The tops of the pine trees bent with the wind and Wilson opened the window a little wider, hoping to feel just a hint of something fresh -- of air cooled by the ocean or the river he was sure must be nearby.

But the wind that blew in was hot, thick and humid with nothing but the scent of dust and gravel and dried out weeds. He leaned back against the vinyl seat, feeling a sticky layer of sweat against his back.

"If we'd taken my car," he said, "we'd have a working air conditioner."

"You were the one who didn't want me driving your car in the first place." House had his left elbow propped up on the open window, his arm hanging loosely along the side of the car, his hand gliding up and down with the wind.

"If you'd told me where we were going, I could have driven."

"But that would ruin the surprise," House said.

Wilson shook his head and stared out the window again. House passed a slow moving pickup and Wilson coughed on the dust and exhaust fumes.

Karma, he thought to himself. This was the universe's way of reminding him he shouldn't be here, shouldn't have willingly given in to House to take this trip on a road to nowhere. He had things he should be doing back home. People who needed him.

But he'd given in. Again. Like he always did. Like the wuss Amber had once accused him of being. He shook his head, wondered how long Amber's words would echo through his mind, or if they'd fade like her scent on the sheets, or the ink on the final note she'd left him, rubbed hundreds of times by his fingers as they traced her words.

House didn't believe in Karma, didn't believe in anything he couldn't measure or quantify, with the exception of a belief in his own medical skills. If Wilson had confessed that he had a feeling that they shouldn't be here -- that he shouldn't be here -- House would have ignored him, or reminded him again that they were allowed to take a day off, that no one would die just because Wilson had a little fun.

Or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe Amber haunted House too.

He and House had been locked into some macabre dance with Amber's ghost for months now. Neither of them knew the steps. At first Wilson wasn't even sure if he wanted to try to learn them, but somehow they had found their footing again, found their way back into a friendship. But the borders had changed, and sometimes they only found the frayed edges when they accidentally stumbled across them.

And now, because of House, because of that friendship that they both wanted to believe in, Wilson was somewhere he couldn't even find on a map, if he had a map. If House believed in maps.

House had turned off the highway somewhere south of Toms River, saying he had a better route. Since then they'd cruised past a collection of beach towns and multimillion dollar mansions, with only brief glimpses of the water, of a grayish blue with softly breaking waves. Wilson saw catamarans and Sunfish sailboats close to shore, darting past each other, and further out in deep water, yachts and the occasional two-masted schooner.

He hadn't seen the water for the past fifteen minutes, not since House had turned off the main road with a quick spin of the wheel and a sudden move that had Wilson grasping for something to hang onto as the car turned to the right. He only slowed down at the crossroads, sometimes continuing straight ahead, sometimes turning to the left or the right.

Wilson could only tell their direction by staring up at the sun. He knew that House would run out of road if he kept going south, with nothing but the Delaware Bay ahead of him.

He looked at House. "Atlantic City?" he guessed.

"On the Fourth of July?" House shook his head. "Too crowded. And we passed the turn for Atlantic City ten miles back."

Wilson pictured the map of New Jersey in his head. "Cape May?"

House took his eyes off the road, stared at Wilson for a few seconds. "Have you seen Cape May on a summer weekend?"

Once, Wilson thought, but didn't say anything. Back when he'd hoped he could still make things work with Bonnie, the marriage counselor had recommended that they get out of their routine for a few days, leave the pressures and distractions behind. For a few hours, he'd convinced himself that it could work. They'd found a beach side bed and breakfast in a Victorian cottage, had walked under the full moon along the water's edge.

But there'd been a message from House when they got back from dinner, saying that he was running low on Vicodin, and something about the new pharmacy tech. When Wilson had asked, he'd grumbled out an admission that he'd be all right until Monday.

Wilson had told Bonnie that it was nothing -- tried to tell himself that House would be fine, but that night, he couldn't stop the voice in his head telling him that he should get back, that maybe the Vicodin was just an excuse, and House really did need him.

They'd left the next morning, and Bonnie had left him six months later.

Now as the car slowed, Wilson looked over at House, told himself again that he'd done the right thing back then. House'd had only one pill by the time Wilson got there. He'd muttered something about a bad day on Friday, had said he didn't realize how few were left until Saturday. Wilson had gotten him a refill. House hadn't said anything when he gave it to him, hadn't thanked him out loud, but had looked him in the eye, nodded once and swallowed down two of them with half a glass of water.

