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sick_wilson2007-07-02 05:48 pm
nightdog-barks.livejournal.com) wrote in sick_wilson2007-07-02 05:48 pm
Welcome to Wherever You Are (5/11)
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house_wilson.
TITLE: Welcome to Wherever You Are
AUTHOR:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nightdog_writes
PAIRING: House-Wilson, strong friendship, other OCs
RATING: "R"
WARNINGS: Yes, for a few scenes of violence.
SPOILERS: Yes, for the S3 Tritter Arc and how it ended.
SUMMARY: Old enemies can turn up in the most unexpected places, and when those enemies are in positions of power ... all bets are off.
DISCLAIMER: Don't own 'em. Never will.
AUTHOR NOTES: None.
BETA: My First Readers.
Chapter Five
"Damn, New Guy. Or should I call you Lobster Guy?"
Wilson opened his eyes and shut them again almost immediately. He hurt. His arms hurt. His legs hurt. His eyebrows hurt. And his testicles and penis and the rest of his groin really hurt, where that damn scorpion had stung him.
"New Guy?" Tooey's voice was low and concerned. "You gonna be okay?"
"Uh," Wilson said, and the answer seemed to satisfy Tooey, who was leaning back with a smile as Wilson opened his eyes again.
"So what the hell happened?"
"Uh," Wilson mumbled again. "Boss didn't like my work. Gave me a bad performance review."
Tooey stared at him for a moment, alarmed.
Prob'ly thinks I'm delirious, Wilson thought, and sighed. "Other inmate fell, fractured his skull. I tried to help, and in the process I ... touched the Crew Boss. Tied me to some tent pegs, left me there all afternoon." He decided to leave out the part where the guard had dropped the scorpion onto his crotch as he'd screamed and begged for mercy. How he'd been gagged while he thrashed in agony, the scorpion still loose, its relentless stinging sending jolts of white-hot fire up his spine.
He watched as Tooey's eyes took in Wilson's cuts and scrapes, his sunburned skin, the gauze wrappings around his wrists and ankles and on one foot.
"Okay," Tooey said, and Wilson knew that although Tooey understood there'd been more to it than that, he wasn't going to pursue the subject.
Tooey leaned back further in his chair and crossed one thick, red-furred leg over the other. He scratched idly at his foot.
"That must've been Crew Boss Larry," he said.
Wilson gave him a questioning look.
"To distinguish him from Guard Larry, and Other Boss Larry, and the Larry on the Warden's personal guard staff," Tooey explained. His eyes roamed over Wilson again. "What happened to your foot?"
Wilson shifted on the cot. The chain shackling him to the bedframe clinked.
"Scorpion," he whispered.
"You're lucky, you know," the doctor had said before he'd left. Wilson had simply stared at him.
"Looks like your stings were caused by a stripe-tail scorpion -- painful but not nearly as neurotoxic as a nasty little customer known as C. exilicauda. In your weakened condition, with the number of stings you received, you might've gone into respiratory arrest."
"No antivenin here, either. Guard or other personnel we'd have had to airlift out."
And the doctor had walked away, the unspoken message hanging clear in the air.
"Prisoners we let die."
The ceiling fans flapped lazily in the infirmary tent, moving the warm air around in gusty little drafts.
Wilson closed his eyes again. He was so tired.
House cruised slowly through the hospital parking garage; he had a fake traffic ticket all printed and ready to tuck under a windshield wiper on Wilson's Volvo as a welcome-back present.
There was only one problem.
Wilson's Volvo wasn't there.
It wasn't in his Departmental Head parking space, nor in any other free space nearer the door.
It wasn't ... anywhere.
Maybe he rode in with someone else this morning.
He kept that thought in mind until he passed by Wilson's office. The door was locked, the interior dark and obviously unoccupied. House stopped for a moment in front of the door.
Or ... maybe he got really blitzed and woke up married to a hooker, and he's still in Vegas getting a quickie divorce to go with his quickie wedding.
