Chapter 27
Heart
END OF CHAPTER 4 SPOILERS AHEAD
Chapter song: Re:stacks by Bon Iver
The simulation room is a strange kind of purgatory. Too cold, too bright, too clean. It tries to mimic trauma, but trauma doesn't smell like antiseptic, it smells like smoke and blood and the inside of a throat closing in panic. It smells like memory.
The residents move like shadows, dragging chairs into crooked rows, mimicking the cramped aisle of a New Jersey Transit bus. They mutter to each other, nervous and uncertain, their voices low and tinny against the sterile walls. Someone connects a Bluetooth speaker in the corner and plays ambient traffic sounds. Horns, engines, tires rolling over gravel. It should add realism. It only makes the silence in the room louder.
House lies on the gurney, electrodes strapped across his scalp in tight, clinical symmetry. Wires sprout from his skull, branching into machines that blink with eerie precision. The red dots pulse in time with his heartbeat. He doesn't flinch. He stares at the ceiling, jaw clenched, like he's daring the universe to blink first.
You stand beside the monitor, hand resting on the cold metal frame, eyes locked to the vital signs dancing across the screen. His brainwaves flicker like candlelight in the wind, unsteady, unpredictable, a breath away from chaos.
"You know this is insane," Chase murmurs behind you. His voice is too calm to be casual. It quivers just beneath the surface, like a piano string pulled too tight. "He could stroke out in there."
You glance at him, but his eyes are already on the screen, jaw tight. "Insanity's relative," you reply quietly. "And House is..."
"Not invincible," he finishes. "He's desperate. And desperate people don't think straight."
You want to argue, but the words die. Because he's right. And you both know it. The air between you thickens—shared worry, shared helplessness. You've been here before. On different days, with different patients. But never like this. Never with one of your own strapped down like an offering.
"What's the alternative?" you ask. "We just... stop trying?"
He doesn't answer. But his shoulder grazes yours. A silent tether. He stays.
The intercom crackles.
"Beginning stimulation," Foreman's voice says, clinical, clipped. But you can hear the hesitation in it. He doesn't want to do this either.
A low hum fills the room. House's body tenses immediately, as if struck. His hands grip the gurney rails so hard his knuckles bleach. His eyelids flutter closed. A tremor runs down his spine.
You stare at the screen. The waveforms spike. Then settle. Then rise again.
"Talk to me, House," Wilson says softly, kneeling close to the gurney now. His face is pale. Sweating.
"I'm on the bus," House breathes. His voice is distant—stretched thin like it's traveling from somewhere far away. Underwater. "Crowded. People tired. Everyone just wants to get home."
The heart monitor beeps faster. You glance at Chase. His lips are pressed tight.
"I'm in the back," House continues, his brow furrowing. "There's... there's a woman."
Something in his voice shifts. Warps.
"Wait."
Your spine straightens. Your fingers curl into the panel.
"Can you see her face?" Wilson asks, leaning in.
"Necklace," House gasps. "It's... there's a necklace—"
The line on the monitor jerks violently.
"Then,"
His back arches off the gurney like he's being ripped from the inside out.
"No—no—NO!"
The machines scream.
Alarms burst into life. Brainwaves spike into chaotic, jagged peaks. His heart rate launches into the red.
You slam the emergency switch.
The current cuts.
Everything stops.
House collapses back onto the gurney, soaked in sweat. His breathing is ragged, desperate. His body twitches. For a moment, you think he's seizing. Then he blinks, slow and glassy. Bloodshot. Not quite there.
He opens his mouth like it hurts to speak.
"Wilson."
One word.
And it detonates in the silence.
You and Wilson both turn at the same time, like pulled by the same string.
"It was her," House croaks. "Amber. She was on the bus."
Everything in the room freezes.
"No," Wilson says, laughing. "No, she wasn't. She is on call."
"She was there," House insists, his voice unraveling. "Wilson. Listen to me. Something was wrong."
The silence after that is unbearable.
Then: Remy.
Quiet, deliberate, like she's carrying a body on her words.
"There was a second Jane Doe when the crash victims came in."
You stare at her. She's pale. Steady.
"I checked the chart," she says. "Blonde. Around Amber's height."
