This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". The first season is "CollarRedux": and there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee...

2.11 Need to Know

Mark woke: he was alone in their bed. Stacy had texted him briefly last night to say that the weather in Baltimore had meant she had to stay there. Mark had texted back, briefly, "ok", and wondered if there really were snowstorms in Baltimore bad enough to ground the planes, or if Stacy just didn't want to see him.

The fight hadn't been about the post office sign. It had been about every time Stacy wheeled him past something he wanted to stop at. Every time she said "let me do that" because Mark would take too long.

She was rich, she was working at a job below her level of expertise, she was living in a rental house in suburban New Jersey: she could afford to buy whatever companion she wanted. She had a husband who was a crippled high school teacher.

She didn't need him. She didn't want him.

Mark had been doing every PT session, taking every extra session he could fit into his time at the hospital. He couldn't walk, but he could use the bathroom by himself, he could transfer himself from bed to chair: he could make coffee.

He couldn't keep Stacy. He didn't check the weather in Maryland. He didn't want to know.

*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*

Wilson knew exactly when the plane from Baltimore touched down. He was on his way to work when he glanced at his watch and knew the plane was landing. There was a diner where he bought Greg breakfast, where they didn't object to serving a slave.

He stopped there as usual, and bought himself breakfast, French toast and coffee. The waitress asked him if he wanted a breakfast bagel to take out, and he nearly said yes. But Greg didn't deserve to be rewarded (and besides, if Warner had bought him breakfast at the airport, offering Greg a second breakfast would be pointless). He arrived at the hospital at almost the same time as the car arrived from the airport: Cuddy, with two tall security guards, was waiting in the lobby. Wilson paused to say hello.

Warner and Greg came in side by side: Cuddy seemed to relax a little. She nodded to the security guards. "Take him up to Diagnostics."

One of the security guards said "Urgently?"

Cuddy seemed to hesitate. "No," she said, "you can leave him his cane."

Wilson was studying Greg and Warner. The two hulking security guards approached them: Warner glanced up at them and said something to Greg, who shrugged and grinned at her - a brief, fleeting, relaxed expression that made Wilson itch. One of the guards put a hand on Greg's shoulder, and he turned away from Warner and went with him, walking easily with his cane.

"Doctor Wilson," Cuddy said, drawing his attention away momentarily. "Please confirm with Doctor Foreman that Greg's services are not required by Diagnostics before you remove him from the hospital." She caught Wilson's eyes as she said it, and nodded firmly.

"Okay," Wilson said, almost to himself: Cuddy had already turned away to go to her office. Greg was entering the elevator, with the security guards: Wilson realised, as the doors closed, that Greg was wearing a blue roll-top that Wilson hadn't seen before.

Warner had stopped in front of him. She looked at him coldly. "Doctor Wilson."

Wilson glanced round. This was far too public a place for the conversation he'd like to have with her - if it turned out she had made use of the slave he had tagged. He put on a polite smile. "Good morning."

"We should talk," she said, without any effort to conceal what she was saying. "About House. Greg."

Wilson gave her a less polite smile. "Perhaps we should. Later." He intended to talk with Greg first. He turned away .

*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*

Foreman hadn't gone home last night, Cameron thought: she and Chase had both taken a break once Stone was stable, but when they came back into the Diagnostics office at eight, Chase armed with a box of bearclaws and Cameron with a tray of three coffees, Foreman was still sitting in front of the whiteboard.

Sometime last night, after Cameron had left, he'd wiped it and rewritten it: now there was only a handful of phrases, which Cameron recognised: their patient had said them, repeatedly, with great urgency -

"When his wife isn't in the room," she said.

Foreman barely spared her a glance. He got up again and paced, shooting glances at the board.

Chase looked at his watch and put the box down on the table, helping himself to a bearclaw and taking one of the coffees. "You really think you're going to figure it out before House gets here?" he said.

The door opened again. Doctor House, flanked by two security guards, stood in the doorway. One of them gave him a shove, making him stumble; he caught himself with his cane.