"House!" He turned around. Chase was hurrying towards him, waving a manila folder.
"I think we have a case," he said, trying to catch his breath. "Twenty-two year old female, fever of unknown origin, severe swelling in her elbows, ankles, and ears --"
"Ears?" House frowned. "You mean her Eustachian tubes? The ear canals?"
Chase shook his head. "Nope. The exterior -- pinna and lobes. She's got cauliflower ears like she just went three rounds with Roy Jones."
Intrigued, House started moving again towards the Diagnostics conference room.
"Order patch tests. Could be an allergic reaction. What's she do? Has she traveled recently? Been out of the country?"
The question of Wilson's whereabouts could wait. Not like there was anything wrong -- he would've heard about it already.
Wilson gimped out of the infirmary tent, moving in a slow, laborious gait that reminded him of his eighty-two year old grandfather.
On a good day.
He could walk, or rather, limp, on his scorpion-stung foot as long as he didn't put his entire weight on it and watched where he stepped. The problem was exacerbated by his still-sore and tender testicles -- he found himself having to swing one leg out in an exaggerated stride to keep from putting too much pressure on his groin.
Wilson wondered what House would have said if he'd known that Wilson had actually asked for a cane -- only to be denied on the grounds that such an aid could be considered a potential weapon in the hands of a prisoner.
He'd walked only a few feet before he had to stop and catch his breath. This crippled gait was hard on his hips and spine, and he thought again of House. How had he managed it all these years?
He has a cane, some mocking part of his brain answered. And Vicodin.
He sighed and started for the mess tent.
Wilson's gait had improved the longer he'd walked, and his stride was close to normal when he came around the edge of the last tent before the mess hall.
Three guards were beating a prisoner.
Wilson stopped dead, his heart thudding in his chest, his breathing suddenly fast and shallow.
The prisoner was sagging in the grip of two of the guards, arms pinioned behind him as the third guard landed blow after crushing blow in the man's gut, his jaw, his cheek. The inmate's nose had been broken; blood streamed down his face and dripped off his chin. He was breathing through his mouth, dragging in harsh, gasping breaths, and even from this distance Wilson could see torn, bloody gums and crimson-smeared teeth.
Wilson must've made some tiny noise; the guard paused in his assault and looked over his shoulder.
He grinned at Wilson.
Wilson turned and walked away as swiftly as he could without actually running.
He wasn't hungry anymore.
Wilson was still trying to calm himself when he realized he'd walked into the camp clearing.
Where there was a punishment taking place.
He stood rooted to the ground, staring as a prisoner's arms were raised over his head and his manacled wrists fastened to a short chain dangling from the top bar of the punishment frame.
A guard a few feet away shook out a long, braided whip. He drew his right arm back. The whip whistled through the air -- there was an ugly, horribly loud slapping sound and as if by magic a bright red stripe appeared on the prisoner's bare back. The man cried out as the whip fell again. No one else in the clearing paid any attention.
Some sudden, small movement distracted Wilson and he managed to look away -- something was waving, wiggling over to his right. He stumbled towards it, away from this place where a whip was opening raw red wounds on a prisoner's back.
The wiggling things were thin and white, and impossibly enough, they were growing out of the earth itself. His stomach turned over as he realized what they were.
It was the man in the hotbox, stretching his hand out of the narrow barred window of his broiling prison.
The fingers wiggled again, waving for attention, waving for release. Waving for help.
He watched as a bored guard stepped forward and ground his boot down on the prisoner's hand, forcing it back down and casually sliding the grate shut over the window.
Wilson fled.
House looked at his watch and was startled to see that it was almost 4:30. Where the hell had the day gone?
Well, he knew where the day had gone -- the patient, the tests, the hypotheses, the patient crashing, more tests, more hypotheses, berating his fellows, the patient improving, then crashing again, Cameron stalking off in a cold fury (that part had been fun, actually), and finally ... nothing. Anticlimax. The patient resting comfortably in the ICU.
