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"Bonnie?" he says with a little laugh.
"Yeah, what's it to ya?" she snaps at him, already regretting being nice to this guy. Thursday meeting. Kinda scruffy. Bit of an attitude.
He waves his hands in apology. "Sorry. My - um - my ex had a wife with that name."
Bonnie Plunkett shrugs. "Common enough name." And then something filters through. "Your ex was - a lesbian? Or you're -?"
The guy blinks. "Oh. Labels are boring."
Bonnie chuckles. "Bisexual. Gotcha."
He frowns. "I didn't say that."
"Didn't have to." She scrawls her number on the back of a flier for local yoga classes; thinks about introducing him to Rod, and maybe Adam if he behaves himself. "You have a name?"
The guy, one of very few Bonnie's encountered at meetings who isn't shorter than she is, flinches slightly. Then he does a move Bonnie's familiar with: decides whether or not to lie. "Greg," he says.
He says it like he hasn't uttered that name in several years. That's how Bonnie knows he's telling the truth.
*
House is at a sports bar when the woman from the meeting walks in, and he wonders if she's put some kind of tracking device on him. "Greg!" she says in surprise.
"Bonnie," he greets her, smirking slightly; if he's in trouble then so is she.
"What are you doing here?" she asks.
He indicates the big screen with a flick of his cane. "Game's on."
"And you're drinking," she says.
"And you're in a bar," he retorts.
"My husband owns the place," she snaps.
House is sure she's lying, because he's met the owner. Adam. The guy's in a wheelchair. This lady is not the sort of woman who'd go for a guy like that. Not long-term.
He knows what it's like to be damaged goods.
"I'm very happy for you both, but you’re blocking the screen," he says.
"Fine. Whatever. Here if you want to talk." Bonnie throws up her hands in a way that reminds him, stupidly, of Wilson, and he stares firmly at the TV screen. He's not even sure what teams are playing.
Then Adam comes out from behind the bar and Bonnie eases herself onto his lap so naturally that it's suddenly clear House got it all wrong. They are married. Fuck, Adam even alluded to his wife being tall and scary and in recovery.
You're slipping, House chastises himself mentally.
He finishes his drink and clears out before the game ends. His throat is tight already; he doesn't want to get maudlin and weepy in public. Back in his motel room, he takes out the flier and sends her a message. When's the next meeting?
*
"He's hot," a tall blonde woman says approvingly as he enters the room, and then covers her mouth with her hands. "Omigosh sorry!" she calls over in his direction.
He doesn't quite know how to respond to this, just offers up a little nod. She must be a friend of Bonnie's, he realizes; they're standing in a little cluster next to the inevitably-crappy cookies-and-coffee table, but also the way Bonnie and the others are familiarly yet fondly embarrassed speaks to an ongoing friendship.
"That’s Tammy," Bonnie says in his ear a second later, moving like lightning. "She means well."
"It's okay. Flattering."
"I'm glad you came." She says this with such genuine warmth that it unnerves him slightly. Do-gooders. "Hey, let me introduce you to Rod."
A spiky-haired guy with a British accent and a vaguely familiar vibe comes over.
Bonnie makes the introductions. "Rod Knaughton, this is Greg won't-give-us-a-surname."
"Rod Knaughton?" House repeats. Click. "From Sachet!"
Rod's face lights up. "That’s right, man!"
Okay, he wasn't expecting to run into a washed-up version of the rock star he had a vague half-crush on in the late 80s, crap lyrics not withstanding. Maybe he'll hang around Napa a bit longer.
As he and Rod talk music, he's distantly aware of Bonnie, having drifted back to the women, declaring, "Finally! Someone else who knows the work of one of the greatest bands of all time!"
And another woman, older he would guess, saying, "Come on, Bonnie, they had one good song."
*
"He'll tell us when he's ready," Marjorie says when they're all at the bistro one evening.
Tammy pouts. "I wanna know now. That guy has a story."
