A/N: Sorry it took me so long to update this...

Disclaimer and all that stuff in Chapter One. Comments/Reviews would be appreciated.

I stress that this story was originally written a long time before the advent of the Season Finale... Which hasn't even aired in Australia yet.

Cheers, and enjoy. (I think this is my favourite chapter, certainly the one I had very little qualms about when I was writing it.)


FOUR.

I'm so tired my feet don't touch the ground.

I love the sky so much

I just fall straight down

I'm so tired my feet don't touch the ground

I love the ocean so much I might even drown. - Eskimo Joe.


House lay down on Cuddy's couch, not the usual sterile standard issue waiting room type with rough fabric, but some sort of flowered affair, almost painful to look at and tasteless, but very comfortable, with soft cushions and armrests like pillows. Cuddy's office smelled like coffee and marker pens.

He thought, Thank God for that last Vicodin. Blissfully, as he almost instantly realised that he was actually falling asleep, and thought: This is well worth the walk.

He felt smug, somehow, and he smiled. (God, some nights he'd crawl across broken glass to feel like this). His eyelids were pleasantly heavy, and he let his mind wander, watching the office as they idly fluttered.

He thought about Stacy, but not for long. Then music, that old failsafe.

He half-recalled something, now just looking at the light through the orange filter of his closed eyes, and then he slept, in peace, without interruptions or people walking close by or the feeling that he'd wake up feeling monitored, on his back with one arm over his face. It was good, so good.

He must have slept for an hour and three quarters, more. He heard footsteps coming really close, not just someone walking by but someone walking in. A woman wearing high heels.

He thought about burying his head beneath the pillow in bed while Stacy got ready for work. Hiding. Pulling the covers higher as he pretended not to hear shoes squeaking or smell coffee and toast. Listening to her try to coax him out in the afternoon, saying, I know you're not asleep Greg, seeing her feet on the floor upside down from underneath the sheet.

It seemed sometimes to him that all he could remember of those first few weeks was bed, fuzzy images of himself hiding in bed, sleeping, trying so hard to think nothing and sleep that he never quite got there. It was ironic, considering that someone as bad at sleeping as him could have made such easy work of it that it was his one overriding memory of That time in his life.

He smelled her perfume. It was Cuddy. He heard the door latch behind her, felt his eyelids fluttering against his arm. He realised just how heavy his growth of beard was. He was fully awake now, the door had taken care of that, so he could hear everything. His head was amazingly clear.

Three steps came in, stopped suddenly. There was a silence, and House counted in his head, one, two, three, before hearing Cuddy's sudden intake of breath. Could he pretend to be asleep?

He lay there, not moving, waiting to see how things panned out. If worse came to worse he could fight her off with his cane and run away, he supposed. He felt like giggling.

(Gre-eg's in trou-ble, Gre-eg's in trou-ble.)

"House!" Cuddy stalked close to him, savagely grabbing one wrist and lifting the hand away from his face (like she didn't know it was him, she must be checking something), then dropping his hand back with a furrow between her brows. Her fingers were cold. The temperature had fallen since he walked through the hospital.

He didn't say anything, he just rubbed his face, cleared his throat. He felt like stretching, but that might be a bit much. That really was a good sleep. There was something very loosely post-coital in the feeling after a nap like this, only more clean and less achy.

"You idiot." Cuddy didn't wait, just pulled him up into a sitting position, stared at him, made disapproving noises. House didn't say anything.

She pushed down on his shoulders slightly in a sit-down gesture, told him to stay, and left the room.


Cuddy rushed into her office to check something. She didn't even notice that he was in her office until she was really into her office and halfway over to her desk.

Holy Crap. Greg House lying on the couch in her office, stretched out like he was lying on any dingy couch in a college dorm room, sleeping like a goddamned baby. Shit!

He was lying still, his chest still rising and falling slowly. She couldn't see his face, but she knew that he had a way of looking almost cute when he slept.

Well, he wasn't cute now. Turning the hospital upside down looking for a colleague and then finding them sleeping feet-up on the couch in your office is not endearing.

He was awake, had probably first woken up when she closed the door. She watched him lie there, saw one eye crack open slightly. The bastard. Cuddy took a deep breath. Ooh. He was really in it up to his neck.


A minute passed, maybe two. House yawned and tapped his feet and rubbed his eyes and looked around Cuddy's office, (too tired to actually get up and look at anything closely, he just let his eyes scan over everything, saving). He was still sitting in the same position on the couch, bare feet flat in the floor, knees bony and bent, when Cuddy came back in with Wilson in tow, his tie knot loose, the ends flapping around and turning over as he walked.

Cuddy tossed a hospital gown in his general direction. Wilson's cheeks were red. Oh. Right. They were both angry. He'd half expected something like this, but they were really shirty. Man. One little nap.

The first thing that Wilson said was You Thoughtless Prick. Yep. That about summed it up at the moment.

House nodded, raised his eyebrows, made a 'Yeah, What Gives?' gesture, spread his hands. Wilson made an exasperated scoffing noise, turned around into the corridor for a second with his hands laced on the back of his head. He was probably taking ten deep breaths. That was his style. Wilson had a powerful anger in him, he could be insistent and dogged as hell, but he was a pushover to calm down.

