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  The Last Time 
 by Evilida  

 

Although this was the fourth time that Dr. James Wilson has been married,
this was the first time he has ever had to deal with the intricacies of
wedding planning. His first wedding involved hardly any planning at all.
He and his first wife had been ridiculously young, had had no money, and
had married in defiance of both sets of parents. His second and third
weddings had been planned by Mrs. Wilsons number two and number three, and
Dr. Wilson's role had been limited to looking good in a tuxedo and saying
"I do" at the appropriate moment. However, his fourth and hopefully final
bride was just as busy as he was, and she insisted that he do his fair
share. That's why he was sitting in the office of Michael Lieberman,
wedding photographer. Wilson wasn't sure why his best friend, renowned
diagnostician Dr. Gregory House, was sitting beside him. 

Without his camera in front of him, Michael Lieberman was painfully shy.
Every time Wilson met his eyes, Lieberman would start and blink his eyes,
as if by shutting his eyes he could make Wilson disappear. Tactfully,
after the first couple of accidental glances, Wilson carefully avoided
looking at him, instead leafing through the album of wedding photographs.
In contrast, House made a point of staring intently at the unfortunate
man, who was now curled up in a corner of his chair as far as he could get
from House, face red, staring up at a ceiling tile in the far corner of
the room. Wilson was hardly a connoisseur of wedding photography; the
portraits Lieberman displayed seemed practically identical to those of the
other two photographers he had seen so far. Still Wilson knew he was going
to hire Lieberman to make up for subjecting him to House. 

As they left the office, House said in a loud carrying voice, "I'm sure
I've seen that face before. Wasn't he featured on `America's Most
Wanted'?"

Wilson ignored him, not even bothering to roll his eyes.

"I can understand why you went along with Lisa when she was choosing
caterers..."

"Free food," House agreed.

"But why are you coming along with me? Even I find these wedding
preparations tedious, and I'm the one getting married!"

"I don't have a patient at the moment and General Hospital has a
particularly dull storyline at the moment. A long lost identical twin - I
have a strange feeling that he's going to turn out to be evil."



Very few of Wilson's relatives were coming to the wedding. Only his
parents, his brother, and his sister-in-law had agreed to attend, and
Wilson thought the latter two would have declined as well except for the
fact that their daughter, Leah, was one of the two flower girls. The other
flower girl was Lisa's daughter Emily, nicknamed Screaming Mimi or S.M.
for short by House after she had a tantrum in the lobby of the hospital
when she was two-and-a-half years old. Gregory House was Wilson's best
man, and Lisa's college friend Andrea was going to be the matron of
honour.

House had managed to purloin some of the wedding invitations and had sent
three of them to his former underlings. Eric Foreman was now a renowned
neurologist at Johns Hopkins; Allison Cameron was working at a teaching
hospital in New York while raising two sons; and Robert Chase had gone
back to Australia to practise there, having decided that since his father
had died, there was no longer any particular point to avoiding the land of
his birth. Wilson was only a little angry when he found out, since he was
drowning in a sea of his fiance`s relatives and could use a few more
people on his side. He had thought that there was a slight possibility
that of the three, Cameron might come as she lived within a day's drive,
and had assumed the other two would decline. To his dismay, all three had
accepted. Foreman and Cameron were even bringing their spouses. Dr. Lisa
Cuddy, Wilson's fiance, was not particularly pleased that their wedding
reception had become a reunion dinner for House's former fellows, but what
was done was done. She asked only that all of them be seated together at a
table near the kitchen.

Because this was his fourth marriage and he had never been particularly
observant anyway, Wilson had been concerned when his fiance insisted on a
traditional Jewish ceremony. He was afraid that the rabbi at Lisa's
synagogue would refuse to marry them. However, after Wilson agreed to
attend religious instruction on how to be a good husband, the rabbi agreed
to officiate. Wilson thought the marriage instruction was pretty
pointless. He'd been through it three times before and all the counsellors
had used pretty much the same script. He thought he could probably teach
it himself by this point. He believed that he knew how to be a good
husband, if he really wanted to, but he hadn't married the right person or
married for the right reason.

He had been too immature to marry the first time. Michelle and he had been
college students. Michelle was the daughter of a very wealthy family.
Wilson and Michelle had both agreed that they wanted children, but after
they married they found that they disagreed on the specifics. Michelle's
ideal family was the Waltons - a large family surviving on love and
laughter, even if the kids had to wear hand-me-downs and eat beans instead
of steak. Wilson was volunteering at a free clinic at this time, partly
because this kind of volunteer work was going to look on his resume when
he tried to get into medical school and partly because he genuinely
enjoyed helping people. Every week, he saw people who were working long
hours at minimum wage jobs, without medical insurance. They were worn out
and endless grinding stress made them prey to disease. If he'd ever shared
Michelle's romantic ideas about poverty, a few shifts at the free clinic
taught him differently. Wilson's ideal family was also based on a
television model - Bewitched. (He'd had a schoolboy crush on Elizabeth
Montgomery.) Darren Stevens would come home from his lucrative job. His
wife would have his martini ready, and his two adorable well-behaved
children would come downstairs to greet Daddy, before disappearing for the
rest of the episode. An equally unrealistic model, he realized later.