"Everyone's got a story," Bonnie says. She feels oddly protective of Greg, as the one to have introduced him to the group.
"Andy likes him," Jill notes, even though her husband and the father of her children likes most people. But the two men have bonded over barbecued meat.
"Rod loves him," Bonnie adds.
"Of course he does, he's found the only guy in North America who remembers his little band," Jill says.
"They’re co-writing a song. I can't decide if it's pathetic or kinda sweet," Bonnie muses.
Wendy stays quiet.
*
Everyone at the meetings always forgets Wendy's a nurse. Even her friends. They think of her as the woman who cries at everything, at worst; the reliable boring one, at best.
But even alongside the siren call of booze, and that terrible envy of her patients as they receive intravenous drugs, no matter the reason, she's always been a medical professional. Not in the way most people imagine. She's impatient, a lot, rather than being eternally caring and compassionate. She has perspective. Everyone hurts sometimes. She thinks it's important to remember that.
"Is it the worst it's ever been?" she asks Greg when he calls.
"No," he hisses, reluctantly.
"Then you'll survive it. Can you get to a meeting?"
"When?"
"As soon as possible."
Greg huffs down the phone. "You sound like Marjorie."
Wendy shrugs. Marjorie's kept her, and a whole lot of others, sober for years. It's a compliment.
It takes her a while to realize that she's the one - not Marjorie, not Bonnie, not Rod - that Greg always calls.
*
When House talks to his new friends - and it feels strange that in this life he has friends plural - about his chronic pain, they have different responses.
Bonnie makes it all about her, which he sort of loves; he gets to hear about her own experience with pain pills. He still thinks she's a do-gooder type, but he likes her a lot more now that he understands she needs to make up for decades of being a disaster.
Marjorie offers up clichés, and tells him to think about everything he's survived before, and advises being of service to someone else. He learns to call her only when he needs the obvious reminders; it pisses him off too much otherwise.
Rod suggests they jam for a bit, and it's the one distraction that works some of the time.
Wendy asks specific questions about the pain, makes him put a number on it, and interrupts him before he can lecture her on the inefficiency of pain scales. She inevitably identifies something small and stupid he should have done, or should be doing regularly, to alleviate the ache.
She tells him to get to a meeting, and sometimes meets him there; other times she'll call him afterward. He starts asking her questions about work, about specific cases, and swallows down anything that might make him sound too knowledgeable. Mostly her work is about immediate treatment of obvious things, no puzzles to solve, but he finds he drinks up the details all the same.
*
Wendy's babysitting Jill and Andy's kids when one of them gets a high temperature and she's pretty sure it's nothing to worry about but she calls Greg anyway.
He comes over, whistles with approval at the fancy place, and checks out the kid. "She's fine," he says, letting her poke a chubby finger in his eye without complaining.
Wendy exhales in relief.
"Why'd you call me?" Greg asks, and suddenly that relief is nowhere to be found.
"I know who you are," she says. "I knew you'd - be able to help." She chooses her words carefully.
"Okay," he says slowly.
"It's just me," she adds, desperate to reassure. "The others don't know anything."
"Does anyone at your hospital know?" he asks the wall, apparently not wanting to look at her, not even wanting to pose the question, but knowing that he has to.
"No! I'm not going to tell anyone, Greg. I mean, like anyone would even pay attention if I said anything, I'm just a stupid nurse."
Not like you, legendary diagnostician who appears to have faked his own death, she thinks.
"Okay," he says slowly.
She's not expecting him to reassure her on the 'just a stupid nurse' front. She knows how doctors feel about nurses. For years, while she was still drinking and drugging, it felt like justification to do what she was doing. If what I'm doing doesn't matter, if I don't matter, then who cares what I put in my body?
But after she's run through an explanation of why she got so worried over Jill's daughter, after she's given Greg the full story of Jill and Andy and their long path to actually having two healthy happy kids, he says, "Good nurses see things doctors miss all the time."
She feels slightly fizzy inside. Stupid, she chastises herself.
