He doesn’t tell anyone and nobody thinks to ask.  It’s better this way, he tells himself.  It’s not like there’s anyone else he’d really care to have celebrating his birthday with him. The two people he’s closest two are no longer there (one being dead and the other gone crazy).

He briefly thinks to call Cuddy and invite her over for perhaps some tea or a drink.  She would probably be the only person who would take the time to actually have a glass of wine with him…but now she has the baby, and Rachel and the job have been taking up all of her time.

His birthday arrives on a bleak September morning, with rain that falls intermittently and never seems to rest.  Wilson rises from his bed aching without knowing the cause; perhaps it’s the way he slept, but deep down he knows it’s psychosomatic, and that the mysterious pain is likely deep-seated from stress.

The day goes on as any other day.  He meets with his patients hoping for them to show signs of improvement, but mostly nothing has changed.  Has he changed? Wilson often wonders, but can’t seem to come to any kind of conclusion as to whether he has or has not.  The only big change that comes to his mind is that once he had a girlfriend who loved him and that House isn’t there.

Nobody stops by his office to wish him a happy birthday.  It doesn’t matter, Wilson tells himself: his birthday isn’t happy anyway. 

When Wilson gets home at last, weary from a day of nothing but grim reports and endless paperwork, he halts with shock as he sees that there’s a package for him in front of the door.  When he stops to inspect it, he discovers that there is no return address, and the handwriting is unfamiliar to him.  Weak-kneed with uncertainty, Wilson feels his heart begin to race to the point where sweat begins to trail down his face.  His mind races as well, asking two questions that refuse to let up: Who in the world is this from? And What on Earth could it be??

Unable to hold back any longer, Wilson hauls the box in, pulls out his pocket knife and tears open the top with a willingness and desire he hasn’t experienced in days.  Once it’s open, he’s almost afraid to look inside: but curiosity triumphs, and without further ado he peeks inside.

What Wilson finds himself staring at baffles him to the point where he can’t blink for five seconds.  What’s inside appears to be an unidentifiable heap of odds and ends, as though someone decided to send their unwanted knickknacks to him, instead of dumping them off at Goodwill.  At first, Wilson isn’t sure in the least bit what to make of it; but then, his eyes rest one particular object: a red bouncing ball.

Drawn to it for some inexplicable reason, Wilson finds himself picking the ball up and tossing it into the air, watching it transfixed as it drops easily back into his palm.  He’s not sure why, but there’s the desire to grin, and suddenly he’s sitting there smiling like an idiot.  He tosses the ball back up into the air and lets it drop without holding his hand out to stop it, and the ball falls, but then retaliates as it bounces off of the living room’s hardwood floor.

Wilson catches the ball expertly mid-flight, and then peers over the box eagerly, wondering what he’ll find next. 

What he finds next throws him into hysterics: a Rubik’s cube, in mint condition.  He sets this aside and digs deeper, and much to his wonder finds himself holding a stethoscope.  What on Earth?  is all Wilson can think, but for some reason he understands that all of these objects are meant to go together; that it’s not by chance that they showed up on his doorstep.

The next finding is (strangely enough) a prescription pad.  After that, a whoopee cushion, and following this, an empty vial, no label.  By this time, Wilson is beside himself, practically howling with laughter and without even knowing why he’s laughing at all to begin with.

The very last object is a piece of paper, and suddenly Wilson can’t breathe, for he’s found himself staring at his very own initials: J.W., following the striking word “For”.  For J.W., the piece of paper is saying.  At first, he thinks that he must be staring at some kind of a secret code…but suddenly, as if he’s just woken up out of a dream, he realizes that it’s simply a piece of sheet music, written for the piano.  He doesn’t play the piano.  Yet, the unheard notes move him to the point where he almost can’t see them through the blur in his eyes.

As soon as he sees those two letters joined together, but separated with dots, everything falls into place, and he knows who sent him this box, and everything in it.  It’s just that Wilson can’t bring himself to admit it, because the idea that House would even think of doing something so kind is beyond his current capabilities.

He’s amazed when he discovers that on the back of the sheet is a letter (if one could call a single sentence a letter).  Even so, it’s more than Wilson could ever hope for, as the sentence goes as fallows:

Everybody lies, but everybody also loves….’ain’t the world a funny place.

~G.H.

When he reads this statement, Wilson isn’t sure whether he’s about to laugh or cry.

But in the end, compromise is almost everything.