Wow. I am not gonna lie -- it took me several minutes to place this one before I recognized Wilson Agonistes. :D
Okay, so we're off ...
"Do you know where he is?"
"No," Wilson says. "And I don't want to know."
This story was written at a really sad time -- right after the season finale of S6, "Moving On," where House crashed his car into Cuddy's home and incidentally broke Wilson's wrist. I was trying to capture how Wilson might feel in those days immediately following, when things had calmed down but everyone was still walking on eggshells, so to speak. Personally I think my writing style here reminds me of another fic of mine, Kissing the Unicorn -- spare and direct, lots of description of what's actually happening in the narrative.
"But if you did know, you'd tell the cops, right?"
Wilson sighs and puts down his pen. Taub doesn't move from his position by the open door.
"We've been through this before," Wilson says.
And you know they have. All of them have probably been interviewed, by the police, by PPTH Human Resources, maybe even by reporters. And for sure they've all talked to each other.
"You know ... some of his stuff disappeared. From his office."
"Yes," Wilson says. "I heard." House's office is, of course, empty these days. Every day. Word has it Foreman will be occupying it soon.
A guess on my part about Foreman, but seriously, who else could they give it to? Unless TPTB brought in someone new.
"His ball," Taub says. "His spare cane. His -- "
"And you're telling me this because ... "
"No reason," Taub says. He shrugs, a quick up-and-down followed by a smile. "I'll just be ... getting back now."
I think Taub feels the need to connect here. He suspects Wilson knows more than he's telling, and he wants to talk, but obviously it's very difficult.
Wilson waits a long time before he slides open his own top desk drawer. A chicken feather, lipstick-red, drifts free. Wilson watches it settle to the floor.
A callback to the episode where House and Wilson were competing at hiding live chickens in the hospital. Also, in a (very) small way, a callback to my old story A Button, A Feather, A Grain of Sand. ;-D
Six months go by. A year.
Wilson gets an engraved card in the mail, a simple announcement hidden beneath a square of tissue paper. On the back a handwritten note --
There are Jews in Minneapolis!
Heh. I know nobody got this, but this a tiny tip of the hat to an old Northern Exposure episode, where Joel basically thinks of himself as the only Jew in Alaska, and when he hears about some other Jews, one of whom is named Trevor (or Nigel, I can't remember which), exclaims "There are no Jews named Trevor!" Therefore Wilson's line to Cuddy earlier in the fic, when he says "There are no Jews in Minneapolis," and Cuddy triumphantly replies there are. SO. A really long way to go for an explanation, I know, but there it is. Northern Exposure. :D
Wilson sets the card aside and goes online to order a wedding present. For the happy couple, he types. Best wishes, Dr. James Wilson. He gazes at the glowing screen for a long moment, then presses Submit.
I think it's a mark of Wilson's lingering sadness here that he writes something so generic and impersonal. :-(
He wonders if he'll ever find out what happened to House. If one day he'll receive another card in the mail, a picture postcard from somewhere far away, with no name or message, but only Wilson's address, scrawled in that familiar right hand.
Obvious reference to The Shawshank Redemption, when Tim Robbins sends the blank postcard to Morgan Freeman -- the front of the card shows the ocean and beach at Zihuatanajo, Mexico, so Freeman will know where to find him.
Of course he won't.
That shit only happens in the movies.
As I said above. *g* This isn't a movie for Wilson, and all too often life doesn't have happy endings. At the time I wrote this, nobody knew they'd ride off into the sunset together at the end of the series. There are still a lot of stories to be told about this period -- how House and Wilson lived without each other. :-)
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Okay, so we're off ...
"Do you know where he is?"
"No," Wilson says. "And I don't want to know."
This story was written at a really sad time -- right after the season finale of S6, "Moving On," where House crashed his car into Cuddy's home and incidentally broke Wilson's wrist. I was trying to capture how Wilson might feel in those days immediately following, when things had calmed down but everyone was still walking on eggshells, so to speak. Personally I think my writing style here reminds me of another fic of mine, Kissing the Unicorn -- spare and direct, lots of description of what's actually happening in the narrative.
"But if you did know, you'd tell the cops, right?"
Wilson sighs and puts down his pen. Taub doesn't move from his position by the open door.
"We've been through this before," Wilson says.
And you know they have. All of them have probably been interviewed, by the police, by PPTH Human Resources, maybe even by reporters. And for sure they've all talked to each other.
"You know ... some of his stuff disappeared. From his office."
"Yes," Wilson says. "I heard." House's office is, of course, empty these days. Every day. Word has it Foreman will be occupying it soon.
A guess on my part about Foreman, but seriously, who else could they give it to? Unless TPTB brought in someone new.
"His ball," Taub says. "His spare cane. His -- "
"And you're telling me this because ... "
"No reason," Taub says. He shrugs, a quick up-and-down followed by a smile. "I'll just be ... getting back now."
I think Taub feels the need to connect here. He suspects Wilson knows more than he's telling, and he wants to talk, but obviously it's very difficult.
Wilson waits a long time before he slides open his own top desk drawer. A chicken feather, lipstick-red, drifts free. Wilson watches it settle to the floor.
A callback to the episode where House and Wilson were competing at hiding live chickens in the hospital. Also, in a (very) small way, a callback to my old story A Button, A Feather, A Grain of Sand. ;-D
Six months go by. A year.
Wilson gets an engraved card in the mail, a simple announcement hidden beneath a square of tissue paper. On the back a handwritten note --
There are Jews in Minneapolis!
Heh. I know nobody got this, but this a tiny tip of the hat to an old Northern Exposure episode, where Joel basically thinks of himself as the only Jew in Alaska, and when he hears about some other Jews, one of whom is named Trevor (or Nigel, I can't remember which), exclaims "There are no Jews named Trevor!" Therefore Wilson's line to Cuddy earlier in the fic, when he says "There are no Jews in Minneapolis," and Cuddy triumphantly replies there are. SO. A really long way to go for an explanation, I know, but there it is. Northern Exposure. :D
Wilson sets the card aside and goes online to order a wedding present. For the happy couple, he types. Best wishes, Dr. James Wilson. He gazes at the glowing screen for a long moment, then presses Submit.
I think it's a mark of Wilson's lingering sadness here that he writes something so generic and impersonal. :-(
He wonders if he'll ever find out what happened to House. If one day he'll receive another card in the mail, a picture postcard from somewhere far away, with no name or message, but only Wilson's address, scrawled in that familiar right hand.
Obvious reference to The Shawshank Redemption, when Tim Robbins sends the blank postcard to Morgan Freeman -- the front of the card shows the ocean and beach at Zihuatanajo, Mexico, so Freeman will know where to find him.
Of course he won't.
That shit only happens in the movies.
As I said above. *g* This isn't a movie for Wilson, and all too often life doesn't have happy endings. At the time I wrote this, nobody knew they'd ride off into the sunset together at the end of the series. There are still a lot of stories to be told about this period -- how House and Wilson lived without each other. :-)