Wilson's eyes snap toward her. His hands fall to his sides, limp.
"What—"
"She never made it past intake," Remy says. "She was critical. They transferred her straight to ICU. No ID. Does Amber have a birthmark on her right shoulder?"
Wilson is already running.
No one tells him to wait. No one tries to stop him.
You follow. So do Chase, Foreman, Taub. The hallway blurs as your feet slam against the tile. The elevator takes too long. Seconds feel like screams.
The ICU hits like a wall. Bleach. Bright lights. Soft beeping. Despair.
Wilson crashes into the front desk, breathless, eyes wild.
"Jane Doe. Blonde. Thirties. Bus crash."
The nurse doesn't hesitate.
"Room 314."
And he's off again.
His coat flares behind him like wings, broken at the joints. You reach the doorway seconds after and stop cold.
Amber.
Motionless. Bruised. Hooked to machines.
And beautiful in the way that makes it worse.
—
Amber lies still in the narrow hospital bed, her hair fanned across the white pillow like spilled sunlight. Machines breathe for her now. That soft hiss-click rhythm fills the room where her voice should be, mechanical lungs fighting a war her own body is slowly losing.
Wilson is folded into the chair beside her like a man who's been shattered and doesn't know how to reassemble himself. His hands tremble as he reaches for hers—pale fingers, cool to the touch. He holds them anyway, as though maybe love can anchor someone to the world just a little longer.
"How long has she been here?" His voice is a ghost, faint, thinned out by disbelief.
"Since the night of the crash," the nurse says softly. "She was unconscious when she came in. No ID. No one reported her missing."
"I thought she was working late," Wilson murmurs, thumb drawing slow, endless circles into the back of Amber's hand. "She said she had a late consult... I didn't even check."
You've seen Wilson take guilt like communion before, patients lost, promises broken, but never like this. Never like something sacred has been ripped out of him.
Chase is behind you, not touching, but close enough that you can feel his presence like a phantom warmth across your shoulders. You don't turn. You wouldn't know what to do with the look on his face.
"Her injuries?" you ask, voice steady in the way it has to be.
"Severe head trauma. Rib fractures. Internal bleeding." The nurse swallows. "We've stabilized her, but..."
But. That word always weighs more in medicine than it should.
House appears, leaning heavily on his cane, a haggard silhouette in the doorway.
"Wilson. I should have known. I should've—"
"Don't," Wilson says, voice flint-sharp, eyes never leaving Amber. "Just... don't. Not right now."
The machines keep their rhythm. Your own breath feels too loud in your chest.
Chase's hand brushes yours—barely a touch, and still it feels like the beginning of a sob. You close your eyes against the memory: him holding your hand during a crashing code once, his grip the only thing keeping you from falling apart.
"I need to call her parents," Wilson says. But he doesn't move. He just stays there, his hand wrapped around hers like a lifeline he refuses to drop.
Several hours later, Amber wakes.
You're in the break room, trying to pretend the coffee helps. It doesn't. It tastes like burnt nerves.
Chase bursts in like a man who's run all the way from the ICU. "She's awake," he says, breathless, cheeks flushed.
"How is she?"
"Confused, but conscious. Talking. Wilson's with her. He... he's crying, I think."
You trail behind him down the hallway, heart in your throat. Hope is a dangerous thing in this place, it lifts, yes, but it also crashes harder than anything else.
Amber is pale and fragile in her bed, but alive. She smiles when she sees you. "Hey. I hear I've been the hospital's main event."
"Something like that," you say, and when you move closer, the details become sharper, the purpling along her jaw, the protective way she holds her side. You catch Wilson brushing her hair away from her face with shaking hands.
"I don't remember much," she says. "Noise. Cold. Then I wake up, and James is crying on me."
"I was not crying," Wilson says, and everyone knows he was.
"Absolutely sobbing," Amber teases gently, and then coughs.
Remy steps into the room quietly, she looked for a chance to talk to you so no one else would hear. "I've reviewed her chart. Her vitals were improving but..." She stops short, scanning the monitors.
You knew it. She is worsening.
As the hours pass, you begin to notice the shift, not dramatic, but insidious. The pink in Amber's cheeks fades to gray. Her breathing becomes strained. Her lips dry. She's trying to smile, but even that is an effort now.
