-1"You shot me!"

by NoRiskNoFun

Dedicated to my dear friend Meli

Disclaimer: All the characters mentioned belong to Fox, but who doesn't know that?

Summary: House and his team are treating who they think is just another patient- but they're wrong. Somebody wants him dead, which not only intrigues House, but also puts him at risk....

Author's Note: The idea for this story was born at a sleep-over party at a friend's. We were going to play a House drinking game and I was reading the instructions. So instead of "whenever House shuts Wilson down" (in terms of conversation) I read "whenever House shoots Wilson down". So Meli said I had to write a fanfiction in which this is the case. And voilà :-)

And the fanfiction isn't betaed so all mistakes whatsoever are my own.

XXX

The cane missed the ball by less than an inch. House limped after the ball, picked it up, put it onto his cane handle for the 26th time and threw it against the wall while turning around as fast as he could, trying to catch to ball on the other side.

He missed again.

After he had collected the ball yet one more time, the door of his office opened and Forman entered. Forman watched as House tried his new trick once again but failed for the 27th time. When Forman only looked at him confusedly, House spoke up.

"So are you here to be my audience or do you have actual news?"

"I've just checked on our patient and it seems as though the treatment-"

"Ain't working?" House finished the sentence.

"How did you know?" Forman asked, ignoring the mockery intended by House's diction.

"'Cuz it was our first treatment and that never works." He paused for a second. "I guess we should simply not administer the treatment to our first diagnosis since it's never gonna work anyway."

Forman rolled his eyes. "We're always sure it'll work- no wait, you're always sure it's the right diagnosis."

"I know. Kinda makes me a hypocrite, doesn't it?" Forman shrugged. "Then let's get the scoobies for round two."

xxx

Two days and four different treatments later, William Trask was finally getting better. He had never met this Dr. House, but now that he was feeling better he didn't actually care that much anymore.

When the door to his room opened, he turned to greet who he thought to be his mother- only to find himself face to face with the one man on this planet he never wanted to be face to face with.

The next second, he saw something silver shine in the man's right hand.

xxx

Chase, his blond hair shining, was on his way to check on their patient as he heard a scream out of the exact room he was aiming for. He broke into a run and when he reached William Track's room, he found that the patient was not alone.

Another man was leaning over the bed and had apparently pierced William's shoulder with a huge knife.

"Hey! Stop!" yelled Chase and hurried towards the man with the knife, pulling him away from the bed. But instead of successfully throwing the guy to the ground and getting the knife out of his had, as Chase had planned, he was hit in the face so hard that he fell to the ground.

It all went black for a moment and as Chase was able to open his eyes again, he could see the guy running out of the room already.

xxx

"Trying to tackle the bad guy is not in your job description, skinny white British guy," House remarked as Chase, Forman and Cameron told him about the incident. With a glance at Forman, House added, "And where exactly was the man for the job?"

Forman rolled his eyes, annoyed. "I think the fact that someone tried to kill our patient is more important that to find out whose jurisdiction it was to stop the killer."

"You say that now, Tabbs, but when you and Sunny are alone, I bet you'll be more pissed."

"Why are you calling me Sunny? Who's that?" Chase looked around questioningly and was met with incredulous faces.

"Okay, not knowing Miami Vice is a good reason to fire somebody, right?" House asked out loud.

"Sorry, I'm still Australian."

"Despite the British accent. How frustrating that must be," House said, grinning smugly. "But back to the bad guy. Who was he?" He looked at Chase expectingly.

"Err; I did not really see his face."

"Okay, I take that back. You're more Hutch than Sunny."

"But I saw that he was Asian."

"Wow, now we've narrowed it down to about several million people, good job."

They were silent for a while.

"So, what do we do now?" asked Cameron. "We can't just do nothing; William needs protection in case this guy comes back!"

"Get one or two security guards, that's all we can do without a description," House said with a pointed look at Chase.

The three went to arrange for security to guard their patient and all House was left to do was trying to figure out why someone wanted this guy dead.

xxx

After half an hour, House gave up. Their patient was a 26-year-old marketing agent with no girl- or boyfriend, a mother who visited him every day and a few friends who had dropped by once or twice.

There was nothing left except visit the patient.

"Hello, I'm doctor House," he said as he entered the room.

The patient turned towards him slowly. Apparently the wound in his chest was still hurting. "So do you always wait to visit a patient until they get stabbed?"

"Yeah, and mostly I never have to see them. You'd have been my tenth in a row. You screwed up my new record."

"I don't think this is funny."

"Why would you? You have a big bloody hole in your chest. Or is that why that guy stabbed you? You're in the s-m scene? "

This time the patient didn't even answer.

"So do you know this guy?"

"No," he answered perhaps a little bit too late. House didn't miss it.

"So, who was he? Angry ex-boyfriend?"

"I've never seen him in my life. And I'm straight."

"I don't care." House considered Jim- no, or was it Bill? - for a moment. "He apparently has seen you. Or do you think he was just an evil maniac who's killing people at random?"

The patient didn't answer again but in the next second House knew why- Bill went into cardiac arrest.

xxx

They soon failed to tie the cardiac arrest to the knife wound and thus were again facing a treatment that wasn't working. While they were running a few more tests, William Track's condition ("Oh, that's his name!") worsened and House visited him again.

