A/N: Wow. So I wrote this chapter pretty fast after I posted the last one and received so many lovely, amazing reviews. You guys really do make the writing come easier and faster. I played around with the ending of this part a little bit, but ultimately, I think I like it. It's not over yet, though!

And I have decided that for now, I will not write slash. I was shocked to hear from so many people, most reviewers, that they don't want slash. I thought most people would. Amazing.

So no worries. This story will be friendship all the way, it was always going to be! I was really asking if I should write slash period, in general, in the future. But I guess not. At least, not for a while yet.

Come to think of it, this chapter is really sort of pointless. Not much happens in way of actual time. Bleh. Oh, well. Maybe you can make up some bull shit meaning.

I now have a new love for Hugh Laurie. The man. Is awesome.

I wrote this chapter mostly to the song The Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice. I love that song.

Please Read and Review!

Chapter 8

Greg was flashed away from the hospital bed and Wilson's eyes and into a bar – a crowded, noisy, shitty bar. Oddly enough, he was now looking at himself. He frowned. He looked like hell. His other self was slumped over the bar, completely stewed, looking as miserable as he'd ever been. Oh, he remembered this. This was the first time he'd gotten drunk after the infarction, the first thing he did once he was released from the hospital months after it happened. They'd shoved a cane in his hand after weeks of physical therapy, written him a prescription to Vicodin, and sent him on his way. None of them had expected he would clumsily drive himself to the nearest sordid bar and use what money he had left in his old clothes to properly mourn.

Oh, he was drunk. He hadn't known at the time how shitty he looked. It made him grimace now. Funny, no one seemed to notice he was standing there without a drink and completely sober, out of nowhere. They just kept drinking, kept yelling at the football game on TV, kept hitting on what cheap women were present.

"House!"

He looked over to see Wilson appear, flustered and heading right for his drunken self. Wilson had that look again – that frantic, worried as hell look. He hated that look – especially when it was directed at him. He stood unmoving and watched his best friend grab his other self by the collar of his jacket and pull him up off the bar.

"What the hell are you doing here?" the oncologist demanded. House didn't remember any of this, and seeing how drunk he'd been, he wasn't surprised. His drunken self blubbered. Wilson was wild-eyed.

"You just got out of the hospital! How the fuck could you come here and get wasted?"

"Shut up," House slurred, the drunken one, that is. The sober one was surprised he had managed to form words.

"How much did he drink?" Wilson asked the bartender, leaning over the bar while keeping his hold on House's collar. The bartender (who was sweaty, fat, angry-looking) shrugged, cigarette squashed in between his teeth. Wilson sighed in exasperation.

"Oh, yeah," the bartender grunted. He swung around, grabbed a mug of beer, and set it before House. "Forgot about that. Sorry, buddy."

House swayed, eyes rolling around, and made a pathetic attempt at grabbing the mug. Wilson snatched it away and threw it behind him, and sober House's eyebrows rose in surprise. That was most unlike Wilson.

"What the hell is your problem?" the drunken House complained. "I fucking wanted that."

"No," Wilson said, sounding like a mother talking to her kid in a Toys R Us.

"Al," said drunk House. "Whatever the fuck your name – get me another beer, please." He looked over at Wilson but couldn't see clearly. "This – asshole – over here spilled mine."

"No!" Wilson huffed. He slapped a fifty on the bar. "That should cover whatever he owes you. If there's not enough, just call me at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. I'm Dr. James Wilson."

Al looked at him nonchalantly, before glancing down at the bill. Jesus, thought sober House, a fifty? That bastard bar tender probably kept the change!

"Come on," Wilson said to drunk House, yanking him by his collar.

"Fuck you," he drawled, stumbling. He was dizzy as hell. Sober House frowned at himself.

"Come on," Wilson hissed again, quieter this time. "You shouldn't be here."

He turned around and made for the door, but House tripped and fell, pulling Wilson back. Drunken House cried out in pain, his leg surely blazing.

"Jesus," Wilson said. "House." He leaned down and touched both House's shoulders. "Come on, get your cane." He reached over and picked up said cane, offering it to House. The floored doctor took it and flung it away again, farther, startling some other drinkers.