*
"I think he's done time in the slammer," Tammy says. "Not too much time, though. Less than six months."
"Fingernails?" Bonnie asks.
Tammy nods.
Wendy exchanges a glance with Jill. They're the only two at the table to have avoided jail time; overnight in a police cell doesn't count.
"I bet it was for something smart," Tammy muses. "Like insider training. Or - something to do with Bitcoin."
"Ladies," Marjorie interjects.
"What is Bitcoin?" Tammy wonders.
"We don't speculate on our friends' pasts," Marjorie tells them. "If Greg has something he wants to tell us, he'll tell us when he's ready."
"You're no fun," Bonnie pouts.
"I know." Marjorie smiles.
Wendy watches it play out and resists the urge to scream, I know what his secret is!
She wants so badly to be the one in the know, which she knows is pathetic at her age, but she feels it all the same. But underneath all that is a sense of loyalty to the man who turned up, no questions asked, when she was worried about Jill's daughter. The man who calls her up some evenings or mornings, depending on when her shift ends, and listens to stories about the ER with genuine interest. The man who’s making baby steps toward recovery, who's become a regular in a way that is at odds with everything she's ever heard about him from other medical professionals.
So she shuts up and drinks her soda.
*
At the Tuesday morning meeting, Jill talks about her mom and they realize as one, before Jill confirms it, that it's the anniversary of her death. Her suicide.
Greg's the only one who hasn't heard the story before, Wendy realizes as she watches him, two rows ahead. He and Rod are sitting together, being guys, talking about whatever it is they talk about, but she can see Greg's spine stiffen as Jill speaks, and notices Rod tilt a head - presumably to ask if he's okay.
She knows it's going to happen before it does; Greg launches himself out of his chair and hobbles down the aisle. Wendy consults with the others via eye contact: I'll check on him.
There's a bench a little ways down the corridor; she finds him sitting there. He has his hands laced behind his head, resting back against the wall. His eyes are far away until he spots her.
"Hi," she says tentatively.
"Needed air," he says.
"Sure." She knows he's lying. Let him. He needs to, right now.
"My mom's still alive. For the record."
"You get along?"
Greg shrugs. "I guess. Better since my dad died."
Wendy's about to ask, but -
"He didn't kill himself either," Greg says.
"I'm not your therapist," Wendy says. "I just wanted to see if you were okay, is all."
"I'm fine," he hisses.
"You seem fine. I always run out of meetings when I'm fine."
He lets out a little snort.
She sits down next to him.
After a while he says, "You must know someone who's done it, right? Someone you've worked with?"
"No one I was really close to. But, yeah. A few people, at work." Two of them back when she was still drinking, which at the time was an excuse - grieving people can't be held accountable for their actions, right? Wendy shudders inwardly. She hates herself for that.
"I'm sorry," Greg says, and seems to really mean it.
"It's okay." She chews her lip, wonders whether to ask. Finally she says, "They're probably almost done. You want to join us for coffee?"
*
In the bistro House is the perfect gentleman. "Sorry for bailing on your share," he says to Jill. "That really sucks about your mom, I'm sorry."
She looks surprised and he realizes it might be the first time he's been sincere with her. He likes Andy a lot, but Jill's definitely an acquired taste.
Bonnie launches into a retelling of a trivial argument she had with Adam the previous night, insisting that House and Rod join in with the male perspective, and then getting annoyed when they agree with Adam.
"This is the problem with straight men," Jill says. "They all got the same handbook."
"Greg's not straight," Bonnie snaps back immediately, and then looks like she wants to die. "Shit. Sorry."
House shrugs, like it’s no big deal, and it isn't, really, except that this line of discussion could well lead to the thing he both does and doesn't want to talk about. He referenced Wilson the very first time he met Bonnie, all those months ago. Some part of him wants to share it, all of it. Another part is afraid that if he starts, he'll never be able to stop. "It's cool."
"He had a crush on me once," Rod boasts.
