A Synthesis of Hyacinths and Biscuits

Title: Until I See You Again - Epilogue to For Every Closed Door
Author: starlingthefool
Fandom: House/Dead Like Me crossover
Rating: PG-13, for death and swearing
Pairing: House/Wilson
Warning: Character death. Well, sort of.
Obligatory Disclaimer: Don't own either of these shows, have absolutely no artistic right to them, blah blah blah, etc.
A/N: Okay, here is the epilogue that I've been dropping hints about. I'm going to leave it alone after this, but anyone else is free to play with it.
Also, if anyone wants this whole story, edited and polished as much as it can be, let me know and I'll email it. Probably in RTF format, unless otherwise specified.



Sometime in the sort of distant future.

"Fuck, it's cold," House said, shivering.

"I told you to wear a coat. You think that just because you can't be killed, you're invincible to everything," Wilson retorted.

"Well, technically-"

"Oh, shut up. You can either listen to me when I tell you that it's freezing outside, so wear your damn coat, or you can whine. Not both."

House's only answer was to shiver harder in the frigid February air.

"I have no sympathy. None," Wilson said, ignoring him.

House's teeth started chattering.

"Oh, fine. Come here," Wilson said, opening his arm.

House eyed him. "You're not going to gallantly offer me your own coat?"

"Hell no. Now shut up and get over here."

House sighed and leaned into Wilson. "Chivalry really is dead."

"Its number came up back in '28, I think," Wilson responded dryly, wrapping an arm around House and rubbing his back briskly. With his other hand, he unfolded his Post-It note and checked it. After more than eighty years of technological advance, it would have probably been easier to send out all his appointments electronically, but there was something to be said for tradition. Even if the newer Reapers constantly whined about it.

"You wouldn't even know this was the future," House grumbled. "You'd think they'd have gotten the damn weather under control by now. Or that we'd all live in heated domes or something."

"It's not the future, it's the present. It's always the present."

House eyed him warily. "Something's wrong. You only ever talk cryptically like this when you're depressed about something."

"I'm not depressed!" Wilson objected. "I'm just tired. I didn't sleep well."

"And I suppose that's my fault," House said.

"I'm not the one who woke up horny at three in the morning, and pestered his sleeping boyfriend into having sex with him."

"I don't recall hearing any complaints then. Especially considering my method for waking you up."

He and House lapsed back into silence, watching the construction site. "Located yours?" Wilson asked eventually.

House nodded to a younger woman on the crew, who was maneuvering a pile of bricks on a fly dolly. Wilson's Reap appeared to be the foreman of the crew, who was standing a ways away from her and boredly supervising the work.

Wilson had been a Reaper for more than 80 years, twice as long now as he'd been alive. Some things had changed in the world; nations, governments, boundaries, technology, fashions, trends of thought, morals. Even the climate had changed, though not nearly as much everyone thought it would back in the first quarter of the 21st century. Still, it was noticeable; summers in New Jersey were hotter and drier, the winters rainier than they'd been when he was a child. Autumns passed by far too quickly, in Wilson's opinion.

The sea level had even risen. The last time he and House had gone down to Atlantic City, parts of the city were under constant flood watch in case the sea walls failed, and half of the beaches had disappeared.

Wars had been fought, uneasy peaces wrangled; trends had flashed to life and faded; works of art were created and scientific theories were put forth. People lived and died, every single day, but even the ways they did so were changing. Wilson had heard that the Cancer Division of Reapers was being phased out over the next few years, and merged with the Terminal Disease crew, and it made him smile. Of course, his and House's division, External Cause, was just as busy as it had ever been.

House wormed his cold hand down into Wilson's waistband. Wilson gave him a look, which House returned innocently, and he felt a cold thumb trace a circle on his hip.

House was wearing his usual T-shirt and jeans, which he insisted never really went out of style, and a large sweater as his only concession to the winter chill. His stubbled cheeks were pink in the cold, and he exhaled great plumes of smoke.

Some things changed; others remained steady.

About twenty years ago, both his and House's reflections had returned to what they'd been before death. Colby had informed them that this meant the last person who had known them had died. Despite the morbid connotations, Wilson enjoyed seeing his true face in mirrors and glass windows again.

