A/N - Written for a Camp Sick!Wilson challenge on LJ. Fic had to incorporate three random objects. For this fic they were : The month of June, sexy lingerie and an empty packet of chips. Set during Wilson's hospital stay after his partial liver donation

One thing that Wilson hadn't realised about hospitals was that they were boring. Oh, not if you were working in one, that was fine, there were always colleagues around, and sick people, and the work was generally interesting. No, he liked working in a hospital, it was just being a patient in one that sucked.

He'd had visitors of course, but most of his fellow doctors seemed awkward around him, a bit baffled by his decision. He could see them eyeing him, wondering if he was setting a precedent. If theywould be expected to donate a bodily organ to the next patient they screwed over.

House had been good about visiting, surprisingly for him. He was often to be found slumped in a chair next to Wilson's bed, catching up on paperwork (which apparently consisted of doing the crossword puzzle and writing letters to the editors of an increasingly bizarre series of magazines). The last day or two though he'd been caught up in a case, and Wilson hadn't seen him at all today so he feeling bored and restless.

"Doctor Wilson? Lunch."

He looked up to see Thirteen standing there, bag in hand. She put it down on his rolling table and he looked eagerly at the contents, sandwiches, piece of fruit and...an empty bag of potato chips.

"Er..."

"House." Thirteen put a wealth of feeling into that one word. "Said you shouldn't be eating them with only half a liver, so he ate them."

Wilson prodded at the empty packet, yep, House's favourite.

"So why the empty bag?"

"He said to leave it there, I don't know why." She rolled her eyes again, as if the inner working of House's mind was an impenetrable puzzle.

Wilson knew why though, there would be no fun in stealing his chips if Wilson didn't know he'd stolen them. He also suspected that House thought that stealing Wilson's food was a sign of friendship or affection for Wilson. Wilson thought that House stealing his food was a sign that House was a cheap bastard who didn't like paying for his own food. Wilson thought that allowing House to steal his food was a sign of his affection for House.

Or maybe House couldn't be bothered throwing the thing into the trash. Sometimes an empty bag of chips was well, just an empty bag of chips.

"How's the case?" he asked Thirteen, leaving the puzzle of the chips alone for now.

"Chase and Foreman are at each other's throats over it, Taub has lost interest and is busy trying to chat up some nurse in peds, and House thinks that all three of them are idiots."

"So, business as usual then?"

"Well, as usual as it gets in diagnostics..." Thirteen was interrupted by a beep from her pager and she looked down at it and frowned. "Crap, guy is bleeding from his eyeballs. Guess it wasn't sarcoidosis then. Damn, that's another twenty I owe House."

"Thought you would have learned not to bet against him by now."

"He likes it better when you do, gives him motivation to actually put some effort into saving the patient, most people would think that saving a life would be motivation enough but House likes to see some cold hard cash out of the deal as well. Got to go, Doctor Wilson, enjoy your lunch."

Wilson settled back against his pillows to enjoy his lunch. The hospital supplied food of course, but to be honest it was pretty crap - he had plans to look into hospital food after having eaten here for a few days - so the actual real food was welcome. He would have liked the chips though.

Wilson woke up from a nap (that was another thing about hospitals, it turned out you slept an awful lot) to discover Chase standing at the end of his bed holding a thick folder in his hand.

"Hi Doctor Wilson, this is for you."

Wilson took the folder carefully, not sure what to expect, but it turned out to be just a normal file folder. Flipping it open he read the first page.

"Minutes of the June Department Heads meeting." He turned it over but there was no hidden message on the back. "Er...thanks, Chase." It was a little odd, most people had brought stuffed toys or chocolates, or even flowers. But he didn't like to be impolite.

Chase shrugged. "House," sounding rather like he meant, crazy bastard. Wilson could hear the unspoken sentiment very clearly, "House said to give it to you. Said you'd know what to do with it."

"Oh, okay. How's the patient?"

"Well pretty much every internal organ he has is failing, so he's been better. If you've got any spare bits of your liver left he might be needing some."

"Sorry, I'm fresh out."

Chase's pager went off and he looked at it and cursed. "Damn, I told Foreman it wasn't that. Bloody idiot. Catch you later, Wilson."

After Chase had run off to deal with the troublesome patient Wilson examined the file. The June meeting had been held the day after he delivered House to Mayfield. He remembered almost nothing about it, and was pretty sure he'd contributed nothing of value. Still, if House had sent this folder to him there must be something there he wanted Wilson to see. Of course, he thought grumpily, it wouldn't have occurred to House to just tell Wilson what that thing might be, that would be too easy.

An hour later he had all the pages in the folder spread around him, besides the minutes there were budget calculations, reports to the Board, and various memos - none of which House should have had access to. Wilson was seething. Johansen in Pedriatics had been about to sneak through a massive budget increase, and an increase in staffing levels, for his department, by trying to steal Wilson's pediatric oncology patients. He'd missed the early signs in the June meeting due to his own preoccupation with House's situation. The October meeting was in a few days and the memos showed Johansen was planning to make his move there, when he assumed Wilson would be out of commission. Well, now Wilson was forewarned Cuddy would be getting a very strong rebuttal of Johansen's proposal. He might not be able to physically go to the Board meeting but he would have his say in advance, and get Cuddy on his side.

Struck by a sudden thought he glanced again at the memo with the agenda for the meeting. On the list of attendees was House's name, as well as Wilson's deputy in Oncology - Brown. He grinned to himself, House hadn't attended a department heads meeting in years, not since he was thrown out of one for being disruptive (the small incident of the remote control car with the camera which had whizzed around under the table). House was letting Wilson know he had his back.

After a slow shuffle down the corridor Wilson was back in bed, in pain now, as well as bored. House still hadn't turned up and Wilson was looking for some sort of distraction.

Suddenly the door to his room slid open and Taub sidled in, quickly shutting it behind him.

"Sorry Doctor Wilson, I just need to low lie for a minute." Taub said, shifting uneasily from foot to foot and peering out the window of the room. Wilson frowned at him and then realised Taub was holding something in his hand.

"What have you got there?"

Taub tried to hide it but then sighed and showed Wison. It was a bright red piece of lingerie, Wilson wasn't even sure of its exact function, but there was a lot of lace and not much else.

"Nice. Yours?" Wilson enquired.

"House," and Taub paused and obviously thought something else but kept it to himself, "House is making me carry this thing around all day."

"Oh," Wilson said, "er...why?" Then he waved his hand, "never mind, he's House. But why are you doing it?"

"Well, if he sees me without it he's going to tell Rachel about Cindy. And you know House, you never know when he's going to suddenly appear."

Wilson privately thought that House might well tell Rachel about Cindy (whoever she was) anyway, just for the entertainment value.

"And why are you hiding out in here?"

"Kerry is at the nurse's station, I can't let her see me with this in my hand." Taub said, in an 'isn't it obvious' tone of voice.

Wilson looked Taub over. Yep, short, balding, big nose, sort of boring looking, married. He shook his head, it baffled him.

"So why did you come up here then, if you don't want Kerry to see you? Diagnostics is nowhere near here."

"House said you needed something," Taub shrugged, "do you need something?"

Wilson settled back on the pillows, his pain easing and the restlessness that had plagued him all day finally disappearing.

"Not anymore."

The End