House bursts out laughing. "You dick! I told you that in confidence!"
"Bragging rights, mate."
"Omigod," Tammy says. "You're gay?"
House does not mean to be looking straight at Wendy at that moment. He's too busy being fond of Rod, and amused by the situation, but then he looks at her and she's almost - stricken.
"Equal opportunities," he corrects. "Open to romantic and sexual disasters of all genders."
"So inclusive of you," Marjorie says dryly, although he senses there's a part of her not entirely unpleased by this news. Interesting. He wonders how she'd react if he were to caress Rod's hair, but reluctantly decides keeping his friendship with Rod non-weird is more important.
When he glances at Wendy again, she seems calmer. But maybe he's just imagining it.
*
He moves out of the motel and into an actual apartment. At that evening's meeting, when Wendy asks, "would anyone else like to share?", he raises his hand and shuffles toward the front of the room.
"Hi," he begins, steeling himself for the predictability. "I'm Greg, and I'm an alcoholic, and an addict."
"Hi, Greg." The Napa meetings, he’s discovered, are never phazed by drug addicts; almost everyone he knows here has multiple addictions or substance abuse issues or whatever label you want to slap on it. Other places in the country are firmer; get thee to NA pronto!
He likes Napa.
"I've been sober a while." He doesn't want to give specifics. It's not that he doesn't know them. It's just that the last day he technically 'did drugs' (he takes the booze less seriously) was the day Wilson died, and he doesn't want to do that countdown - the days, months, years he's lived without him. "I don't know if I really believe in the program, but I know my life the past year has been better for the friends I've made here."
He eyes them up now: Bonnie is listening attentively, cheering him on with her eyes; Rod's literally giving him two thumbs-up; Marjorie looks proud.
And then Wendy's looking at him like he's some kind of saint and he wants to snap her out of it so much that his nice, Greg 2.0 plans fall by the wayside.
"I killed my best friend," he says suddenly, and he's all too aware of how an audience used to hearing terrible things is still shocked by this. "My - boyfriend, I guess." Words are inadequate. My Wilson, is what he means. It's the only word that properly fits.
The adoring look has been wiped off Wendy's face. Good.
"He was sick. Cancer. In so much fucking pain -" He stops. He has to stop.
They'll hate him. They'll pity him. He doesn't know which is worse. All he knows is that he has to get out of there.
*
"Listen, buddy," Adam says, "I gotta tell you - I know booze isn't your main thing, and I'm not here to judge, but Bonnie called and said if you turned up to ask you some questions." He rummages around for something in his pocket, and then pulls out an ink-stained coaster.
"Okay," Adam continues. "Can you 'sit with the feelings' for five minutes?" He runs a hand through his hair. "I'm actually kinda embarrassed I know what that means. Just let me get through the rest, okay? If you still want a drink after that, I'm not gonna stop you."
House starts laughing, and then - horrendously - sobbing.
He's become dependent on people again. How many bars are there in the area? And he ends up in this one? Wasn't he hoping that this precise thing would happen - that Adam would step in, and that there'd be some flurry of messages and calls so that he'd have people around him if needed?
Pathetic. Fucking pathetic.
And yet when Bonnie and Wendy come through the door, almost tiptoeing toward him, he's glad to see them.
He sleeps on Wendy's couch that night.
*
"Rise and shine!" Wendy says cheerfully.
Greg dramatically pulls the blanket over his head. "It's too early in the morning," he complains.
"It's noon on a Saturday, and you're coming with me to my Mensa meeting this afternoon."
"Mensa?"
"We do puzzles. You're going to love it." She waits for him to object, or to say something cutting about how he can't possibly take Mensa seriously if they've admitted her as a member. Her heart pounds just a tiny bit.
He pulls the blanket down slightly to reveal his face. "Do I have to wear pants?"
"Yes, Greg, you have to wear pants."
"Are there snacks?"
"Excellent snacks," she promises.
"You're lying," he deduces. Correctly.
