Title: Of a Thursday
Author: Sy Dedalus
Rating: T, TV-14, PG-13
Pairing: House/Stacy, House/Wilson strong friendship
Spoilers: Season One
Summary: House meets blood clot, or a fill-in for the infarction.
Disclaimer: Not mine. The bits of dialogue that you recognize from the episode are not mine either, i.e. please don't sue my dirt poor ass.

This one is for everyone who kept asking for more. Unfortunately, I can't promise that it won't be a very long time before the next chapter comes along.

Chapter 20: Progression

He screamed at the ceiling, even though screaming made Stacy's lip quiver, because he couldn't not scream anymore.

The scream died but his mouth remained open, eyes bulging at the fluorescent tube blurred with ceiling tile, like a dead fish. A whimper. A gasp. All involuntary. He'd be pissing all over himself if that wasn't already taken care of.

The pain retreated like a boxer to his corner. He could breathe again and be aware again of his surroundings and all the secondary pain that lurked to make him feel like shit when the real pain slacked.

Four hours. Maybe. He recalled now that Stacy had said something about noon approaching. He was fairly sure he'd made it to three hours without screaming. Anesthesia. He'd slept between spikes of pain. A few minutes at a time. Pain woke him, he tried to tense against it, pain left him, and he slept until it came back. He longed to return to that anesthetized state.

The opaque Stacy who'd hovered around him during those few hours, swabbing a combination of sweat, tears, spit, and snot from his face, blended with the nurses who were in and out to check his vitals and some combination of doctors who reported his downward spiral to him in the form of labs. He knew he'd never been alone and as much as his father had instilled in his subconscious that showing pain made him weak and inferior, he was grateful for her presence. He didn't want to be grateful, but he couldn't help that any more than he could help screaming at this point.

Now his tired eyes shifted to her of their own accord. Still there. He couldn't focus well enough to really take her in, but he could imagine how she'd look. Tired also, mascara running, how she hated that, and she was so beautiful that he—

Pain sprang from its corner without warning, snarling, bearing sharp teeth, and the world washed away.

He didn't know how long he screamed. He didn't know he was screaming. Just that when the pain ebbed his throat hurt again and his muscles hurt again. His head. His left hand where he'd dug crescent-shaped lines into his palm at some point. Now he gripped the mattress with that hand. His right hand tensed against the board taped to it to keep various tubes in place, curling ineffectively. Sweat. Heat. Fever from his overtaxed kidneys. So tired. But still enough energy to contract every muscle and scream.

Insistently, someone demanded to know, "How much does it hurt?"

He opened his mouth to say "ten" but a scream came out instead.

And then he felt himself sinking and he knew they'd given him more morphine. He gasped first, then shuddered, then relaxed. Time moved in and out like the sea.

A cool, wet sensation on his forehead. Stacy. He could remember.

Then he could open his eyes and see again.

Swallowing, he whispered "thank you." He didn't know who he was thanking.

Pain swept up again, but in his cottoned cocoon he felt it indistinctly. When it was gone, he relaxed completely, each atom uncoiling like the moments after good sex.

He turned his eyes up. Stacy floated above him. He felt so many things he couldn't say to her because the words didn't exist. He smiled instead. That would have to do. He'd try to tell her when this was over.

He felt better for a good period of time. Resting. Half-asleep with fever, fatigue, and the extra morphine. Pain that only made him gasp and shake. Then intervals of rest.

After a while, he came to himself suddenly, whooshing up from somewhere dark and distant. A light in his eye; something kept him from closing it. Realization brick-walled like a deep breath after drowning and he recognized Cuddy behind the flash of light and two more figures behind her.

"Doctor House, are you back with us?"

He matched the words to Cuddy and tried to say "yes."

Something other than "yes" came out, but Cuddy replied, "Good," and put the light away.

House blinked slowly, passing-out-drunk on chemicals. "Blood pressure again," he croaked.

"Yes," Cuddy answered, her eyes darting to him from the monitors next to the bed. "Your tolerance for morphine is decreasing."

House ran a quick self check, forcing himself to do it against the terror that pain would return if he thought about it, blinked once, then looked back at Cuddy.

"I feel okay," he mumbled, hearing the passing-out-drunk tone in his voice. "What'd you give me?"

"Diazepam."

His face furrowed. "That doesn't make—"

Pain seizing him by the throat like a lion. Hiss. Ahh. Breath. Calm.

Surprising but not bad this time. Eyes open again. People watching him. Knowing like he did it would turn bad again soon.

"IgE?" House mumbled, hoping Cuddy would understand. Because speaking…

His body like a weight. Like cement-encased feet dragging him under heavy water. Ache. Soreness. His kidneys choking with waste. Blink. Breath. Living.

"…a sample going to the lab right now," Cuddy's voice said.

House realized he had missed part of the conversation. Concentration…he couldn't…

"…fentanyl?"

"Never had it," he mumbled.

If Cuddy wanted to know that. Whatever combination of opiods and benzodiazepines cruised through his system now, he didn't register pain with such sharp intensity and his body longed to switch off.

Above him, Cuddy smiled at Stacy and indicated that they talk elsewhere. She gave instructions in a low tone to a nurse who remained behind to monitor the patient's vitals.

Just outside the room, Stacy stopped and pressed a tired hand to her cheek. "I can't believe he's sleeping," she said.

Though she knew better, Cuddy smiled.

Not for a moment did Stacy believe the expression. "It's not over," she sighed.

"Probably not," Cuddy said, gripping House's file between both sets of fingers and thumbs. After allowing Stacy a moment, she assumed the stance of a knowledgeable, distanced doctor. "We're going to change his medication," she said, "and test to see if he's really allergic to morphine." She gestured with the file, passing it from hand to hand in a display of unconscious nervousness. "He says he isn't allergic to it—and it's possible to have what's known as a pseudo allergy—but his blood pressure drops every time we give it to him…even if he doesn't have a real allergy, these blood pressure drops are not safe."

Stacy's eyebrow crept lower and lower until Cuddy thought it might merge with her nose.

Cuddy smiled. "The good news is, the same thing probably won't happen with the new medicine."

Stacy's hand migrated to her chin. "Is it effective?"

Cuddy smiled again. "More effective, for some people." House's file shifted in her hands again. "It's a matter of finding something that will work for him."

Stacy let out a cloud of air, looking from Cuddy to House and back. "Okay," she said.

The file shifted. Cuddy smiled. "We'll have the test results soon." The filed shifted back. "A nurse will be in to change the medicine, too."

Stacy blinked heavily, wishing she could do something more to help. More? Anything.

"Thank you," she said, and stepped aside to indicate she had no more questions.

Cuddy smiled one last time and clicked down the hall.

Quietly, Stacy returned to the chair next to House's bed. The nurse monitoring him offered her a brief smile which Stacy returned out of habit. She breathed deeply once, twice, and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, clasping her hands together as if to pray.