Chase sat, curled mostly on top of House in the recliner, breaths slowly calming back to normal.
"Better?"
Chase nodded, but didn't get up.
House shifted his bad leg and was still.
"How much of that did you hear?"
"Only the stuff you shouted. That's when I came back over."
Chase sniffed quietly.
"What were you talking about, at the end?"
"He was looking at me like I should forgive him for upsetting you."
"And that got you that angry?"
House shrugged beneath him, "hearing what you were shouting may have made me slightly less receptive to any lack of fault on his part."
Chase laughed quietly, reaching down to check his temperature.
It was normal, so he didn't move.
"How's your leg?"
"Um... not great."
"You still wanna visit Wilson, right?"
"Yeah, but it can wait."
Chase shook his head, "no, you should visit him."
"No, I mean it's going to have to wait. Can't stand up."
"Oh."
Chase dropped the subject, to House's relief.
House rubbed his thumb over Chase's jawbone, sighing.
"You ok?"
Chase nodded, "yeah, I think so. Please tell me Cameron and Foreman weren't in the room."
"Could tell you that, but I'd be lying. Foreman left the room, Cameron looked upset."
"Why'd Foreman leave?"
"Probably 'cause he respected your privacy. Or didn't want to hear it. Or got a page. Or just didn't care."
Chase nodded, sighing.
"I feel stupid. I exploded in front of half the hospital."
"Yeah, well..."
"That's not very comforting."
House snorted.
"Did I ever sign up to be comforting?"
Chase smiled a little.
"No. you've just been managing it without trying."
"Seriously? That's got to stop."
Chase laughed quietly.
"Yeah. Wouldn't want anyone thinking you cared, or anything."
"Definitely not."
Chase smiled, shaking his head.
"You suck at not cheering people up."
A soft chuckle.
"Just you. And maybe Wilson. Everyone else finds me depressing. What does that say about you two?"
"We're masochists?"
Another quiet laugh.
The door opened, Foreman's footsteps entered.
Chase swallowed.
"Just came to warn you that Cam's going all gushy. Swear she's going to hold a bake sale to cheer Chase up."
"What exactly is she doing?" asked Chase, frowning.
Foreman was the only person in almost the whole hospital who had been completely unaffected by the change in their relationship. He had just said he'd figured House was lashing out all those years because he liked Chase and didn't know how to deal with it, and Chase was too stunted to figure it out. In a way, it was probably true.
"After she stopped asking me if I thought we should go talk to you, she ran off to get flowers, decided that was a bad idea, and went home to cook something."
House snorted.
"Damn, she's handling the whole thing worse every month."
"No kidding," said Foreman "keeps calling me in the middle of the night because she's having nightmares."
Chase frowned.
"What about?"
"Don't know, she's too upset to talk straight, usually, but I think her husband."
Chase sat up a little bit.
"Maybe I should talk to her."
"Shrug."
Chase snorted.
House carefully maneuvered his way out from under Chase.
"You going to talk to her?" asked Chase.
"Hell no. I'm going to snoop into her past and find out what's bugging her. Exactly what I always do in these situations."
Foreman snorted, shaking his head, and left.
"House, are you sure that's a good idea..." started Chase, frowning.
"Not doing it. Wanted Foreman out of the room."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't want him to see me puke."
Chase hurried over, kneeling and bracing House as he leaned over the trash can, miserable.
"You didn't tell me the pain was that bad."
"It wasn't."
"Is it now?"
"Yeah."
Chase bit his lip, rubbing House back as he panted.
"You gonna be ok?"
"Yeah, just... don't think I should walk too much for the rest of the day."
Chase nodded, still upset.
"You want me to get some crutches or a wheelchair, so you can visit Wilson?"
House sighed, leaning against him a little bit.
"Yeah, maybe. Give it a minute."
Chase nodded, staying where he was.
After a while, House struggled to his feet, giving Chase a hand up as he braced himself against the desk.
"Think I'm ok."
He took a step and grabbed Chase's shoulder to keep himself from falling, "maybe not."
Chase nodded, helping him back into the recliner.
"Which?"
"Wheelchair. Hate crutches."
Chase nodded, walking out of the room, thankful he had memorized the layout of the floor, because he was still missing his stick.
House sighed, leaning back in the recliner.
Damn infarction.
Damn debridement.
Damn leg.
He dug in his pocket, downing a vicodin.
He was going to have to talk to Wilson about the meds soon. As much as he hated to admit it, the acetaminophen levels were getting pretty high, with the number he was taking in a day.
Chase came back, pushing a wheelchair, and gave him a hand while he got in it.
"I'm gonna call Cameron."
"Your funeral."
"Huh?"
"Might die of caring overdose."
Chase snorted.
"Go talk to Wilson, House."
"Will do. Don't wanna be here when you get sappy female all over you when she explodes."
Chase rolled his eyes, pushing the wheelchair towards the door.
House laughed, wheeling himself out, "yeah, yeah, I'm going already."
They both knew Chase wasn't going to call Cameron, just wanted to think, but neither of them felt it was necessary for that to be said out loud.
"What *cough* happened to *cough* you?" asked Wilson, eyelids fluttering as he coughed.
House, still in the process of closing the door behind him, sighed.
"Sprained my ankle."
"Lying."
House shrugged.
"Leg's been worse, lately. Dunno why."
Wilson nodded, covering his mouth and nose with an oxygen mask as he waited for House to say why he was here.
"You hear about Chase and his dad?"
Wilson nodded.
House sighed.
"I was angry at him."
Wilson blinked questioningly.
"I was angry at him for making Chase that upset. I... I don't know, snarled at him."
Wilson smiled, coughing a little.
House frowned, picking up the chart.
"Your numbers suck," he informed the younger doctor, looking between the chart and the status screen.
"Sorry?" said Wilson.
House rolled his eyes.
"Get some sleep, moron. And I'm taking these."
Wilson tried to stop him from taking the files, but was unfortunately unable to reach that far because he was chained to his bed.
House snorted, noticing the restraints.
"You try to run for it?"
"Wanted to make sure someone covered an appointment for one of my patients."
"Phone would have worked just as well."
"I've got a fever, give me some slack."
House rolled his eyes.
"Definitely taking these."
"House, those are my patients' files, I need to--"
"You need to sleep. Jeeze, am I the only one around here that realized working yourself to death isn't an approved cure for pneumonia? And I thought you and Cuddy were doctors. Morons."
He dumped the files on his lap, turned around, and wheeled himself out.
Wilson sighed, coughing, and closed his eyes.
Annoying as it was, he was slightly touched that House was worrying about him.
Cameron frowned, as she heard a knock on her door.
Probably Foreman.
She went to check, ignoring the flour on her shirt and hands.
There didn't seem to be anyone there...
The knocking continued.
She frowned.
"Who's there?" she asked, still peering through the peekhole. This was weird.
A face suddenly appeared there, making her jump.
She sighed, floury hand on her chest.
Of course it was House.
She opened the door, blinking as she saw the wheelchair. Oh. He hadn't been screwing with her, he just hadn't been high enough for her to see.
"What are you doing here?"
"Get. Over. Chase."
"I'm not jealous...."
"Didn't say you were. But you are fascinated, and uncomfortable with that fascination."
She sighed.
"I'm uncomfortable, yes. Fascinated, maybe. But that's not why I'm having trouble."
"Why."
"House..." she sighed, shaking her head, "you don't really need to know everything about everyone."
"I do if it's affecting their jobs. You don't contradict Chase. Ever."
"He's often right."
"Often is not always. What's going on?"
She sighed, stepping back to let him in.
"My husband. Near the end..."
"He lost his sight, yadda yadda yadda, I know, I read the file."
"You—..." Cameron sighed, shaking her head, "he didn't know me, some of the time. It was hard. It was scary. I don't... I can't describe all of it. I won't tell all of it. He wasn't in his right mind."
House frowned.
"Idiot. Now you've got me interested."
Cameron sighed, leaning against the wall, slightly defeated.
"You want something to drink?"
"Kiss Cameron."
"What?"
"Kiss Cameron."
Chase turned towards him.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"She's upset because her husband was losing his vision by the end, and he kept having mood swings, and he got rougher and rougher as he got blinder and blinder. She's scared of blind people. She know's it irrational, she knows you're not gonna hurt her, but she keeps dreaming about it. Kiss her."
Chase blinked for a minute.
"How does kissing her solve the problem?"
"I don't mean on the lips. On the cheek or something, maybe when she comes back with the cookies she's making you, which, by the way, smell delicious. Physical contact that's gentle, and unalarming, and perfectly normal for between friends. She hasn't touched you since you came back. Get it in her head that it's ok."
"Why do you care?"
"Because she's only a few steps above useless like this."
Chase considered for a moment.
"You're not jerking my chain, are you?" he asked slowly.
"No. I'm not."
Chase shrugged.
"Ok."
A while passed in silence, as House looked through the files he had confiscated from Wilson's room.
"How's Wilson?" asked Chase eventually.
"Sick. But the sucky no fun kind of sick, not the maybe dying kind of sick."
Chase nodded.
House sighed, leaning back in the chair.
House looked up, as the door opened.
"Hi. Um... who wants cookies?"
Chase stopped reading the newspaper article he had printed out, smiling at Cameron—or at least in her general direction.
"Yum."
She smiled nervously, as Chase stood.
She walked over, handed him a stack of cookies.
He took a bite, and his eyes widened slightly.
"Wow Cam, these are really good."
She flushed.
"My grandmother—"
He kissed her on the eye.
"Oops. Sorry, that was supposed to be your cheek. Thanks for the cookies, Cameron," he said, blushing slightly.
She swallowed, frozen.
Then she smiled a little bit.
"That's ok. I get the idea."
He turned back to his chair, searching for it with the hand not occupied by cookies.
Cameron took his hand, nervously, placing it on the back for him.
He smiled.
She smiled back—not that he noticed.
House sighed quietly to himself, relived that there was no longer a grand canyon between the two. He didn't really care, personally, but Chase was upset about it, and Cameron was a much better doctor when she wasn't scared.
