When Wilson returned with the key, he once again approached his friend's office door.

"House? I'm coming in now..." He knocked again, once, before simply unlocking the door and entering.

He found the other man in his recliner, bad leg elevated and supported by a large cushion, face pale and sweaty.

He quickly closed the door behind himself.

House slowly opened his eyes at the sound, grimacing as soon as he spotted the other man. "Wilson... Can we do this a bit later? Right now I'm not feeling so hot..." As if to emphasize his point, he hastily grabbed the trashcan next to his chair and started to retch, finally producing a small amount of bile. "Sorry..." He sank back in the chair as soon as the retching had stopped.

A bit unsure how to react, Wilson hesitantly approached his friend, gently taking hold of one of his wrists to get his pulse.

House weakly pulled his arm back. "I'm fine. Just a little nauseous..."

Wilson opened his mouth to reply something, but the other man beat him to it. "Can we talk later? I'm not having such a good day..." He sounded absolutely exhausted, his tone completely devoid of his usual snark.

Wilson nodded. "We don't need to talk right now. But let me give you a lift home, okay? It's time anyway..."

House weakly shook his head. "Not going home today..."

Wilson's response was immediate. "Oh yes, you are. Come on, House... Get up." His tone did not leave much room for protest. He handed his friend the crutches.

When the other man hesitated to take them, Wilson's gaze softened. "Can you get up?" He asked quietly after a moment of silence.

Only now meeting his concerned gaze, House replied with a hesitant nod. "I'm… - I think so." He sounded strangely defeated. – Wilson, for some reason, had to fight back tears.

"Okay, then… Come on. You can rest once we get you home. You'll be much more comfortable in your bed."

House finally gave another small nod, using both hands to carefully lift his leg down from its elevated position. – Wilson only now noticed that the right foot was shoeless and swollen.

Instead of putting on the shoe now, House simply stuffed it into his backpack. When he pushed himself to his feet with obvious difficulty, Wilson wordlessly grabbed the bag to carry it for him.

On their way to the car, House's right foot barely touched the ground.

. . . . . . .

The drive to House's apartment was a quiet affair.

When Wilson had wordlessly helped his friend out of the car and accompanied him into the house, the older man immediately sank down on the sofa, lying back and bringing his bad leg up again. A low moan escaped him, seconds before the thigh muscles went into full spasm.

Wilson once again had to force himself out of his shock-like state, quickly hurrying to his friend's side. House was arching his back against the pain by now, both hands gripping the thigh so hard, that his fingers were white. – He had already bitten his lower lip bloody.

Wilson hadn't seen his friend spasm that badly in years; it took him almost 10 minutes of firmly massaging the cramping tissue to finally get the muscle to relax once more.

House was gasping for breath and trembling uncontrollably by now.

When he finally met Wilson's pained gaze, his expression was almost apologetic. "Guess I overdid it a bit today… Not quite used to how touchy it has become…"

This time, Wilson felt the tears welling up.


The next morning, his first way led him to Cuddy. He eyed her disbelievingly, tone intense.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

She simply raised an eyebrow, replying in a calm voice. "Do you mean... House?"

Wilson didn't even bother to answer. "You can't just take a pain patient off long-term narcotic treatment, and then simply leave him to his fate!"

Cuddy's second eyebrow joined the first. "I didn't just do anything! And I have certainly not 'left him to his fate'..."

Wilson snorted at that, concern for his friend over-riding all attempts at diplomacy he would usually have made when talking to his boss. "Well, you certainly don't adequately monitor his condition, if you don't even talk to him..."

She smiled at that. "I am monitoring everything I need to. He's working. He hasn't called in sick once during the last couple of months." A slight shrug. "He's fine."

Wilson gave a pained half-laugh at that. "He's not fine..." He approached her desk now. "He's in huge amounts of pain! You can't just leave chronic pain undertreated like that! – Do you have any idea what depression rates and suicide statistics look like in patients with uncontrolled chronic pain?!"

This time it was Cuddy's turn to snort. "It's not uncontrolled... And it's not like I have left him alone with this! – I'm his prescribing physician! He came to me twice to tell me the meds weren't working. I rearranged the combination twice. Now he's been on the new one for almost three months, and he didn't come to me again. – He's working. He wouldn't be if the pain was that bad..."

She went on almost passionately. "And I told him I'd give him something stronger intra-thecally, if the pain ever got too bad. – He didn't come once to ask me for this."

Wilson shook his head, commenting very quietly, as if to himself: "Of course he wouldn't..."

Then, facing Cuddy once more: "You clearly don't give him the assistance he needs to control the pain. – You need to monitor his condition much more closely. You can't just evaluate how he's doing by the days he's missing out on work! You need to get daily pain-levels, depression scores... Stuff like that!"

Cuddy calmly returned his accusing gaze. "I don't need to hear his pain-level in numbers, when I see that he's working as efficiently – if you want to call it that – as ever before. He comes to work every day. His mortality rate hasn't increased a bit. – Granted, he's loading more of his clinic hours onto his lackeys, but frankly: If it helps prolong his life... So be it!" She shrugged again, then stood up as well.

"And I'm surprised you're complaining anyway... You've been bugging him about getting off the Vicodin for years! You should be happy!"

He met her gaze, an unreadable expression on his face.

"I wanted him to cut back on the narcotics. – I wanted him to maybe supplement the Vicodin with something milder. Get on a mix of drugs that would overall go easier on his liver and be less addictive. – But I never wanted him to get off the narcotics altogether! I wouldn't want him to be forced to give up any more of his life than he already had to...! – He sold his bike, and even his car! He's on crutches! He can't even stay on his feet for more than a couple of minutes at a time, for Christ's sake...!"

Cuddy looked shocked for a second, but quickly covered the reaction up again. "It was never responsible of him to drive under the influence of narcotics anyway..."

Wilson shook his head at that, looking down, not meeting her gaze again.

Cuddy now switched her tone to pacifying. "Listen, Dr Wilson. You've only seen him for a day or two. Why don't you give this a chance? Observe for a while... Maybe you've just picked a bad week for your return; maybe he's overall coping better than you think!"

He slowly looked up at her again, a mixture of doubt and sorrow dominating his features. "Maybe..." He sounded resigned. "At least let me handle his PRN medication from now on..."

Shaking his head slightly, and clearly still unsatisfied with the situation, Wilson slowly left her office.