Sorry for the long gap between updates.

WHAT was up with that finale?


"Fuck, smells like shit in here."

"Think he's dead?"

A foot prodded insistently at his bruised flank, the action sending fresh waves of agony that spiked from his broken ribs, blinding his senses. He released a tortured cry that grated in his parched throat, and writhed pathetically on the ground.

"Nah. He's still moving."

"Cool."

House felt one of the guards slap his cheek.

"Hey! Asshole! 501! Rise and shine!"

His migraine intensified at the guard's barking, causing his vision to reel and spin. House moaned and emptied the meagre contents of his stomach, dehydration making it sticky and lumpy.

Just as well, for if it splashed onto the guard he'd never hear the end of it.

Disgusted, his tormentor shuffled back and made known his displeasure stomping on House's right thigh. House barely had time to scream before a hand clamped around his neck and hauled him bodily up.

His vision dimmed from the sudden drop in blood pressure, and House slid his eyes shut as he struggled to breathe. When the guard attempted to shake him back to consciousness however, House knew the battle was lost and collapsed heavily against the grip around his throat.

The next time House regained consciousness, he was naked and fevered, but he was thankfully alone. He rolled onto his back, and effort needed for the movement proved too gargantuan, and all he could do was lay there, a wretched figure gasping for air – only to find it was denied.

Panic propelled him, and a viscous pool of blood and saliva dribbled from his mouth, clearing his airway just enough for him to draw a wet rattling breath. Curling in on himself, he gingerly touched a hand to his throat, immediately regretting the decision after a tentative prod almost caused him to shoot through the ceiling.

Laryngeal trauma. Possible hyoid fracture or displaced cartilage. Definite vocal cord damage.

House squeezed his eyes shut and tried to take a deep breath.

Alright. He could do breathing. So far.

Pulling himself painfully up to rest heavily on his calloused elbows, House dragged himself to the edge of the wall, and reclined against it, forming a makeshift elevation.

It hurt, but fuck it, so did everything else.

A cockroach scuttled by, and House clapped the dog bowl over it, then desperately fumbled underneath until his hand closed feebly around the morsel. Brining it to his mouth, he wondered if he'd wake up tomorrow.

He hoped he wouldn't.


House's body gave a wild jerk as the hospital monitors beeped loudly in his distress.

He groaned softly as his back spasmed at the sudden movement, the muscles cramping painfully as he went rigid. Grimacing, he slowly and painfully eased himself back on the bed, squeezed his eyes shut and fought another surge of panic.

House was exhausted, yet sleep eluded him.

The slightest whisper startled him awake, and the lightest brush sent him cowering in one corner of the bed. More than three people in the room and his surroundings seem too crowded, too much activity for his eyes to track, too many possible threats to defend against, and more often than not he'd lay trembling until fatigue or sedation claimed him.

House hated having to admit this, but when Wilson was around, everything seemed less terrifying. He loathed this dependence, his inability to control his mind and body, the pathetic urge to call out whenever he was left alone.

He jumped again as the room creaked loudly, resisting the urge to duck under the covers. Instead, House settled himself on the stack of cushions that supported him, gingerly curled onto his side and after a moment's hesitation, closed his eyes and covered his ears with his palms as he steeled himself for a fitful night's rest.

He hoped morning came soon.

"Here we go."

Wilson bustled in, bearing a warm bowl of soup.

It was standard hospital fare, the broth diluted and already cooling, but House's eyes widened at the sight of the offering, and it was all he could do not to snatch the bowl right out of Wilson's hands and quickly gulp it down before it was taken away. Wilson must have caught his ravenous gaze anyway, and smiling softly, settled the bowl on the tray in front of House, pushing it toward him.

Pulling up a chair, Wilson noted the tension in House's shoulders and how his eyes tracked him throughout the room. Only when Wilson was seated did he look back toward his meal. Gritting his teeth, House tried lifting his arm. Pain lanced across his shoulder and he gasped, his hand falling limply back onto the sheets.

Then, from the corner of his eye he saw Wilson start forward as though to take the bowl, and House instinctively lurched forward to protectively throw both arms on either side of the bowl, almost spilling the contents.

House, still hunched over the tray, whipped around to face Wilson with his teeth bared, and snarled.

"NO!"

Wilson jerked back immediately with both palms in the air, alarmed by the ferocity of House's response. His voice dropping to a soothing register, he leaned forward slowly, as though approaching a wild beast.

"Okay. It's alright, House. Calm down. I'm not taking it away."

Wilson took in his friend's panting, shuddering form that was barely holding itself up, and flicked a worried glance at the monitors that displayed House's racing heart rate and elevated blood pressure.

"House. Hey."