"Mediocre snacks," she amends.
She's ready to concede and let him stay snoozing on her couch for the rest of the day, when he says something she really doesn't expect.
"What kind of food do they like?"
*
"Do you think Greg and Wendy are hooking up?" Bonnie asks the table. It's just her, Marjorie, and Tammy today; Jill has a parent-teacher conference and Wendy's at work.
"No!" Tammy says, then ponders. "I guess they could be."
"It's none of our business," Marjorie says.
Bonnie ignores this. "I mean, I think she could be good for him. But I still want to know what that story is with his ex."
"I know, right?" Tammy says. "It sounds awful. But maybe kind of romantic at the same time. Like, if I was dying in agony, I think I'd want someone to do that for me."
"Me too."
"Make a deal? If either of us -"
"Totally." They shake on it.
"Ladies," Marjorie says impatiently.
"Sorry, Marjorie," they chorus.
"Can I get in on that deal?" she asks quietly.
Hands are clasped, tightly.
*
Much as she loves living alone, Wendy sometimes misses the days when she had nurse roommates and swapped medical horror stories over dinner. When Greg starts staying over once a week or so, it's nice.
There's a late meeting on Fridays and then Mensa meetings on Saturdays; Greg brings food they all swoon over and when Wendy eye-rolls about how hard can it be to cook stuff, Greg counters with a comment that his cooking's at his best when he's not working.
"Don't you miss it?" she asks, and he shuts down, and she learns not to ask that question again.
Except. Except she has an in at HR, and she thinks she can make something work. She poses it to him one night, aware he might scoff. Clinic duty in a local hospital is lightyears away from being a world-renowned diagnostician. It's so under the radar that the fudged documents will pass muster; he just needs someone - her - to vouch that he is in fact a doctor.
"Are you serious?" he says.
"You don't have to say yes, it's just an option, if you ever wanted it," she says, trying to seem cool.
He doesn't say yes verbally. He kisses her instead.
*
For several weeks they don't talk, just kiss and fuck. House knows this is not, strictly-speaking, healthy. He knows enough about twelve-step programs to be aware of what a bad idea it is to date/sleep with/whatever someone in them, especially if it's someone who's part of your recovery. House has resisted naming anyone as his official sponsor but everyone he knows in AA, and indeed in Napa, counts as a friend of Wendy's.
Marjorie calls him up one day and he prepares for the lecture she's bound to give. "Listen, Greg - if it doesn't work out with you and Wendy, if you feel like you can't come to our meetings anymore, give me a call. There are other people out there you can talk to."
He clears his throat. "Sure. Whatever."
"I mean it. Don't let any relationship get in the way of your sobriety."
He hates her for the clichés. He wants to hang up. He doesn't. "How do I -" He clears his throat. "How do I not fuck it up with Wendy?"
*
"You look happy," Jill notes when Wendy arrives.
Wendy shrugs.
"She's getting laid," Bonnie says shrewdly.
"It's her business if she is," Marjorie says.
"It's all our business," Jill sniffs. "Sharing is caring, am I right?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Wendy lies. She wants to scream it from the rooftops. Maybe hire one of those planes that does sky writing. When she’s in bed with him - it's the happiest she's ever been.
She also doesn't want to ruin it. She's ruined too many things in her life.
"So you are doing him," Jill says.
"Leave it alone," Marjorie cautions, which Wendy is grateful for; she squeezes Marjorie's hand afterward.
*
It's two months into their sleeping together and three weeks into Greg's new job at the hospital, under a false identity, when Wendy comes home with a story about a patient diagnosed with a thymoma. She's proud of the catch; the attending wasn't inclined to go for a CT, but she pushed for it.
She's so busy showing off that it takes her a minute to see how Greg is removing himself from the room, how his body is still there but his mind is determinedly somewhere else.
"I've hit a nerve," she says.
"Yeah," he says tightly.
