A/N: This chapter and the next one serve as a closer focus on House and Rose's developing relationship, and less so on the plot of the show. Dialogue, diagnoses, and snapshots you recognize come from episode 2x13 "Skin Deep."

9:19 am

beep beep beep beep

Groaning, House throws the blankets off of him, but makes no move to get up. His hand inches to his thigh, digging into the scar tissue desperately. This morning, it seems there is no reprieve from the cramping. He'd hardly slept as it was, unable to push the pain away long enough to relax. He'd tried pacing, but that had only made it worse. Momentarily, he'd considered a hot bath, but doubted his ability to get out again once he was finished.

Knowing that there was no way to avoid it for long, he sits up, lifting his right leg gingerly with his hands. A bolt of lightning shoots through his body when he places the foot on the floor. He pushes himself to standing, solely on his left foot, and slowly shifts the weight to his right. Nearly yelping in pain, he narrowly catches himself on the footboard as his leg gives way underneath him, jostling the entire bed.

"House?" Rose groans, sitting up in the bed behind him, "Oh jeese! hey, hey, its okay, I got you." She croons, wrapping her arms around his chest and pulling him back onto the bed.

She swings her bare legs around to sit next to him, massaging the thigh. He allows himself to lean into her, throwing his head back on her shoulder and gritting his teeth. When the spasm eventually cedes, he practically goes to jelly, his whole body weight against Rose. Concentrating on not hyperventilating, he doesn't even try stop her when she checks his pulse. He closes his eyes, beads of sweat on his forehead. She rubs his back, slowly, rhythmically.

"Was it this bad all night?" She asks, concern lacing her voice. He nods, gulping and clearing his throat.

His voice comes out strangled and hoarse. "I didn't want to wake you."

She looks at him sadly, her voice sounding frustrated. "There's no reason to lie here and torture yourself for eight hours, House! Come on!" she pleads, exasperated. "It's been getting worse… hasn't it?"

He nods, gaze downcast. "Could be nerve regeneration," he supplies, but the hope falls flat.

Rose contemplates for a minute, before getting up from the bed and telling House to lie back down.

"I need to shower," he protests, trying once again to stand up.

"Fine," she answers, after a moment, standing close as he tests out his leg. "But there's no way you're taking the bike to work. I'll drive."

He agrees without protest, having intended to ask for a ride. It was better she offered anyway.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWH

"No helmets?" Wilson asks, catching up to the doctors as they walked in the door of PPTH. Often Rose rode in with House on the bike. In fact, it seemed she was the only person who didn't think the thing was a death trap on wheels.

"Not exactly riding weather." House answers, deflecting, despite the fact that everyone can see his gait is twice as lopsided as usual. His right foot hardly touching the floor, Rose walks cautiously close to him, should he disbalance.

"Doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you can hardly stand upright, does it?" Wilson chides knowingly. "It's about time for a new MRI anyway, right?"

House nods, grimacing as they step into the elevator. Wilson gives Rose a questioning look over Houses shoulder. How bad? She returns it with a small shake of her head. Bad.

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWH

Wilson takes House down for the MRI a few hours later- which he reports was unchanged from the last time- then to lunch, leaving Rose to contemplate the consequences of a dad sleeping with his supermodel daughter who had paraneoplastic syndrome, but no cancer.

"What if it is just PTSD and the IVIG worked like a placebo?" Chase suggests, all four doctors utterly confused.

"Just PTSD?" Cameron retorts, "Suddenly Daddy diddling her has become a nonchalant subject?"

"Let me rephrase." Chase answers, clearing his throat, "It's not cancer! *gasp* what if it's PTSD?" He trills with fake incredulity, looking to Cameron with a grand eye roll.

"It has to be cancer." Foreman answers, looking thoughtfully at the board. We've missed something."

"Tell you what." Rose says after a few moments of contemplation, "Tell her you need to switch the IV, give her saline instead of the Immunoglobulin and see if the twitching comes back. If it does, we'll look for cancer again."

HWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWHWH

Needless to say, testicular cancer in a female supermodel was not something anyone had expected, but that was why people came to House.