"No!" he yelled. "I don't want that fucking cane!"

Wilson peered up in embarrassment, blushing under the inquisitive stares of the other people, even the really drunken ones. House heaved, dropping his head back to look at the spinning ceiling. He shuddered.

"I don't want that fucking cane," he whimpered. Wilson's brow knit in sadness or compassion or one of those emotions House always found in his friend. Drunken House sucked in a painful breath, while Sober House watched these forgotten events with a troubled expression on his face.

"I don't want that fucking cane," his drunken self repeated, head rolling around. He hung it back again, eyes closed and leg screaming. He screamed now too.

"I don't want that fucking cane!"

Only faint clinking of glasses sounded in the bar now. Drunk House sobbed. He was crying. Sober House hadn't remembered that either. He stared hard and wounded at Wilson, who was looking down at his drunken counterpart with tears in his own eyes. He hated watching Wilson cry. He hated even seeing a trace of sorrow in those doe eyes. And Wilson looked so grieved now, in a way he had never seen before.

"I don't want that fucking cane."

It was a quiet squeak.

"Come on, Greg," Wilson whispered, taking his friend by the shoulders again, trying to pull him up. House choked, sobbed, and heaved. His ears were wet. He whimpered and his head fell forward into Wilson.

"I don't want it," he mewled into Wilson's tie. It peeked out of the oncologist's buttoned jacket. House took a sharp, hitched breath. "I don't want it."

Sober House watched Wilson fight the urge to drop to his knees and hug his drunken best friend. It gave his heart a nerve and touched it. Wilson shut his eyes painfully, refusing to cry, as drunken House rested against him.

"Come on, Greg," the oncologist whispered again. And somehow, sober House heard it, louder than any noise in the bar. Wilson straightened up and pulled House with him, as some meek man handed Wilson the cane with a polite smile. Wilson nodded with gleaming eyes, House leaning against him.

"I don't want it!" he yelled. "I don't want this fucking cane!" His chest ripped against Wilson's, as the younger doctor tried to lead him out.

"Go to hell!" House shouted. "All you fuckers! Go to hell with this fuckin' cane – and fuckin' Stacy!"

Sober House caught the ill expression pass through Wilson's face, and it made his stomach churn. God, he was pathetic. He watched himself, listened to himself leave, along with all the people in the bar. He watched himself use Wilson for a cane.

Cameron watched a nurse in blue scrubs wheel Wilson's gurney down the hall and back into his room. Another nurse pushed the drip along. Fluids, pain medication, and House's blood hung in sickly colors from it, tubes flowing down into Wilson's arm. He was asleep, still breathing with a ventilator; it trailed behind with a third nurse. Other spectators stood and watched Wilson's little parade, knowing who he was and who he was to House. And all Cameron could think about, as she watched the crimson bag of Gregory House's love, was how much of it Wilson and House actually shared. Too much to stay inside of them for good.

"That's strange," said Chase, standing on the right side of House's bed while Foreman stood on the left. "His heart beat just changed rhythms."

"Should we call Cuddy?" Foreman asked, looking over his shoulder at the monitor but unsure if the change was negative.

"No," said Chase softly. "I think it means something beyond his physical condition."

The nurses pushed Wilson's bed against the wall and positioned the machines around him.

"Poor Dr. Wilson," one of them sighed. "He really doesn't deserve this."

"He's such a nice man," another one squeaked.

"Nice enough to get that out of Dr. House," said the third, inclining her head toward the blood bag.

"Are you serious?" said the first.

"Yup. That's the third one, too, if my sources are correct."

"Damn."

"Dr. House really does care," said the second one with the squeaky voice.

The third scoffed. "Yeah – about Wilson, he does."

"Well, at least it's something."

"I heard he tried to kill himself," the first said.

The second nurse's eyes widened. "No way."

"Really."

"Always knew the bastard was crazy," said the third, shaking her head. All Wilson heard was his dreams.

"Why are you wearing my jacket?" House asked wearily.

"I was lonely," said Wilson, eyes unafraid of House's. They shared the moment without smiles. "And it was the first one in my closet the morning I left."