Shaking with pain and adrenaline, House blinked forcefully as he struggled to focus. Wilson hung back, knowing from experience when House was this agitated, physical contact only served to spook him further. Gradually, the quaking subsided and House seemed to collapse in on himself, curling closer to the bowl.

Wilson felt a strange yet familiar tightening of his chest at House's next sentence.

"It's mine."

Those two words were softly spoken, with no trace of his former aggression. Instead, his friend sounded plaintive, pleading, like a child simply who could not understand what he'd done wrong.

"Yes it is. And I'm not going to let anyone take it."

There was a pregnant pause.

Then, "Okay."

Blinking back his own tears, Wilson gently grasped his friend's shoulder, bracing House's back with his other arm, and steered House to lie back on the mattress. Rearranging the pillows and raising the headrest so House was comfortably propped up, Wilson then swiftly tucked the blankets around him.

"Alright then."

Pulling the tray even closer to House, Wilson watched as his friend reached for the spoon...only to have his fingers close clumsily in thin air.

Growling in annoyance, House slapped his palm on the utensil's shaft, then curled his fingers in. But when he lifted his hand, the plastic spoon slipped through the gaps in the crooked joints and clattered noisily on the wooden surface.

Frustrated now, House tried again and again to pick up the instrument with his damaged fingers, only to send it spinning on the table – almost mockingly – or sliding just out of his reach, until a particularly violent push sent it skittering off the edge and onto the floor.

Pissed off at having been denied his meal again, House snapped and wrapped his hands around the bowl of chicken soup – now cold – and tried bringing the rim to his lips, but he was unable to lift the bowl more than a few centimetres from the tray.

"Dammit!"

He couldn't understand why his body was failing him now. Logically, House understood the steps needed for his recovery, his medical training automatically cataloguing every injury he'd attained from the beginning of this nightmare. But logic didn't seem to be very applicable to the past five years of his life.

Five years he'd stayed alive in that hellhole; he'd managed to wake each day, survive the next twenty hours, then get thrown back into his cell to grab a precious few hours of rest before the cycle started again. He stood after savage beatings; he walked after hanging by his wrists for hours under a scorching sun without water, and each time his body pulled through.

Apparently picking up a spoon was one obstacle too many.

He was openly sobbing before he realised it, tears that were coloured with embarrassment, fury and frustration. House could hear Wilson murmur, "I'll be right back" before he left the room, but for once he didn't give a damn whether the oncologist returned or not. In fact, House hoped he didn't. It was about time Wilson stopped wasting his effort on a lost cause. He wasn't going to magically become the diagnostician again, and he probably never will. Besides, he didn't go through hell only to have his best friend squander his life away playing nursemaid.

Yet when the door opened to reveal the familiar sight of the oncologist, House felt a disgusting wave of relief sweep through him. House kept his eyes stubbornly at the taunting, untouched bowl of soup, and refused to look up at Wilson.

Until a straw dropped into the pool of broth.

At House's questioning look, Wilson raised an eyebrow.

"Unless you want me to feed you?" he glibly remarked, waving a new spoon for emphasis.

House scowled at the offending piece of cutlery before snorting with amusement. Leaning forward, he carefully pursed his lips around the plastic, and sipped slowly. When the forgotten taste of chicken broth reached his tongue, so ordinary and bland, so clean, House wanted to drink slowly, savouring and drawing out the experience and pleasure for as long as he could, until the next meal, but his traitorous body failed to obey once again, and slurped greedily at the straw until the bowl emptied.

His stomach now full and content, House sank into the pillows with a lengthy, eloquent sigh. He hummed contentedly and closed his eyes.

When it didn't look like House was about to upchuck his meagre meal, Wilson smiled softly in relief, feeling the load lift from his chest. Noticing the covers have become untucked again, he reached over to tug them over his snoozing companion, his hand accidentally grazing across House's flank. Surprisingly, House didn't start as he normally would. Initially attributing this lack of response to sleep, Wilson resumed his task and drew his hand back to find it smeared with blood.

Leaping noisily from his chair, Wilson shoved the covers aside and gently parted House's hospital gown, too alarmed to smooth House's feathers – for he had jerked awake and flinched violently at the clatter.

"House! You're bleeding! Dammit, why didn't you say anything? When did – dammit!"

A row of stitches on House's abdomen had ripped, the wound angry and inflamed, and blood was steadily oozing from the injury, trickling onto the gown and bed, glancing every few seconds at the blood pressure display. Lord knows how long House was bleeding, how long would he have been bleeding if Wilson hadn't caught it. In his malnourished state, House really couldn't afford any amount of blood loss, couldn't spare any iota of energy from his recovery to deal with this.

House was blindly attempting to shove Wilson's hands as far from him as possible, eyes rolling wildly in his distress.

"House! Hey, you've torn your stitches; we've got to fix this! Listen, hey. Do you feel dizzy?"

