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Title: Thirty Days of Solitary 20/30
Characters: House with small bits of various others
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: For everything up to and including Twenty Vicodins
Summary: House was sentenced to thirty days of solitary confinement for his actions in Twenty Vicodins. This is the story of his time in solitary, and what was happening back at PPTH while he was there. Story will mainly focus on House, but there are segments featuring the rest of the cast. Starts just before the end of Twenty Vicodins.

A/N : Many, many thanks to [livejournal.com profile] damigella_314. Without her constant help and encouragement this story would be called 'Five Days of Solitary'.




Click for previous part


Day 20 Wednesday 26th October 2011

Exercise isn’t much, but it’s a chance to get out of his cell, and into the fresh air. That one precious hour has become the highlight of each twenty four hours for him, it’s worth tolerating the handcuffs and the chains and the eternal presence of the guards, who are always too close to him.

When he shuffles into the run and they uncuff him he looks around, it’s a nice day, the sun is out and the air temperature is pleasant. He’s in a wire and steel enclosure, and the comparison to a dog run is unavoidable, but it still seems incredibly open compared to his tiny cell.

He walks along the exercise enclosure, one hand on the chain link fence for support. It's a bad day for his leg, and it's good to be able to pace properly (his cell is too small really) but the lack of support for his leg since he’s been in solitary is beginning to take its toll.

He wouldn't use the cane in his cell, even if had one. The cell was too narrow for that but when he was being moved between his cell and exercise, or the showers; it would help a lot to have it. He's entitled to it, he was noted as disabled when he first arrived at the jail and issued a cane. He had been warned when he first saw the medical staff in the prison that if he 'lost' the cane he'd be lucky to get another. It had been taken by Mendelson after his threats to House and it hadn't been returned to him after he was moved here. He suspects that short of being unable to walk at all (in which case a wheelchair would be issued) he wouldn't have been allowed to use it in solitary anyway. Maybe when he gets back to gen pop he can agitate for a new one, although he suspects that Doctor Sykes won't be very cooperative after what happened with Adams and Nick.

He reaches the end of the run and stops there, hanging onto the fence, keeping his right leg off the ground. There's a prisoner in the run next to his, a black guy, walking laps much like he is. The guy's paying no attention to him and House watches him idly as he walks back towards the end of the run. There's something in the way the guy walks, a hesitation. It might be an injury, to his knee perhaps, or maybe the beginnings of something degenerative. He watches him more closely, while he leans against the fence, trying to detect any more symptoms.

"House!" One of the prison officers is yelling at him, walking up alongside the fence on the outside, hand on his baton. House straightens up and looks away from the other prisoner.

"Get the fuck off the fence. What are you staring at him for?"

House remembers that the officers don't like the prisoners interacting much out here, although they'll allow a few shouted words. His staring at the guy could be interpreted as aggression, as a threat. He's not supposed to be touching the fence either, but the officers usually let that slide, probably because they can see that he sometimes need the support. He doesn't want a face full of mace so he moves away from the fence and looks down at the ground. He knows the guard doesn't really want an answer; he had just wanted House to stop doing whatever he was doing wrong. So he doesn't bother answering, he just starts walking down the middle of the run, each step slow; he clutches his leg to try and give it the support it's missing.

When he gets to the end he looks back, he can't do any more walking, not now. Not with his leg like this. Instead he sits down on the ground and stares at the patches of sky he can see through the mesh and the wire that surrounds him, breathes in the fresh air and waits for the exercise time to finish.

He doesn't think about the prisoner with the strange hesitation in his movements. That's not his job now, and he isn't risking any more jail time by trying to make it his job.






Wilson lets himself into his condo after returning from the airport. The place is empty and quiet, and a slightly stale smell hangs in the air. Sarah, his cat, is with Nora, his upstairs neighbour; he'll pick her up tomorrow.

He hauls his suitcase into the bedroom and begins to unpack. The conference had been a three day one, crammed with presentations and seminars. He'd given a paper himself, and attended the presentation of many others. He'd met up with colleagues from all around America and some overseas ones as well. It had been exhausting but professionally satisfying.

In recent years he had curtailed much of his conference going, he didn't like to be away from House for too long, in case some disaster or catastrophe struck while he was away. He shudders as he thinks of the infarction, when he'd been overseas on those fateful few days when House had first been admitted to hospital. By the time he'd gotten back Stacy had made her decision and House had already been operated on. Walking back into that situation had not been pleasant, to say the least.

Now he's free to go to any conference he wants, talk to anyone he wants without House lurking in corners stalking him and spying on him. Of course many of the doctors at the conference had heard about what House did, and where he was currently residing, and many of them had wanted to talk to him about it, Wilson being acknowledged in the medical world as the foremost authority on House. He'd deflected their questions, informed them that he wasn't in touch with House any longer. They'd all reassured him he was doing the right thing by keeping his distance. It had been a good conference, a nice change away from the daily routine at PPTH.