Wilson had dropped his eyes to the floor, rubbing one calf with the other. House stared at him.

"Why are you lonely all the time?" he asked, voice raspy. Wilson shrugged with a sad, little smile.

"I just get lonely," he said. Even with his current wife and Greg and whatever other buddies he had, James Wilson still grew lonely.

"God, that's my shirt too," said House. Indeed, peaking through the jacket was a Mick Jagger t-shirt that made Wilson look like his college self.

Wilson chuckled a little. "It smells like you."

House smiled tiredly. "Should I be offended or flattered?"

"I don't know," said Wilson. He shrugged, staring down at the spot of the jacket right over his left breast. "I mean – it smells like that cologne you always wear."

"That Armani stuff," said House, eyes closed. He didn't say, "the kind Stacy made me wear."

"Yeah – Ellen's going to think I've got a girlfriend," he grinned, referring to his second wife.

House raised one eyebrow. "Don't you?"

"No!" Wilson dismissed, wide-eyed at House, who just grinned. Wilson looked back down at the jacket.

"Funny how well it fits," he observed.

"Yeah, we were just destined to be best friends forever, weren't we?" House replied. "Want to get matching shoes and really be gay?"

Wilson laughed. "No, no thank you. I prefer the way things are."

"You fear change, Dr. Wilson," said House, adopting a mock-shrink tone. "That indicates a troubled childhood."

"If I had a troubled childhood, I'm afraid of what you had."

"I never was a child," said House. "The aliens to whom I was born breed full-grown adults. They dropped me off on your planet to find a love slave and make babies to take over the world."

Wilson cocked an eyebrow, bemused. "And your love slave would be?"

House sniggered deep in his throat, lips closed in a smile. "Why, James," he said, "I was hoping you'd ask."

Wilson rolled his eyes.

"I was wondering how I would make my move on you," House continued.

"Sorry, Greg," said Wilson. "You're not pretty enough to be my wife."

"Oh, but we would make such pretty children," House countered. "And wouldn't that just make up for everything else?"

"Uh, for living around you 90 of the time? No."

"Aw," House whined. "James, you hurt my feelings."

"Going to tell your mommy?"

"No, actually, I was thinking I'd tell Cuddy, since this is her playground."

"Think she'll give me a spanking?"

House grinned wickedly. "I was hoping she would let me give you the spanking."

"Ugh!" Wilson said, grabbing the pillow he'd been using in his chair and smacking House in the face.

"Ow, you bastard!" House said, as Wilson giggled. "We are so through."

"Nothing else has changed?" Cuddy asked.

"No," Chase confirmed. "Just his heart rate."

She observed it tentatively. "It's not at a dangerous level…"

"Just different," said Chase.

"Probably just an affect of the coma," she shook off.

Foreman shared a look with Chase.

House took a breath he didn't feel, and the bar turned into a church. He stood in the very back, and watched Wilson trudge down the aisle and into a pew. The place was empty except for the choir, who practiced without acknowledging him. The only light shone on the altar, and it must've been near Christmas because poinsettias were ugly and red throughout the place and Wilson was wearing a long coat that House recognized. Why was Wilson here? House didn't understand. Was this a memory? He hadn't been here, obviously. How could he be seeing this?

"I – I know this is a Church," said Wilson, "not a synagogue – but I figure you're still God wherever I go, so I'm just going to stay and… talk."

He looked down at his knees, even though the altar was ahead of him.

"I know I haven't been the greatest Jew in the world."

House scoffed. Yeah, Jesus kinda took that one.

"Not the greatest – person, either."

Oh, Wilson.

"I haven't talked to You in a long time. But I need you now."

His voice cracked.

"My friend is – I – I don't even know. He's just not okay."

His words shook. House looked at him dejectedly.

"It's Greg." Wilson looked up – not at the altar, but heavenward. "It's Greg."

A tear slid down his face without commotion.

"And I know he doesn't believe in You – and he hasn't been perfect either, but please, please help him."

Another tear. And House was wounded.

"He's my best friend."

Wilson's voice quivered like an exposed nerve.

"He's all I've got."

House felt a pit in his stomach. How the hell could he feel anything if this was a dream?