"Tell me." She's still standing; he's on her couch. She's careful not to get too close, to not spook him; she settles herself on the floor instead, cross-legged. "Tell me about him."
Greg squeezes his eyes shut.
"Tell me," she repeats. Scoots closer. "Wilson had that, right?"
Greg nods.
"Late diagnosis. Nothing you could have done." She's guessing, or half-guessing - this puzzle has been at the back of her mind for months. "And it kills you. Of course it kills you. You're a genius and you couldn't save him."
He blinks and then he's sobbing, and she leaps up to the couch to comfort him. He's awkward accepting hugs, even from the woman he's been sleeping with, but she can live with that. She sits with him, and holds him when he lets her, and pulls back when he doesn't. He falls asleep with his head in her lap, her hands in his hair.
*
House wakes up vaguely embarrassed. A slight groan emanates from him.
"We all cry, get over it," Wendy calls from the kitchen.
Okay then.
*
He knows the Wilson conversation is coming. It's why he goes back to his own apartment for three weeks and avoids meetings for that time, until Bonnie calls him up and tells him he's being an idiot and to get himself to the eight o'clock meeting that evening.
This is followed up with less threatening messages from Rod, Marjorie, and Adam. Andy also gets in touch to suggest a steak night, but there's a PS that goes please go to a meeting dude!
House could resent this kind of intrusive behavior. None of these people have even witnessed his drug-abusing lifestyle; he's been a veritable pussycat since he landed in Napa. Occasional grumpiness or abuse is just - him being himself.
Even so. He goes to the damn meeting.
*
Okay. If he has to talk about it. If he has to.
Nolan would be proud.
He's on Wendy's couch and they're talking about it and he hasn't died yet.
"I didn't make it easy for him," he whispers.
She squeezes his fingers.
"I made him hold on longer than he should've . . ." I wanted him to stay, is what he means. He helped Wilson die but mostly he was a selfish fucker as usual, trying to keep him forever.
I killed Wilson is a line that runs through his brain regularly, and he's still not sure if he means that he finally gave Wilson the overdose to end his suffering or if he means he wore him down through weeks of begging, hold on, hold on, until it all became too much.
*
"You can't make anyone do anything," Wendy says, one of the few things she's sure of. "If he held on, he wanted to."
"No, you don't know Wilson," Greg says.
Wendy laughs, then puts a hand over her mouth. "Sorry. I didn't mean - Greg, everyone thinks they're special. Most of us aren't. And that's okay."
There is something happening with Greg, some slight easing in his posture, that prompts her to continue, even though she's offered up the best of the Marjorie-wisdom she has.
"If he held on," she repeats, "he wanted to. You can't make people do that."
Greg buries his face in her shoulder. Shakes.
She holds on as tight as she dares.
*
"Wendy's kind of in love with him," Jill says. "Should we be jumping in to save her?"
"I don't want her to get hurt," Tammy agrees.
"I don't want either of them to get hurt," Bonnie says. "I want it to work out, for once."
*
Slowly, slowly, he talks about Wilson. The years of friendship. The always-underlying something-more. The eventual horror of his diagnosis. House cries a lot, and Wendy lets him, without trying to make it all better.
As it goes on, he talks more about the good times: the stupid pranks, the silly games, the joy of it all.
"You were so lucky to have each other," Wendy says, which is a cliché and yet gets him in the heart all the same. He clings to her harder that night.
He loves that she doesn't get jealous. She just wants to know more; it takes him a few days to realize it's partly her oncology nerd side at play, eager to get details about the late Dr James Wilson the way normal people are about celebrities.
House is okay with this. It feels like how people should be, about Wilson.
*
In the clinic, it doesn't matter that he's a genius, as long as he's useful.
At meetings, it doesn't matter that he's a genius, as long as he's sober.
With his girlfriend, it doesn't matter that he's a genius, as long as he's kind, or at least not a total dick.
He is learning how to be in this world. Even if it is a world without Wilson. A world he is surprised daily he can live in.
One day at a time. One fucking day at a time.