The guards had taken him off without his cane, before any of them got in, yesterday: it was lying on the conference table where Cameron had put it, to be handy for when he got back. The cane he was using now wasn't new, and wasn't hospital issue, it was a handsome wooden antique. He was wearing a new blue rolltop that matched his eyes. Usually when Greg was taken somewhere with a security escort, he arrived looking like Greg, and took at least a moment to get back to looking like Doctor House: this morning, even when the guards had been towering either side of him, he didn't look like Greg: he didn't carry himself like a slave at all.

Doctor House walked into the Diagnostics room, his eyes going first to the white board.

"New patient," he said thoughtfully. "Famous, influential, rich - got to be at least two out of three for Cuddy to try to get me to diagnose him over the phone from Baltimore. So, did you guys have a party while I was gone?"

"Patient's Fletcher Stone," Foreman said, expressionlessly. "He fell. Hit his head. When he got up he had aphasia - can't speak a coherent sentence or write one or draw a straight line. The bang on the head's nothing - he hit hard but there's no evidence of damage from the fall. He has fluid in the lungs, we had to intubate him, he tests positive for amphetamines. He's running a fever. CT scan showed nothing, MRI showed a little edema and a small scar on his brain but nowhere near area associated with conduction aphasia. He was taking sleeping pills and amphetamines - he was getting habituated to both of them. He claimed there was no prior history of convulsive attacks, but he was on an anti-convulsive, which he'd obtained under a false name. We did a lumbar puncture, but it wasn't meningitis. He managed to tell us when he started tasting metal, and we got him on dialysis, but his kidneys are still not functioning."

Despite herself, Cameron was impressed: Foreman had summarised nearly twenty-four hours of their combined work, and he didn't even sound upset. He was glaring at House, but his voice was completely level.

"We searched his home," Chase said. "That's how we found the Topomax, in a prescription bottle with a John Doe name. He'd started a home improvement project, new kitchen cabinets, but the stuff had been sitting there for weeks. He probably thought he could take the project on then realized it was a little more than he could handle."

"Those words on the board," Cameron said. "He's been trying to talk to us. Last night Foreman wrote out everything he's been trying to say to us when his wife wasn't in the room."

"Keep the stain, knife can't force," House read out. "I couldn't tackle the bear, they took my stain."

"He keeps saying 'They took my stain'," Foreman said. "He knows something, but we can't get it in yes / no questions."

"A fluent aphasic retrieves words that are stored somewhere close to the one he wants. They can be filed by sounds or by meaning. So if he wants to say table, he could say... label, or he could say chair. Or he could just say... Jabberwocky, there's no way to tell." House went on staring at the list. "Couldn't tackle the bear... Does he say that often?"

"Yes," Cameron said.

"And he's taking an anti-convulsive," House said.

"It's probably for weight-loss," Foreman said.

"Ever hear this one?" House said. "Build a house, each wall has a southern exposure, big bear comes wandering by, what colour's the bear?"

"White," Cameron said, because Foreman was looking exasperated. "It's a polar bear; you built your house in the North Pole."

"Ask him if he's bi-polar," House said. "Topamax isn't just off-labeled for weight loss. It's off-labeled for mood disorders. He's been an investigative journalist for twenty years, it's a career that would be great for someone with a mood disorder that makes you take risks, seek excitement, make up stories. He got married recently, right?"

Cameron followed that thought process: a husband in a romantic state of mind would be more likely to want to conceal something from his wife and more likely to succeed if they hadn'tbeen married very long. Chase and Foreman were staring, jaws dropped.

"Did he give up his career for his wife?" House asked.

Cameron stared. "Yes," she said, as Foreman and Chase seemed speechless.

"Then ask him if he's tried bilateral cingulotomy. I can't spell it, but what else do I have a neurologist for? It's an experimental surgery that some people claim helps mood disorders."

"I know what it is!" Foreman said. He stepped forward, looking threatening, now evidently really angry. "You're pulling this out of the air! Even if he's had a bilateral cingulotomy, how would that explain anything? It doesn't explain the kidney failure, it doesn't explain the seizures! It could explain the neural scarring, but it's in the wrong place for aphasia."