Rose was left to clean up the office and finish the paperwork at the end of the night, contemplating her position on the team. She did the departmental work that House didn't want to do, and got paid a handsome sum for it. She didn't usually do tests or lab work, although she actually enjoyed patient contact some of the time. Usually the patients and family treated her with more authority than they did with the ducklings, but she wasn't House- that was for sure. She didn't have epiphanies and she never beat him to the diagnosis. Although, she usually was only a split second behind him- rarely needing the explanation he offered the team. One of these days, she figures, she'd solve the case before he did. But really, it would bother the crap out of him if that happened, so maybe it was better that it didn't.

Beep Beep Beep Beep

Cuddy, office.

Rose shrugs as she looks at her pager, gathering her things and heading downstairs.

HWHWHW

Rose enters her boss's office without knocking.

"What can I do for you Dr. Cuddy? I was just heading out for the night."

Before Cuddy can respond, House rounds on her, having been out of Rose's line of sight behind the door.

"You called her down here?" he demands angrily, already yelling. "She doesn't need to know!"

"Know what?" She challenges, pointing forcefully. "That you're halfway to becoming a junkie?"

"That I'm in this much pain!"

Both women look to him for a moment. He's standing entirely on his left foot, facing Cuddy and unable to pivot, his right arm trembling under his weight on the cane.

"What's going on?" Rose demands, moving into the office and into House's field of vision.

Cuddy grabs her bag and coat, rolling her eyes as she moves to leave. "Mr. Normal MRI here wants morphine in his spine. Dr. Wilson thinks it's in his head and frankly I agree. I only paged you because you're his ride home."

Cuddy walks towards the door, turning over her shoulder to bid Rose goodnight.

CRASH

Both doctors freeze as House's cane smashes into the wall and clatters to the floor.

"What about this!?" He shouts, undoing his belt and throwing his pants to his knees. "Is this in my head?" His voice cracks as he drops his hands to his sides. "Because I seem to recall a thigh muscle being here."

The grooves and ripples of mangled skin above his right knee stand out in stark relief against the dim office light. The women stare for a moment, dumbfounded, before Rose shakes her head, walking up to him slowly.

He stares over her, glaring at Cuddy, his breathing ragged. Rose places her hand firmly on his chest, talking to him in a low voice.

"House… hey, hey, look at me. Look at me."

He does, reluctantly, his blue eyes wide and bright with desperation. "Come on now," Rose continues, practically cooing. He pulls up his pants and she helps him shuffle to sit down on Cuddy's office couch.

When Rose turns back around, Cuddy's gone, the moonlight shining through a vial of morphine on the coffee table, syringes lying adjacent.

Sighing and biting her lip, Rose sits on the coffee table and helps a trembling, sweating House out of his shirt and onto his side.

"I need you to hug your knees, House," she whispers, drawing up the drug quickly.

He attempts to comply, whimpering with the effort. "I know, I know, just a little more." She rubs his bare back, her warm hands bringing goose pimples to the skin. When he finally takes a deep breath, Rose swabs an area with alcohol and presses the needle between two vertebrae as gently as possible, injecting the clear liquid slowly.

"Stay here for a few more minutes, try not to move," Rose breathes, still rubbing his back.

After a few minutes, he starts to stretch out on the couch.

"Feeling better?" she asks, standing up and pocketing the vial and extra syringes.

He grunts, slowly sitting up and rubbing his face. Rose frowns at him, her eyes narrowing some.

"You could have just asked me, you know."

"Didn't want you questioning my judgement," he whispers tiredly.

She sits on the couch behind him, stroking his arm. "The only judgement I'm questioning is the one that made you think I'd be so shallow."

House leans into her touch, visibly relaxing. A few minutes pass, and Rose knows that if he lies here much longer he'll fall asleep. And no matter how strong she is, physics say she'd never be able to carry a sleeping House. As it is, the morphine has relaxed him so much that his limbs are nearly jelly as it is.

