Five Unrelated Drabbles

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5. Closure

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He received the phone call just before the break of dawn on a cold and rainy Thursday morning. It was Cuddy on the other end of the line, her voice tight, as though she was trying not to cry, and as the rain hammered against his bedroom window, he listened to her words and felt his world come crashing down around him.

"House... Greg... It’s..." A pause. A shaky sigh. "It’s about Wilson..."

He held the phone to his ear long after Cuddy had hung up, the sound of the dial tone filling his head, and the bleary rays of the cloudy day slowly crept into his bedroom like an intruder, an unknown amount of time ticking by as he remained staring numbly ahead of him. It was when House, with a sickening churn to his stomach, suddenly found himself unable to recall Wilson’s face that he threw the phone against the wall. It shattered into pieces and he wished, wished that Cuddy’s words could have shattered with it.

The numbness lingered, days turning into weeks, and each time House set foot into Princeton-Plainsboro it was as if Wilson’s ghost was loitering in every corner; a faceless ghost. House even gave up trying to remember what Wilson’s voice sounded like.

House didn’t know what possessed him to go by Wilson’s house one sunny Friday afternoon -- perhaps it was the need for closure -- but an intoxicated Julie greeted him at the door with a glass of whisky in her hand. She’d ushered him in drunkenly and as House sat uncomfortably upon the sofa with the overwhelming scent and reminder of Wilson everywhere around him, Julie attempted some forced conversation before suddenly breaking down into hysterical tears, crying into her drink.

He vaguely heard her sobbing about how much she missed her husband, asking why his car had wrapped around that streetlamp, and how long it had been since she had told Wilson she loved him and how it was now too late to ever tell him again, but House wasn’t really listening. He was staring at a picture of Wilson upon the mantelpiece. In the photo, Wilson was smiling that sheepish smile he'd always sported and for the first time since receiving that phone call, House felt his insides clench as memories of Wilson came flooding back.

House left Julie to cry by herself on the sofa after patting her shoulder awkwardly, and when he stepped out of the house into the late afternoon, the sun slowly began to dry his tears.

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