(NOTE: This next chapter is fairly medical, but there is still a lot of House/Claudia. The chapter is more about the emotional response events elicit. A nice long one for Saturday morning!)

There was a quick knock on the door and then a man Claudia had never seen before entered.

He was carrying a folder of what appeared to be x-rays.

"Hello, Dr. House."

Greg just nodded at the guy.

He turned to Claudia.

"Hi, my names Pete. I'm the orthopedic devices tech in charge of Dr. House's case."

"Claudia."

Pete seemed to be waiting for more, so she hesitantly added, "The Girlfriend."

They had never referred to each other with any definite term like 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend.' She considered him her boyfriend, though, so she threw it out there.

She was checking Greg's reaction in her peripheral vision. She thought she saw his eyes light up just a bit. She knew he reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Pete seemed to move right along as if this wasn't a huge moment in their relationship. For them, it was like an acknowledgement that they were together.

Claudia had never met Pete, but he had come by a few times to monitor Greg's brace.

Pete had just come back from washing and gloving up. Greg abruptly zoned back in on the task at hand and looked away from Claudia.

"I'm going to check you some and look at the scans. I've already been through your chart. Okay?"

"Yeah."

Pete was now running his gloved hand along the edges of the brace at House's torso. He was sticking a finger inside the top of the brace in several places.

"Is the brace affecting your breathing?"

"No."

"I noticed from your chart that you've lost a pretty good bit of weight?"

"Joys of chemo." Greg was very sarcastic and getting grouchy.

She knew Greg hated being examined by medical personnel - she figured it had something to do with being a doctor.

It wasn't that he didn't like to be touched. She was constantly touching all over his chest. Of course, she never stuck a hand in his brace, but...

"I can really tell around your torso. The brace is on the verge of getting too loose here. If it gets too loose, it could become uncomfortable-"

"It already is uncomfortable." Greg interrupted in a less than pleasant voice.

This was the first time in a while that Claudia had heard Greg openly declare how uncomfortable he was. He usually was a suck-it-up and bear it kind of guy.

"I don't want to change the actual brace on your torso because hopefully you'll gain some of that weight back. I think it would be a good idea to add some extra padding, though." Pete apparently ignored that last comment from Greg.

"How 'bout we just remove the torso part or shorten it to just over my hip?"

House had a pretty good idea that this wouldn't fly, but he figured he'd throw it out.

"From what Dr. Mathis said, you still need a lot of stability - especially for that femur. If we're going to even think about letting you out of that bed, you're keeping the brace all the way up your torso."

House was less than thrilled. He had been contemplating suggesting they shorten the torso part, but it was apparently in vain. He hadn't seen the latest set of x-rays, though. Mathis hadn't offered them up right away like she normally did. He could have asked, but he was too excited about the prospect of getting out of bed. He figured he'd look at them here in a minute."

"You don't have any blistering around the edge of the brace. That's good."

"You been havin' a positivity pow-wow with Mathis?"

Pete was stoically ignoring House's jabs. Although it sounded pessimistic, Claudia was somewhat amused by Greg's interactions with Pete.

"Have you been sweating a lot?"

"Yes. Pain in general makes me sweat sometimes. I have gotten periods of excessive heat and chills during and after chemo."

"I want to change out the padding around your torso completely when we open the brace up. We can also use a rag to wipe your skin down some - that might make you a little more comfortable."

House wasn't going to show it, but the prospect of felling a bit cleaner sounded awesome.

"I need to look at your back. Claudia, could you come here a moment."

Pete often asked a patient's spouse to help if they were present. For one, patients often preferred a loved one touching them over a nurse, and it was important that the family member be a part of the process. Orthopedic devices often affect other people besides just the person wearing them.

Pete figured that if Dr. House used to sleep in the same bed as his girlfriend, he couldn't imagine how difficult his situation would be for both of them. The brace wasn't exactly made for cuddling and it certainly wasn't made for sex. Of course, Dr. House's condition made sex unadvisable anyway, but still it would be hard for them to even get close to one another. Pete saw Greg's lips and knew that kissing was totally out of the question.

Pete had no idea that Claudia and House hadn't met until he was in the hospital.

"Sure."

Greg seemed hesitant that she be involved, but Claudia really wanted to help.

"Dr. House, I'm going to recline the head of the bed, but I want you to stay at the same angle as you are now. Put your arms behind you to support yourself.

Claudia, just spot him to make sure he doesn't start leaning back or anything. Put your arm here just in case."

Pete guided Claudia's hand until it was resting at the middle of Greg's upper back.

Pete was now running his hand along inside the edge of the brace at his back. Pete was also feeling along the muscles at the back of Greg's shoulders and along the top of his spine.

"They're doing a good job keeping your upper body in shape. The musculature feels pretty good back here."

