house_wilson_ghc | Chain fic complete story: Better than Dibala

Title: Better than Dibala
Authors:

damigella_314
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Major real life character death :)
Summary: House's honor and liberty are restored after he does a great service to mankind. Post-7X23 "Moving On" crack!fic.
Note: This fic was written in response to the "Where Do We Go from Here?" Chain Fic Challenge

http://h-w-chainfic.livejournal.com/828.html#cutid1 by flywoman

House returns to consciousness slowly, swimming up through many layers of murky memories and heavy haze. There is a faint, rhythmic murmur at the edges of his hearing that gradually grows louder as he surfaces. For a moment he can't place the sound - it could be the intake of the hospital ventilation system from his bed in the ICU or the muted roar of waves approaching a bright beach. He can feel the familiar dull throb in his right thigh and a warm pressure surrounding the fingers of his left hand.

http://h-w-chainfic.livejournal.com/3267.html by menolly_au

He opens his eyes and glances down at his hand, a crab is tickling his fingers, probing to see what this strange creature on the beach is. He watches the crab for a few seconds, fascinated by the way it moves but then shakes it off and sits up.

The sun is beginning to set, the warmth of the day giving way to a cooler evening. House gathers his cane up and gets to his feet, he limps off, thigh protesting at the tough going in the sand.

He is staying in a small place, just off the beach. There's not much there, just a place to rest at night. He spends his days on the beach, watching the ocean, drinking in the heat of the sun. He has no phone, no laptop, no internet, no television. As a child he'd dreamed of being a castaway on a desert island, this is the next best thing.

He knows he should be sorry about what he did, and he does regret that he scared Cuddy. He doesn't regret letting out his anger, his hurt, everything that had been building since the infarction, no, truthfully since before that, since the first time he'd been locked outside on a cold night.

He shakes off the memory of Wilson, standing there, cradling his injured hand. He'd tried to protect him, got him out of the car. Of course the klutz had to go and get in the way again. Wilson had always tried to get between House and trouble, he'd never quite succeeded.

He feels a pang of something as he thinks again of Wilson, he thinks it might be loss.

When he retires to bed that night he picks up a trashy magazine to read from the pile he'd purchased at the airport. A card falls out of the magazine and he stares at it, he'd chucked that it with the magazines, intending to send it to Wilson when he reached his destination, or not - he hadn't decided.

It's a silly 'get well' card, with a picture of a teddy bear on the front with a bandaged paw.

He opens the card and stares at the blankness inside, thinking that this is the last time he will ever communicate with Wilson. He should write down everything Wilson has meant to him, everything he could never tell Wilson to his face.

After a long time he picks up his pen and scrawls 'sorry' over the blank surface.

He'll post it tomorrow, or maybe he won't.

http://h-w-chainfic.livejournal.com/7924.html by damigella_314

House is packing under the watchful eyes of two men in dark suits and darker sunglasses.

"Thank you very much, Dr. House. You can go back to Princeton with nothing to fear. There are no pending charges against you, the police reports and the scripts with the fake signatures have been destroyed, and your former boss has been convinced to accept a new job in LA."

"Cuddy's moving? How did you do that?"

"We thought it would be hard, but apparently after two weeks in her mother's guest room it wasn't at all."

House laughs, then pops one more Vicodin as the two guys look politely elsewhere. "So I shouldn't feel guilty. I just served my country, right?"

The voice answering is firm. "You did a great service not only to your country, but to NATO. To mankind. Have you any idea what American diplomacy has had to deal with? He told a German Parliament member that he looked like a Kapo! He said he had to fuck the ugly Finnish president to get her to vote in favor of Italy! He joked about Obama being suntanned! He covered Gaddafi with honors three months before we started bombing Libya!"

"And let's not go into underage prostitutes, blow-job-giving ministers, and bunga bunga. Or the Czech PM's naked pics." Both men shudder visibly.

House chuckles as he closes the suitcase. "Yes, and it still would have meant nothing if he hadn't grabbed Michelle's ass at the last G8 meeting. I still don't understand why I had to do it. Couldn't you have sent in the Navy Seals?"

"We can't send our armed forces to assassinate people in allied countries more than once a year, even if all they do is kill elderly assholes that amply deserve it. And he normally wouldn't have accepted a non-mafia vetted doctor. He made an exception for you because… I don't know, really. Our psychiatrist said something about confusing TV shows and reality - after all, he controlled all TV channels here."

"He talked only about sex and drugs. I kind of liked him."

"And you gave him a kindly ending. Enough Viagra to give him a heart attack."

"At least he died while doing something he liked." House realizes he doesn't feel guilty, after all.

There is honking from outside the bungalow. "Goodbye, Dr. House. And forget anything that happened in the last two weeks."

House smirks. "I will, officer."

He sits down in the taxi while the driver puts his suitcase in the trunk. He pulls out the "Get well" card he had not been allowed to send, and remembers that Wilson will be picking him up at Newark. He has a plan to make amends for the sprained wrist. He smirks again. A very pleasant plan.

The End