They make their way to her car, House draped all over Rose's shoulders, his weight making her trudge through the empty parking lot. She goes back into Cuddy's office for their bags and coats, locking the door and tucking the morphine vial safely into her bag. After stopping to grab a handful of syringes and alcohol swabs from the nurse's station, she makes her way back to the car and drives House home.

HWHWHW

Leaving House on the couch, Rose walks around the apartment, gathering a few things.

"Take your pants off."

"Look I know you're a sex fiend, but I don't think tonight's a good idea." House replies, his head against the back of the couch, eyes closed.

"Anyone in that much pain deserves a little pleasure themselves, don't they?" Rose asks in her best lustful voice.

He opens his eyes to that, only to see Rose standing in front of him in one of his t-shirts and holding a heating pad and a damp towel, plus a cup with a few pills in it.

"Take your pants off." She says, more serious this time. He complies, and she quickly applies the moist heat to his leg, handing him the pills. He looks at them curiously.

"Compazine, Cyclobenzaprine, and Dulcolax. Low doses." He nods approvingly and swallows them back, not accepting the glass of water she offers. She just shrugs, placing it on the coffee table and sitting next to him, turning on the TV.

"You know," he begins after a few moments, his voice low and gravelly, "after leaning on the cane so much all day, my shoulder really kills. Old lacrosse injury."

"Oh, it does, does it?" Rose replies, a smirk in her voice.

"And since I only have the one heating pad, do you think you could….?"

"Could what?" She asks, pulling her legs up on the couch and kneeling over his lap, her face inches from his, reminiscent of their first time, something like nine months ago.

"This?" she asks, pulling off his shirt and beginning to massage his shoulders, her torso brushing his with the kneading motion.

"Mmmmm" he purrs, the slight pain of the massage hurting and pleasing at the same time. He splays his hands over her back, his fingertips rough and needy. It's impossible to tell if the groans escaping his throat are from the massage or from his ever heightening arousal.

Rose can feel that she's worked all the knots out of his shoulder, and she begins running her hands down his chest and abdomen, kissing his neck and shoulders and feeling the subtle muscle definition with her tongue. His body jerks when she catches a nipple with her teeth, swirling her tongue around the pink skin as she slowly climbs off his lap and onto the floor in front of him.

"It really is a shame you only have one heating pad." she hisses as she shimmies his boxers down his legs a bit , exposing his partially hard member. She grazes her fingertips over it, watching it pulsate and extend, throbbing to her touch. House leans his head against the couch once more, his eyes fluttering shut, mouth lolling open as Rose takes the head into her mouth, caressing the slit with her tongue and stroking the base.

When she tastes the bitter pre-cum on her lips, she smiles a bit, and slowly takes more of the length into her mouth. Halfway down, she glances up at House. He watches her, eyes at half mast, nearly black with lust. She smirks and in one gulp, takes the rest of his cock into her throat, swallowing back the gag reflex. He gasps in surprise, his head snapping forward before flopping back again, a moan gurgling in his throat. She can't help but giggle at his reaction, and the vibrations of her throat make him twitch, trying not to buck.

She proceeds to suck languorously bobbing her head up and down and massaging his balls all the while. His hands dig into her long hair, gentle pushing on her head and thrusting his hips. When she tongues his foreskin on an upstroke, his whole body begins to shake with anticipation. Hitting that sweet spot each time she comes up, House is quickly putty in her hands. She rubs his thighs as he shudders and gasps, tiny moans escaping intermittently. His small thrusts become erratic. His hand tightens in her hair to be almost painful.

She glances up at him one more time, her dark eyes teasing. He opens his mouth to say something, and then suddenly his eyes roll back, Rose leaves a hand on his right knee to stabilize his leg when his whole body jerks uncontrollably.

"oh god oh god oh god Rossssee" The words tumble out of his mouth in a mumble amidst the gasps and whimpers, hot streams shooting to the back of her throat. She swallows, wanting him to ride the ecstasy as long as possible, continuing to stroke and suck until he stills. Wiping off her mouth with her hand, she sits next to him on the couch, kissing him hard and long as the last shivers leave his body and he relaxes once again.

"How's the leg?" She asks, smiling at his totally sated posture.

His voice low and gravelly, he replies, "What leg?"