Claudia had to agree. His muscles were so sexy. He doubted Pete was making this comment because Greg's muscles looked hot, but…

"I'm going to bring the head of the bed up now."

Pete operated the controls.

"You can move your arms now, Dr. House."

Pete replaced Claudia's hand with his own as the bed returned to its original position and he eased Greg back onto the bed.

"You okay, Dr. House?"

He just nodded.

"I'm going to move on to your left leg."

"Great narration." He was sarcastic.

Pete totally ignored Greg's comments. He was probably used to patients being grouchy or miserable.

Very few people like to be confined in the kind of devices Pete applied for a living.

"You're left leg looks fine - no rash at the edge of the brace. Any rash problems from the chemo?"

"Only at the very beginning, but that went away."

"Good. I can tell you've lost some weight here, too - especially at the inner thigh."

Pete was also easing his hand along Greg's thigh under the edge of the brace.

"You musculature feels pretty decent under here - you must have a really good physical therapist working with you.

Pete was now checking Greg's knee even though the brace ended significantly above it.

"Blood flow is not affected. Capillary refill is good at the foot. Pulse is fine. I would have liked to check your right foot for this, but the plaster is in the way."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious!"

"Mathis will be leaving the hard cast on for a while - she doesn't want to risk changing it until she's sure the bones won't shift. At some point she might be able to change it to a more comfortable boot, though."

"No point in a boot - not like I'm going to be walking any time soon."

"Might be more comfortable."

Pete checked the area at the very top of Greg's cast where it met the brace. He pulled a pillow out so that he could check the underside of the leg without having to move it.

Claudia was watching Pete's face for reactions. He didn't seem concerned with anything. She had learned through Casey's illness that you could often get more information from the facial expressions and reactions of medical personnel than things they actually said.

Even though it wasn't part of the brace, Pete still ran his hands along House's plaster cast and checked it for any shape problems or weak spots. He knew it wasn't likely since the only movement Greg got was controlled and carefully monitored by nurses and therapists.

Pete moved on and unceremoniously removed the towel from Greg's groin without warning.

Apparently Pete figured it didn't matter since the blinds were closed and Claudia was the only other person in the room.

"I'm moving onto your groin now."

Talk about closing the gate once the horse was gone.

"Looks pretty good down here. I read in the file that you had a bout of explosive diarrhea after the third chemo session a couple of days ago. Is that over now?"

Why did medical personnel feel so comfortable talking about this?

You'd think he had just mentioned the weather.

He was the same with his own patients...but now that he was the one in the bed with Claudia standing by...

Greg was getting red and embarrassed now.

Claudia didn't know about the 'explosive diarrhea.' She wasn't around when those events occurred.

"Stools have been fine since those incidents."

"Did they give you some protection for the brace after the first episode?"

"Yes."

"They need to do that for your next chemo session as well just in case."

Greg's voice was completely neutral and monotone as he answered these questions.

"It looks your skin has been kept clean after bowel movements and urination. Looks good."

He was wiping himself now when he went to the bathroom. He still had trouble seeing what he was doing, but he had good spacial awareness. There was something about wiping your own butt that actually felt empowering. Gosh, that sounded pathetic.

"No problems around the edge of the brace down here. It's going to be a bit tricky, but I would like to change the padding down here as well - if nothing else that should help you feel more comfortable. I can also compensate for the weight loss with padding. Not perfect, but hopefully you can gain the weight back and we'll just remove the extra padding."

Pete was obnoxiously pleasant. It sounded more like he was talking about upholstering a sofa.

"You sure are a creature of optimism - you do realize I have cancer and have more chemo and other treatments to go, right?"

"Of course. I've read your chart."

He covered Greg's groin and moved to the light board to look at the X-Rays. The light boards in the orthopedic ward were large because of the nature of the injuries many patients were recovering from.

"The last modification we made was to cut the lower leg of the brace to allow for application of the plaster cast."

Pete seemed to just be talking to himself.

"Ah yes, the pelvis looks a decent bit better. In other circumstances it would show greater improvement, but considering your advanced age, cancer, chemo, and other broken bones that your body is trying to heal right now, I'd say this is pretty good. Bone erosion is still a problem, but you're stable enough to make an adjustment in your brace."

Claudia didn't particularly perceived Greg as having an 'advanced age!'

Greg looked mortified.

Claudia thought Pete could use some sensitivity training.

"Hand 'em over."

House was curt and abrupt as he requested the films.

"Certainly." Gosh the man was cheery - Pete handed one to him and set the others in a stack on the bed as he finished looking at them himself.

Claudia handed Greg his glasses without even having to be asked and received a slight nod of thanks.

House was now going through the scans...he supposed this was pretty good progress. The fractures in his pelvis were still glaringly obvious and definitely were not finished healing, but they were on their way there and were starting to look more stable.