House stopped at the intersection of two gravel roads, looked left, then right, then left again.

"You're lost, aren't you?" Wilson asked.

"I am not lost," House said. "I'm just ... trying to remember which way to go. It looked different last time."

House leaned forward, looked right again, then left.

"Would I be damaging my manhood beyond repair to suggest you ask for help? Call someone?" Wilson pointed at the house across the road. "Maybe stop at that place over there?"

House leaned back again, stared at him. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

Wilson waved both hands at the roads in front of them. "Fine. Let's go."

House spun the wheel to the left. "Don't be so dramatic," he said. "We're in New Jersey, not the Yukon. We're not going to starve to death if we take a wrong turn." Gravel pinged up against the Chrysler's sheet metal. "Especially," said House, "if you packed a decent meal in that cooler."

Wilson leaned against the door, opened the window a little wider and tried to ignore the dust flying in. "You tell me where we're going, and I'll tell you what's for dinner."

House had refused to tell him anything about the trip, had just walked into Wilson's office from the balcony on Wednesday, and told him to be ready to leave Friday morning. He had a smile on his face, as if he'd just solved some puzzle, but Wilson had known that wasn't true.

House's last patient had been a 28-year-old man -- a new father -- who'd been bounced from doctor to doctor for nearly two weeks with what was first termed a bad cold, then bronchitis, then pneumonia. By the time someone finally gave up and called House for help, it was too late. The man had drowned to death from the fluid collecting in his damaged lungs as they waited for the results of the biopsy that would confirm Hamman-Rich Syndrome.

"Nothing we could have done," House had said, after he'd sent his team home, drained from two straight days of a failed effort. "No treatment, no cure." Wilson had found him slumped down in a visitor's chair in a corner of the ICU, looking at the bed where the man had died, the sheets and blankets folded on the end of the bed, ready to be shipped to the laundry. Wilson couldn't help but recognize that it was the same bed House had occupied a few months earlier. He wondered if that had meant anything to him.

"I know." Wilson had been able to tell by the sound of House's voice -- the clipped words, the short sentences, no wasted effort -- that his pain was bad and getting worse, ramping up to fill the hole that the lost case had left behind. It didn't matter if the pain came from pushing himself too hard, or memories of the view from that bed, or some weird sense of misplaced guilt that he hadn't been able to save the guy. The pain would have felt the same.

He'd pretended not to notice how long it took House to get up from the chair, and how slowly he'd walked down the hallway. House had pretended that he didn't want Wilson to come in once they were at his apartment, had complained that Wilson was turning into a Jewish grandmother, but had eaten the soup and sandwiches Wilson had put in front of him.

When House hadn't shown up the next day, Wilson hadn't been surprised. He'd almost expected House to extend his time off for a couple of days, maybe even to the weekend. Cuddy wouldn't complain. She'd been giving House even more slack since the spring, as if House's latest gamble with death had taken something from her too, but Wilson didn't know what.

But House had beaten Wilson's estimate by a full day, showing up in his office before noon on Wednesday. Wilson had watched him walk across the room, saw that House was still stiff, but definitely better. He wondered what he'd taken, but forced himself not to ask.

"Fourth of July and a long holiday weekend," House had said. "I've got the perfect place."

Wilson had shaken his head. "House ..."

"No excuses."

"I've got better things to do than blow things up," Wilson had told him.

"But are they as much fun?" House had picked up a stack of manila envelopes from Wilson's desk, balanced them in his hand as if he was weighing their worth.

"Residency applications," Wilson had explained. "I thought I'd look them over while I had the chance when things are quiet."

"You could just hire all of them and then ..."

"No." Wilson had grabbed the files, put them back on his desk. "And I have a patient in the last stages of pancreatic cancer. I can't leave him now."

"I'm not talking about jet setting out to Monaco, just a day trip," House had said. "Take a day off. Get out of town for a few hours. It'll do you good."

Bad things happened when Wilson left town, when he wasn't there to take care of things, when he wasn't paying attention. His brother had disappeared when Wilson was gone. He'd come home to half-a-dozen calls from his parents on his answering machine, asking if his brother had shown up there. Julie had started her affair when he was giving a speech in Boston. Patients died without him to watch over them. The infarction happened.

Amber.

But House had stood there, waiting, smiling for the first time in days. In months. He even looked ... happy. Wilson couldn't remember the last time he'd seemed not just satisfied, but happy, and actually looking forward to something. He was pretty sure it hadn't happened since that night, though he had a flash of a memory, of House grinning as he sparred with Amber, of himself sitting back, watching them both.