Cameron had died in Sudan, while volunteering for Doctors Without Borders, only a few years after Wilson and House had died. She'd been caught in the crossfire between two opposing political factions. Foreman had stayed on at Princeton-Plainsboro for a few years, then transferred to a hospital in Washington DC after his father became ill. He eventually became co-department head of Neurology and Neuroscience, and died of a heart attack at 59. Chase had gone back to Melbourne after Cameron died in Sudan, become a general OB-GYN practitioner, and died in a train wreck the year after Forman did.

House's parents had died, as had his own. They'd found out about all their deaths by reading the obituaries, and had been unable to make it to any of the funerals. Wilson was surprised by the depth of grief this still caused him, though he had hope that he'd be able to see all of them again, eventually.

About thirteen years after he became a Reaper, Wilson had, to his great surprise, received a Post-It with the name L. Cuddy written on it He felt torn about it, until House pointed out there was nothing either of them could do about it. Besides, better that they be the ones to do it than somebody else. At least this way, they'd get a chance to talk to her before she moved on.

Cuddy, now in her fifties and still as beautiful as she had ever been, had died on a warm evening in October. She'd died in the park near the hospital, where she'd often gone after House and then Wilson had died. The trees had been lit up in their usual brilliant autumn colors, and the wind had been warm but fierce with an oncoming storm. She'd been killed by a falling branch.

Afterwards, the three of them had talked until the sun set and an orange harvest moon rose into the sky. Then Cuddy had walked off into her afterlife, which was, she'd informed them, a beach in Baja California she'd visited as a teenager.

"Surf's up," House had muttered, and she'd smiled before slipping away.

An elbow in his ribs brought Wilson out of his memories. "You are depressed," House said. "You're making cryptic statements and slipping into reveries."

"I told you, I'm not depressed. I'm just tired," Wilson said.

"Quit conforming to the stereotype of the Grim Reaper. Hey!" The latter was addressed to House's Reap, the female construction worker who was walking by. She turned, the look on her face about halfway between Can I help you with something? and Fuck off and die, dickweed.

House pulled Wilson's cigarettes out of his pockets and waved them. Wilson hardly ever smoked anymore, even though all the reasons not to had mostly gone away. It wasn't like he was going to die again. But they still came in handy, both on the job and on the days where House was driving him insane.

"Got a light?" House asked the woman.

She glared at him for a moment, then produced a pack of matches from her back pocket.

"Thanks, Miss..." House peered at the name stamped onto the front of her coversuit. "...Kaza? Interesting name." He took the matches from her, and pulled her soul from her body in the same moment.

He lit a cigarette, then shook out the match. Kaza snatched the book out of his hand and stalked away.

"Smooth operator," House said. Wilson rolled his eyes.

"Seriously, what's crawled up your ass and died?" House said, taking a small drag off the cigarette.

"The last thing that went up my ass was your dick last night, and it was still alive." Wilson scowled at House's grin. "Oh, you know what I mean."

"I love it when you're crude," House said, lowering his voice and giving Wilson a look that was probably supposed to be ravishing.

Wilson rolled his eyes again, but allowed House to kiss him. House's lips were cold, in delicious contrast to his warm, smoke-tinged mouth. Wilson fought the urge to make the kiss into something deeper, and mostly succeeded.

A throat being cleared interrupted them. Wilson opened his eyes and looked over. The foreman of the crew, who was doomed to die in the next few minutes, stood in front of them.

"Excuse me sirs, but all cigarettes must be extinguished within sixty feet of this work area. Also, this is a construction site, and people not on the crew shouldn't be in the area. It could be dangerous."

It sounded so well rehearsed that Wilson wondered if the guy often had smoking couples making out on the company's sites. He double-checked that the name printed on the coveralls was the same as the one he'd read on his Post-It, then clapped the man good naturedly on the shoulder.

"Sorry about that. We were just curious."

Reap completed, he and House moved off. Even after eighty years of strict safety measures, construction was still one of the most hazardous jobs, and they wanted to avoid any falling debris or body parts.

"You're getting restless again," House accused when they were a good distance away.