He finishes putting away his clothes and stowing his suitcase away; the condo is quiet and empty after the noise and activity of the conference. In different times, he would have come home from a rare conference to find House had used his key to make himself at home. He'd be camped out on his furniture, eating his food, and drinking his alcohol. Wilson would have yelled at him some, and House would have grumbled, and then they would have ordered pizza or Chinese and settled in for a night of movie watching.

Wilson decides to go and get Sarah tonight instead of waiting until tomorrow.


Date: 2012-07-15 10:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sassyjumper.livejournal.com
Oh, what a painful chapter. But good! I love how House's mind is immediately latching on to what he sees as a symptom. Who knows if it is or not (the guy's legs could just be stiff), but it's very IC for House's mind (especially at this point) to need that kind of question. But then he has to let it go -- so not even his mind is free.

And you've painted a great parallel between House's and Wilson's situations. House's hour out of the cell gives him some space and air, but he's still isolated. Wilson's freedom from House gives him the space to go more places, but he's almost completely alone -- Even at the medical conference, the other doctors want to talk to him about House; it must him feel invisible when he's better known as someone else's friend than as himself.

Good stuff.

Date: 2012-07-16 07:28 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] menolly-au.livejournal.com
Yeah, the guy probably has nothing at all - but I wonder if House goes around looking at people all the time and diagnosing them, I think he probably does, it's probably not something he can switch off that easily.

It would be galling fo Wilson if the only thing he's really known for is his connection with House, although I don't know how true that is. I think definitely around PPTH he would be known as 'House's only friend', or maybe 'that poor guy, Wilson with the lunatic friend; :)

Thanks for reading and commenting :)

Date: 2012-07-16 04:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] yarroway.livejournal.com
I'm enjoying the focus on how House copes with prison. His puzzle-solving obsession blew up in his face, so it's very understandable that he'd shy away from it now. The part where he can't walk across the yard anymore is very sad, and so is Wilson's piece. Neither of them is as free as he could be, and both are so isolated.

Date: 2012-07-16 08:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] readingrat.livejournal.com
They're both merely shells of their old selves by now, each pretending that it's okay like this. House doesn't have much of a choice at this point, but Wilson's in a state of denial if he thinks a diabetic cat can fill the hole left by a missing friend. He certainly hasn't converted his 'freedom' from House into anything constructive - which is probably why he buckles so fast when House returns.

Date: 2012-07-17 07:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] menolly-au.livejournal.com
I think House would not want to try diagnosing any more people in prison after he got stuck there for another year after Nick. He paid a very heavy price for that (and even heavier when you consider that extra sentence was what meant he had to go back to prison at the end of the series). Wilson didn't seem to have moved on much while House was in prison as far as we could see in Transplant for whatever reason.

Thanks for reading :)

Date: 2012-07-17 07:50 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] menolly-au.livejournal.com
Yes, i think if Wilson had managed to build more of a life for himself while House was in prison we would have seen some evidence of it in Transplant and subsequent episodes. As you say he certainly forgave House pretty quickly.

Thanks for reading :)

Date: 2012-07-17 04:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barefootpuddles.livejournal.com
I always find myself feeling terribly for Wilson in these situations. House to some extent I feel made his own bed and now has to sleep in it (though I detest in principle the American prison system). But Wilson seems unable to find happiness without House. Even in canon the way he so quickly steps back into House's gravitational pull is remarkable. After Amber he stayed a way a bit more, but he can't seem to go on without him. I think your insinuation of loneliness on an emotional level is true. Wilson can be himself with no one but House. And House can find no one who tolerates him and challenges him and cares for him the way Wilson does. Even if sometimes neither seems good for each other, what are their alternatives?

Fascinating character study you have going here.

Date: 2012-07-17 08:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] menolly-au.livejournal.com
I must admit that Wilson is coming across as sadder and lonelier than I originally intended in this fic, I was going to show him making changes in his own life, and reaching out to other people, but it didn't happen. In a way it would have been sadder if he had built himself a whole other life that didn't revolve around House and then immediately chucked that away when House asked him to come back to him. As you say they do seem irresistibly drawn to each other, and even when he is dying Wilson doesn't appear to have anyone else to turn to, or that he wants to turn to. The only hospital staff reactions we saw to his illness was Foreman (who was far more concerned about what it would do to House) and the guy Wilson was turning his patients over to. At least if Cuddy was still around she might have felt concern for wilson for his own sake.

Date: 2012-07-23 05:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cuddyclothes.livejournal.com
Logged on! Wonderful chapter, so desolate for both of them. House and Wilson's friendship has probably baffled the rest of the staff for years; they think Wilson's better off. Poor Wilson; he's unable to be close to anyone else.

Date: 2012-07-23 09:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] menolly-au.livejournal.com
I've always wondered how the rest of the staff view Wilson - House's people clearly see him as someone to run to when House is doing 'crazy things'. I have this little head canon that Wilson's people absolutely loathe the whole diagnostics team. They probably do wonder why a nice, (apparently) sane, guy like Wilson is hanging around with House (especially after the VOgler/Tritter/Amber episodes)
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