A Song To Keep Us Warm

wake, from your sleep

House wakes to the sound of the wind snapping against their tent. Wilson’s gone to work already, leaving an empty space on the bed, but House is getting used to that, mostly (though he’d be loathe to tell Wilson he had to get used to it at all). Sleep still clings to his eyes, and House rubs them with the heel of his palm before sitting up.

It’s especially windy out today, and House knows he’s going to regret getting out of bed even before he does. Frakking leg. Across the room, the candles on Wilson’s shrine flicker and dance, and House sullenly hopes they blow out. He hobbles to the table in the kitchen area, glad to see that Wilson’s left breakfast behind on the table. One, because he’s lazy and two, because it’s a small reminder that Wilson hasn’t decided to run off and get married again. (House doesn’t like to dwell on that, the fact that there’s a time when Wilson might leave, might not feel obligated to stay anymore.)

Though it should be quiet (no wireless, no annoying neighbors, no Wilson moving about) as he eats, it isn’t, the wind continuing to rattle the fabric. Their tent is not great and not horrible. It’s better than the cramped cabin they had on the Sargon, but that’s not saying much. It’s bare, empty, because decorations are hard to maintain, and besides, Wilson’s the one who really cares about that sort of thing. House dresses slowly, glancing at the small, partially cracked mirror they’ve set up in what passes for a bathroom. The one thing you could say about the Sargon, at least, was that they had actual toilets.

The walk to the medical tent isn’t long, but it’s uncomfortable. His leg doesn’t like the cold, and his cane likes to sink into the dirt, throwing off his rhythm. When he gets there, Cottle’s standing outside smoking a cigarette, and Wilson chooses that exact moment to stick his head out of the tent, catching House as he’s trying to sneak in.

“You’re late,” Wilson says, shoving a folder into his chest. “Get to work.” House misses the time when they didn’t actually work in the same department (but it’s all the same department these days). That and when they were too disorganized to do actual paperwork.

Wilson goes back into the tent, leaving House with Cottle outside. “Men,” House says to Cottle with an exaggerated eyeroll and a conspiratorial tone, wondering how the other doctor will react. Whether he’ll laugh or shake his head or call House a jackass. Maybe a mix of all three. (That’s what Wilson would do, House knows.)

Cottle finishes his cigarette and flicks away the butt. “What makes you think I give a frak?” he asks before heading inside himself.

sing us a song

It’s raining, and Wilson closes his eyes, listens to the soft pitter-patter of it on the ground, against the tent. He’d missed this, out in space, more than anything else. On Picon, it had been wet, but not cold, and when he thinks of home, he always thinks of the sound of rain, lulling him to sleep. They’ve spent more than a year on New Caprica (more than they spent in space), but sometimes (when everything seems too small, when he expects to see gray walls everywhere he turns), sometimes he still misses rain.

The air smells vaguely like spring, choked with moisture, and Wilson breathes it in, letting it fill his lungs. House is ranting about something, a patient he saw today, a young man who’d broken his arm jumping off the back of a truck. Wilson half-listens, the familiar sounds of House’s irritation lingering, but not quite sinking in. There are things that have changed, since the destruction of the Colonies, but it amuses Wilson to see that House is not one of them. He’s still House, still Wilson’s voice of reason when everything else is spinning out of control, still the bane of Wilson’s existence when he wants to be.

It surprises him when House wraps an arm around his torso, pulling their bodies together, and rests his chin on the back of Wilson’s head. It still fills Wilson with a certain kind of awe, to have this sort of casual touch from House. It’s not something he does lightly, Wilson knows. It’s not something he does for people he doesn’t care about. (He knows this because he remembers HouseandStacy, the way he would give her light, fleeting touches that Wilson hadn’t seen before or since.)

“You and your frakking rain,” House says, voice muffled by Wilson’s hair. He sounds more annoyed than angry, and it makes sense, the way House needs to push away, even as he’s pulling in close.

Wilson tries to hide his smile, but he can’t quite do it. “Yeah,” he says, letting the sound of it (pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat) fill him again. Behind closed eyelids, he can almost imagine he’s home.

and you can laugh a spineless laugh

House is sitting at the front desk (chair, whatever) twirling his cane when he sees the front flap of the medical tent open, and the former president of the Twelve Colonies step in. She’s holding the hand of a small boy with big brown eyes who coughs adorably into his fist.

“Is Doctor Cottle in?” she asks. She smiles warmly, and House kind of wants vomit from how gentle and motherly it is.

“Nope,” he says, not looking at her. He keeps on twirling his cane, hoping that it will piss her off.

Much to his dismay, she doesn’t react to his rudeness, doesn’t stop smiling. “Then perhaps you can help me instead.” There’s steel in her voice this time, House notices, but the tone is still too pleasant, still too nice.

