A/N: I know this is an EPIC amount of whump. Never fear, there is light at the end of the tunnel....

Disclaimer: I do NOT own HOUSE M.D.

Whatever you do.... PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!!!!


House regained consciousness, around lunchtime the next day. The first thing he became aware of was the sound, the sound of the Hospital during the day. People working, coming and going, the beeping of monitors, it's damn loud at times . The sound pulled him from the depths of his unconscious mind; he drifted up through layers of light, sound, and touch. He became more and more aware of the pinkish light coming through his eyelids; suddenly the feeling of the tube down his throat yanked him up through the last bit of unawareness.

'Why am I intubated?' He couldn't remember. He lifted his arms to remove the foul tube, and found them bound in soft-sided leather restraints. His head reeled with disorientation. His good leg also bound in restraints.

'What the hell?' He was becoming more and more agitated, he began looking around the room and saw some nurse sitting in a chair next to his bed, and she had fallen asleep. He quickly put together the scenario that would win him such stellar accommodations.

'SHIT! I've really fucked up this time. What happened?'

Before he could focus on remembering, pain broke in and demanded his attention. His leg, furious at being in one position for so long, was spasming its muscle growing tighter and tighter. This was a pain defined, a known variable. He felt the other pains competing for his attention, recognized them as the throbbing burns bestowed from using a defibrillator.

'Great…'

Yet there was something deeper, a new pain, from down in the viscera, lurking shark like, in the depths. A tightening sensation, not unlike his leg… He was over breathing the vent; the shark was swimming in circles closer and closer to the surface.

He heard the monitors on the ventilator register his rapid breathing pattern, the cardiac monitor's louder more ominous beep, grew quicker in tempo. He moaned.

Finally, sleeping beauty awoke. House's eyes implored her to help him. She looked at the monitor, concern wrinkling her brow.

"Dr. House, hang on I'm gonna help you." Hitting the call button ,she called out, "Bring a crash cart to 421 STAT!"

The shark's body now visible from the surface…the pain was coming from his chest.

From the burns on his skin, he knew he'd been shocked at least once already, judging by the searing nature of the pain, he would bet on two or more.

The pressure built, and his arm ached, he was nauseous.

Just as the toothy maw broke the surface, just as the pain was more than he could bear, Chase came running into the room. Seeing him lessened his anxiety, but the pain was breaching, flashing, a great, white, pain that drug him down into the depths.

Chase, still exhausted from the day before and the night after it, was reading House's chart at the nurses' station, when the monitors started going off. He ran down the hall to House's room, the call came seconds later. Someone was running with a crash cart close behind him.

" Dammit when is this going to end," he whispered.

Chase felt a pang of fear at his minds reply 'When he's dead.''

House was pale and diaphoretic, the ECG showed he was having an MI, a problem of much larger proportions than the earlier events of v-fib. He was going to have massive damage if they didn't do something to stop it.

Down the hall in the same ICU wing, James Evan Wilson held on to life. The DIC finally abated, but he was still very critical, as close to exsanguinated as you can get without dying. Without dozens of units of whole blood poured into him as he bled from his entire body, including the skin, he would have died in minutes. The staff fought for his survival fiercely, he was well loved. There were flowers and cards already festooning every surface of the room and next to his bed sat a very exhausted Lisa Cuddy. She had to keep shooing well-wishers away from Wilson's room.

In House's room there was only the cold impersonal suicide watch for company. The entire hospital was angry with him. They blamed him for what happened to Wilson.

But, they were idiots… as House would say. If Wilson hadn't torn his sutures , they wouldn't have caught the DIC in time to have any chance of saving him. It was doubtful the team had realized this, as they were still shell shocked by the whole battle to save the older doctors.

Now, all House had, was Chase trying to save him again. The stake even higher now.

If he survived, the damage to his heart had the potential of taking away any meaningful recovery.

Chase cared for House more than he ever thought possible, it sickened him to see him suffering. It made him furious to hear the spiteful, nasty comments flying around the hospital. He couldn't help but feel responsible, he had fucked up epically. He should have stayed with House, should have stuck to him whether the old bastard let him or not. All these thoughts, crammed to the back of his mind as he endeavored once again to save his boss, his mentor, and yes, his friend.

Cuddy arose from the recliner in Wilson's room at the sound of the code down the hall; she threw her heels off and ran toward the commotion.

"What happened?"

"He's having a heart attack, a massive one."

"Thrombolytics?"

"On board, heparin and ace inhibitors as well."

"Don't forget the nitro, the pain will keep his heart rate up and stress the heart more"

"Already gave him the spray…"

Cuddy was at a loss, she didn't know what to do to stop this madness. Her heart was aching too. As she watched House struggle and fight for his life.

While Cuddy was out of the room Wilson began to wake up, as if he knew something was wrong with House…

Out of the fog he came, stumbling through the mists of drugs and pain he fought his way toward wakefulness. He opened his eyes, and closed them again.

Almost, he was almost there. Wilson fluttered his eyes open fighting the urge to succumb to the fog, and in the next moment his eyes opened, and stayed open.

Everything was blurry, his eyes dry and scratchy. He felt the tube in his airway, he understood why it was there, and tried to tame any claustrophobic anxiety to rip the thing out.

His eyes cleared and he saw the room filled with riotous color, it made him smile secretly.

He was alone, but looking at the outpouring of love and concern for him made him feel warm inside.

'House would hate this' he mused…

It was clear from the sounds the monitors were making that he was awake, why had no one come to check, this is the ICU after all.

Then he became aware of the sound of someone being worked on by the code team.

He could be stuck trying to keep from feeling suffocated by the ventilator for many more minutes than he could bear.

He decide to do what House would do, though it would hurt like a bitch, and remove it himself.

'Damn,' his arms were restrained. Now he had to find a way to occupy his mind to keep from freaking out.

Bits and pieces of conversation wafted down the corridor and through his open door.

He heard a voice ask "Thrombolytics?" He realized the voice belonged to Cuddy. 'Why is she here?'

Aussie replies "…something, something, heparin, something" it was Chase.

Whomever, they were working on was having a heart attack or stroke, some kind of infarction…

In that nanosecond of recognition, all of yesterday's events, came rushing through his brain, wiping out any trace of the fogginess left behind.

'House! Oh my God , Greg… Please be all right, please live… I … need you. Greg stay with me. God please, please let him live…' he prayed desperately.

Tears trickling down into the collar of his gown, he tried to lift his arm to wipe them away, forgetting about the restraints again.

He clenched his fists and slammed them down on the bed in frustration. His right hand brushed against something cool and hard. He recognized it as the remote with the call button.

He maneuvered the remote, as if he were diffusing a bomb. He couldn't let it slip through the rails and onto the floor.

He was able to get the unwieldy thing in his hand, but he couldn't see it.

He smiled a grim smile; it was all right. The Braille characters told him what each button was.

He never knew learning Braille on a bet would serve him so well. He pushed the button for nurse. Praying someone would get here soon. More importantly, explain to him why the hell he

was back in the ICU.