His stomach growled; House had missed lunch. He might as well head home. Let Chase and Foreman continue to monitor the situation.
He stood up and began stuffing important stuff into his backpack -- journals, charts, his iPod.
The phone rang.
With a low growl, House snatched it up.
"You have reached the office of Dr. Gregory House," he announced in a robotic monotone. "He's not here right now, but --"
"Dr. House?" House rolled his eyes.
"What did I just say? He's not here right now. Leave a message --"
"Do you know how I can reach him? I'm a friend of his colleague, Dr. James Wilson."
House let the backpack fall to its side and sat down heavily in his office chair. He scrubbed a hand across his face and took a deep breath.
"This is Dr. House," he said. "What's happened to Wilson?"
"He said his name was Winston Sen," House said. "He's a radiation oncologist, lives in Oxnard, California, and he was with Wilson at the Vegas conference."
"And this has to do with ... what?" Cuddy was working, going through her interoffice mail. House flinched as she picked up a long, gleaming letter opener and slashed open another envelope.
"It has to do with Wilson not answering his cell phone. It has to do with Wilson not being at work today. It has to do with Wilson disappearing!"
Cuddy paused. "Wilson wasn't at work today?" She caught House's look of exasperation. "Oh, please," she snapped. "So he took an extra day off, played hooky. It's something you'd do in a heartbeat if you thought you could get away with it, so why are you so upset when he does it?"
"Because Wilson doesn't do these kinds of things!" He leaned forward. "Sen said he loaned Wilson his rental car. Next thing he knows, the company's calling his home number saying the cops found the car abandoned in the desert and he'll be hearing from the lawyers tomorrow if not sooner."
Cuddy had stopped ripping open envelopes and was staring at him.
"He talked to the cops -- they said the rental papers were in the glove compartment along with Wilson's wallet. No Wilson."
Cuddy sat back in her chair, trying to process what House was saying. She had a paper in her hand, the last piece of interoffice mail she'd opened. She glanced down, intending to slip it back in its envelope to deal with later, when the subject line and a printed name jumped out at her.
In Re: Request for Medical Records for Dr. James Wilson by Hellebore County Sheriff's Department, Hellebore, NV.
"Oh, shit," she whispered.
"Sergeant, if you could just tell us again what you know --"
The voice on the other end was calm and long-suffering.
"I've told you, ma'am. We're investigating the case but there are no new leads. If you'd like to file a missing persons report, then we'll follow up on that and let you know if anything new turns up."
Cuddy closed her eyes in frustration. House was motioning for the phone. She refused to give it to him.
"And you requested the medical records because --"
The Hellebore County police sergeant's voice was very gentle.
"In case we had to identify a body, ma'am."
Cuddy stayed on the phone for another twenty minutes, asking the same questions over and over, each time hoping for a different answer, but the officer's responses were consistent.
No new leads. No, ma'am, there'd been no signs of a struggle or any violence at all in or near the abandoned convertible. No, the subject's cellphone hadn't been located.
Yes, ma'am, you'd be more than welcome to pay us a visit. If you feel the need to. We're doing everything we can.
"Thank you, Sergeant," Cuddy said at last, still ignoring House's increasingly theatrical gestures for the telephone. "You've been a great help."
"You're very welcome, ma'am," the voice replied. There was a clicking sound, as if the officer had suddenly popped a wad of gum. "We'll be sure to let you know the minute anything turns up."
"It's a cover-up," House stated flatly.
Cuddy moaned, leaning back in her chair, wishing she could rub her weary eyes.
"Do you ever listen to yourself?" she demanded. "No, wait, of course you do, because you're the smartest person in the room and nobody else is worth listening to. House, the police are working the case. What else do you suggest I do?"
House's gaze was intense, blue eyes like frozen polar fire. Shaken, she looked away.