He decides to keep pushing. “Nah, probably not. All the kid has is a cold. Which means you don’t have to waste my time.” He’s telling the truth, but he can already imagine Wilson yelling at him for his lack of tact. Oh well, he’ll just have to make it worth it. There’s something about her that reminds him of Cuddy, and he itches to see if she’ll react in the same ways.

“I’m aware of that,” she says, and her eyes have gone sharp. Her voice is still oddly soft, and in that way, she’s different. If it were Cuddy, she would have gone louder. He stops twirling so that he can focus on her. “If Dr. Cottle comes by again, will you give him this?” she asks, handing him a folded sheet of paper, and he realizes that there’s a reason for this visit that she doesn’t want people to know about. The kid’s just a cover, and House wants to figure it out, dig underneath and find out what’s going on.

But, then again, he’s fairly certain he knows what it is, anyway. “Of course, Madam President,” he says, rounding out the last two words with as much sarcasm as he can muster (and that’s quite a bit of sarcasm).

Her smile falters for a moment before it rights itself. “Thank you,” she says. Much to his surprise, she sounds like she means it.

Later on, House reads the note before giving it to Cottle. It’s in code he can’t quite puzzle out, something about babies and goddesses, and the fact that he can’t figure it out pisses him off.

Cottle refuses to give anything away, though, even under House’s best prodding attempts, so he reluctantly lets it go. (For now, at least.)

before all hell breaks loose

The first time they treat a Cylon, House can’t stop hovering. Wilson knows that it’s just House’s fascination with the unknown, his obsession with new puzzles to figure out, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying. Cottle tells him to frak off as he pulls on his surgical mask. Wilson’s watching as well, but he knows better than to get in the way, something House hasn’t quite learned to master yet.

It’s one of the male ones, dark skinned and bald, and they’d brought him in after the explosions in the transport hanger. Burns and burns and bullet wounds. (They break like us, Wilson thinks as he watches, and it unsettles him, the way the lines between them and us are beginning to blur.) Its blood is red on the table, red on Cottle’s latex gloves, and it’s probably human in none of the ways that count.

“He’s twitching,” he hears House mutter. “He shouldn’t be twitching.”

The Cylon on the table begins to spasm, and a few medics rush over to help hold him still. House’s eyes are narrowed, focused, studying, and Wilson can practically see his mind turning, working, analyzing. Cottle’s yelling something, but Wilson’s not really listening. He can’t pull his eyes away from the body as he watches the spasms subside, as life (whatever it might be) fades from its eyes.

“Downloaded,” Cottle says, close enough that his voice shakes Wilson out of his reverie. He’s wiping his hands on a towel, leaving behind spots of red on the white cotton.

“What?” House asks. He tilts his head to the side to stare at Cottle.

Cottle takes that moment to light up a cigarette. “Consciousness goes back to the resurrection ship. Put into a new body.”

(Time is a circle, Wilson thinks as House pesters Cottle for more details, and he wonders what it feels like to not fear death.)

there’s a chill, such a chill

Wilson is shivering, pulled up tightly into a ball underneath the covers. When House places his hand on his forehead to check his temperature, it’s hot, and Wilson flinches, pulling away, pulling further into himself. House resents him a little for that, but he understands. Wilson coughs in his sleep, dry and brittle.

Outside, there’s shouting, a Cylon raid, though it sounds far enough away that House doesn’t pay much attention. It happens too often these days. He hobbles around the bed to the other side of Wilson and sits. The bed dips under his weight, and Wilson’s rolls over to face him.

House almost wishes he didn’t have to be here, didn’t have to watch and feel vaguely helpless. It’s just strep throat, but Wilson’s body is still running a fever, still fighting it. House has never been good at being selfless, and he still hasn’t quite managed to learn, hasn’t even really tried (though, there are times when he wishes he’d had, because then he’d know what to do in situations like this).

A too-hot hand curls around his, and he sees that Wilson is awake, bleary eyes staring up at him. “Hey,” Wilson says, voice soft so as not to hurt his throat.

Something in House unwinds, ever so subtly, to hear him talk (even though he knows Wilson’s not dying, not even close). He should probably say something gentle, comforting, (or at least that’s what Cameron would say) but he can’t quite form the words, so he doesn’t. “Go back to sleep,” he says instead. “You look like crap.”

“Yeah, okay,” Wilson mumbles. His eyes drift closed again, his hand still clutching House’s, and House thinks that maybe the right words weren’t necessary at all.

we hope your rules and wisdom choke you.

Wilson is putting stitches into a patient when she comes in. A Cylon. One of the Threes, they said. It’s the first time he’s seen a healthy one up close, and he notices that she’s tall, as tall as he is, and her skin is flawless and smooth. It’s striking in contrast to the dirt, the lines on the faces of the humans he sees day in, day out (in the mirror, too). It unnerves him, reminding him of who she is, what she is.