"Get his wife out of the room," House said, looking unperturbed, "and ask him if he recently made a secret trip to somewhere like Caracas or Buenos Aires to have the secret surgery. When he says yes, get some more of his blood, put it on a slide, and look at it under a microscope. Don't run it through a computer. Actually look at it." He looked at Foreman, meeting his eyes. His chin went up. "If that meets with your approval?" he said, with audible sarcasm. "Boss?"

"Fine," Foreman said. "You've come up with this creative solution out of nothing - you go see the patient."

"Ooh, snarky," House said. "Was he like this the whole time I was gone? Doctor Cameron, walk me there. You can lie to his wife for me."

Greg didn't usually ask Cameron to run escort for him. They were barely out of the door when House said "How did the HIV test go? Did you study up?"

"I rescheduled," Cameron said. "We've been busy." She looked up and caught his eyes on her. She hadn't even realised that House knew she was supposed to have the six-month HIV test yesterday. "It's not a big deal. I had the viral load and antibody tests. It's 99.9% that I don't have HIV."

"You have the test and it's negative, you gain a tenth of a point. But if it's positive you lose... nearly 100, right?"

"It's no big deal," Cameron said again. She was startled by him. She hadn't seen him in forty-eight hours, but he seemed taller, moving more confidently: he hadn't had to be reminded to put on a roll-top, he hadn't so much as flinched or gone quiet at Foreman's anger. What had happened in Baltimore?

*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*

Stacy had texted Mark from Baltimore to let him know she was staying. She got back a brief, uninterested "ok". He didn't call.

Going home would commit her to saying something. Or not. If she didn't say anything to Mark, it didn't really hurt him that she had...

She saw Doctor Wilson in the foyer, and reminded herself - and him - that she wanted to talk with him. Talk to him: she couldn't imagine that he'd have anything to say she wanted to hear.

((They had gone to sleep on the bed, not even undressed: House had simply closed his eyes and drifted off. He had always been awkward about being naked with her; it had taken her some time to realise that for House, sleeping with her was an act of profound trust.

She had managed to get undressed, wrap herself in the towelling robe, and pass her clothing to the laundry service, giving orders for a fresh set of men's socks, underwear, and a plain white t-shirt, to be delivered to the room before the airport opened again tomorrow - all without waking House: But when she set down the receiver and the phone click-pinged back at her, House sat bolt upright, breathing hard and suddenly: he looked round, as if he was panicking, seemed to realise where he was, and stared at her, still breathing hard.))

Stacy got to her office, sat down, and checked her mail. She did it quite slowly. When she'd finished checking her mail, she'd have to figure out what she was going to do next. Mark would be in for his physio. She ought to go see him, they could have lunch together. She could tell him...

"What the hell did you do?" Doctor Wilson demanded. He had entered her office without knocking. "Were you just cold and lonely?"

Stacy sat back in her chair and studied him. She was trying to remember why she thought he was good-looking and kind. Good-looking she supposed he still was. But she couldn't see him as kind any longer.

"This is none of your business."

"I have Greg tagged. No one's allowed to interfere with him."

"I didn't interfere with him," Stacy responded, calmly.

((She had put the light out: House had undressed in the dark. She had guessed why when she touched his shoulders, briefly, and felt the keloid scars twisting across his skin. He hadn't flinched, but a small sound escaped him - a grunt, not a word, not quite a whimper - just enough to let her know he didn't want her hands there. House had been whipped before she knew him, had been whipped once or twice while she had him tagged, when she couldn't manage to deflect the punishment: but the scars on his back were mostly new. Making love in the dark, naked bodies pressing together in the hotel's kingsize bed, had felt so natural, so right, so familiar that it had not occurred to her until she sat down in the business-class seat on her own, House clambering carefully into the shelf at the back to be fastened down with straps, that she had been unfaithful to Mark.))

"Don't deflect!" Wilson snapped. "You agreed to escort Greg to Baltimore, I have him tagged, I should have been told!"

"Why are you so worked up over this?" Stacy asked suddenly.

"You're married!"

"Not to you!" Stacy snapped back. She looked at him for a long moment. "So are you, aren't you?"