"I suggest you buy me a ticket to Las Vegas," he growled. "Because everybody lies."
House looked at the small square of white plastic and wondered for a moment if Wilson had ever suspected how neatly he'd picked his pocket that day, lifting the spare cardkey as deftly as any light-fingered thief. It had been months ago; surely Wilson would have noticed by now.
Maybe he did. Wilson's not stupid. Maybe he wanted you to take it.
House pushed the thought aside and slid the card into the slot. He had a puzzle to solve.
He pushed open the door to Wilson's Plainsboro hotel room, hoping against hope that this one last quest would prove him wrong.
That the whole thing -- the abandoned car, the mysterious disappearance, the phone silence -- had all been some kind of huge misunderstanding, and that Wilson would be here, a cold beer in his hand, ready to share the joke and laugh with House about how everything had snowballed and he was sorry for the way he'd made everyone worry.
The room was silent.
And empty.
Wilson was standing a few feet away from the barbed wire thicket. He could feel the guards' eyes on him, gauging his distance from the dead line, deciding shoot/don't shoot.
He paid them no mind. He was thinking.
Just a few days ago, he'd been James Wilson, M.D., Head of Oncology at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. One of the youngest Department Heads on the East Coast, respected in his field, on track for a Dean's position if he wanted it. A silver-tongued golden boy, everything within his reach.
It had all been swept away, lost in one misbegotten night.
Today he was Prisoner 24597, trapped in a nightmarish existence of Kafkaesque proportions. He'd been assaulted, robbed, jailed without cause. Beaten and Tasered repeatedly. Tied up in a field so he could be bitten and stung by insects. Burnt to a fine, melanoma-inducing shade of red, front and back.
And it was just going to go on and on, with no end in sight.
No one knew he was here. No one would ever find him.
If they were even searching for him.
Was House? A year ago he would've answered "yes", automatically and without thinking.
Now he wasn't so sure.
Wilson looked up, and saw two of the tower guards looking back at him, their automatic rifles unslung from their shoulders and ready at hand. It would only take them a moment to aim and fire, and all this would be over ...
The razor wire seemed to vibrate, calling to him.
Wilson shivered, started to take a step forward --
"Now do you really want to do that?"
Tooey, standing next to him. Close enough to touch.
"Because if you do, can I have your bologna sandwich tomorrow?"
Wilson closed his eyes. "Go away, Tooey," he said roughly. "Better to do it myself than wait around for them to."
"Wow," Tooey said admiringly. "That's deep. You get that out of a fortune cookie? Seen Gladiator one too many times? 'Maxims-R-Us'?" He snorted derisively. "If you commit suicide-by-cop then they win."
Wilson's head snapped around.
"Now who's full of shit?"
Tooey's lips quirked; he had the grace to look guilty as he scuffed at the dirt with one hideous pink flip-flop.
Wilson sighed. "Sorry."
Tooey exploded. "Jesus, will you shut up? You know, I get the feeling that you say that a lot -- every day, as a matter of fact. Am I right?"
Wilson looked away, shamefaced.
"I knew it. I knew I was right."
Tooey reached out, touched Wilson gently on his bicep.
"I don't want you to be sorry. I just want you to live."
They walked away from the fence together.
Tooey was prattling on about the flora and fauna of the Nevada desert, about work gangs past and present, and what 6843 had said to 475 when he'd found out that 475 had stolen his orange for the third time in a row.
Wilson wasn't listening. Tooey had been right. He needed to live.
He needed to live so he could escape from here.
Or die trying.
~ Chapter Six
NOTES:
Interesting information on the effects of scorpion stings may be found here.
house_wilson.TITLE: Welcome to Wherever You Are
AUTHOR:
nightdog_writesPAIRING: House-Wilson, strong friendship, other OCs
RATING: "R"
WARNINGS: Yes, for a few scenes of violence.