He remembers the documentary she made about the crew of Galactica, but he doesn’t really remember what he thought of her at the time. Probably nothing. Forgot her as soon as he saw her.

“There was a man here earlier today,” the Cylon says, an odd accent rounding her words. “Older, gray beard. About yea tall.” She indicates a height with her hand. “Have you seen him?”

Wilson knows who she’s talking about. He’d come in earlier that day with chemical burns and claimed they were from cooking. But his hands had smelled of gunpower (Wilson knows this because House had a gun, and he remembers the way the smell would linger after House went to the firing range), and the burns on his arms weren’t from oil, weren’t from anything the humans used for cooking. Wilson had known better than to question it, though. He simply treated the burns and sent the man on his way.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have done that. Perhaps he should tell this woman(machine) about the burns, about the smell of gunpowder, about the way the man favored his left leg (Wilson remembers this because it reminded him of the gait of House’s walk, the uneven pattern of it), about the way he’d coughed into a gloved hand. It would be effortless, he knows, and it would mean better accommodations, better rations, favor in the eyes of the Cylons. He’d get a lot for (almost) nothing.

“Sorry,” he says instead. “Don’t remember seeing anyone like that around here.” He smiles ruefully and shrugs, wondering if the sheepish look works as well on Cylons as it does on humans.

It probably does, because she nods and leaves without another word.

pack, and get dressed

“Be ready,” Cottle says, and House blinks at him.

“What?”

They’re taking a break from treating patients, and Cottle’s lighting up a cigarette. House is watching because he has nothing better to do (depressing, but true). Cottle stares at him with calm, unwavering eyes. “Galactica’s coming back,” he murmurs, quiet enough that his words won’t be picked up by Cylon ears (or whatever). “Be ready.”

House blinks. It wasn’t completely out of the question, a rescue by Galactica, but it seems sudden to hear it now, after four months. He feels a little stupid for not seeing the signs earlier (they were there, he knows, now that he thinks about it, but he hadn’t put them together, hadn’t thought enough about it). He considers what it’ll be like to live out in space again. Probably the same as it was before. “I’ll be sure to wear my prettiest dress,” he says.

Cottle shakes his head. “I know you don’t like me, but you can’t joke around about this shit.” House wants to disagree, wants to make another joke, but something holds him back, keeps him quiet.  Cottle’s eyes fix on him, dark and intent.

It’s true, House doesn’t like him. (Wilson explained it by psychobabbling at him about unresolved father issues and the need for approval, but House is getting better at ignoring him when he goes on those tangents.) “I respect you,” House says. “That’s worth more.” It’s true, just like what Wilson said is true (and he tries not to remember the long months of growing up on battlestars, the rough bluntness of his father’s voice).

Cottle nods and takes a drag from his cigarette. He seems to consider everything that’s been said. “There are going to be practice runs,” Cottle says, looking up, and his voice is cool and steady. “Just be ready.”

today, we escape, we escape

The dawn light is smothered by gray clouds, and the air is quiet and still. Wilson wakes up too early, his body tense with anticipation. House is still sleeping, and Wilson brushes a hand against his hair, leans over and presses a kiss to his lips. In the corner are their bags, packed, ready to go.

Wilson checks the clock. It’s still early. They still have time. House stirs beside him, and Wilson considers waking him up. (As much as House hates it, they still have to worry about House’s leg, how it will slow them down when the time comes.)

Instead, he makes breakfast. They had extra rations this week, and Wilson makes the best of it. There’s the tapping of House’s cane behind him as Wilson fires up their small stove, and Wilson turns as House collapses into one of the small, wire-frame chairs. He looks tired. “You’re up early,” Wilson says. He gives House some coffee, and the small twitch of a smile at the corner of House’s mouth is all the thanks he needs.

They eat breakfast in silence. It’s a little odd, because House is quiet, and House is never quiet.

“Are you ready?” Wilson asks, and House snorts.

“That’s the stupidest question you’ve ever asked me. And you’ve asked me some pretty stupid things.” His eyes are sharp, and his body language is tense. Wilson doesn’t push (though he wants to). They have to save their energy.

They get dressed, get their things together, and wait, sitting at the table, bags at their sides. They’re doctors, they know that waiting is always the hardest part, but that doesn’t make it any easier. House, generally one for fidgeting, has gone past that, all the way to an absolute stillness. Wilson knows how that feels, though, the way the tension thrums under his skin, waiting to come out.

When they finally hear it, the sounds of the explosions, the yelling, they don’t move, not yet, because their bodies are still waiting. They’re going to have to leave soon. They have to get to the shipyard, and it’s not going to be an easy trip, not with this much chaos. They’re ready (they’ve been ready), but neither of them makes the first move.

Wilson glances at House. House glances back. An understanding passes between.

And then, together, they go out into the storm.

FIN.