"I'm waiting for the court to set a date for my divorce," Wilson said heatedly. "You? Are you planning to leave your husband for a slave?"

And just like that, she had her answer. No.

She didn't want to leave Mark. She didn't want to hurt Mark. She wanted to be with Greg, she wanted to be with Mark, she couldn't be with both of them: the same problem she had resolved five years ago by taking off House's tag and walking away from him, planning never to see him again. And that had worked. Until, to continue the curry metaphor, she'd moved back next door to the Indian restaurant that had first taught her to love vindaloo... But she didn't want to leave Mark: she didn't want Mark to leave her.

"Hey. This is a big deal. I tagged Greg. I wanted him protected. You have no idea how things have been for him. You left him because you didn't want him! I do!" Wilson fell silent, as if surprised by his own outburst.

"You're being dramatic," Stacy said.

"No," Wilson said, more mildly. "Actually, I'm underplaying. This is me being restrained."

"It was one night," Stacy said.

"Are you being intentionally thick?"

Stacy lifted her chin, affronted.

"This was not just a one-night stand," Wilson said. He rubbed the back of his neck. His mouth was working. "You can't - toy with him."

Stacy shook her head. That was one thing she knew she wasn't doing. "I'm not," she said. She hesitated. She didn't like Doctor Wilson, but those last two statements had come out with solid honesty: Wilson wanted House, and he had tagged House as a serious, protective relationship. A slave who belonged to an institution was always better off if someone senior in the institution had them tagged, had a personal relationship with them. "I don't know what I'm doing," she admitted, with reciprocal honesty.

*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*

Chase was looking through the patient files Foreman had been sorting through yesterday morning, when House came back into the room.

"Find me a case," House said.

Foreman looked up. "We're still working on Fletcher Stone."

"Got the diagnosis," House said cheerfully.

"Even if you were right about his being bipolar, it doesn't explain a thing - " Foreman said, and House cut him off.

"Cerebral malaria. If any of you had actually looked at his blood with your own eyes, you would have seen it swarming with parasites, busier than the clinic on a wet Saturday morning. Now find me a case."

"Foreman's been looking through these files," Chase said.

"Power has made him lazy. Get down to ER. Go talk to the nurses. Find me a case."

"Recurring fever, neurological problems, lethargies that he took caffeine pills and amphetamines to fight, and an experimental surgery in a malarial zone," Foreman said slowly. "The cutting was done by gamma knife, didn't leave a scar, and it wasn't directly the psych disorder, it was the secrecy - the drug use and the surgery he couldn't admit to anyone."

"Welcome to the end of the thought process." House grinned, showing all of his teeth. "Now, find me a case."

Chase stood up. He had occasionally seen House in just this mood, and before Foreman or Cameron had joined Diagnostics, he had known where to go and who to ask for the interesting patients.

"Chase," Foreman said. "We're not done with this patient." He nodded to Chase to sit down again. "Cameron will be coming back with the results, we'll see if Greg's right."

Very pointedly, Chase frowned at Foreman. "You're not my boss."

"I'm Greg's boss, Greg is your boss. The math is pretty simple." Foreman actually sounded reasonable, but so calmly arrogant that Chase wanted to punch him. He turned and looked directly at Foreman, careful not even to look in House's direction.

"Are you signing my paychecks? Are you hiring or firing?" The one power Doctor House absolutely had, and had never had taken away from him: so long as he was head of Diagnostics he could fire his fellows, and he could say who he would hire or wouldn't. Foreman didn't have that; and Cuddy signed the Diagnostic paychecks.

"This is not about that," Foreman said.

"The only thing you've been asked to do is supervise House in case he does something insane."

"I am the acting head of Diagnostics."

Chase glanced at his watch. "Sure... for another two weeks. I'm going to find another case."

*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*

Stacy called home and left a message on their answering machine. Work backlog. She didn't even know if Mark would believe her, if he had believed the excuse about the weather. She wanted to say, her throat was closing up not saying, "Call me," because she knew if he did they would just end up in frozen silence, again, like last time, like the time before. The ease they'd had with each other was gone.

Could they ever get it back?