Wilson opened his mouth to deny it, then stopped. It was true. Every other decade or so, Wilson got a feeling like an itch under his skin, or a claustrophobic tightness in his chest. Sometimes it went away on its own. Once, it had been so bad that he'd put in for a transfer, and ended up working in Seattle for a year and a half. The change of scenery had been good for him, but coming back to New Jersey, back to House, after the time away had been even better. He hadn't left since, although he still got restless.

This time felt a little different though, and Wilson wasn't sure what to make of it. It felt more like... like the feeling he got most autumns, when the weather turned colder and all the leaves began to drop from the trees. It was a weird mix of melancholy and longing for something he couldn't put his finger on.

"Are you going to leave again?" House asked, the tense set of his shoulders belying the casual tone in his voice.

"No," Wilson replied. "I-"

Whatever he was about to say was cut short by an explosion at the construction site. Both he and House looked over to see a plume of smoke and dust rising from the edge of the nearby building. Workers scrambled away from the site, and their shouts reached the two Reapers distantly.

A voice next to them shouted in anger. "Those idiots! I told them not to smoke near the site! I told them there was an underground gas line, but do they listen?" It was the foreman.

"Half of them don't speak any English, you ass," came another voice. It was the woman, Kaza. "Maybe, if you'd gotten a translator like you were supposed to-"

"Oh, so it's all my fault, is it?"

"Given the circumstances, I'd say-"

"Look at that," House said to Wilson, taking a long, seductive drag on his cigarette. "Yet another way to die from tobacco use. We could do a study."

"How many people die from smoking, and how many from explosions caused by lit cigarettes? Interesting." Wilson replied, plucking the Marlboro from House's fingers, then nodded to the two bickering souls. "Maybe we should separate them before it comes to blows."

"Come on. A bitch-fight between ghosts? That would so cool." Nonetheless, House disentangled himself from Wilson and escorted Kaza away from her former boss, and Wilson did the same with the foreman.

After seeing the man off to his afterlife, a wide expanse of moonlit desert, Wilson joined House and his Reap. A shifting swirl of lights signified that an afterlife had appeared, but the woman hadn't moved into it.

"What's wrong?" Wilson asked, but he already knew by the sinking feeling in his stomach.

"It's..." House tried to say, but couldn't seem to finish. Wilson gazed into the heaven that had appeared in front of them. It was a low-ceilinged bar, with smoke hanging in the air, a gleaming black baby grand and guitar set on a stage, a classic Wurlitzer jukebox in the corner, and velvet couches crouched around black tables. Wilson knew without looking that the bar would be full of expensive liquor, and that the juke would be loaded with records of classic blues, jazz, and early rock 'n roll.

On one of the couches, right where he'd thought they'd be, three women sat talking and laughing, nursing their drinks. Two had long, dark, and curly hair, and they both had mojitos in their hands. The other had short red hair, and had half a Guinness on the table in front of her.

Wilson felt like his lungs were going to collapse, but he made an effort to smile.

"Tell them I said hi," he said to House. The other man wrenched his eyes away from the scene and looked back at Wilson. House looked as torn as Wilson felt.

"It's all right," Wilson said, the lie slipping out through his cold lips. "Go on. Not the first time we've been apart, anyway." Not even the first time you've died on me.

"I-" House cleared his throat. "I'll miss you."

"It won't be long, I think," Wilson said, wondering if that would be true or if he just desperately wanted it to be. He added in a lighter tone, "If this thing works on karmic principles, I'll probably join you tomorrow morning."

House grinned then, and that eased some of the ache in Wilson's chest. He kissed him, and Wilson tried to remember that there were no real goodbyes between them.

"Hurry up," House mumbled against his lips. "I want to see you in a real halo."

Wilson snorted, and the sheets of ice in his lungs melted a little, and he could breathe a bit easier. He watched House walk into the bar. Before the scene faded away, he saw Kay wave to him, and Cuddy turned and blew Wilson a kiss, which made him smile. Then they were gone and he was alone.

"Mind telling me what the hell just happened?" House's reap said, proving otherwise.

Wilson turned to her. He felt exhausted suddenly, but he still had a job to do. For a while, at least.

"Kaza, right?" At her nod, he continued. "I'm James Wilson. Let me explain how this works..."