He'd rubbed his hands over his eyes. Amber again. Her ghost finding her way into every conversation. Every memory. He wasn't sure if he hoped she'd stop making appearances, or was afraid that she would.

He'd looked over at House, seen that smile again. Maybe he couldn't do anything to help Amber now, but he could still do something for House.

"Fine," he'd finally said, "one day."

House had nodded. "You're cooking," he'd said, "bring charcoal."

It was already hot when Wilson got up that morning. He should have known then that the heat was another omen, a sign that he should stay home where he could get things done. He'd looked at the papers that he'd brought home, told himself again that he didn't need the time off -- didn't deserve it -- but then House was there, honking the horn on the street outside, and yelling at him to hurry up.

Wilson had a pile next to the door: a gym bag filled with spare clothes, a set of tongs and a barbecue fork, plastic bags from the grocery store with snacks and paper plates, charcoal and anything else he thought they'd need. House watched as Wilson hauled the cooler out to the car, weighed down with ice, food and drinks.

"You remember the beer?"

Wilson had put the cooler on the floor behind the passenger seat, turned to House. "Are you going to make me pay for everything?" He put out one hand, shook his head. "Wait, forget I even asked."

"I paid for the gas," House had said, then pointed at the bags on the far side of the car, "and the explosives."

"Of course," Wilson had muttered. "Things that burn and make a lot of noise. Very you."

Now the Chrysler bumped along the rough road and Wilson looked over at House, thought he caught a glimpse of House massaging his thigh as the car hit a pothole, but House's right hand moved up to the steering wheel before Wilson was sure.

The gravel road had given way to nothing more than a dirt path. Up ahead, it looked more like a two-track fading into grass and trees.

"Are you sure we're not lost?"

"Relax," House said. "We're almost there."

He slowed, turned left onto a dirt road that led into the trees. They broke through the pines and Wilson saw blue water ahead of them, green grass and a dozen picnic tables spread out under the shade of ancient trees. There was a small boat launch ahead of them, and House turned right, toward a parking lot where there were a few cars and trucks with empty boat trailers.

"Told you I knew where I was going," House said. He parked under a maple tree and turned off the ignition. Wilson opened the door and stepped out, the air finally feeling cool on his skin, a breeze blowing off the water.

He walked out onto the grass, looked at the water. The waves lapped softly against the shore, barely making any noise. It wasn't the Atlantic proper -- probably some bay or inlet that he would have sailed past without even noticing, back when he used to sail.

He turned, looked back at House. "Where are we?" Wilson asked.

"A park," House said.

"I figured that out. Which park?"

House shrugged. "Somewhere near Corson's Inlet."

It wasn't the state park, though, Wilson thought. That was usually crowded with beachcombers and fishermen and the high whining sound of motorboats. This was someplace else, someplace forgotten. "How'd you ever find it?"

House sat on top of a picnic table, pulled his right leg up until he could rest his foot on the bench. "Took a wrong turn once," he said, "decided to see where it went."

Wilson shook his head. He hated wrong turns. Hated making mistakes. When he was a kid, his brother would laugh at him if he said the wrong thing, made some flub. He'd try even harder the next time, try to be perfect, even after he figured out that no one was perfect.

Nothing House did was perfect. He made three mistakes on his way to every right answer, but he never seemed to care. He flouted every moment that made Wilson cringe, shouted at the top of his lungs when he should be quiet, took chances when he should be cautious, followed wrong turns to the end of the road, just to see what was there.

Drank too much, when he knew he shouldn't.

Wilson was never sure if House's attitude scared him, or made him jealous. He sat next to House, looked out at the world from the same place House saw it, but knew he'd never be able to see it same way House did, even if he wanted to.

It was quiet sitting there after too many hours listening to the sound of the car's engine and of the wind rushing past his ears. Wilson heard nothing here but the screech of gulls, the breeze rustling the leaves, the water moving past the concrete pier at the boat launch, the shouts of a family at the other end of the park.

"It's perfect," he said.

"Nothing's perfect," House said, "but food would help."

House had to make do with a bag of potato chips while Wilson unloaded the car, claiming an empty table next to an ancient steel grill.

Wilson was emptying one of the bags when House found the charcoal. He dumped half of it into the grill, then started rooting through the rest of Wilson's supplies.

"Where's the lighter fluid?"

"You honestly think I'm going to tell you?"

