Wilson sighed, seeing the note his assistant had left on his desk. Apparently House had called and said two things. One, "happy completely arbitrary day that you're supposed to feel good during because it happens to have the same number as the day you were born which makes no sense at all." Which, in English, meant happy birthday. Two, "if you want your present before six you'll have to come home early, and bring drugs cus I can't reach the hiding spot from the bed and I'm not telling you where it is." which meant House's leg was still really bothering him from that fall over the weekend—enough to make him stay home, even though he hated people thinking he couldn't handle it.
Wilson considered calling him back, but decided against it. House hated Wilson checking in on him over the phone. It reminded him too much of the infarction times, when Wilson had been working but House hadn't.
He called Cuddy instead, asking if he could have the afternoon off, after the board meeting. He also ended up telling her House was calling in sick, since apparently House hadn't bothered to do it himself.
Cuddy agreed to let him take a family emergency day—she had allotted him more of those than any other department head, saying she had given him House's because House didn't have a family other than Wilson himself. It had been five years. So far, House hadn't noticed.
As Wilson was hurrying down the steps, intent on getting home before one to make sure House actually ate something, he heard a call of his name. He grabbed the railing, yanking himself to a stop. Unfortunately, that ended with his expensive but very slippery shoe sliding off the step, and his tumbling down the six remaining in the flight.
The person, Cameron, hurried down to him, checking him over for major injuries.
"Dr. Wilson? Are you alright? Can you hear me?"
"Shit!"
Cameron blinked, "what is it?"
"My leg! Crap, ow! It really hurts, I think it's broken!"
Cameron produced a pair of scissors seemingly out of nowhere, cutting his pants up the side.
"Yeah, Wilson. It's not supposed to bend there."
Wilson clenched his teeth, fighting against the pain.
An hour later...
Cameron set Wilson's chart on the table next to his bed, snapping the x-rays up to the light box.
"Clean tib-fib fracture. Not gonna need much, if any, surgery, we were able to line it up with no problems, might have to do some pin fixations, but they should be minimally invasive."
Wilson sighed, letting his head flop back onto the pillows.
"Thanks, cam..." he mumbled, exhausted.
She glanced around, frowning, "where's House? I would have thought he'd be ecstatic about having the chance to be the less crippled one, for once."
"He's at home, being about equally crippled. His leg's really acting up, he fell over the weekend."
Cameron sighed, nodding unhappily. Her beeper went off, and she looked at it. Then she looked back up at Wilson.
He blinked at her, questioningly.
"Apparently, no he's not. EMS just brought him in, paged me. The ortho guy should be here soon, I'll tell you what's going on with House as soon as I can."
Wilson nodded, looking worried.
Cameron hurried out.
"What's his status?" asked Cameron, arriving at the ER in at a half-run.
"He says he's got pain induced cardio myopathy, but that's his idea, not mine."
"If he says that's what he's got, that's what he's got. Who did he get assigned to?"
"No one, yet."
"he's my patient, then."
The paramedic nodded, filling out the appropriate name on the chart.
"Get me an epidural needle and an ativan syringe." said Cameron, to the nurse monitoring House's pulse.
She nodded, and Cameron stepped in next to House.
"House, can you hear me?"
He opened his eyes, though they didn't focus.
"House?"
He turned his head to look at her, weakly.
"Hi cam..." he mumbled, looking around the room, "'s Wilson... here?"
"No, he broke his leg, fell down some stairs. He was on his way home."
"Oh..." House's eyelids started to slide closed.
"House, stay with me, ok? You're bradycardic, so you're not really getting enough oxygen, but I need you to stay with me as long as you can, ok?"
"K...ay."
Cameron injected the ativan, then rolled him onto his side.
"House, I need you to curl, like for an LP."
He made a very weak effort, but it fell far short of the mark.
"House, I'm sorry, but I have to move your legs, ok?"
"K..."
"House?"
"Okay."
Cameron pushed on his ankles, while a nurse held his upper body still. He screamed. Cameron ignored it.
"Ok, House. You're gonna feel a pinch, then a deep pain, but then all the pain should get better, ok?"
"Uh... huh."
Cameron swabbed the area, injected the local, and started inserting the needle for the spinal pain block.
"Heartrate 20!" yelled someone.
Cameron ignored it.
"Dr. Cameron!"
"Shut up!"
She was pulling the needle back out, now, but she still needed to be careful.
As soon as it was out, they rolled the now unconscious House onto his back.
Someone handed Cameron the pacing pads, and she slapped one on House's chest, the other on his back. Then she nodded to someone to turn on the machine, and yelled for someone to get ketamine, they needed to put House out all the way, and fast.
House groaned, opening his eyes. Urg, he hated having wires stuck all over himself. He started pulling them off. An alarm sounded, making his head throb.
Several people rushed in with a crash cart. They stopped, when they saw that the patient probably did have a heartbeat, after all.
He rolled his eyes at them, and continued pulling off the leads.
"While you're just standing there, do any of you happen to know where Dr. Wilson is?"
One of the people motioned for everyone else to leave, and looked back at House. House recognized him vaguely as having something to do with the oncology department.
"Yeah, he's up one floor, annoying the nurses by trying to pace with a broken leg."
House snorted.
The guy raised his eyebrows, as House suddenly stopped, squeezing his eyes shut and dropping back against the pillows.
"Somehow, I'm guessing it would be better for him to come to you, than visa-versa. Unsurprising, given you were technically dead a few hours ago."
House nodded, silently, jaw muscles clenched.
The guy checked House's chart.
"You can have another three CC's of morphine now."