The door to her office opened, and House seemed to slide round it: he closed the door and leaned back against it and looked at her. "Working late?" he asked. "Or are you just avoiding Mark?"

He wasn't wearing the blue rolltop she had bought him, but one more plain and functional, obviously bought for him by the hospital: but he was still using the wooden cane she'd bought. He had finished clinic duty for the day - he had probably come directly to her office from the clinic. He would, in her time at least, now be "free" till his morning schedule began, subject to patient care if he had a case. When she had him tagged they could go up to the roof to hold hands and kiss or talk, if she couldn't get permission to take him out of the hospital for the night.

Everything, always, had to be fitted around House's gruelling schedule. Stacy hadn't left New Jersey, except for those flights to Baltimore, during the five years she and House were together. She could have gone: but she would have had to leave House behind. She couldn't assume he would be there when she wanted company, or needed help: he belonged to the hospital, and his time was theirs to dispose of.

They had no future together, They never had a future together. She couldn't bring herself to go back into that tiny box that had been her relationship with House - not again.

She had a future with Mark. If they could talk to each other again. And the obstacles to that were so minor compared to the huge obstacles that she and House had between them, that if the two of them couldn't get together, they didn't deserve to. "I'm moving back to Short Hills, I think it's time," she said abruptly, forcing herself to it.

House's face changed. It nearly broke her heart. He went in an instant from humanly open to slavishly closed: he didn't look as if he was angry, or hated her, or even disappointed, but just as any other slave might, as if he was there to do what she told him without any personal feeling. He had called himself hospital equipment, he had said it was easier to think of himself that way.

He didn't say anything, he only looked: Stacy found herself talking as if in reply: "It's never meant to be permanent. And now that Mark's getting better..."

"Yeah. Much better," House said, level and expressionless.

Stacy looked down at her papers. She should call Mark, go home, start trying to build that relationship again. She could not afford House, and she could not have that relationship any more. "Mark needs to get back to work."

"Right," House said. He walked round the desk, and when Stacy looked up, his face was alive again. His voice wasn't expressionless. He was looking at her so intensely she almost couldn't bear it. "Saving the next generation from making bad choices about acne cream. You're running away because last night meant something."

"I'm not running away," Stacy said flatly, "I'm going home. I love Mark."

"You love me more," House said. He was standing very close to her: if she stood up, she'd be in his arms. "I don't want you to leave."

Stacy wanted him. But if she said yes, if she stood up... where could they go? Not home: Mark was there. She would not show up at a hotel with slave in tow, ask for a room for a few hours. House had no privacy - the door to the cubicle where he slept didn't lock, the Diagnostics conference room had glass walls. House had demonstrated once that if he lay down on the floor of his cubicle he wasn't visible from the conference room as he was if he sat at his desk, but ... she couldn't.

"I'm sorry," Stacy said.

*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*

"The tumor is benign," Greg said. He sounded far too pleased with himself. Chase had found a patient with movement disorder: they had literally closed the file on Fletcher Stone and opened the file on a 34-year-old white female with movement disorder. Foreman couldn't remember something like this happening before: days or occasionally weeks could pass between one Diagnostics patient and the next.

"All she has to do is quit taking birth control pills and it'll go away on its own. I'm cancelling the surgery," Greg said.

Foreman shook his head.

"All right," Greg said, with tired impertinence, "you're cancelling the surgery. Boss."

"We'll talk to the woman on her own, tell her the facts - her birth control pills combined with the fertility regimen has caused a benign tumor - and give her the options: she can stop using the Pill or she can have surgery. Her choice."

"She won't admit to the birth control," Chase said. "She's been on fertility treatment for months."

"So go schedule the surgery," Foreman directed. "You're probably right. I'll go talk to the patient. Cameron, would you get the husband out of her room?"

"Sure," Cameron said. She stood up: Chase was getting to his feet.

As Foreman had expected, Greg reacted. He'd been sullen since he got back from his clinic hours. He said, aggressively, rudely, "You're going to schedule a completely unnecessary surgery just so supermom can keep lying that she really wants another baby?"

