"Maybe I'm just tired of defending my pain."

The words his best friend had just spoken resounded in Wilson's ears.

Had they really done that? Had they really forced House to... side with the pain?! In his struggle against the ignorance of people who were supposed to be his friends?

The diagnostician had in the meantime used Wilson's stunned silence to lever himself to his feet.

"House – I never thought your pain was..." But his friend wasn't listening anymore. He had already reached the door to the corridor. "House!"

The door closed behind the other man, leaving a shocked oncologist in the conference room of diagnostics.

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House spent the night in his office, claiming to be busy. Wilson had wanted to talk to him again after the abrupt ending of their discussion earlier, but each time he tried they were either interrupted by someone, or his friend found some far-fetched explanation for why he had to be somewhere else entirely at this very moment...

The next morning, Wilson was unexpectedly paged to one of the regular wards on the fourth floor. He didn't have a patient there at the moment, so he immediately wondered what this could be about.

When he arrived, he instantly spotted two nurses on the corridor opposite the nurses' lounge. They were standing around someone, who was obviously sitting on one of the seats placed at irregular intervals along the wall between patient rooms. A second later, Wilson realized that it was House.

He quickly approached his friend, who was frantically rubbing his right thigh, his face a grimace of pain, pale and covered in sweat, his torso rocking rhythmically back and forth. He was half-folded over his painful leg, more or less unresponsive to what was going on around him.

Wilson nervously eyed one of the nurses. "How long has he been like this…"

She shrugged a bit helplessly. "We found him 10 minutes or so ago… He told us to leave him alone, but…"

Wilson quickly nodded. "Could you organize a wheel-chair for us, please?" More a command than a question. She nodded and quickly left.

Wilson turned towards the second nurse. "I've got it from here. Thank you…" She recognized the dismissal for what it was, nodded, and left as well.

"House…?" Wilson crouched down in front of the diagnostician, gently yet firmly grabbing the man's upper arm in a supportive gesture, trying to get his attention. "Give me a number, buddy… How bad?"

His friend didn't meet his gaze, but obediently pressed through gritted teeth: "9…"

Wilson grimaced as well at that. "Alright… We'll help you out with this. Just try to relax as much as you can right now. It'll be okay…" He kept a comforting hand on his friend's arm, praying that the wheel-chair would be there soon.

Someone seemed to listen, since the nurse arrived seconds later.

Between the two of them they managed to move the diagnostician into the chair and elevate his bad leg on the leg-rest. Giving the nurse another grateful nod, Wilson quickly wheeled House into the next examination room.

When he had managed to move the agonized man onto the room's sole gurney, he quickly pushed up his friend's soaked shirt. "Curl your back for me, House. – Yeah, that's it…"

He quickly located the vertebrae he needed for the intrathecal injection, trying not to flinch when he noticed how emaciated his friend was. He wouldn't have needed to curl his back really… All the bones stood clearly out just like that.

Forcing himself to concentrate on the more pressing matter of acute pain management once more, Wilson quickly prepared the injection site, before starting to slowly push the morphine into the spinal canal.

House started to relax almost immediately, moaning in acute relief. Tears were running down his face by now.

The oncologist started to gently stroke his friend's back in what he hoped were soothing motions, all the while unobtrusively monitoring House's respiration. Gradually, he felt the other man's muscles lose their tension, his breathing slowly evening out, breathing rate returning to normal.

Unwilling to disturb the other man's hard-won peace just yet, Wilson simply continued to rub his bony back for several minutes, giving him time to gradually center himself again and gather new strength. He only stopped, when his friend started to move slightly beneath his hands.

Slowly pulling the shirt down once more, Wilson gently addressed the other man. "Better?" House simply nodded, carefully turning onto his back. "A lot. - Thank you…"

The oncologist answered with a small smile. Then his expression sobered again. "Number?" The diagnostician gave a small shake of his head. "It's good now. About a 4…"

Wilson slowly nodded. "You wanna just lie here a while longer?" House hesitated. Then, quietly: "Maybe, yeah…"

Nodding again, the oncologist simply placed a pillow under his friend's right knee to take the strain off the thigh. The diagnostician drifted off into the deepest sleep he'd had in what felt like months seconds later.

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But the pain returned.

Not as bad as it had been before, but when Wilson picked House up at his office to take him home, the morphine had clearly worn off. He was moving very carefully, his right leg not bearing any weight at all on their way to the car.

Once he had levered himself into the passenger seat, he gingerly brought his leg into a position that was the closest to comfortable he could manage right now. Still, with every pothole Wilson saw his friend tense or – with bad ones – wince when his leg was jolted.

After a couple of minutes he started to sweat, his breathing once more quickening. Shortly before they'd have arrived at his apartment, he grabbed Wilson's arm in a hectic gesture. "Pull over… – Quickly!"

The oncologist immediately brought the car to a stop on the side of the road, only to see House hastily getting out, hopping a meter or two, before starting to retch miserably. Wilson was by his side seconds later, gently holding him upright and talking to him in a calm voice.

When the nausea finally abated, House needed a moment to catch his breath. He gratefully took a sip of water from a bottle Wilson handed him, before meeting the oncologist's concerned gaze apologetically. "Sorry. It was just… - "

Wilson interrupted him. "…the pain, I know. It's okay. Nothing to be sorry for…"

After another minute: "Think you can go on now?"

House nodded, tiredly; still in pain.

When they were on the road again, the diagnostician suddenly spoke very quietly. "I can't do this, Wilson. I can't go on like this…" Too shocked to reply anything right away, Wilson reflexively sped up some more.