House shook his head. He didn't want to be hazy when Wilson got there, he wanted to be able to see if Wilson was ok.
"Hang on." he grunted, just as the guy reached the door. He stopped.
"Yeah?"
"What day is it?"
The guy smiled.
"Still Dr. Wilson's birthday. Though, I have to say, so far this isn't much of a birthday"
House snorted, but looked a tiny bit grateful.
The guy left.
About fifteen minutes later, Wilson appeared, leg in a cast, on crutches.
"House! Dammit! Your heart stopped! For the third time! And you didn't move for long enough to get a DVT?! More muscle death sound fun to you?!"
House sighed, rubbing his chin.
"Yeah, well... the heart thing wasn't my fault, this time. And moving hurt. A lot."
Wilson deflated, sinking down onto the chair next to House's bed.
"You look like crap." they observed simultaneously, after a long pause.
They said nothing for a moment. Then they laughed.
"We're pathetic." said Wilson.
"Yes, yes we are." agreed House.
They sat there for a while.
"Your water pitcher's empty."
"I noticed."
"You want something to drink?"
"if you can get something without slopping it all over the place."
Wilson rolled his eyes, then paused.
"Oh, you meant cus of the crutches."
House gave him a 'duh, you moron' look, but Wilson ignored it, pushing himself to his feet.
Two minutes later, House heard a faint crash and a familiar voice crying out, from partway down the hall.
He eyed the crutch Wilson had left in the room.
Three hours later, they were crammed in the back of Cuddy's car, the four footrests of their two wheelchairs on the floor between their feet.
Wilson was leaning over, gently probing the swelling of his sprained ankle.
House poked him in the back.
He sat up, glaring.
"Mine's bigger." joked House, pointing to his own swollen extremity.
"Hey. It's still my birthday. You're supposed to be nice to me. You'd be supposed to be nice to me even if it wasn't my birthday, you scared me. Yet again."
"I'm the one that almost died. Yet again."
"And I'm the one that broke my leg trying to get home because you suck, on my birthday."
"Like that's my fault."
"Never said it was your fault, I just said it was true."
"Ok, if you two don't stop bickering about who's day sucked the worst, I will detail every bit of paperwork I have to fill out for the insurance, because of the very, very slim chance that either of you will file a lawsuit. And believe me, it'll take a while."
Wilson sighed, "sorry, Cuddy."
She shook her head, pulling up in front of their apartment.
"Hey, Cuddy." said House, leaning forward and whispering to her as Wilson struggled out of the car, "can you get something off a shelf for me?"
She looked at him, eyes narrowed, "what is it?"
He rolled his eyes, "Wilson's birthday presents."
Her expression cleared, and she nodded.
"Of course."
"Thanks."
Twenty minutes and the reappearance of the old infarction-era wheelchair ramp later, House was doing wheelies while Wilson tried to keep from running into things on the way to the kitchen. House had used a wheelchair seven times in his life, two of which had been more than three months in duration. Wilson had been pushed in one after getting his appendix out.
House pushed himself into the bedroom, and Cuddy followed him.
"It's up there, behind the book on tuberculosis."
Cuddy frowned, looking at the shelf he had indicated.
"I don't' see a book on TB."
House sighed, rolling his eyes, "it's in Japanese."
"Oh. No wonder I couldn't tell what it was about."
House snorted.
Cuddy pulled it down, and the boxes behind it. She stopped, looking at the smaller box. It fit on the palm of her hand, it wasn't heavy...
She looked at House.
He shrugged, looking away.
"Wow, House."
He shrugged again.
She walked over, and put the box in his hand, setting the larger package on the bed.
"Good luck."
He finally looked at her.
"Thanks."
She nodded, smiling, and left.
"Hey, Wilson. Where are you?"
"I hate this stupid wheelchair!"
House snorted, wheeling himself in the direction the complaint had come from, the larger package on his lap, the small box hidden between his hip and the side of the chair.
"Happy really sucky birthday." he said, holding out the package to Wilson.
Wilson blinked, taking it.
"I thought you didn't believe in birthday gifts."
"If you notice, the paper says happy bah-mitzvah. Stacy happened to have left it here, that's the only reason I even had any wrapping paper"
Wilson paused, looking at it. Then he looked at House, smiling.
"Thank you, House."
House shrugged, looking rather more nervous than getting thanked for a badly wrapped medical book really accounted for.
"Birthdays are meaningless." he said suddenly, sounding strangled.
Wilson looked at him, blinking.
"What?"
"Birthdays... are meaningless." said House again, looking anywhere but Wilson's face.
"Okaaaay..."
"Nobody remembers their actual 'birth day'. It's... it's acelebrationofsomethingnobodyevenremembersbutthereareotherdaysthatpeoplecelebratethataren'tmeaninglessandireallyreallywanttobeabletocelebrateoneofthemwithyousoheretakeit."
House held out a box.
Wilson blinked at him, trying to work through what exactly House had said.
Then he connected the box to the cascade of nervous words.
He looked at House.
House looked away.
Wilson took the box.
He swallowed.
He opened it.
He swallowed, and tried not to faint.
"Wow... House... just... wow..."
House looked at him again, tentatively. Wilson was crying.
"Uh... you don't look like you're happy about this..." he muttered, uncomfortable.
Wilson smiled, reached forward, and awkwardly hugged House across the space between the two wheelchairs.
"Yes. So, very, very yes."
House hesitated for a moment. Then he hugged back.
"I'm glad."
Wilson sniffed, head buried in House's shoulder.
"This is the best birthday I've ever had."