You catch her touching her side again when she thinks no one's watching. You are watching.
Kutner glances up from the chart he's updating. "Her heart rate spikes every time she moves. We're seeing early signs of systemic stress, could be metabolic."
"And her creatinine is climbing fast," Taub adds, approaching with a fresh printout. "I just compared it to this morning's labs. Her kidneys are tanking."
By early evening, the numbers start to tell a story no one wants to read: silent collapse. Systemic shutdown. Despite every drip, every pressor, every whisper of hope... Amber is deteriorating.
Wilson finds you in the hallway, clutching the glass doorframe like it's the only thing holding him upright. His face is pale, like he hasn't blinked in hours.
"She's getting worse," he says, and you wish it sounded like a question.
"Her kidney function's declining," you say gently, glancing at the tablet in your hand. "The trauma, the prolonged hypotension, it's not uncommon after what she's been through."
"But she'll recover, right? Kidneys can recover. Dialysis, temporary support—"
You want to say yes. You ache to say yes. But you can't lie to someone who looks like that.
"We're doing everything we can," you murmur.
His eyes search yours and try to find the truth you didn't say.
"It's not enough," he breathes.
You don't correct him. Because he's right.
"House."
You blink.
"House saw something," Wilson says, a flicker of urgency coming alive in his expression. "He said Amber was already sick before the crash. If we can figure out what was wrong with her before... we might still have a shot."
You can feel the weight of what he's about to say before it leaves his lips.
"He has to go under again."
"No," you say instantly. "Wilson, the second session would be exponentially riskier. The first one already pushed him to the edge!"
"Then he'll have to go past the edge," Wilson snaps, and his voice cracks. "If there's even a chance, I'm going to take it."
You look to Remy, hoping for backup. She bites her lip, conflicted. "We could lose House," she says quietly.
Kutner crosses his arms, brow furrowed. "But if he remembers something that changes the treatment plan—"
Taub sighs, resigned. —then it's worth the risk. Even House would say that."
Two hours later, the prep room buzzes with low murmurs and suppressed dread. House lies on the gurney again, paler than before, the lines under his eyes deeper.
"You don't have to do this," you whisper, standing beside him as the tech adjusts the voltage.
"Yes, I do," he replies. "She's dying because I forgot. Wilson's dying with her. If I can fix it, then I will fix it."
You hesitate.
"The risks—"
"Are irrelevant," he says flatly. "Either we try, or we lose. Again."
Wilson stands stiffly at the foot of the gurney, eyes never leaving House's face.
"Please," he says. "Whatever you saw, whatever you remember. We need to know."
House nods. "Let's get this over with."
The current starts. This time, his body fights it.
His legs tremble. His fists clench so hard his knuckles go white. The creaking of the metal rails fills the silence between pulses.
"Heart rate's 180 and climbing," Remy warns.
"Spike in temporal activity," Kutner reads, squinting at the screen. "But no localization yet, his memory's fighting back."
"He's trying to speak—" Taub says.
House's voice cuts through, hoarse.
"She's pale, sweating..."
Wilson leans in. "Keep going. Please, keep going."
"She has a cold," House murmurs. "Pills... from her purse."
Suddenly, his whole body convulses, back arching hard against the table. Blood begins to trickle from his nose.
"That's it, I'm pulling the plug—" you reach for the button.
"No!" Wilson shouts, gripping the rail.
A beat.
House's eyes snap open, but they've rolled back.
Then, barely audible. "Amantadine..."
The word hangs in the room like a falling hammer. You immediately killed the current and the silence crashed in, the only sound you could hear was your heart beat when House dropped, unmoving.
"Pulse?" you bark.
There's a beat of nothing.
Then his chest rises. A flutter of breath. His eyes blink open, slowly.
"Amantadine," he repeats, this time steadier. "She took it for the symptoms."
Wilson looks like he's just been punched.
"She had acute kidney damage from the crash," he whispers. "If she was still taking it..."
"It would've built up," you finish, horrified. "Amantadine is renally cleared. With her kidneys failing, it's toxic."
Remy shakes her head in disbelief. "We never checked for that."
Taub quietly adds, "There's no reversal. Just supportive care."
"How long?"