"You're here to help us find the diagnosis, Greg," Foreman said, smoothly. "Not to decide on the treatment. That's the patient's decision, and my responsibility." He glanced at his watch. "There's still time to call the clinic and ask if they want you for two more hours tonight. Or you can just wait here." He stood up, frowning, deliberate. He hadn't intended to send Greg off for another two hours in the clinic - he didn't suppose Doctor Wilson would appreciate any more delays. "The clinic didn't seem busy," he said after a pause. "Just stay here until you hear otherwise, from myself or Doctor Wilson."

"Oh yes, the power tastes so sweet. You just can't resist. You're like a diabetic at the ice cream counter. You want to say no, but you need that chocolaty goodness."

"Just stay here," Foreman repeated, after another pause. He was thinking again about the riding crop. This was an issue of manners, not medical ethics. Greg had learned to behave around other hospital staff, who had the power to have him whipped if he was impertinent. Maybe it would do some good to have manners beaten into him here. Even if the fellows were normally subordinate to Doctor House, they were all free people, not chattel, and Greg should mind his tongue when it wasn't a matter of diagnosing the patient.

*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*

Stacy had left a message on their answering machine: she was working late. Mark had got a cab over to the hospital. He was thinking about showing up at her office, as he had before sometimes, to make her break for a meal - even sandwiches and a piece of fruit and a cup of coffee. Or take-out. He could call for take-out. They could eat together, the way they had before, quickly because Stacy didn't work late unless there was a lot to get through, but comfortable with each other.

But he didn't. Instead, he took the elevator to the floor of the hospital where he hadn't been since he was a patient, and looked for Diagnostics. He knew - he couldn't remember how he knew - that "Doctor House" effectively lived and slept in the Diagnostics department. It was after seven: probably the other doctors, the ones who worked for Diagnostics, would all have gone home.

Sure enough, when he rolled past a glass-walled conference room, the slave he remembered from months ago was sitting at the table, alone. The door wasn't the easiest sort to open from a wheelchair, but Mark made it, and rolled inside.

"House."

The slave looked up. "What?"

"I'm here about Stacy."

The slave's face was closed-off, unreadable. "What about her?"

"I think I'm losing her."

The slave looked at him a moment longer, his face unreadable. "Your wife, your problem," he said finally, and got to his feet. He moved quickly for a crippled man: Mark remembered. He shifted the chair in front of the door, and said "She won't talk to me."

The slave leaned on his cane. "What, you're going to talk to me instead?" He shook his head. "Talk to your shrink."

"She keeps saying everything's fine."

One moment the slave was standing still, leaning on his cane: the next he had grabbed one of the chair's push handles, unset the brake on that side, and used it to spin Mark's chair so that he was no longer blocking the door. Mark grabbed on to the arms of his chair, feeling a sweeping breathlessness and anger. The door opened and the slave was through it and out, his parting comment "Find a bar and talk to a stranger."

No one had done that to Mark. Not even Stacy, pushing him away. Anger made him faster: Mark was through the doorway and out into the corridor. The slave was limping fast, nearly at the stairs already. Mark sped. He caught up with the slave at the doors. "You're the only one who's been through this!"

The slave stopped and looked down at him. The slave. House. Stacy's former...

What's the difference between this guy and me? Not nearly as much as the difference between both of us and you. When was the last time you worried that you were going to lose your house or get sold? You could ditch him with two weeks notice and you can go back to him because things are difficult with us. You've got him where you want him. Like you got me where you want me.

"House," Mark said, forcefully. "I'm shutting her out. I'm saying things and then hating myself for saying them." And Stacy just looks. She doesn't get mad, she doesn't get sarcastic, she just looks and turns away and goes back to work. "How did you get past that?"

"Didn't." House went through the doors. Mark followed him.

"Can you please be a human being for one minute and talk to me?"

"Sorry," House said. He looked back at Mark again, his face closed off. "I'm a slave, I don't get to be a human being." He started to climb the stairs, slowly and effortfully, ignoring Mark.

"House," Mark said, and finally knew there was only one thing left to do. He heaved himself out of his chair on to the steps. His legs still felt mostly numb, but he could sort of push with them. His arms were strong.