"You're doing so much." House had that look on his face that he usually saved for Cuddy when he was trying to get her to agree to some insane treatment. She never bought it either. "I'm just trying to help out."

"You, flammable liquids and matches." Wilson shook his head. "Not exactly what I'd call helpful."

House groaned when Wilson sprinkled the lighter fluid over the coals. "Not enough," he said, but the flames caught the spark with the first match. Wilson told him not to bitch unless he was willing to start doing the cooking, and House sighed, took seat at the table, and stuffed a handful of chips in his mouth.

Wilson checked the coals. They'd finally gone to a light gray and he pushed them out to the corners of the grill. He half expected to hear House behind him, telling him he should add more charcoal, or that the fire wasn't hot enough. The only voices came from the family three tables away.

He turned to grab the chicken and saw House standing out by the water's edge, a dark outline in the late afternoon sun, the familiar profile of his lopsided stance as he leaned on the cane.

Wilson shook his head, tore off a long sheet of aluminum foil to cover the park's rusty grill, then placed the chicken on it, organic chicken breasts that he'd marinated overnight in soy sauce, onions, garlic and fresh ginger. He heard the coals sizzle as the moisture leaked past the foil.

When he turned and looked back out at the water, House was on the ground, hunched over. Wilson felt panic twist in his stomach, and found himself thinking about Karma again as he started to run toward the shore. Then House sat up, and Wilson forced himself to slow down, to wait.

After a moment, House rocked himself forward onto his knees, then pushed himself slowly up, one hand on the cane, the other firmly on the ground until he got his good leg beneath him -- an awkward motion he'd somehow adopted in the years since the infarction.

Wilson waited a moment longer, until House took one step, then another, moving steadily. House paused at the shore, then walked down to the water. Wilson turned back to the grill, decided the chicken would be fine for a few minutes. He followed House's footsteps, the tongs still held in his left hand.

House's shoes and socks were abandoned two feet before the water's edge, his cane was leaning against a rock. House stood ankle deep in the water, his toes wiggling in the soft sand, and his jeans rolled up to just below his knees.

"The water's warm," House said.

Wilson shrugged. "It's July."

"I know." House took a half step further out into the water, his right hand on his thigh, providing extra support where there was no muscle. His right calf was thinner than the left, the muscles he'd managed to rebuild during the brief Ketamine summer of two years ago had already atrophied, and Wilson saw him lean to the left, putting more of his weight on that leg as the waves rippled past his skin.

"It's nice," House said. "You should take a swim."

Wilson shook his head. "I'm good," he said. He looked back at the grill, half expecting to see black smoke billowing into the sky. It looked fine.

"You like swimming."

Wilson didn't bother asking how House knew that. He didn't deny it either, had a flash of a memory of his uncle's boat, of long days at the shore with his brothers.

"You need to relax," House said. "You'll like it."

Wilson nodded toward the picnic table. "I thought you were hungry."

"I'll watch it."

Wilson snorted. "Right."

"Fine. So the food gets a little burned. Would that be so bad?"

"Want me to show you the studies on grilling and carcinogens?"

House rolled his eyes and took a stutter step further out into the water. The shallow waves lapped at his shins, splashed onto the rolled denim, leaving a dark spot on the faded blue. House didn't seem to notice, just stared out at the water, at the point where the land stretched out to form the mouth of the inlet.

Wilson followed his gaze, saw the way the color changed hue as it got deeper, watched as an egret glided over the waves. He took a deep breath, smelled water and salt on the wind and remembered the feel of salt water drying on his skin on a hot summer day, remembered the deep hunger from spending hours in the water and the way the ocean's scent seemed to make everything taste better.

"You're on." Wilson held the tongs out to House. "Turn the chicken over in another ten minutes."

House was right. The water was warm, the inlet shallow enough to hold the summer heat even at its deepest point. Wilson floated on his back forty feet out from the shoreline. He closed his eyes against the bright sun glaring down from just above the tree line.

Wilson tried to shut out the oncologist's voice in the back of his head, warning him that he should have covered himself with sunscreen. He didn't want to be that guy right now, the guy who tried to make everything right, the guy who tried to fix what couldn't be fixed. Maybe, just for a few minutes, he wanted to be some other guy. Someone who didn't worry. Someone who didn't give a crap. House.

He kicked his legs, let them drop until he was facing the beach, treading water. He could see House sitting at their picnic table. He knew that wasn't true even as the thought flitted through his mind. House only let others think he didn't give a crap. Maybe it'd be easier if he really didn't care, then it would be easy to walk away from him, to give up on everything they'd had, because of everything that had happened.