You look at Wilson. Count the hours in your head. The window. The bloodwork.
"Hours," you say softly. "Maybe less."
Wilson's knees buckle, and Chase catches him before he can fall. The sound that comes from Wilson's throat is inhuman, the cry of an animal caught in a trap, the sound of a heart breaking in real time.
House struggles to sit up, ignoring the protests of the medical staff, ignoring the blood still trickling from his nose.
But Wilson is already gone, stumbling from the room with Chase supporting his weight, leaving you alone with House and the terrible weight of knowledge.
"We tried," you say, but the words sound hollow even to your own ears.
House wipes the blood from his nose with the back of his hand. "Trying is not enough. It is never enough."
You find Wilson back in Amber's room, collapsed in the chair beside her bed, his hands shaking as he tries to explain what they have learned. Amber listens with the calm acceptance of someone who's always known this moment would come, who's made peace with mortality in ways the rest of you never could.
"How long?" she asks, her voice steady despite the pain you can see in her eyes.
"We don't know exactly," Wilson says, his voice breaking. "But not long. The amantadine is building up in your system, and with your kidneys damaged..."
"Hey." Amber reaches out, touching his face with gentle fingers. "Look at me."
Wilson raises his eyes to hers, and you see a lifetime of love pass between them in that moment.
"I am not afraid," Amber says simply. "I'm not afraid, because I got to love you. I got to be loved by you. That's more than most people get in an entire lifetime."
Wilson breaks then, completely and utterly, his composure crumbling like a house of cards in a hurricane. He buries his face in her shoulder, his body shaking with sobs that seem to come from somewhere deeper than grief, somewhere that touches the very foundations of what it means to be human.
Amber holds him, her thin arms wrapping around his shoulders, her fingers threading through his hair. "It's okay," she whispers.
You back away from the bed, giving them privacy for this most intimate of moments. In the hallway, you find the rest of the team gathering. Cameron with tears in her eyes, Foreman with his jaw clenched tight, House leaning heavily on his cane.
"Her parents?" you ask.
"Flying in from Chicago," Thirteen says. "They will be here in a few hours."
"A few hours she does not have," House says bitterly.
Chase appears at your elbow, his presence solid and comforting. "The other doctors want to try dialysis, plasma exchange, anything to clear the toxins."
You shake your head. "Her kidneys are too damaged. The crash, the prolonged hypotension, the drug toxicity... it's too much. Her body can't handle the stress of dialysis."
"So we just watch her die?" Taub asks, his voice tight with frustration.
"We make her comfortable," you reply. "We make sure she's not in pain, and we let her say goodbye."
The words taste like ashes in your mouth, but they're the only truth you have left.
The hours that follow unfold in fragile layers. The lights soften as dusk turns the world outside to muted orange. Machines hum in quiet resignation. Nurses lower their voices. Pain is everywhere—except in Amber, whose face is no longer etched with suffering.
Cameron brings in flowers, white lilies, soft pink roses that smell far too alive for this room. She sets them gently by the window, blinking fast, jaw tight.
Foreman steps forward and speaks about diagnostics, about stubborn brilliance, about how Amber once diagnosed a rare pulmonary condition using nothing but a hunch and a single lab value. His voice doesn't crack, but his silence afterward does.
Chase, quiet until now, clears his throat.
"I didn't know her well," he begins, his voice smooth but subdued. "But I saw the way Wilson lit up when she walked into a room. I saw House smile around her, and not the sarcastic kind. Real. Brief, but real."
He pauses, looking not at Wilson, not at House, but at you. And then he looks away, respectfully, and steps aside again, letting silence return.
Later, you stand at the foot of Amber's bed as Wilson holds her hand like it's a lifeline. She looks smaller now, her skin pale against the blanket. But when her eyes find yours, they're sharp and steady.
Take care of him, she mouths.
You nod. You don't have the words for a promise like that.
—
The sun sets outside the window, painting the room in shades of gold and crimson that seem too beautiful for such a terrible day. Amber's breathing becomes more labored, more irregular, her body fighting a battle it cannot win.
"I love you," Wilson whispers, his forehead pressed against hers. "I love you so much."
"I know," Amber replies, her voice barely audible. "I've always known."