After a couple of months, Wilson realized that Michelle and he should
never have married. He wanted to end the marriage; she insisted that they
could work together and save it. Finally, Wilson had had an affair just to
make Michelle hate him, so she would agree to a divorce. Michelle had been
very angry at the time, but they'd met again a year later and she had
forgiven him. She'd found a new boyfriend who believed in the same things
she did, and both she and Wilson agreed that their early marriage had been
a disaster.

Wilson's second and third marriages were, in retrospect, practically
identical. In both cases, he met a woman who had needed him, and who
appreciated everything that he did for her. Wilson was unused to
gratitude, since his family and friends accepted all that he did for them
as a matter of course. He had thought that his desire to protect was love
and was dismayed when the feelings he felt disappeared after his wife had
regained her confidence and no longer needed his reassurance. Both of
these marriages had dwindled away - the infidelity that marked the end
seemed to be merely a confirmation that the marriage was over rather than
a betrayal.

His relationship with Lisa Cuddy was a break from the pattern. Lisa Cuddy
was a strong independent woman - his boss in fact. He had gone on an
awkward date with at one point, but it had been a disaster. Wilson was
still skittish after his third divorce and Cuddy could not help but be
aware of Wilson's exaggerated reputation as the hospital Lothario. They
had agreed that romance was not going to happen, and had become good
workmates. Sometimes he and Cuddy would work together in opposition to
House, more often he and House conspired against Cuddy, but nonetheless
the three managed to work fairly well together. Then Dr. Cuddy became
pregnant. James Wilson still didn't know who the father of Cuddy's baby
was; he supposed she had conceived by artificial insemination. (House
claimed he knew and said he would tell Wilson if he took his clinic hours
for a month, but Wilson declined the offer.) The pregnancy was tough on
Cuddy emotionally, and she began to drop in on Wilson, because being with
him always calmed her down. Wilson assumed that once she had the baby and
things in her life became more orderly, she would withdraw from him and he
from her. 

Emily Cuddy was a perfectly healthy baby. She slept through the night
almost from birth, and seemed naturally sweet-natured. (The tantrum in the
hospital lobby was very uncharacteristic of her.) Dr. Cuddy found a
loving, reliable nanny and came back to work. Everything seemed perfect in
her life and her stress level was the lowest it had been in years, but she
still dropped into James Wilson's office almost every day. There she often
ran into House, who made no secret of resenting her presence.

Lisa Cuddy was not the only one who had noticed that House seemed
determine to sabotage his best friend's relationships with women. Some
claimed it was jealousy - that House was so used to having Wilson drop
everything and come to House's side whenever he wanted him, that he could
not abide the notion of having to share him with someone with a superior
claim to his time and attention. Others said that it was protectiveness -
James Wilson's previous relationships with women had been such failures
that House felt obliged to stop him before he hurt himself again. Lisa
Cuddy was inclined toward the former theory.

If it came down to it, Cuddy was prepared to fight House for Wilson. She
knew that Wilson had chosen House over his wives in his previous two
marriages, and before their relationship became serious, she had to know
whether she or House would come first if they became a couple. Perhaps
House was afraid of what Wilson's answer would be this time, because he
backed off. He allowed Cuddy and Wilson to spend time together without
interference and with only a bare minimum of snide remarks, as long as
Wilson continued to eat lunch with House and come over to his place to
watch movies or television once or twice a week. Pleased with this result,
Lisa Cuddy did not realize that her question had not really been answered.




When Allison Cameron had worked at PPTH, she had always been a bit jealous
of Lisa Cuddy. Not only was the older woman beautiful, not only had she
reached the top of her profession at a young age, but she was also a
potential rival for the affections of Gregory House. Cameron was now a
married woman and could look back on her feelings for her former boss with
amusement. She had found true love with the man at her side, Dr. Armand
Boucher. Armand was a tall, thin man with blue eyes, about twenty years
older than Cameron. He had severe asthma, so Allison had to be solicitous
about his health.

Eric Foreman and his wife sat next to Armand. Foreman's wife was
Korean-American. Her parents had come to America with nothing and had
worked ridiculously long hours running a tiny corner store. Lydia, an
engineer, shared their work ethic. Both she and Foreman had thought the
wedding a good social networking opportunity, but were disappointed by the
modest turnout. Why hadn't Cuddy invited more of the wealthy donors she
was always trying to impress?

Robert Chase sat beside Lydia. He had been scheduled to attend a
conference in New York and had decided to extend his stay a few days to
attend the wedding. Now, seeing Allison again, he wondered why he had
bothered. She paid no attention to him. Allison glanced briefly at Cuddy
and Wilson and then she turned, as he knew she would, to stare at House. 

The ceremony was ending. James Wilson took Lisa Cuddy into his arms and
kissed her. "This time," he promised silently," it will last forever. This
time I will hold on. I won't let her slip away. This time I will make it
work." He released her and looked up, smiling in relief. He turned the
assembled crowd and then at his best man. House was smiling but the smile
had not warmed his startlingly blue eyes. His expression was impenetrable.
Nervously, Wilson grabbed his wife's hand and clutched her to his side.
"This is the last time," he said aloud. 

  
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the
ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of
Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House
(and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property
of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I
am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive
no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement
nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the
show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.