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[rivercrossing2.livejournal.com]

Summary: Just how did Wilson and Amber cross paths? And why was House a part of it? 
Rating: PG.
Warning: post "Wilson's Heart" of Season 4 and "Birthmarks", Season 5. 
Disclaimer: Sadly, in writing this fic I am not making any money off of Wilson's psyche but, if I were, all the proceeds would be going to David Shore & Fox, so I would still be poor & nonetheless enjoying Wilson's psyche. Yet for good measure, I will write on the chalkboard 100 times: I do not own House or Wilson...I do not own House or Wilson...I do not own House or Wilson...I do not own---ect.  :)

 

                                        Chapter Two:  Nostalgia 

It was a beautiful day.

 

The sky was practically spotless---only a few stray clouds here and there could be seen.  The sun’s rays beaming down on him, Wilson felt warm even in the crisp winter air.  The warmth was comforting, considering where he was---a graveyard.  He always expected to feel lonely on these quiet journeys, but it helped to remember who he was visiting. Somehow, the sea of endless stones brought a sense of oneness to him.  As a child of Judaism, he had been taught that there was, in the beginning, one soul from which all souls were born.

 

Amber’s soul was still with him.  He could feel her in the air, all around him, breathing life back into him---the very soul of life----a feeling he once almost believed had disappeared forever.  It was impossible to ignore the emptiness inside....but , ever now and then, he would feel a sensation  of protection and love from someone unseen overcome him.  He could not claim evidence that this was Amber, but whenever he felt scared, or lost, or lonely (incredibly alone), he would feel the warm whisper of someone’s presence near him.   

 

At night, when he couldn’t sleep, he would light a single candle  and, lulled into a meditative state by the dancing flame, he spoke to her….spoke to Amber.  He knew he might never get any sign of a response---but he had to do it, for his own sake.  Sometimes, just simply voicing out loud what he was thinking was enough to help calm his anxiety so that he could rest peacefully and sleep through the night. 

 

He knew House would have scoffed at the notion that he was being visited by Amber’s soul (or a soul of any kind from another dimension).  He knew House would outright laugh if he knew that he was regularly visiting and speaking with the dead.  It was impossible trying to explain his grief to House; House, after all, had never gotten close enough to anyone (if not perhaps Stacy), for him to know what grief was like.  He knew it would only be in vein trying to argue about spirituality with an atheist.  It was why he had not told House where he went when he knew House expected him to eat at work.  He knew he’d be confronted sooner or later---but, for now, he was glad to be outside, enjoying the fresh air. 

 

He remembered how Cameron, during the early mourning period, had advised him to go as often as necessary; she said that if he thought speaking to Amber would help, he should, and that (contrary to what he sometimes feared) he wasn’t slowly going crazy.  The nights were worse; sometimes, he’d wake up terrified, drenched with sweat, and in a blind panic begin frantically searching the house, calling her name.  When he realized she would not answer him, and his consciousness began to waken, his mind came into focus---and with it, reason---and his heart was broken all over again.  On those nights, he pitifully cried himself to sleep…the despair was almost unbearable.

 

House understood physical pain like no one he ever knew, but he could not fathom the depths of human despair.  The grief he felt now was unlike anything in intensity that he could compare to having felt before.  Even after the disappearance of his brother---who could possibly be dead somewhere on the streets, he had no idea---Wilson could not liken to the hole in his heart that ached to be filled with Amber’s essence.

 

Reaching the grave that looked like so many others, Wilson swallowed hard.  No matter how many times he came here, it never got easier.  He tried to smile, but the corners of his mouth were yielded by the all-too-familiar lump growing steadily in his throat.  “Hey, sweetheart,” he whispered, his voice sounding out of place amongst the eerie silence that threatened to swallow him whole.  “I’m here.”

 

Nobody but a bird---a lone chickadee---from somewhere high up in one of the trees, responded.

 

 Stooping down to a crouching position, Wilson pressed his hands into the snow, clearing the white until he could see the thawing earth below.  He wasn’t sure if he was just imagining it, but he almost thought he could feel electric sparks from beneath the cold hard ground.  At once, an incredibly vivid image of her face materialized from deep within his consciousness, and he gasped at the beauty before him, closing her eyes as she came to life within him.  “God…I miss you,”  he murmured in a voice that wavered with the overwhelming sensation of both equal measures sadness and affection. 

 

More images flooded him, as they often did when he visited this place of immeasurable loss and eternal forgiveness. Suddenly, her voice echoed in his head, jolting his memory back to an incident in which he had somehow forgotten: “It’s not up to you to save him.”  He tried to shake his head free of the memories, but the words only repeated themselves, persistent in their argument, astounding him in their clarity.  (Even then…she had understood the dynamic between  himself and House.  It had only taken another self-destructive situation for her to see right through him…)

 

Funny, he was thinking now, how someone could unbeknownstly be the catalyst to bring two people together, only to later be just as unwilling a catalyst to tear them apart.  And he started to remember a year ago, when House had undergone a metaphysical crisis, an nearly killed himself in the process….and how---in the end---an angel had come to save him, instead.

 

__________________

 

Approximately 1 year ago

 

Just before dawn, Wilson was fast asleep, when he was jolted awake by the phone screeching maniacally in his ear.  “Hmrph…” he muttered hoarsely, and rolled over on his side, fumbling absently to snatch the phone from its cradle. “’Lo.”

 

It was Cuddy.  She was clearly upset, shouting something about House and a wall socket and how he needed to get to the ER, “RIGHT NOW!” before cutting him off abruptly.

 

In his half-dazed state, Wilson dropped the phone and nearly tripped over it in an effort to get out of bed and get himself dressed.  He knew something was wrong, but the words “House” and “ER” had not yet clicked in his subconscious haze.  After sloppily brushing his teeth, Wilson was out the door in five minutes, and at the ER in another ten.  He was met by a frighteningly hyperactive Cuddy who looked like she had just woken up herself: hair unkempt, eyes bloodshot and swollen.

 

At the sight of her looking so disheveled, Wilson’s eyes widened with horror.  “Lisa…my God…what happened?!” he exclaimed, alarm finally setting in as she once again began pacing the lobby like a caged animal. 

 

“You mean you don’t know?” she snapped back bitterly, more harshly than she had previously intended; and certainly more out of sleep deprivation than anything else.  “House happened!...The insane idiot stuck a knife in a wall socket, and his heart stopped….if he hadn’t paged one of his interns to find him sprawled out on the floor of his office, and if she hadn’t started CPR immediately, he wouldn’t

have survived.”

 

Wilson reeled backwards with shock at this announcement, as well as from the unexpected greeting of Cuddy’s hostile, and uncontrollable rage.  “What…He mentioned something casually about suicidal gestures the other day, but…but I’d never thought that he---that he would ---”   Before he could stop himself, he was hyperventilating, swaying, and spots were dancing before his eyes. 

 

Cuddy’s voice hovered before him, her face suddenly very big in his peripheral vision.  “Wilson,” she was saying, “Are you okay?”  Her voice sounded like it was echoing from out of a windy tunnel.

 

He tried to answer her, but he could not: because, before he could utter a sound, the world went black.

 
TBC...