SPOILERS: Yes, for the S3 Tritter Arc and how it ended.
SUMMARY: Old enemies can turn up in the most unexpected places, and when those enemies are in positions of power ... all bets are off.
DISCLAIMER: Don't own 'em. Never will.
AUTHOR NOTES: None.
BETA: My First Readers.
Chapter Five
"Damn, New Guy. Or should I call you Lobster Guy?"
Wilson opened his eyes and shut them again almost immediately. He hurt. His arms hurt. His legs hurt. His eyebrows hurt. And his testicles and penis and the rest of his groin really hurt, where that damn scorpion had stung him.
"New Guy?" Tooey's voice was low and concerned. "You gonna be okay?"
"Uh," Wilson said, and the answer seemed to satisfy Tooey, who was leaning back with a smile as Wilson opened his eyes again.
"So what the hell happened?"
"Uh," Wilson mumbled again. "Boss didn't like my work. Gave me a bad performance review."
Tooey stared at him for a moment, alarmed.
Prob'ly thinks I'm delirious, Wilson thought, and sighed. "Other inmate fell, fractured his skull. I tried to help, and in the process I ... touched the Crew Boss. Tied me to some tent pegs, left me there all afternoon." He decided to leave out the part where the guard had dropped the scorpion onto his crotch as he'd screamed and begged for mercy. How he'd been gagged while he thrashed in agony, the scorpion still loose, its relentless stinging sending jolts of white-hot fire up his spine.
He watched as Tooey's eyes took in Wilson's cuts and scrapes, his sunburned skin, the gauze wrappings around his wrists and ankles and on one foot.
"Okay," Tooey said, and Wilson knew that although Tooey understood there'd been more to it than that, he wasn't going to pursue the subject.
Tooey leaned back further in his chair and crossed one thick, red-furred leg over the other. He scratched idly at his foot.
"That must've been Crew Boss Larry," he said.
Wilson gave him a questioning look.
"To distinguish him from Guard Larry, and Other Boss Larry, and the Larry on the Warden's personal guard staff," Tooey explained. His eyes roamed over Wilson again. "What happened to your foot?"
Wilson shifted on the cot. The chain shackling him to the bedframe clinked.
"Scorpion," he whispered.
"You're lucky, you know," the doctor had said before he'd left. Wilson had simply stared at him.
"Looks like your stings were caused by a stripe-tail scorpion -- painful but not nearly as neurotoxic as a nasty little customer known as C. exilicauda. In your weakened condition, with the number of stings you received, you might've gone into respiratory arrest."
"No antivenin here, either. Guard or other personnel we'd have had to airlift out."
And the doctor had walked away, the unspoken message hanging clear in the air.
"Prisoners we let die."
The ceiling fans flapped lazily in the infirmary tent, moving the warm air around in gusty little drafts.
Wilson closed his eyes again. He was so tired.
House cruised slowly through the hospital parking garage; he had a fake traffic ticket all printed and ready to tuck under a windshield wiper on Wilson's Volvo as a welcome-back present.
There was only one problem.
Wilson's Volvo wasn't there.
It wasn't in his Departmental Head parking space, nor in any other free space nearer the door.
It wasn't ... anywhere.
Maybe he rode in with someone else this morning.
He kept that thought in mind until he passed by Wilson's office. The door was locked, the interior dark and obviously unoccupied. House stopped for a moment in front of the door.
Or ... maybe he got really blitzed and woke up married to a hooker, and he's still in Vegas getting a quickie divorce to go with his quickie wedding.
"House!" He turned around. Chase was hurrying towards him, waving a manila folder.
"I think we have a case," he said, trying to catch his breath. "Twenty-two year old female, fever of unknown origin, severe swelling in her elbows, ankles, and ears --"
"Ears?" House frowned. "You mean her Eustachian tubes? The ear canals?"