Wilson pursed his lips, but they still trembled. His eyes shone up, and House realized that Wilson was the only man he had ever seen who cried with grace. The oncologist bowed his head.

"I'm sorry," he choked. His shoulders bounced. "I'm so sorry."

House wanted to sweep over to him and hold those shoulders still. Even if it meant getting on his knees. Just because it was James.

"Please," Wilson whimpered. "Please don't take him away from me."

House felt his heart palpitate.

"Please don't --" Wilson fell silent for a moment, in which House feared for him, before sobbing out loud. The choir sang on. Wilson blubbered and House felt so unlike himself, his chest grieving. More alive than he'd felt since before the infarction.

"I – I love him," Wilson sputtered, chest heaving dangerously. "I love him s-so m-much."

House felt – God, he didn't know what he was feeling.

"And I just want him to be okay." It was a pathetic sound, and it broke House's heart. Wilson shook more than anything, and House noted how Wilson had a habit of doing that whenever he got really upset.

"He's in pain," the oncologist continued. "And he doesn't deserve it. He doesn't deserve – any of this."

House could feel his eyes glimmer.

"And I don't know what to do. I just want him to be okay, and I don't know what to do."

Wilson cried deep again, shoulders risen above his head. Oh, how House wanted to rub the space in between, the place between his shoulder blades. He had never felt so compelled to do that to anyone, and it scared him.

Wilson pushed himself up off his knees and collapsed back into the pew, shoulders still quaking. He wrapped his arms around himself, held himself as if his heart hurt. Greg knew it did. Wilson cried. Greg's heart hurt too.

Cameron approached Wilson cautiously, afraid she might make something go wrong if she got too close. He remained unconscious and unaware of her presence, but she heard every one of her own footsteps. They sounded like awkward raindrops. The machines beeped and pumped and the IV dripped in three different tubes. He was white, gray, and purple all at the same time. It looked bad – really bad. She really wondered if he would pull through.

House was in a coma for him.

And if Wilson – died? What then?

House would try to kill himself again.

If he even woke up.

But if he does – and Wilson isn't here….

He'd never survive.

She half-sighed in anxiety and mounting desperation.

"Come on, Wilson," she said. "Live. You have to. House needs you."

And I need House.

Meanwhile, Wilson didn't stop dreaming.

"Come on, Greg."

"Oh, God, no. I can't."

"Yes, you can. I'm right here. Just one more, I promise."

"It hurts... And I'm so tired."

"I know," Wilson murmured, rubbing House's shoulder. "I know. Just one more. And then it's over. We can have lunch in the cafeteria. They have that apple sauce you like, I checked this morning."

"Oh, God, it sounds like I'm eighty."

"Come on, Greg. Please. I'm right here." It was a whisper, and his hand slipped down into House's. House squeezed it, hard. But Wilson didn't complain. House clenched his jaw and tried again – tried to lift his leg without any help. His body stiffened, his face contorted with the effort and pain, dripping in sweat. Wilson was perched behind his shoulder, holding his hand, watching that leg move with his brown eyes glowing.

"That's it, Greg. That's it. A little further," he coaxed. House squeezed his hand. Wilson squeezed back.

Somehow, Wilson had convinced Cuddy to get rid of the physical therapist after the first few days and leave it to him. He knew House would feel more comfortable that way. And so Wilson did this with him everyday at 4 o'clock for an hour, and House cooperated because it was just Wilson and he didn't have the energy to fight.

4:56

His 12th leg-lift.

Oh, God.

His heel hovered a foot above the bed, his whole body shaking now with sheer effort.

Wilson squeezed his hand.

God damn it.

He inched it higher.

"Yes! That's it!" his friend cried, and House mused in the back of his head about how sad it was that Wilson was that excited about him lifting his leg. He dropped it, sighed in relief that felt more like ecstasy, his head falling back on the pillow and his chest heaving. Wilson gave him a little hug, and House let him because it was Wilson. The oncologist offered him his half-empty water glass with a genuine smile. House still panted for air, leg burning up.

"It hurts," he said.