He heard, through a fog of effort, House say "You're not ready for this."

He pulled himself up, feeling an awful sense of physical wrongness, keeping going by sheer effort. He landed against something softer than the stairs: House caught him. He looked up into House's face. "I've seen the way you and Stacy talk to each other."

House's face wasn't closed off. He looked down at Mark, horrifyingly open. For a dizzy moment Mark saw his own distress and loss, exposed and magnified. But all House said was "You're an idiot. You probably just set your rehab back three months." He was still holding Mark: his arms were hard and strong, his body was fit, his legs supported him. He was desirable: Mark felt himself flabby and unfit, his legs lolling behind him, flopping on the stars, his hands clutching at a slave.

Mark shouted, struggling, and the slave let go. Mark felt himself falling: he landed on one of the lower steps, sitting on his butt, his legs trailing like sacks of meat. His back hurt. The slave limped back down the stairs and went out through the stair door, leaving Mark sitting by himself in the stairwell, hearing his own heart race.

*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*

Wilson stepped out of his office, his mind elsewhere. Greg had managed to find another patient for Diagnostics the instant he had solved Fletcher Stone's case, but Foreman had told him late on in the afternoon that the movement disorder case was going well and it was likely Greg would be free by the evening.

He had opened the door of the Diagnostics conference room before he realised that the person standing at the table, looking round, was Stacy Warner. And Greg was nowhere to be seen.

"Doctor Wilson," Warner said, and didn't move. "I came to tell House..."

"He's probably on clinic duty," Wilson said.

"He's not," Warner said. "I checked. He should be here." She paused. "I want to talk with House in private," she said crisply. "I know you have a right to be present. Are you going to insist on it?"

"Depends what you're going to tell him."

Warner shrugged. "If I wanted to tell you that, I wouldn't ask to make the interview private."

They both glanced sideways in the same moment: Greg was limping along the hallway. He pushed the door open and came in, looking from Warner to Wilson. His face was closed off.

"Your husband's sitting on the stairs. He got out of his wheelchair and tried to climb them. You should get a couple of orderlies to move him. He's probably set his rehab back three to six months."

"House," Warner said.

"Nothing changes," Greg said. "Go get Mark."

"Which stair?" Warner asked. She stepped to the Diagnostics phone. Greg pointed. Warner nodded and picked up the phone. She dialled and spoke tersely, giving brief instructions, then put the phone down.

"You were happy with Mark," Greg said. He was watching Warner. "You'll be happy again."

Warner headed towards the door. She stopped by Greg, and looked at him. "This discussion isn't over."

"We're done," Greg said. "You left me before, you'll leave me again. Mark's willing to do whatever it takes to make you happy. I can't. I'm not willing to go there again."

"House - "

Greg shuddered all over. He stared at Stacy, stared at Wilson as if realising he was there for the first time, his eyes wide and blue. "Goodbye," he said.

Stacy nodded, and walked out. Greg looked at Wilson. He swallowed and said nothing.

Wilson lifted his hand to clip the leash on to Greg's collar.

"Don't do this," Greg said.

"You want to stay in there all night," Wilson said, nodding his head at the cubicle, "No food, no company, just stay in there and be miserable?"

"She's better off without me," Greg said.

"That's probably true," Wilson said. He clipped the leash on to Greg's collar. "Let's go."

He tugged. Greg didn't move.

"Come on," Wilson said, annoyed. The leash wasn't that good for moving an unwilling slave: he'd have to get security for that. "You want a thrashing?"

"Tough love make you feel good? Helping people feel their pain?"

Wilson wrapped the end of the leash firmly round his hand and gave it a jerk. "Let's go, Greg," he said calmly, and this time, Greg moved.

*tbc*

In case you wondered... just like on the show, that is the end of the Stacy arc. I always thought she and Mark must have something good going that Stacy actively wanted to return to, even if she also loved House, and I hope I tried to convey that. But now Wilson has Greg all to himself...

(Gratuitious Plug: For a darker version of how the CollarRedux universe might go, read Tailkinker's "Pain Control")