"I swear I didn't tell her, House," Wilson protested, as he drove House home. House had been in a bad mood since he'd collected him from Dr. Lane's waiting room. The only thing that Wilson had managed to get out of him was that she'd known about his little 'accident' in the tub.

"Well, who else coulda told her? The Easter bunny? Coz I'm pretty sure she doesn't speak to fictional characters, what with her being a head doc and all," House snarled.

They came to a stop outside House's apartment and Wilson got out to begin the routine that had started to become almost a habit – with taking the wheelchair out of the boot, helping House into it and then pushing him to the door and helping him inside. He hadn't returned home since House's first hospital admission and it may have been just him, but it seemed the longer he stayed on House's couch, the comfier it seemed.

"The only person I told was Cuddy and that's only because she asked why your wrist was bandaged."

"And you couldn't lie to her? You had to know she'd tell the shrink she was sending me to as more fuel to the fire that I'm too crippled now to even do my job."

"Cuddy is not going to fire you because you were suicidal for all of fifteen seconds."

"Huh." House said no more as he wheeled himself into his bedroom and set about transferring from the chair to his bed. He wasn't used to being upright and the meeting with the shrink had tired him out, plus the fact that he was pissed at Wilson and he was beginning to get a headache.

"Do you need some help in there?" Wilson called out from the kitchen.

"I've gotta learn how to survive on my own sometime. I mean, you can stay here forever!" House called back. 'No matter how much I wish you could, he thought to himself.

"Okay, but don't do anything stupid."

"As if I would." House struggled with the arm of the chair, it was stuck for some reason and no matter how much he pulled, he couldn't quite seem to get it unstuck. He groaned and cursed under his breath before giving it one final yank. It came free and struck him squarely in the nose.

"Fuck," he said, gripping his nose. The blood was already pouring out of it and he was pretty sure that it was broken. "WILSON!"

Wilson didn't reply, just appeared in the doorway of House's bedroom. "What the hell did you do?" he asked, spotting House's blood-soaked fingers.

"Stupid, fucking chair wouldn't let me take the arm off," House said, his voice sounded compressed by the pressure on his nose.

Wilson left him sitting there for a moment, before returning with some towels and an icepack from the freezer. "Let me see. Yeah, it's broken alright, here, clean yourself up and once it stops bleeding put the icepack on your nose to reduce any swelling."

"You talk to me as if I wasn't a doctor," House muttered, cursing again that his body was once again causing him pain. It didn't help that his leg chose that moment to go on one of its pain trips, taking House along with it. "Can I have some severdol?"

"For a broken nose?" Wilson asked, his eyebrows raised.

"No, for a broken nose and the agony in my leg," House snapped. God, sometimes Wilson could be so dense.

"Oh, yeah, alright. I'll just get you one and you'll take it with water if I have to force it down your throat." Wilson disappeared again and reappeared with House's pills, little pink ones that took him to a place pain dare not disturb. His body was getting used to them now so he didn't feel as tired and groggy on them as he had in the beginning.

For a while he had missed the familiar taste of Vicodin, but since the second infarct and the loss of more thigh muscle, he found that it no longer did the trick and although he hated to admit it, Cuddy had been right in prescribing morphine for him to take regularly. Which reminded him, he still hadn't told Wilson that Dr. Lane had said he was fit for work once he'd recovered some more through PT. He would save that for another time, right now Wilson deserved to stew for spilling his secrets to Cuddy.

"Were you trying to lie down?" Wilson asked, once he'd given House his pills and watched him swallow them with a mouthful of water.

"That was the idea, but now I have to keep one arm on the icepack or my nose will be twice the size of your head."

"I could lift you."

"You're not strong enough."

"House, you've lost a lot of weight since your fall – must be all that delightful hospital food…"

"Not to mention the best appetite suppresser there is – pain."

"Yes, well, all I'm saying is I can lift you if you still want to lie down," Wilson replied, trying not to think about the massive amounts of pain his friend had been in over the past two months.

"Normally, I would tell you to fuck off, but my leg is killing me and if I don't get it laid out flat soon it's going to revolt and that will not be pretty. Not for either of us."

Wilson nodded, having the good sense not to push it with House. He put one arm under House legs, being careful about the pressure he put on the right one and the other under House's back and lifted, expertly transferring House from his wheelchair to his bed.

House one-handily arranged his pillows, putting one under his right leg for support and lay back. "You know, now would be a good time to get back in my good books and make me some pancakes. You know what I like."

"I was thinking about making dinner – something nutrionally sound actually."

"Screw that, I feel sick and the only thing that will stay down is macadamia nut pancakes."

"You feel sick and you want something full of sugar?"

"I'm a doctor too y'know, I do know how to deal with things like nausea."

"Yes, but I've found, taking your cyclizine with your morphine usually does the trick a whole lot better."

"Whatever."

"Do you want me to get it for you?"

House debated it, he could risk eating and then throwing up and getting the anti-sickness med IM or he could take one now and lessen the chance of him seeing his dinner backwards. Of course, there were other ways to make Wilson give him pancakes for dinner and he could think of a few so he nodded to Wilson who disappeared and came back with a single white tablet and some more water.

"Take it with the water, that'll make it dissolve and it'll get into your system quicker," Wilson told him, sounding like he was talking to a patient.

"I do know that, Wilson, like I've said, I am a doctor too." Wilson watched House put the pill in his mouth and then take a large gulp of water. He opened his mouth and poked out his tongue. "There. All gone."

"What do you want for dinner? Other than pancakes."

"I'm not really that hungry, y'know, what with the pain suppressing my appetite and all."

"Not even for pancakes?"

"Well, I suppose I could force a couple of those down if you would be so kind as to make them," House said, giving Wilson a sickly, sweet smile.

Wilson smiled back at his friend, it was nice to see him in a better mood, similar to the way House had been before that fateful night two months ago when he'd found him lying in his own vomit, urine and shit, in too much pain to even reach for the phone. He knew House was playing a game with him, but he seemed to lose at so many other games life threw his way that it didn't seem fair to deny him the small pleasures in life, so he gave House a nod and headed to the kitchen to make the famous macadamia nut pancakes that House craved.