When she slips away, it's quiet. The machines don't scream, they don't fight. They simply stop, and their silence is more profound than any alarm.
Wilson doesn't let go of her hand, doesn't move from his chair. He just sits there, holding onto her, holding onto love, holding onto the last moment before grief becomes his only companion.
House stands in the doorway, leaning heavily on his cane, his face a mask of guilt and sorrow. He opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it again, recognizing that there are no words adequate for this moment.
You remain where you are, bearing witness to love and loss, to the terrible beauty of a life well-lived coming to its end. The flowers on the windowsill seem to glow in the dying light, their petals soft and perfect and heartbreakingly temporary.
And Chase, quietly, remains by the door, his gaze fixed not on the monitors, not even on Amber, but on Wilson. On you.
In the space that love leaves behind when it slips out of the world.
An hour later, the machines have long since gone quiet. Nurses move in hushed steps. Grief settles over everything like fog.
Chase is the one who speaks next.
"Wilson," he says softly. "Her parents just arrived. They'd like... a few moments with her."
Wilson doesn't respond at first. Then, voice raw: "Just one more minute."
Chase doesn't push. He gives a single nod and waits. He leans against the wall, watching Wilson with quiet reverence, and when you glance at him, he offers a glance of understanding.
But minutes stretch into an hour, and the hour stretches into the night, and still Wilson sits beside her bed, even when her relatives came by, unwilling or unable to let go. The nursing staff doesn't disturb him, recognizing the sacred nature of grief, the importance of this final goodbye.
You find yourself thinking about time—how it moves differently in hospitals, how a minute can feel like an hour when you're waiting for test results, how an hour can disappear in an instant when you're watching someone die. Tonight, time feels suspended, caught between heartbeats, balanced on the edge of forever.
The charts are waiting when you finally make it back to the office at three in the morning. Patient files, test results, medication orders, the endless paperwork that doesn't stop just because the world has shifted on its axis.
Death may pause the universe for those who love, but medicine never sleeps.
Chase is already inside, sleeves rolled to his elbows, posture folded into himself like he's trying to take up as little space as possible. His tie hangs loose, a tired ribbon down the front of a rumpled shirt. When he glances up, his hair is tousled from stress or habit, you can't tell which, and the look in his eyes is not quite pity, not quite concern. Just soft.
"You don't have to do this," he says quietly. "Go home. Sleep. I've got this."
You shake your head before he even finishes. No. You can't leave. You don't know how to be still anymore, not when stillness means your mind will catch up, and your mind will do what it always does: replay everything. The bus. The diagnosis. The heart monitor going flat. Wilson's face. Amber's.
You sit instead. The chair feels foreign, like someone else's life. The first chart you reach for trembles in your hands. Words blur. You're not sure when the tears started, only that the paper is getting wet and your vision is swimming. A heartbeat later, the folder slips. Pages spill across the desk and floor in a scattered hush like leaves falling in autumn, like a season ending in silence.
"She was my friend," you manage, voice small and unreal in your mouth. Like it belongs to someone else, someone younger, someone more naive. "She was my friend. And I couldn't save her."
And there he is—Chase. At your side, kneeling. Not touching you, not daring to, but close enough that you feel the heat of his presence. It's been years since he held you. Years since he kissed you with trembling hands and asked if love was enough. Years since you said nothing.
"You did everything you could," he says. His voice isn't hollow like yours. It's gentle. Firm. "House did, too. Wilson... we all did."
"It wasn't enough," you whisper.
"It rarely is."
You look down at your hands. There's a tremor in them you can't control. Your breath hitches as you speak again, bitter and broken. "I'm supposed to save people. That's what we do. We fix things."
"You're not a god," he says, and it doesn't sound like judgment. "You're a person. You care. Deeply. That's why this hurts."
The dam breaks.
You cry. The kind of crying that comes from somewhere deeper than the lungs, deeper than grief. It's the sound of failure. Of helplessness. Of carrying too much for too long. Tears fall onto the scattered pages, ink smudging like veins unraveling. Amber's name is on one of them. You can't bring yourself to pick it up.
You cry for her. For Wilson. For House. For yourself. For the thousands of lives you've carried in your hands and the handful that have slipped through like water.
For Chase.
For the love you let die before it had a chance to live.