Chase shook his head. "Nope. The exterior -- pinna and lobes. She's got cauliflower ears like she just went three rounds with Roy Jones."
Intrigued, House started moving again towards the Diagnostics conference room.
"Order patch tests. Could be an allergic reaction. What's she do? Has she traveled recently? Been out of the country?"
The question of Wilson's whereabouts could wait. Not like there was anything wrong -- he would've heard about it already.
Wilson gimped out of the infirmary tent, moving in a slow, laborious gait that reminded him of his eighty-two year old grandfather.
On a good day.
He could walk, or rather, limp, on his scorpion-stung foot as long as he didn't put his entire weight on it and watched where he stepped. The problem was exacerbated by his still-sore and tender testicles -- he found himself having to swing one leg out in an exaggerated stride to keep from putting too much pressure on his groin.
Wilson wondered what House would have said if he'd known that Wilson had actually asked for a cane -- only to be denied on the grounds that such an aid could be considered a potential weapon in the hands of a prisoner.
He'd walked only a few feet before he had to stop and catch his breath. This crippled gait was hard on his hips and spine, and he thought again of House. How had he managed it all these years?
He has a cane, some mocking part of his brain answered. And Vicodin.
He sighed and started for the mess tent.
Wilson's gait had improved the longer he'd walked, and his stride was close to normal when he came around the edge of the last tent before the mess hall.
Three guards were beating a prisoner.
Wilson stopped dead, his heart thudding in his chest, his breathing suddenly fast and shallow.
The prisoner was sagging in the grip of two of the guards, arms pinioned behind him as the third guard landed blow after crushing blow in the man's gut, his jaw, his cheek. The inmate's nose had been broken; blood streamed down his face and dripped off his chin. He was breathing through his mouth, dragging in harsh, gasping breaths, and even from this distance Wilson could see torn, bloody gums and crimson-smeared teeth.
Wilson must've made some tiny noise; the guard paused in his assault and looked over his shoulder.
He grinned at Wilson.
Wilson turned and walked away as swiftly as he could without actually running.
He wasn't hungry anymore.
Wilson was still trying to calm himself when he realized he'd walked into the camp clearing.
Where there was a punishment taking place.
He stood rooted to the ground, staring as a prisoner's arms were raised over his head and his manacled wrists fastened to a short chain dangling from the top bar of the punishment frame.
A guard a few feet away shook out a long, braided whip. He drew his right arm back. The whip whistled through the air -- there was an ugly, horribly loud slapping sound and as if by magic a bright red stripe appeared on the prisoner's bare back. The man cried out as the whip fell again. No one else in the clearing paid any attention.
Some sudden, small movement distracted Wilson and he managed to look away -- something was waving, wiggling over to his right. He stumbled towards it, away from this place where a whip was opening raw red wounds on a prisoner's back.
The wiggling things were thin and white, and impossibly enough, they were growing out of the earth itself. His stomach turned over as he realized what they were.
It was the man in the hotbox, stretching his hand out of the narrow barred window of his broiling prison.
The fingers wiggled again, waving for attention, waving for release. Waving for help.
He watched as a bored guard stepped forward and ground his boot down on the prisoner's hand, forcing it back down and casually sliding the grate shut over the window.
Wilson fled.
House looked at his watch and was startled to see that it was almost 4:30. Where the hell had the day gone?
Well, he knew where the day had gone -- the patient, the tests, the hypotheses, the patient crashing, more tests, more hypotheses, berating his fellows, the patient improving, then crashing again, Cameron stalking off in a cold fury (that part had been fun, actually), and finally ... nothing. Anticlimax. The patient resting comfortably in the ICU.
His stomach growled; House had missed lunch. He might as well head home. Let Chase and Foreman continue to monitor the situation.
He stood up and began stuffing important stuff into his backpack -- journals, charts, his iPod.
The phone rang.
With a low growl, House snatched it up.
