"You should get some sleep," Cuddy said, taking the file from Wilson. "You haven't slept properly in over a week. He's awake, he's getting better, it's safe for you to leave him for a few hours."
"Not while he's on the ventilator," Wilson told her.
"You just said you'll be able to extubate in the morning. You might as well get some sleep first."
"I'm not leaving him, okay? Not until he's awake and telling me to," Wilson said, signalling that the conversation was over. Cuddy sighed, she knew there was no point in arguing with him about it – she wasn't going to win.
Wilson left her alone at the nurses' station and headed back to House's room, he was still knocked out from the earlier pain medication, but he wanted to sit with him so that he wasn't alone when he woke up. He took his place in the chair by Greg's bed and took hold of his hand.
House opened his eyes blearily and look at Wilson. He looked tired and dishevelled, but then again he'd probably been with him since the operation so it wasn't entirely surprising. He wished that they'd take out the damn tube so that he could talk, he had so many things that he wanted to say – the first of which was to thank Wilson for not leaving him alone. He'd never admit it, but it would have scared him to wake up alone.
"Hey, you're awake," Wilson said, noticing the blue eyes staring at him. House nodded and pointed to the tube.
"Not till tomorrow, Greg. I know it's frustrating but I want to make sure that your lungs are fully recovered."
House shook his head and pointed to the chart at the end of his bed. It was getting frustrating to have to communicate through a series of pointing and shakes of the head.
"You wanna see? I'll show you your results but it's not going to change my mind. It says in until the morning," Wilson said ready to defend his actions. True, the results showed that he could take the tube out now and House would probably be okay – the key word there is probably – he didn't want to risk it, not after a week long coma and the scare that House had given them all beforehand.
Still, he handed over the file to House and let him read through the results. He was ready for the look House shot him when he saw the blood gas results.
"I'm not taking it out, Greg. You can look at me like that all you like and before you even think about it, Cuddy agrees with me so no one else will take it out either. You were pretty sick and yeah, you're recovering now but I don't want to have to put it back in at 4am because your lungs just weren't ready," Wilson said, rolling his eyes at House.
House just continued to look at him as if he could communicate his thoughts through telepathy. Wilson ignored him. "You wanna watch something?"
House shook his head and pulled on the ventilator tube. "Greg, you pull that out and I swear I will sedate you and stick on straight back in. You're just gonna have to be patient."
Only patience wasn't what House was known for.