He turned again, swam parallel to the shore in long strokes, feeling the water give way beneath his hand, feeling the tension in his shoulders loosen as his muscles let go of the stress he'd been holding there and instead worked smoothly to pull him forward.

He kicked his legs, hearing the splash as his feet broke the surface. He moved toward the open water of the Atlantic at the mouth of the inlet, seeing it grow closer with each stroke. He could swim out there if he wanted to, swim away from the beach, away from House, swim until he found something new.

Wilson stopped, tread water again. He looked out at the ocean as he caught his breath, saw a sailboat breaking the line of the horizon, heading south with its sails full, moving fast toward some new port. Or maybe it was heading home.

He let himself sink down into the water, let it cover his ears and his eyes until he couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything but the sound of his own body, of the blood in his veins and his heart beating steadily in his chest. He kicked again, broke back through the surface and into the light.

He turned, swam back into the inlet, back to the beach. He could leave. Maybe it would even be easier to leave. But he didn't want to.

Wilson's hair was still damp and his stomach was full as he lay back on the blanket, looked up at the leaves. He'd cleaned up the remains of their dinner -- House had only burned the edges of one of the chicken breasts, and hadn't complained when Wilson gave it to him -- and tossed the paper and plastic into the garbage cans near the boat ramp.

The sky was turning a dark blue, making its way toward indigo, and the park was filling with a few more families, some of them roasting hot dogs, others sitting near the water's edge, the kids either playing in the water or on the swings, pumping their legs harder and harder as they rose up toward the last rays of sunshine.

House had disappeared ten minutes earlier, wandering off toward the only building in the park, a dark wooden and log structure that held a few toilet stalls and a changing room.

Wilson put his hands behind his head, closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the night -- of children screaming, a power boat out on the water, someone's radio playing softly, a man and woman talking in low tones, then the sound of her laugh.

"You would have loved it here," Wilson said, as Amber lay down beside him.

"I do," she said, and smiled, "but of course, I'm not really here."

"I know."

The first few weeks after she'd died, Amber only appeared in nightmares as she died again and again, no matter what he did. But the nightmares turned into quiet and easy dreams at some point, at about the time he and House had started talking again.

"House is right, you know." Amber turned toward him, her hair falling softly past her shoulders. Wilson thought he could almost feel it brush against his skin.

"About what?"

"You need to take some time for yourself."

"I did."

"A funeral doesn't count."

Wilson shrugged.

Amber leaned on her elbow and looked across the grass toward the House-shaped shadow standing between them and the water. "You can't save everyone. You know that." She lay down beside him again. "You can't help me anymore, and you can't stop him from being in pain, or stop him from taking too many pills, or stop his patients from dying."

"How do you know?"

She laughed. "I know because you know. I'm not here, remember?"

Wilson felt the familiar ache in his chest.

"And you promised that you were going to take care of yourself."

Wilson nodded.

"Good." Amber sat up again, pulled away from him. "Don't forget. You should be happy. Do something for yourself -- something you actually want to do."

"I've been trying to," Wilson said.

She smiled. "I know."

Amber's blonde hair stood out in contrast against the night sky, then faded as the red of fireworks exploded around her. Wilson blinked, saw the fading embers of the rocket, the leaves above him. He was alone on the blanket. He rubbed his eyes and sat up.

"I was starting to think you'd sleep through it." House looked down at him from his perch on the picnic table.

"Not likely." Wilson stood and stretched. There was a sliver of a moon in the sky and he could see three or four groups of people along the shore, gathered around makeshift launching pads dug into the dirt.

Another rocket whistled into the sky and he watched it rise. Ten feet. Twenty. It finally blasted itself apart with a shower of green sparks, the water giving off a blurred reflection.

Wilson sat next to House, saw the bags of fireworks on the ground at House's feet.

"You haven't started?"

House shook his head. "I was waiting."

Another explosion, red and white in the sky. Wilson watched House, and saw him grin, heard him laugh, and Wilson found himself smiling along with him.

The sky went dark again. House looked over at Wilson, the grin gone now. "I suppose you want to go home?"

Wilson knew he still had work waiting for him, knew it was a long drive back to Princeton. He still had CVs to read and patients to check on. He shook his head.

"What I want," he said, "is right here."

He grabbed one of the bags and took out a gaudy purple and red box. He smiled. "Let's blow something up."