As time passed he hear different people talking about him. He knew that Wilson was there now because it was always his voice telling people that there was no change. What was supposed to change? He wasn't sure. Oh yes, he was supposed to open his eyes. He tried to do so again, but failed, it made him drift further away and the grip on his hand tightened, as if trying to tether him to the ground.
Wilson never spoke to him, maybe if it had then House would have understood more about what was going on, but he didn't. Probably scared to say something in case he was talking to himself. House made a mental note to tell Wilson that people in comas could hear what was going on – or at least he assumed he was in a coma. Maybe he was just sleeping deeply.
He remembered the ducklings coming to see him, could still hear Foreman ask if there was any improvement and Wilson's sad, resigned voice saying there was none. Cameron was trying hard not to cry, he could tell just by the sound of her voice, the way she answered things in one word rather than prolonging the time she spoke. She was scared, they all were but House couldn't work out Iwhat/I they were scared of. He was still alive, wasn't he?
He tried to tether himself to the ground on the third day, was growing impatient with the darkness that surrounded him day after day and was determined to open his eyes and see what the hell was going on, see why so many people were tip toeing round him, desperate to see some kind of improvement. He actually missed the sympathetic look Wilson gave him that he'd grown to hate over the time since the infarction.
He didn't manage it, all he managed was to make his heart beat funny and have a lot of noise surrounding him as people pushed drugs to keep him "stable". He'd heard that word a lot recently, whenever Cuddy asked Wilson how Greg was doing, Wilson always used the word 'stable'.
In his own humble opinion, he was more than 'stable', he could tell you where he was and who was around him just by the sound of their voice, but he reasoned that as long as his eyes were closed they'd never know that he was awake, that whatever had happened I.hadn't/I killed him.
He knew he was going to succeed in waking up on the eighth day, the pain in his head was different and he just Iknew/I what it meant, though had you asked him to explain it, he wouldn't have been able to. It was if one minute something was stopping him from opening his eyes and the next, it was gone.
When he finally managed to focus, he thought the room was empty and that he had imagined the grip on his hand, but then he turned his head and saw a sleeping Wilson curled up in the chair, hand outstretched.. He could feel the tube down his throat and wondered why he had never noticed that a machine was breathing for him before.
He lifted his hand, the one that Wilson wasn't gripping onto and felt his head. There was a thick bandage wrapped round it and it hurt. He must be due some kind of painkiller about now. There were several drip stands and he recognised the Vistrail, the IV calories, but there were new ones and he wasn't sure what they were. He couldn't see the labels. He could feel the catheter in his bladder, along with the NG tube up his nose.
Surgery. He'd had surgery. That was the only thing that made sense, the only thing that could have kept him knocked out for so long. He couldn't remember having all those machines before the big sleep.
His head hurt, as did his leg and he guessed that they must have him on a morphine pump, but it wasn't enough, he needed more. He tried to shift in bed to see if he could reach the button that would boost his dose but it was just out of his reach. He had no choice, but to wake Wilson.
He thought about calling out to him, but then he realised that he couldn't because of the tube in his throat so instead he squeezed the hand Wilson had hold of. Wilson reacted straight away, as if he'd only been half asleep and Greg's movement had pulled him back into consciousness. It took him a while to realise that House was actually awake because to begin with he was just amazed that there had been some improvement, he'd felt the hand squeeze and that had to mean something.
It wasn't until he reached for his penlight to check House's pupils that he saw those baby blue eyes staring back at him. He smiled and fought a battle inside himself to not cry.
"You're finally back with us, then?" he half-whispered, shining the light in both of House's eyes to check the pupils.
House nodded and tried to bat away the light but it seemed that all his energy was focused on just staying awake. He'd been asleep for the best part of a week and he was still tired.
"How are you feeling?" Wilson asked, then mentally berated himself because there was no way that House could answer. "Stupid question, right?"
House nodded.
"I'll check your blood gases later and we'll see about removing that tube, okay?"
House nodded.
"I bet you want to know what happened, right?"
House nodded.
"The tumour spread, pressing on your left eye, caused you to have a seizure. You scared the living hell out of us because you went into full arrest before we could stop it. I thought we were going to lose you." Wilson choked saying the last part as House squeezed his hand.
"The MRI told us we had to operate if we wanted you to have any chance of full recovery, so Walker went in and removed most of the tumour, sedated you for a few days which you spent in the ICU, then we brought you back here once you were stable. We've been waiting for you to wake up since. Everyone's been into see you," Wilson explained and House nodded. He moved his spare hand and pointed to his head.
"What's wrong? You want the tube out?" House shook his head.
"Pain?" Wilson asked. House nodded. "Bad?" House nodded. "I'll get you a top-up," Wilson said, prying his hand out of House's grasp and heading out to the nurses' station to draw up some more drugs. While he was there he paged Cuddy to let her know that House was awake and hopefully out of any danger.
"I got you some fentanyl, that should help," Wilson told him, swabbing the injection port and pushing the drug as House watched. "If I'd known all it would take was a little extra pain to wake you up we would have stopped the morphine."
House tried to nod, but felt the drugs hit his system and his eyes close again. He didn't want to sleep again, but he had no choice and as they carried him back to the place of darkness he grabbed hold of Wilson's hand – the one thing that could tether him to the ground.