"You have reached the office of Dr. Gregory House," he announced in a robotic monotone. "He's not here right now, but --"
"Dr. House?" House rolled his eyes.
"What did I just say? He's not here right now. Leave a message --"
"Do you know how I can reach him? I'm a friend of his colleague, Dr. James Wilson."
House let the backpack fall to its side and sat down heavily in his office chair. He scrubbed a hand across his face and took a deep breath.
"This is Dr. House," he said. "What's happened to Wilson?"
"He said his name was Winston Sen," House said. "He's a radiation oncologist, lives in Oxnard, California, and he was with Wilson at the Vegas conference."
"And this has to do with ... what?" Cuddy was working, going through her interoffice mail. House flinched as she picked up a long, gleaming letter opener and slashed open another envelope.
"It has to do with Wilson not answering his cell phone. It has to do with Wilson not being at work today. It has to do with Wilson disappearing!"
Cuddy paused. "Wilson wasn't at work today?" She caught House's look of exasperation. "Oh, please," she snapped. "So he took an extra day off, played hooky. It's something you'd do in a heartbeat if you thought you could get away with it, so why are you so upset when he does it?"
"Because Wilson doesn't do these kinds of things!" He leaned forward. "Sen said he loaned Wilson his rental car. Next thing he knows, the company's calling his home number saying the cops found the car abandoned in the desert and he'll be hearing from the lawyers tomorrow if not sooner."
Cuddy had stopped ripping open envelopes and was staring at him.
"He talked to the cops -- they said the rental papers were in the glove compartment along with Wilson's wallet. No Wilson."
Cuddy sat back in her chair, trying to process what House was saying. She had a paper in her hand, the last piece of interoffice mail she'd opened. She glanced down, intending to slip it back in its envelope to deal with later, when the subject line and a printed name jumped out at her.
In Re: Request for Medical Records for Dr. James Wilson by Hellebore County Sheriff's Department, Hellebore, NV.
"Oh, shit," she whispered.
"Sergeant, if you could just tell us again what you know --"
The voice on the other end was calm and long-suffering.
"I've told you, ma'am. We're investigating the case but there are no new leads. If you'd like to file a missing persons report, then we'll follow up on that and let you know if anything new turns up."
Cuddy closed her eyes in frustration. House was motioning for the phone. She refused to give it to him.
"And you requested the medical records because --"
The Hellebore County police sergeant's voice was very gentle.
"In case we had to identify a body, ma'am."
Cuddy stayed on the phone for another twenty minutes, asking the same questions over and over, each time hoping for a different answer, but the officer's responses were consistent.
No new leads. No, ma'am, there'd been no signs of a struggle or any violence at all in or near the abandoned convertible. No, the subject's cellphone hadn't been located.
Yes, ma'am, you'd be more than welcome to pay us a visit. If you feel the need to. We're doing everything we can.
"Thank you, Sergeant," Cuddy said at last, still ignoring House's increasingly theatrical gestures for the telephone. "You've been a great help."
"You're very welcome, ma'am," the voice replied. There was a clicking sound, as if the officer had suddenly popped a wad of gum. "We'll be sure to let you know the minute anything turns up."
"It's a cover-up," House stated flatly.
Cuddy moaned, leaning back in her chair, wishing she could rub her weary eyes.
"Do you ever listen to yourself?" she demanded. "No, wait, of course you do, because you're the smartest person in the room and nobody else is worth listening to. House, the police are working the case. What else do you suggest I do?"
House's gaze was intense, blue eyes like frozen polar fire. Shaken, she looked away.
"I suggest you buy me a ticket to Las Vegas," he growled. "Because everybody lies."
House looked at the small square of white plastic and wondered for a moment if Wilson had ever suspected how neatly he'd picked his pocket that day, lifting the spare cardkey as deftly as any light-fingered thief. It had been months ago; surely Wilson would have noticed by now.
Maybe he did. Wilson's not stupid. Maybe he wanted you to take it.
