"He's not awake yet, Dr. Wilson," said the nurse as the oncologist entered the hospital the next morning. "In fact, we haven't heard a sound from him all night."

Wilson frowned. "You did check that he was still alive, right?"

"Oh, he's alive." The phone rang, and the nurse turned to pick it up. Wilson grabbed House's chart from the nurse's station and flipped through the last notes, making sure that they had indeed checked on him. More significant was the note from last evening, where Cuddy had again given him a high dose of morphine. Wilson hung a note on his mental agenda for the day to talk to her. Opioid apologies could be taken too far.

He entered the room quietly and found to his surprise that House was in fact awake. He had the head of the bed angled up and was looking out the window with the distant expression that usually went along with deep thought on a case. He'd woken up but hadn't bothered at least one nurse yet this morning? Wilson's concern grew.

"Good morning!" he said brightly, but he had to repeat it before House startled slightly and looked over at him.

"Morning."

"How are you feeling?"

"Almost down to just a regular headache combo instead of supersized." Wilson walked over to the bedside and studied him. House looked better rested than he had last night at Wilson's visit, but the bruising, now beginning to blossom into greens as well as reds, did nothing for his appearance. Wilson leaned over for a closer inspection of the cut. "No infection. Looks pretty good for as bad as it looks. How's the leg?"

"Still there. And for your next question, my wrist is still in this plaster bucket someone put on the other day while I was unable to defend myself."

Wilson turned to the plastic container he had put down on the table. "Feel like some breakfast?"

"You know, contrary to popular belief, the hospital actually does bring patients food. You don't have to deliver at every meal."

"If I left it to them, I wouldn't be able to pay for it," Wilson shot back, and a slight grin passed over House's face. "Come on, you said last night the nausea was pretty well gone. I brought you pancakes." His specialty and one of House's favorites.

"Probably cold by now," House replied, and Wilson opened the container to let steam spill out.

"Got ready first, then made them last thing before I went out the door. You're the first stop in the hospital." He extended a fork to his friend. "Enjoy!" He sat down in the visitor's chair with his own serving and watched as House took a bite. His friend seemed more distracted than anything else, eating far more slowly than usual and with long pauses, even though he did at least get through about half of the food. House's attitude was more and more reminding Wilson of the period right after the infarction. It was then when Wilson had developed the habit of feeding his friend at his expense, something most of the hospital now couldn't understand, but left to his own back then, House truly would have forgotten to eat, not noticing hunger in the emotional storm of everything else.

House looked up and caught him in the act of caring. "Stop looking at me like that, Wilson. I'm eating, okay?"

Wilson sighed. "What's wrong?" He should have known better. Asking that question to House was almost guaranteed to earn you nothing but a smokescreen. As it did now.

"What's WRONG?" The sarcastic edge on his tone could have been used as a weapon. "Well, let's see. I've got a bad concussion, a head laceration, and a broken wrist." He left out the leg from his inventory. "All of the above because my boss put a trip wire in my office. What could possibly be considered wrong in all that?"

Wilson stood up, setting his empty container along with House's half-empty but obviously abandoned one to the side. "Let me take a look at your leg."

House tensed up immediately. "It's fine, Wilson."

"No reason not to check it out then," the oncologist persisted. House sighed but stopped resisting, something that itself set off more of Wilson's alarms. House just didn't seem himself the last day, even accounting for the concussion. Wilson waited for resignation even if not spoken permission, then moved the sheet over and the hospital gown up, examining the ugly scar. The thigh was bruised and somewhat swollen, although not bruised nearly as badly as his face. Overall, though, the leg looked no worse than it had two nights ago. In fact, the swelling had retreated some. So House's omission from his list of injuries wasn't in fact a subtle physical clue to a worse problem. Wilson carefully covered it back up and smoothed the sheet. "Still kind of swollen and annoyed, but it's looking better than it was. You might try walking a bit later today, keep it from stiffening up. Some gentle exercise would probably do it good."

"I made it halfway across the room yesterday."

Wilson looked at him sharply. "You were still dizzy yesterday."

"Which is why I said halfway." For just a moment, the familiar light gleamed in House's blue eyes. "I solved the case."

"Seriously?"

"Yep. From a hospital bed and everything. But the idiot nurses didn't want me to talk to the team."

"I take it you won?"