Just then, Dr Whitley and a nurse entered the room and Wilson started to update them of House's current condition. The nurse ripped open another sterile pack of gauze and placed it firmly over the wound, taking over from the oncologist while Whitley moved to clean and suture the cut. Wilson, feeling ridiculously helpless and guilt-ridden, stepped closer to House, who was panting heavily, and his eyes – Wilson noted with faint alarm – were unfocused and bright, and the pale pallor of his skin looked chalky under the harsh fluorescent lighting.

"House, it's okay. I'm here. I'm here."

House squeezed his eyes shut, and said in a breathy whisper, "I'm sorry, Wilson. Didn't mean to."

Wilson's experience telling him that this frantic apology was House's conditioned response to pain after years of torture, Wilson shook his head stubbornly and wrapped House in a loose embrace.

"No, nononono, no. It's not your fault. You hear me, House?"

Wilson let House's head loll on his shoulder, tears and House's hair blocking his vision.

Dammit Wilson, you stupid bastard.

"It was never your fault."


Cuddy's heels clacked loudly on the hospital floors as she made her morning rounds. Pausing briefly to bark at an intern who foolishly filed the wrong document in the wrong folder – honestly, blue, not green – she made her way toward the fourth floor elevators. She felt the familiar tension of her body as she neared Diagnostics.

The glass door now bore a different name, but she'd never been able to think of the room as anything but House's. Both the office and the conference room were unoccupied at the moment, the team solving a case late last night.

After House was imprisoned, her staff used to peer in at the room, speaking in hushed whispers. Chase got so irritated by the constant intrusion and accusatory glares he once snapped at a pair of nurses and pulled the blinds close for good.

Cuddy quickened her pace, blocking out the flood of memories that threatened to overwhelm her everytime she passed, until something gave her pause. Through the glass window she could make out the outline of a shadowed figure in the room across the balcony.

Sighing softly, she made her way to Wilson's office.

The door was closed, the lights were off, but something compelled her toward the room. Knocking once, she let herself in, and found her employee slumped on the couch, head buried in his hands, shuddering every few intervals.

Well, no mystery what it's about.

For weeks now, Cuddy watched as her oncologist crumple, his shirts becoming more wrinkled and the bags under his eyes growing progressively darker. The only time he'd been this bad was the week after House's arrest.

Unsure of what to say, she stood awkwardly next to the couch.

"How's he doing?"

Wilson sniffed.

"Well…he's eating, that's always good."

Cuddy frowned. Wilson only looked on the bright side in a negative situation, and if the negative situation involved House…

Choking back her fear, Cuddy seated herself next to Wilson.

"Wilson."

A long pause ensued before Wilson could compose a reply.

"He's…doing well. Under the circumstances. Back on real food, his breathing's improved, PT's helping with the pain."

Well wouldn't explain Wilson's breakdown.

"Okaaay, so how're you doing?"

Wilson sniffed deeply and gave a small smile.

"I'm okay."

"Bullshit, James."

Surprised by her response, Wilson glanced briefly at her before dropping his head guiltily and pursing his lips.

"He tore his stitches last night. Bled all over the sheets, and I almost missed it."

As always when it comes to House, Cuddy felt her worry start to bubble up again.

"Is he okay?"

"They fixed it. He was sleeping when I left."

Dropping her forehead on her palms in relief, she turned to look at Wilson's slouched form.

"You're feeling guilty."

Wilson said nothing, and picked uncomfortably at his fingers.

"It's not your fault, you know."

Wilson brushed off her attempt at reassurance.

"He was bleeding! And I'm a-a…doctor, and I didn't do a damned thing!"

Wilson palmed his brow, and whispered, mortified, "I think I scared him."

Softly bumping her shoulder into his, Cuddy teased gently.

"If you were wearing that tie, I can see why."

Peering down at the piece of fabric – a black affair with giant daisies – Wilson snorted amusedly. In mock indignation, Wilson defended himself.

"Hey, this is a designer tie. Gladys liked it."

"Your assistant? Pfft."

They allowed themselves to bask in this light hearted glow, and it was a full minute before Cuddy grew serious again.

"Take tomorrow off. Don't see House."

Appalled, Wilson jumped up in incredulity at the suggestion.

Holding a hand out to stop him before he tore the room down in paternal outrage, Cuddy calmly continued.

"Wilson, have you even looked in the mirror? You're like the walking dead. Take tomorrow off, rest, and don't come back until you look like part of the living again."

"But - "

"Yes, I will attend to House. And yes, I will give you a full account."

Softening her features, she reached for Wilson's hand, even as he stood there dumbstruck, and tugged him back toward the couch. Cuddy made sure to hold his gaze.

"Don't forget Wilson, your name wasn't the only one on the list."