One would think that his leg would get worse as he grew older. But it didn’t. The pain was still always there, but no worse that it had been before. Everything else did get worse, though. His drinking, his loneliness, his bitterness. And he never got off those pills either. And he was older. So much older. Everyone around him, everyone he once knew, started dying of a few years ago, leaving him even less people to call and talk to. He was not afraid of dying now, but death wouldn’tde come to him. Wilson was dead now too, for a time much longer that House ever imagined he could be separated from him. And yet he was alone, for months and years now, and was still breathing and drinking and eating vicodyn. Alone. The days weren’t all so bad. There were some when he was called back to the hospital to solve a case or two, which he did, and afterwards felt almost happy about it. But these days were getting fewer now, as younger doctors slowly replaced him and everything changed. No matter how much he read and studied and tried, time ran over him. And entering those hallways… even though now different than they once were, they still brought back memories. Of Chase and Cameron and Foreman and all the other doctors that worked for him after they had left, of Cuddy and the first and last Mrs. House, but mostly memories of the people he had saved and never looked at, never remembered their faces or names – even though he could recall most of the diseases they had had. The hardest memories of them all, memories of Wilson, didn’t need any stimulation so that they would return to his old and messy mind. They were there all the time. When he drank coffee, House remembered how Wilson used to did that. Once he was thinking deeply about a case and, wanting to go and talk to Wilson about it, he had already put on his coat – before he had remembered that Wilson was not there any more. It was hard, hard every single time, all the time. Yet memories were what he lived off – memories of their talks during the day, and their kisses during the night. He had wondered how they could had thrown away all those years of their youth, never realizing how much they loved each other, not until they were middle-aged, broken and bitter, and there was no future for them any more. House wished they would had tried anyway, tried to live together, to love each other, but they were not ready for it, House was not ready for it, not until it was too late and Wilson was there no more. He was too old now even for hookers, and that meant Wilson sometimes came to his dreams. He went to sleep every night, hoping he would come, hoping they could talk, that was all he was asking for, but when he did come, they never talked. In his dreams, they were young again, full of power and life, House’s leg didn’t hurt and Wilson wasn’t being eaten up by cancer, a disease he had fought against for his entire life, but about which he could do nothing when it came for him. It was not fair, House realized, that he was given more time that Wilson had been. He never did anything right, he was never nice to a person and he only loved with lust and greed, never with care and compassion, yet he was here now and many others were not. It was a sunny Sunday in autumn when he decided to finish it all. Overdose seemed like the way to go, and he made sure an old friend was coming around later, so he would not rot in his apartment for days before anyone would find him. After he took the pills, he sat at the piano and played for the last time, he played Wilson’s favourite song, and he was suddenly not in his apartment any more, he was walking in the sun and Wilson was there and other people he had loved, but never admitted to it. When the darkness came, he was not afraid any more, and he drifted into it with the soft sound of the song in his ears.

*

When Alice Cameron found his old boss lying on the floor of his apartment, she was not surprised. She always knew he would leave this world like this, when he would decide it by himself, and he would not let death surprise him. She called the ambulance and then left, before it arrived, going home to her husband and her youngest daughter, for they were the only ones who could comfort her.