House thought that that was it for Wilson. Maybe next time Wilson came over to his apartment he'd soap his toothbrush for payback, or he'd steal his chips at lunch and say it was for making him tramp around the entire hospital searching for his sickly, sorry arse, but this afternoon as far as Wilson was concerned it was all over barring the shouting and perhaps some deep, caring conversation, which he could probably avoid just as skilfully as he could predict Wilson's reactions.

Now. Cuddy. Cuddy was staring at him. She, on the other hand, was obviously perfectly capable of being angry and rational at the same time. She gave him a dirty look, then her face set slightly like she'd just decided something. She took two steps and leaned around the doorway, (House was fascinated by the way she could just lean around, one hand on the edge of the door, in a sadly inquisitive, but also slightly pervy way, but it probably just looked like he was checking her out, which he was) said something to Wilson. He paid another mournful glance into the room and left.

Cuddy turned back to him. He wondered if she thought she could punish him for this with the clinic. Scary…But not a chance in hell there. They could drag him down the corridor kicking and screaming and clinging to things, or drug him heavily and tie him down to something heavy before he'd ever step foot in that clinic, and neither of those methods was in the patient's best interests, he supposed. So there. No clinic duty. Nuh uh. Not ever. Not gonna happen.

Cuddy gestured to the hospital gown she'd just thrown at him with one hand, the other still crossed over her chest.

"Put that on."

"Oh I don't know, Mrs Cuddy…?"

Cuddy just said Do It, and turned around to stare at the bookcase, putting her back to him. He could feel her listening, in the same way you can feel people's eyes on you the moment they think you won't be able to see them looking.

(He could also sense that she had adopted that Don't-talk-to-him-he's-only-trying-to-get-your-attention mantra, the same one he'd seen on the faces of girls and teachers and the people he had to deal with since the year dot.

The same look that had been on the teacher's face when he got sent to the naughty corner in year two for showing whoever was sitting next to him how to write a dirty word in the corner of their handwriting copybook, and then had proceeded to stand there making rude faces, sticking out his tongue and pulling both nostrils up with his thumbs, poking one finger out of the small hole in the front of his t-shirt. The same look he'd seen on the face of teammates and other students and people trying to cadge marks off him. The same look he saw Wilson shoot towards people on a daily basis).

It was still fun.

He sat on the edge of the couch and pulled his pants down to his ankles. It was cold in here now in just a t-shirt, and the goosebumps that started on his kneecaps and travelled up his legs gave his scar a rather odd and unpleasant feeling, not alien, but too much like cold fingers and the there-not-there feeling of numbed injection sites and nerve damage.

Was it Hemingway? No. No. William Faulkner? Said that if he had the choice between nothing and pain he'd choose pain. Well then.

It felt good to bend his back forward after lying down for so long, so he took his shirt off by bending forward and pulling forward from the back, crossing his arms over and grabbing alternate sleeves. His wrists and upper back cracked contentedly.

Even though it was cold, he sat for a minute. Cuddy still stood there, waiting. She was really still- if he was standing there he'd be reading something or touching that smooth paperweight thing to guess at the weight... She just stood there, straight, giving the bookshelf eyeburn and listening.

His t-shirt was still warm in his hands, and he could faintly smell the packaged bleachy smell of the gown.

He put one hand either side of him, the right one conveniently on the armrest, and heaved himself to his feet. He was tired from the walk through the hospital, his feet hurt (and they were cold, but feet are tough, and they could handle it) and his joints creaked in that after-sleep way. He hadn't realised, through a combination of forgetfulness, Vicodin (which was wearing off), sickness and sleep, that his leg would have a lot to whinge about due to the current chain of events.

Oh yeah. He didn't realise, until halfway through getting to his feet the I AM IN PAIN light powered on like an arc light at the back of his eyeballs.

For a moment a white crump-

(Through-Winter-Trenches-Cowed-And-Glum-Through-Crumpsthat's what it was-And-Lice-And-Lack-Of-Rum make it go away go away fuck off, please, fuck off)

-of pain shot through the entirety of his right leg, gaping from his balls to his toes, leaking hot into his abdomen. His stomach roiled. He swallowed hard, his adam's apple suddenly tight in his throat.

He thought, quick, think of something, oh fuck this shit don't think about that ah fuck what was that poem, what was it? I knew a simple soldier boy .

(He thought fuckfuckfuck again, but then it worked and immediately some snatch of verse rattled through his head, now almost a reflex, reminding him of he was six and the doctor had put something stinging on his scalp and stitched it, asking him of he knew the rhyme of the months yet, good boy, did he want to say it? How about again?)

He didn't scream or grunt or gasp, but it was a close thing. He didn't even hiss air in through his front teeth, something Cuddy would know as a Pain Management Technique, something he just called a noise, that comforting sss sound. Stacy had called it the In Between Hiss, as in between a scream and a groan. He did take a breath, fast at the start, holding it for a minute, breathing in deeply.

Cuddy put her head back slightly. She heard. She shifted slightly, so he could hear her skirt rustle and something clink in her pocket, but she didn't turn around. He didn't say anything, and neither did she, but he could almost hear her holding it back. She wanted to say something. She wanted so bad to say something. