Wilson didn't wait for Cuddy to return before he sprinted off to watch the surgery from the viewing platform; questions were being shouted by his pesky inner voice that refused to go away, 'did we get here in time?' seemed to be the most prominent concern at that particular moment in time.

He watched, concerned, as House regained consciousness long enough to curl up as another wave of pain took over his body. The surgeons were quick to respond to administer the general anaesthesia, they gave each other a concerned look; 'House shouldn't be slipping in and out of consciousness like this' Wilson thought worriedly.

Wilson didn't have a chance to contemplate what this meant before Cuddy burst into the room, holding the I.V bag which had been passed to her by the attending surgeons. "Wilson, you said he was on antibiotics – this is morphine!" she screeched.

"What?" Wilson practically yelled back in disbelief, making Cuddy realise straight off that he hadn't given it to House intentionally.

"The surgeon nearly bit my head off because morphine shouldn't be given to patients with suspected appendicitis…" Cuddy trailed off on the last part as she watched the surgeons working below.

"Those stupid, ignorant technicians" Wilson muttered angrily, banging his fist against the wall in exasperation, "no wonder he was so out of it…he's probably got Peritonitis now too"

"Yeah..."

"He'll never let me forget this you know." Wilson said forlornly as he buried his head in his hands warily, "he warned me specifically about it and I told him it was fine – I told him I had it covered."

"The surgeons were worried because he's Tachycardic." Cuddy started, holding her hand up to cut Wilson off as he went to blame himself again, "He's fine now that he's in surgery – stop worrying! I know it wasn't you who gave him the morphine, let me know which techs did this and they're fired."

The surgeons below were having problems of their own; "who the hell put him on Morphine? As if this wasn't hard enough already, his heart rate is too rapid and his breathing is severely compromised!" the masked surgeon said in annoyance as he injected a muscle relaxant into House's I.V port; Tachycardia or not, you don't drag a surgeon in after hours unless you really need the surgery done. "Get him intubated."

The young attending made a simple intubation look like complicated brain surgery as she fumbled with the tubes and looked like she was going to choke poor, unconscious House in the process. Cuddy winced in the viewing area as she remembered that they were particularly short staffed tonight and this was the interns first shot at assisting surgery; House would be lucky if he could swallow after this surgery, let alone breathe. "Maybe I should join them…let them know what they should be looking for." Cuddy said to Wilson as she backed out of the observation room; she wouldn't mention that she was also a little worried that this particular surgeon hated House's guts and would probably gladly remove all of House's vital organs and hold a hospital raffle just so he could say he got one over the grumpy doc!

She scrubbed up and got in the OR as quick as they'd let her; she could swear that she noticed the surgeon's shoulders droop slightly as he saw her enter, signalling that 'the fun is over now that the boss is here'.

She watched as the surgeon made the first incision with his scalpel; the intern gasped faintly as she saw the amount of blood that had to be cleared from House's abdomen before they could even contemplate finding which organ had ruptured. She shakily worked the suction as the surgeon dove straight in to work; he had better places to be, his wife was already mad that he'd been called in on his night off, if he didn't get back soon he'd be on divorce number four!

"O2 sats are dropping." The surgeon said casually when the monitor started beeping urgently; it was almost as though he was telling someone about the weather forecasted for the weekend, "you - check the tube" he said nonchalantly to his assistant. Cuddy scowled as she elbowed the poor intern out of the way and re-intubated House herself; 'as soon as this is all over, I'm seriously reconsidering this hospitals position as a teaching hospital' she thought grimly as she glanced at the monitors. Heart rate still high, O2 sats looking better but not great…not that the surgeon was letting that worry him too much as he carried on regardless.

Cuddy hung a second bag of antibiotics and blood; surprised at how quickly the surgeon was pulling out House's appendix. She glanced up at Wilson in the observation room and noted that he also looked concerned with how quickly the operation seemed to be going; Appendicitis was a relatively common condition, so it was probably a simple enough op for this particular surgeon – maybe he was trying for a Guinness world record in appendix removal or something.

"Ruptured appendix. I'm closing-" he said monotonously as he practically threw the organ onto the tray beside him.

"Wait, don't you need to check for-" Cuddy started before she was rudely interrupted by the surgeon, who seemed to look down his nose at her.

"Dr Cuddy; Dr House has just had his ruptured appendix taken out and the unfortunate development of Peritonitis should clear up now that we've tackled the sepsis. Please don't tell me how to do my job." The surgeon said patronisingly.

"Dr Norosinski, please don't think for one minute that I give a damn about your job; Surgeons are relatively easy to come by, genius Diagnosticians on the other hand, aren't!" Cuddy said angrily, surprising everyone in the room with her outburst, including herself. She hastily retreated from the OR and pulled off her scrubs; "What was that going to gain you other than a pissed off surgeon? Now I think I'm turning into House!" she groaned to herself as she made her way to the ICU to get House's room sorted.

Wilson watched the whole exchange on mute and briefly wondered where Cuddy was going in such a hurry; he watched the surgeon close up and signal for House to be wheeled out by the interns, he looked pissed. The surgeon obviously wasn't aware that he was still being watched by Wilson when he stabbed House's ruptured appendix repeatedly with his scalpel – Psycho style! Wilson raised his eyebrows in surprise, 'surely House couldn't have pissed this guy off; not when he was unconscious the whole time!'

Satisfied that the operation was a success, even though the surgeon seemed to be having a nervous breakdown afterwards, Wilson made his way down to the ER to find those idiot EMT's; once Cuddy had names, she could kick them out on their butts and ensure they didn't cause any more damage to patients.

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House could hear voices around him when he drifted back into the land of the living, which obviously meant he hadn't pegged it yet, thankfully; he was disconcerted to find that he couldn't open his eyes yet, much to his impatient annoyance. He felt as though he was submerged in the deepest depths of the ocean and couldn't breathe, talk or swallow; he came to the swift conclusion that he must have been intubated with a rather large steak knife when he was in surgery.

He vaguely remembered regaining consciousness before surgery, only to be pushed roughly back down by someone when he tried to curl over his stomach; he was then heavily anaesthetised and somehow lost consciousness again. 'Surely I shouldn't feel like I'm high right now…' he thought lazily; 'not that I'm complaining!'

He was concerned, however, as he slowly drifted back off to sleep, when he felt a sharp pang in his abdomen; 'don't tell me they left the damn thing in there after all!' he groaned inwardly to himself as his mind slipped away…

Author's Note: Next chapter is the last chapter (told you it was gonna be a short one!) So thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed so far. Dr. Fantabulous – Sorry, 'Where's Wally' is a British thing – it's called 'Where's Waldo' in the U.S (for some unknown reason!), but then you already knew that! Damn, I was doing so well with my Americanisms too…lol! Enjoy the next chapter…