"I'll get you something," Wilson assured. "Drink this." His voice was as gentle as his hand that guided House's back up off the pillow. House drank all of it, much to Wilson's satisfaction. The oncologist set the empty cup down and gave House another hug, purely out of impulse. This time, he held on for a good moment. House shut his eyes, chest rising and falling up into his best friend. He moved one arm, one hand to Wilson's back. God, he needed this. He didn't bother with the defense of personal space not only because he was too tired but also because he wanted comfort. He needed it – just as much as the drugs. It had only been three weeks. Stacy was gone. Life wasn't going away. Wilson was all he had.

"I'm proud of you," James said softly, eyes shut too. "You did well today."

"Thanks," House said, sounding sleepier.

"Are you hungry?"

"Not much. Just get me that nurse."

"I will. I'll go to the cafeteria and grab you some applesauce for later."

House smiled a little. Suddenly, he felt his eyes water. His curled his fingers into Wilson's shirt. Oh, he was grateful for this – for him. James Wilson. What would he do without James Wilson? He didn't want to let go just yet, even if he was really hot and wanted that medication really bad.

"You okay?" asked James.

"Yeah," House whispered. "Fine." His heart calmed under Wilson's. The pain in his leg receded to a deep throb. He breathed a little easier. Wilson stayed longer than he had to.

House ran but didn't know why he was running. He could hear his own quickened breathing and his sneakers squeaking against the tile. The halls were empty, and he passed through the lights like a car on a dark road.

Holy shit. He was running.

He didn't look down at his leg, but he suddenly realized it was normal again. No limp, no cane, no agony. He was running. Good God. His lips twitched for an instant; he wanted to laugh. He wasn't a cripple anymore. He didn't need the Vicodin. Somehow he knew he didn't even have a bottle on him. Wait 'til James saw this.

James.

His heart tightened, the blue and purple shooting through every vein, interrupting the red. James. Oh, God. Something was wrong. He had to find James. That's whom he was running to, that's why he was desperate. He had to reach the OR. He had to see his best friend. He had to tell him that everything was all right, that he was normal again, that he wasn't dying anymore. It would make James so happy. He had to tell him.

He burst through his last door. The nameless surgeons looked up at him and stopped. Only one light – that last, white light – shone here. He froze, blue eyes piercing and chest heaving with pants. They stared at him expectedly, silently.

The heart monitor. Where was the heart monitor?

Flat line.

Flat line.

It sung in his ears, cracking his brain, as constant as Wilson's love.

The heart monitor was a flat line.

He parted the ring of surgeons as if he had been empowered by God and didn't notice them disappear. He looked down at Wilson and didn't see the autumn stare.

His doe-eyed savior.

"Wilson," he gasped.

Flat line, flat line.

The light touched Wilson's lashes, his hands, the blue sheet, the steel bed, the blood from nowhere, the veins in his wrists, the tubes the sprouted from them, his breast bone and his shoulders, his limp hair, his oxygen mask.

Flat line.

Oh, my God.

"James!"

He took the abandoned hand.

"James!"

He hadn't meant to abandon him.

"James!"

He shook it, rattled the imprisoned arm.

"James, listen to me!"

Flat line.

"Wake up!"

Blue eyes deserted, heart withering away.

"James!"

Laughing over Christmas take-out.

"James!"

He knocked down the tray of surgical utensils, half-clean and half-bloodied, twinkling onto the floor.

"James!"

His eyes were full of tears, and his throat had closed up, rendering his voice a pitiful squeak. His lungs were shaking.

"James…"

He stepped closer, stepped into the bed. James' laughter flashed through his head, tinted in gold. James didn't squeeze his hand this time. A tear left his eye. He stared at Wilson's eyelids and discovered that his heart was still breakable.

"James," he choked. Every call grew quieter. Every moment stretched with that flat line sound of the world's end. Wilson tore down the heart he had put back together, and he'd walked out on him at last. And somewhere inside of House, he wanted so much to hate James, but all he could feel now was a pain that rivaled that of losing Stacy, scaring him like few other things could.

It was just as life had always been these last five years – House and Wilson, the only two left in the world, one of them gone and the other one devastated. It was the end House had been writing all along, the one he had tried to swallow away with the pills. But he hadn't been fast enough, even with two good legs.