t doing too hot, either.
Now, Andrew is tucked in a hospital bed with wires trailing off him. His eyes are shut, but he’s breathing fast. Mid-grade fever, keeps squeezing his eyes like they’re in pain. The pulse is high, but House can’t say whether that has a biological basis. The kid is afraid, as he probably should be.
In the car, he advised to start Andrew immediately on the same treatment he recommended for Mildred. If it’s not the same cause, then all he’s done is given a twenty-four-year-old kidneys a battering.
It’s difficult to tell whether it’s progressing. After all, Andrew can’t get more blind, and being unable to talk, he can’t verbally report any more symptoms. None of his lesions were towards the back of his brain yet. If his heart suddenly forgets how to beat, they’ll know, but otherwise…
“ Andrew,” House commands again.
Wilson, who stands respectfully at the doorframe, scoffs at him. “I really don’t think that’s helping, House,” he advises, and House would like to see him take a swing at it. Besides, it’s therapeutic to yell at patients every now and then.
(He’s not wrong, though. They need to get the kid in for a lumbar puncture, but with him as panicky as he is – he would like, at least, some sort of confirmation that the kid understands what’s going on. If he continues to squirm and writhe, he’s not going to be walking out of here on his own two legs.)
“Wait – House!” Cameron steps away from the bed to point. “I think he might be… I think he wants to write something.”
Jesus, she’s right. Though Andrew keeps squeezing and unsqueezing his hands like he’s imagining his favorite Playboy model, there’s a definite pinch to the tips of his fingers. He’s miming a pencil. Before House can give the command, Foreman lurches forward to give the guy a pencil and – for lack of any other paper – the back of his patient chart.
“Do you understand what’s going on?” House acts, keeping every word separated. “ Andrew. We need to perform a lumbar puncture. We’ll have to move you. Are you going to…”
Andrew jerks the pencil to the back of his patient chart. At first, it’s nothing more than a few slight slashes, like he’s just listening to the sound it makes… before he presses down hard enough that House sees the lead bend.
Letters start to take form, angry black things bleeding graphite.
I… know… we’ll… His hand is jerking madly. Only now does House feel confident in saying that this is more than fear, this is a symptom. Andrew slashes out the words as he writes, but he continues on. His jaw is set, teeth grinding against each other. Be… good…
Andrew starts making noises, high-pittle keens in the back of his throat. The last word is the longest, and just as he makes the first F, the pencil tip snaps clean off. It doesn’t matter. Though Foreman reaches out a hand to stop him, Andrew continues scraping the wood across the paper, tearing holes in it as he goes.
Friends.
The sight of it makes House take a step back, a cold hand seizing him by the stomach. It’s like he’s pulled the power cord out of Andrew –as soon as he gets down the words, he flops forward like a mannequin. Chase, Cameron, and Foreman all rush for him. House instinctively looks to the side and sees that Wilson has also taken one step forward, but not for the patient.
I know we’ll be good friends.