"We never got to finish that talk."

"I told you I don't know who that was," William said, sounding weak.

"And I've already made clear that I don't believe you. So that you don't want to admit that you know him means that it's either something embarrassing or bad."

William remained silent.

"But then again, I already figured it had to be something bad since that guy attacked you with a knife. The only question is what it was that you did to him."

"I didn't do anything to him," he whispered.

"If you say so, I'm surely gonna believe you," House said sarcastically.

He studied the patient for a moment or two.

"Then again, you could speak the truth. Perhaps you didn't do anything to him, but to someone else. And now, that guy is pissed." House contently watched William's eyes dilating, knowing he had hit a sport. "Perhaps you killed his dog, or stole his girlfriend, or-"

House stopped in mid sentence as an epiphany hit him.

xxx

"So all he had was a rare viral infection?" Wilson asked amazed as he came by House's office in the afternoon.

"No," House answered. "A very cool rare, hardly recognizable viral infection."

"Oh, sorry, I forgot for a second that you were God."

House smirked as he picked up the ball from his desk and put it on his cane handle.

"I bet God can't do that," House replied as he threw the ball against his office wall and caught it on his other side again.

"Yes, that's way cooler that having unlimited power, you're right."

"You're just jealous."

"Very. I have to restrain myself not to hit you because I'm so jealous," Wilson laughed and turned to leave.

At that moment, a big Asian guy opened the door. Wilson kept on walking, aiming for the door as well, but he froze as the man pulled a gun.

"You asshole!" the bad guy said, pointing the gun at House. Wilson looked slightly panicked.

"Oh, you must be the bad guy. The one who tried to kill my patient," House said calmly. "What happened to that plan? Why is that gun pointing at me?"

"You cured him!" The bad guy swung the gun in Wilson's direction for a moment. "And you- don't dare to move!"

To House, it looked as if Wilson wouldn't move if a sudden earthquake shook the room.

"You could reverse that by shooting the patient. No need shooting me."

"You cured a criminal!"

"Right now it looks to me as if you're the criminal, you know, with the whole stabbing-patients-and-pointing-guns-at-doctors-thingy."

"He's done something worse than I'm doing right now!"

"Don't care either way. We doctors have to cure everybody, you know."

"He raped my sister!" screamed the bad guy, his hand badly shaking with rage.

"Oh." House fell silent. That thought had never occurred to him. He had never thought William Trask to be a rapist, rather a let's-borrow-money-from-the-mob kind of guy. Now, he had his answer. And a gun pointed at him.

House reached inside his jacket pocket.

"Stop!" yelled the still-just-as-bad guy.

"I'm only reaching for my phone to put in on my desk so that you have control over the situation."

House was lucky- it took the Asian guy long enough to decide whether or not he should trust House so that he could complete the movement.

Wilson inhaled sharply as he saw that it was a gun, not a mobile phone, which House pulled out of his jacket- which he then aimed at the bad guy.

The bad guy took a surprised step back but then he regained control over his body again.

"You're never going to shoot me, you don't have the guts" he said, his voice trembling slightly.

House leaned his cane against his desk and loaded the gun. "You're so sure of that?" he dared the bad guy.

There was a brief moment when nobody moved nor breathed. Then the bad guy decided to make a run for it at the exact time House had decided to pull the trigger.

The pistol in House's hand followed the move of the bad guy and his finger pulled the trigger before his brain had time to realize that now, Wilson was standing between his target and the gun.

House had never actually heard a gun being fired- well, officially he had once but he couldn't remember anymore with all that blood loss- and it was a lot louder than it had appeared in the movies House had seen so far.

It was only when Wilson's knees gave in that House became aware of the fact that there was blood coming out of Wilson's right side.

Wilson looked down and touched the wound. When the blood stuck to his finger, he realized what had happened and turned to House.

"You shot me!" he yelled at House, who, to his own surprise, wasn't that shocked at what had just happened. Or perhaps he was distracted by the fact that the bad guy limped out of his office.

"Sorry," House replied, "I'm a doctor, not a sniper."

Wilson gave him an exasperated look. "That's why you've got a stethoscope and shouldn't handle a gun." That was followed by a sharp intake of breath as Wilson tried to stand up and fell back down again. "Could I please get some help over here?"

"Oh, first you're bitching at me and now I should help you?"

Nevertheless, House picked up his cane, limped over to the conference room, took the first aid kit out of the coffee cupboard and made his way back to Wilson.

"Here, press this to the wound to stop the bleeding while I get some real stuff," House said, pushing some bandages into Wilson's hands.

House was almost out of the door when Wilson asked, "Where did you get the gun anyway?"

"Bought it shortly after the knife incident, just in case."

"You're paranoid."
"It's not called being paranoid when someone is actually after you."

"And you knew that."

"I figured. By the way, do you know how easy it is to get a gun in this country? Why have there been no complaints about that? Everybody could get one!"

With that, House left the room. Several nurses and a few doctors were already running towards his office, and behind them he saw the bad guy being cuffed by security, the leg House had hit still bleeding.

House had shot Wilson.

He smiled to himself. That was something he never thought would happen to him.

The End