He doesn't speak again, not right away. Just stays beside you, quietly, until your shoulders begin to still.
"Let me help," he says softly, motioning to the charts.
You hesitate. The part of you that needs to keep moving flares up wants to argue, to protest, to keep clinging to the one thing you still know how to do.
But he's looking at you like you're not something broken. Like he still sees you.
You nod.
And with legs like wet paper, you rise.
The hallway is darker now. More quiet. You walk slowly, leaning against the wall at one point just to breathe. Monitors beep behind closed doors. A janitor passes with a mop bucket and nods once, like he sees you and understands more than most.
This is the life you chose. A thousand tiny goodbyes. A thousand silent prayers. Some days it feels like salvation. Tonight, it feels like a curse.
You make your way back to the ICU, drawn by some invisible thread. The corridors are dimmer now, most of the overhead lights switched off to conserve energy and create the illusion of night in a place that never truly sleeps.
You find House outside Amber's room, slumped in a wheelchair someone must have brought for him. His cane lies across his lap like a barrier, and he is staring through the glass at Wilson, who hasn't moved, hasn't spoken, hasn't done anything but hold her cooling hand.
"You should be resting," you say quietly, settling into the chair beside him. The plastic is cold against your back, uncomfortable in the way that all hospital furniture is designed to discourage lingering.
"Should is a meaningless word," House replies without looking at you. His voice is flat, empty, like someone has scooped out everything that made him Gregory House and left only the shell behind. "Should implies choice. Should implies control."
You follow his gaze through the glass. Wilson has positioned himself so that his body curves around Amber's still form, protective even in death. His forehead rests against her shoulder, and in the dim light of the room, they look like a sculpture carved from grief itself.
"You remembered everything," you say, not sure if you're offering comfort or simply stating a fact.
"I remembered everything," House agrees, and there's something broken in his voice, something that might be regret or grief or simply the weight of being human in a world that demands gods. "Every detail. The way she coughed, the exact moment I realized she was sick. I remembered the pills she took... the smell of her perfume mixing with the exhaust fumes from the bus. I remembered every goddamn thing, and it still wasn't enough."
Thunder rumbles outside, low and threatening, and the first drops of rain begin to streak the windows. The sound is soft at first, tentative, like the sky is testing whether the earth is ready for its grief.
"She was brilliant," you say, because sometimes the only thing left is to speak the truth. "Annoying as hell, but brilliant. She would have figured out the amantadine interaction if she'd been conscious. She would have saved herself."
"But she wasn't conscious," House replies. "She was dying, and I was the only one who could have helped her, and I failed."
"You didn't fail. You solved the puzzle. You figured out what was killing her."
"Too late." The words fall between you like stones into still water, creating ripples that spread outward into silence. "I figured it out too late."
You sit together in that silence, watching Wilson's vigil, listening to the rain grow stronger against the windows.
House's breathing evens out beside you, and you realize he's fallen asleep, exhaustion finally claiming him. His head tilts to one side, and in sleep, the harsh lines of his face soften slightly, revealing glimpses of the man he might have been in a different life, under different circumstances.
The rain continues to fall, washing the windows, washing the world, washing away the day that brought so much loss. But it cannot wash away the memory of amber hair spread across white pillows, or the sound of Wilson's quiet weeping, or the weight of House's words.
Wilson lifts his head finally, his eyes finding yours through the glass. He looks older, aged by grief and love and the terrible mathematics of mortality. When he mouths "thank you," you're not sure what he is thanking you for, for being there, for trying to save her, for bearing witness to his breaking.
You nod anyway, because gratitude doesn't require understanding, because sometimes the only response to love is acknowledgment.
But here, in this moment, in this space between breath and silence, there is only Wilson and Amber, House and his memories, you and the weight of witnessing. The lights flicker overhead, casting shadows that dance and shift like the last echoes of laughter, like the ghost of all the conversations that will never happen, like the shape of love learning to exist without its other half.
You close your eyes and listen to the rain, to House's quiet breathing, to the sound of your own heartbeat counting down the moments until morning comes and the world begins again, changed forever by the weight of what it has lost, what it has learned, what it will carry forward into whatever comes next.
Even in ending.
A/N: I apologize for the very late update. Thank you for the messages.