He paced the length of the waiting room, each step heavy on the left side and punctuated by a hiss of pain. Stacy and Cuddy sat together, directly opposite the door, quietly holding hands. Both of them kept a close eye, and ear, on Greg, bodies tense and ready to surge up if he lost his balance.

"I wish he'd sit down," Cuddy said to Stacy, voice low.

House paused and stabbed the floor harshly with his cane. "I don't want to sit down!" he growled, eyes intense and focused on Cuddy, looking at her as if no one else existed.

"You should get off that leg," Cuddy suggested, and touched the seat next to her.

"I. Am. Not. Sitting. Down." House insisted, speaking through clenched teeth. Cuddy sighed, exasperated, and House mocked her with an exaggerated huff. He stabbed the floor once more, then resumed pacing and muttering incoherently to himself.

Cuddy pushed a hand through her hair and looked at Stacy.

Stacy nodded and gave Cuddy's hand a squeeze as she stood. "Greg."

"I'm not sitting down." He kept his back to her.

"I know." She put her hand out to him. He turned, slowly, and faced her. She shifted a step closer, her arms sliding around his waist. His eyes closed, and he sucked his breath in. She set her feet apart to offer him support from her body. His right hand maintained a death grip on his cane, the left snaked up and into her hair.

Time seemed to stop in that moment, suspended around them, as he held her, until Cuddy touched his arm. He blinked and rocked back on his heels, Stacy took a step away from him. Cuddy's fingers curled around his arm.

"Dr Hicks," she greeted the surgeon approaching them.

"Dr Cuddy," he nodded. "Mrs Warner, Dr House." Alvin Hicks pulled the sanitary cap off his head and adjusted his glasses.

"How is he?" House demanded. Stacy took hold of his left hand.

Hicks scrubbed a hand over his face. "He's holding his own."

House tilted his head. Eyes searching, studying, reading. "What aren't you telling me, Alvin?" House wasn't one to use first names, unless he used it to make a point.

Hicks took a deep breath, and looked like he wanted to bolt. "There's swelling, around his spinal-"

"No!" He hollered. Stacy's hand tightened in his, but he jerked away. His cane clattered to the floor. "No no no no no."

"Greg," Stacy started at the same time Cuddy said "House…"

Hicks was still talking, trying to explain that he thought it might be temporary and he didn't want anyone to worry until they knew for sure.

House's eyes darkened, his mouth tightened. "He is not going to lose his legs." His blue eyed stare fixed on Hicks. "Don't you dare…Don't you dare say that."

Hicks took a step back, closer to Cuddy. "We don't know, Dr House. It's too early." He didn't know House personally, only as an entity. The jerk up in Diagnostics who breaks all the rules and does whatever he wants, and no one ever says anything about it. He knew too, that Dr Cuddy had a soft spot for Dr House, because of the misdiagnosis on his leg, and the delay in treatment that cost him dearly. Maybe that was why she let him slide. Guilt had a way of messing with a person's judgment.

"Don't talk to me!" House sneered and growled at Hicks. His eyes had a wild look, like an animal in a cage. Like he might attack at any minute, but the bars of the cage, or the lack of his cane, prevented him from lurching forward.

"Dr House," Cuddy put a hand on his arm, calm in the face of his outburst. "Please sit down."

"I don't want to sit down!" House snapped.

Cuddy nodded. "Fine. How long before you fall down?" She put a hand up to his cheek. He flinched. "James needs you to be strong now, Greg. You can't be there for him if you can't stand on your own."

House set his jaw, looking very much like a spoiled child finally being told he was not going to get his own way. He held Cuddy's gaze for a moment before his eyes closed and he shuddered. "I need my cane."

"Shouldn't have thrown it," Stacy muttered and picked up the walking stick. House's hand brushed against hers as he took it from her.

"Can I see him now?"

Hicks glanced at Cuddy, then back to House with a nod. No way he was going to tell this man no.

House faltered on the first step, struggled to find his balance. "What about his leg?"

"Clean wound. We stitched it up, good as new. I don't expect any complications once it heals."

House nodded. "And his hand?"

Hicks looked at him for a moment. He seemed so calm now. Focused. Determined. So unlike he'd been a moment earlier. "Looks like he got in a few decent punches, unfortunately not enough to do any real damage."

"No, he was upset before we left. He did that at home, punching the wall."

Dr Hicks stopped walking. House went a step forward, but stopped and pivoted back around to face him. "What's wrong?"

"His fingers were broken. Are broken. From the angle of the break, it appears they were bent backward until they snapped."

House sucked his breath in sharply. "Right or left?" He could see Wilson, a body laid out on a bed, through the glass walls of the room.

"Right." Hicks put his hand out to the door. "Take it easy, Greg." House nodded, and Hicks pushed the door open. "I'll be right out here if you need anything."

A nurse stepped up beside him, a hand on his arm. "Dr House, do you need anything?"

He didn't spare her a glance, his eyes focused on the figure of the man in the bed. "Leave."

"If you…"

"Go now!" he barked impatiently, and she slipped away.

House moved into the room, suddenly aware of how public it was. He quickly turned the blinds, shutting out the world beyond the glass walls. He ran a hand through his hair as he reached the side of Wilson's bed.

"This isn't right, Jimmy. This is all wrong," he murmured, his left hand reaching up to feather his fingers through Wilson's hair. "Why don't you just wake up and tell me this is all just a big mistake. A joke gone too far. Anything, Jimmy. I'd take anything."

House hung his cane on the end of the bed, and pulled the sheets free of the corners. He flipped the covers back, exposing James' feet. Carefully balanced with the bulk of his weight on his left side, House took hold of an ankle, lifted the foot off the bed. Using his knuckles, he checked for any involuntary reflex, but there was none. He repeated with the other foot before emitting a string of curses.

He jerked the sheets back into place, then dropped into the nearest chair. It had arm rests, which gave him leverage for surging back to his feet. Adrenalin pushed him forward, and he braced his hands on the bed, leaning close to Wilson's ear.

"You better be fighting in there, James. 'Cause you're not going to do this to me. You do not want to be a cripple, take my word for it." House stroked the hair from James' forehead. "You're the caretaker, you hate being on the other side, so you need to wake up and get back to work. Do you hear me, Jimmy?"

A spasm passed through his leg, forcing him back into the chair to ride it out. He held his breath, both hands wrapped around his thigh as the pain washed over him in crests and waves, and just when he thought he couldn't take it anymore, the pain was going to win, he was going under, the intensity passed and he could breathe again. Slow, ragged breaths, but the pain was receding, his mind numb.

He knew he wasn't due for another dose yet, but he fished his Vicodin out of his pocket and dry swallowed a pill before sinking back into the chair.