House nodded. "They called Cuddy, but she sided with me." Probably not a complete victory, but before Wilson could ask for clarification, his pager went off, and he glanced at it. "People starting to die early today?" House asked.

"Got to get upstairs." Wilson picked up both food containers. "Want a Reuben later for lunch?"

"Do I have a choice?" House asked pointedly.

"No." Wilson smiled at him and left the room.

(H/C)

It was late morning when Cuddy knocked on Wilson's office door and let herself in. "You wanted to see me?"

"Right. It's about House."

Concern swept across her face in a quick wave. "I checked on him about an hour ago. He's still got the headache, but it's continuing to decrease, and all of his injuries seem to be improving. I wound up giving him 2 months off clinic duty, by the way."

Wilson was almost distracted from his purpose. "I would have liked to hear that negotiation. Practice for the next time you buy a car." He sighed. "I noticed when I was looking at his chart first thing this morning that you gave him a large dose of morphine last night. Just like the night before."

"He needed the rest. I wanted to make sure he had a sound night's sleep, for the sake of his head injury."

"That was more than a little boost for a sound night's sleep. With his concussion, he would have slept anyway." Wilson sighed. "Don't let House take advantage of your guilt over this and manipulate it just to get more drugs. We already know he has a problem with the Vicodin. There are better ways to apologize than with morphine."

Cuddy's reaction was far from what he had expected. She straightened up and crossed both arms over her chest, totally closing herself to him. "I'm his attending doctor, Dr. Wilson. I made a medical prescription the last two nights using my medical judgment, and you have no right to question my professionalism."

Wilson couldn't believe it. "You're pulling rank on me? Cuddy, how many conversations have we had as friends about his Vicodin addiction? I'm just asking you to be careful. He has a problem, something we've both agreed on a hundred times before. Don't give him a chance to use you and make it worse. He's an addict. Remember how many Vicodin he had stashed away during Tritter's rampage?"

Cuddy's posture grew more stiff, something he hadn't thought possible. "If you have a problem with how I practice medicine in my hospital, take it to the Board. House is my patient, and I will treat him as I think best."

Wilson's temper flared up. After all their mutual concern about House and drugs, he couldn't believe Cuddy was just handing out morphine right and left out of guilt and then refusing to admit it when gently reminded of their friend's addictions. "Your patient? Yes, but are you forgetting WHY he's in that hospital bed? How many doctors get the chance to be personally responsible for putting their patient in the hospital before treating him? And you wonder why I'm questioning your objectivity on this?"

Cuddy was absolutely rigid. "This conversation is over, Dr. Wilson. You don't always know everything." She turned and left the office, banging the door behind her. Wilson picked up a knick-knack from his desk, a gift from a patient, and threw it across the room in a surge of fury, and it hit the door to the balcony and crashed through, landing in a clatter of glass outside. Wilson, standing up and going over to inspect the damage, saw House's entire team in the conference room across the balcony looking curiously at him. Damn.

(H/C)

"Here's your Reuben," Wilson said thirty minutes later, extending the plate to House. "I've, um, got a consult I've got to get to, but please at least try to eat it."

House studied him with head slightly tilted, and Wilson gave a mental sigh. In under a minute flat since entering the room, he had qualified as a puzzle, which would only complicate his much-needed escape right now from his over-perceptive friend.

"What's wrong?"

Wilson heard, and took advantage of, the echo from that morning. "Oh, I don't know. My best friend is in the hospital injured after being practically assaulted by our boss. Oh, and cancer sucks. What could possibly be considered wrong in all that?"

"Cancer doesn't suck any more than it did this morning," House observed. "Which makes the central issue me being hurt by Cuddy, but I'm not any more hurt than I was this morning, either."

Wilson tried to calm himself down. "Look, I've just had a shitty morning, okay? You might have had one of those yourself sometimes. I've got to go." He turned and left the room at a walking run.

House looked after him for a few minutes, head still slightly tilted. Between the case yesterday and Wilson's sudden desire to not stay for lunch with him at the moment, he really needed a whiteboard down in this hospital room to keep track. He'd have to suggest them as standard decor. He absentmindedly took a bite of the Reuben, his thoughts still sifting through the maze, sorting, analyzing. The puzzle made a welcome distraction from his childhood memories, his sore leg, and his slowly improving headache.