House pushed the thought aside and slid the card into the slot. He had a puzzle to solve.
He pushed open the door to Wilson's Plainsboro hotel room, hoping against hope that this one last quest would prove him wrong.
That the whole thing -- the abandoned car, the mysterious disappearance, the phone silence -- had all been some kind of huge misunderstanding, and that Wilson would be here, a cold beer in his hand, ready to share the joke and laugh with House about how everything had snowballed and he was sorry for the way he'd made everyone worry.
The room was silent.
And empty.
Wilson was standing a few feet away from the barbed wire thicket. He could feel the guards' eyes on him, gauging his distance from the dead line, deciding shoot/don't shoot.
He paid them no mind. He was thinking.
Just a few days ago, he'd been James Wilson, M.D., Head of Oncology at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. One of the youngest Department Heads on the East Coast, respected in his field, on track for a Dean's position if he wanted it. A silver-tongued golden boy, everything within his reach.
It had all been swept away, lost in one misbegotten night.
Today he was Prisoner 24597, trapped in a nightmarish existence of Kafkaesque proportions. He'd been assaulted, robbed, jailed without cause. Beaten and Tasered repeatedly. Tied up in a field so he could be bitten and stung by insects. Burnt to a fine, melanoma-inducing shade of red, front and back.
And it was just going to go on and on, with no end in sight.
No one knew he was here. No one would ever find him.
If they were even searching for him.
Was House? A year ago he would've answered "yes", automatically and without thinking.
Now he wasn't so sure.
Wilson looked up, and saw two of the tower guards looking back at him, their automatic rifles unslung from their shoulders and ready at hand. It would only take them a moment to aim and fire, and all this would be over ...
The razor wire seemed to vibrate, calling to him.
Wilson shivered, started to take a step forward --
"Now do you really want to do that?"
Tooey, standing next to him. Close enough to touch.
"Because if you do, can I have your bologna sandwich tomorrow?"
Wilson closed his eyes. "Go away, Tooey," he said roughly. "Better to do it myself than wait around for them to."
"Wow," Tooey said admiringly. "That's deep. You get that out of a fortune cookie? Seen Gladiator one too many times? 'Maxims-R-Us'?" He snorted derisively. "If you commit suicide-by-cop then they win."
Wilson's head snapped around.
"Now who's full of shit?"
Tooey's lips quirked; he had the grace to look guilty as he scuffed at the dirt with one hideous pink flip-flop.
Wilson sighed. "Sorry."
Tooey exploded. "Jesus, will you shut up? You know, I get the feeling that you say that a lot -- every day, as a matter of fact. Am I right?"
Wilson looked away, shamefaced.
"I knew it. I knew I was right."
Tooey reached out, touched Wilson gently on his bicep.
"I don't want you to be sorry. I just want you to live."
They walked away from the fence together.
Tooey was prattling on about the flora and fauna of the Nevada desert, about work gangs past and present, and what 6843 had said to 475 when he'd found out that 475 had stolen his orange for the third time in a row.
Wilson wasn't listening. Tooey had been right. He needed to live.
He needed to live so he could escape from here.
Or die trying.
~ Chapter Six
NOTES:
Interesting information on the effects of scorpion stings may be found here.
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I am in such an emo mood today, everythings making me teary eyed. I am so glad House is in puzzle mode, but it's heartbreaking that Wilson isn't sure if House would care enough to go looking for him. Not a good sign that Wilson's already thinking about killing himself this early in the game.
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I was also curious about the scorpion. I knew that there were some that didn't have quite as bad a sting, and others that one sting could kill you in under an hour. Still squirming about that last chapter.
Still wanna hit Cuddy for not even noticing Wilson was gone. I do think she would have...someone in the oncology department would have came to her. But it is just likely she waved them off and forgot.
Yay for House!! :D :D :D
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(Anonymous) 2007-07-03 08:21 am (UTC)(link)