The head of his femur looked less than fabulous - there wasn't much improvement there. He knew this was a slow area to heal anyway...

Pete was looking at Greg now.

"We're definitely going to have to be careful as we adjust because of the head of your femur. If we go slow and have adequate help and support for you, you won't be in any danger."

House just nodded at this and gave the scans back.

Pete handed him the scans of his foot and toes and he flipped through those as well. There was a bit of fracture callus forming, but he definitely would have liked to see more progress.

"I don't know if Mathis has mentioned it, but the compromised circulation in your right leg because of the infarction is a concern on healing rate. In normal situations, such as the function of your lower leg before the injury, the circulation had been fine, but the healing is affected. The artery repair could also impact blood flow. We checked carefully and the brace and cast aren't impacting the circulation at all. It's just the way your leg is."

House knew his circulation wasn't perfect there, but he hadn't really thought about it in relation to healing.

The pain in his foot was improving faster than the pain in his upper leg, so he wanted to get a look at those films.

He traded that set of films with Pete to get the films of his femoral shaft fracture.

Pete started talking as Greg looked at these, "It's still aligned well. The surgical open reduction worked; there just isn't a lot of healing yet. If you look there, you can see a tiny bit of fracture callus forming."

House looked hard and could only see it if he enhanced the area a bit with his imagination. He wasn't sure there was anything there except excessive optimism on Pete's part.

"That's progress. It shouldn't require any more surgical intervention. I'm not at all worried about non-union yet."

Pete sounded cheerful.

Greg's expression was broody.

As a physician House knew that fractures of the femur usually took between 3 and 10 months on average to heal completely depending upon multiple factors. He shouldn't be so upset because it had only been a little over 5 weeks, but he wanted to see improvement.

He didn't want to think about 'on average.' He knew his was not an 'average' fracture and he was not in the 'average' situation, but he wanted this healed, the pain gone, and out of the damn brace as quickly as possible.

The chemo treatments would be a lot more bearable if he could do them as an outpatient and then go home to his own bed in his own apartment.

House had always been good at things. For some reason he thought that his body would be 'good' at healing femoral shaft fractures as well. (He was just leaving out the fact that he was now good in the area of intellectual accomplishment and not physical strength or health)

"We definitely need to keep that fully braced as we adjust you today. I'm not going to change any padding there. Since you have no internal fixation, we could risk the bone shifting."

Instead of handing these films back as he had the other sets, Greg just dropped these off the side of the bed and onto the floor.

"No wonder it still hurts so much worse than my pelvis." Greg looked downright angry.

Rationally, he knew that he should probably be pleased that the femur was still aligned and not be so upset about the lack of progress; however, his emotions did not agree with his rational mind.

Given the situation, his pelvis looked remarkably good. He still had a tremendous amount of healing to go there, but just the fact the Mathis was willing to adjust his brace was huge.

In his current mood, he could not see that positive aspect.

He felt angry and emotional - he knew that his emotions might be a bit off because of the hormone treatments, but he should be able to control this.

Claudia wasn't totally sure she understood all this. Pete seemed optimistic about the fracture...she thought fracture callus was a good thing.

So, what was the problem?

Pete looked like he wasn't quite sure what to do.

"I'm going to call my assistant so we can get ready to adjust your brace. We'll talk to Dr. Mathis and be back in a bit."

Pete gathered the films off the floor and fled the room.

House balled his fist and felt a sudden urge to punch his thigh, but that would be ridiculous...and painful.

He wanted to beat the bloody heck out of something, though, and his thigh seemed like the best target.

Sure, the brace would sort of protect it, but not from the pain and potential damage from the impact of his fist.

Claudia had absolutely no idea what she should do. Greg always seemed to respond to touch, so she reached for his hand.

He jerked it away from her and crossed his arms over his chest. She noticed him jerk and wince when he apparently jabbed his arm into where his central line exited his chest, but he quickly settled his arm anyway.

Claudia was still there looking at him. He didn't want to meet her eyes. He would probably see pity and disappointment. When he felt her touch his hand, he jerked his hand and crossed both arms violently over his chest.

He forgot about his central line though and gave it a good whack that was quite painful. The site didn't hurt anymore except if pressure was put on it and he had just put a whopping amount of pressure on it.

Between the pain he caused himself and his disappointment, he want to curl up and cry. Of course, he couldn't curl up at all and he didn't want Claudia to see him cry.

"Greg..." Claudia figured she was about to be asked to leave.

"You should go."

Just as she suspected he would react.

Claudia headed for her purse.

House assumed she was leaving, but she grabbed her laptop and turned back with a defiant expression on her face. She plunked herself in the chair next to his bed and proceeded to start up her laptop. She was soon typing away and ignoring his steely glares.

She obviously wasn't packing up to leave.

Great.

(Thanks for reading! Reviews are appreciated and inspire me to post fast)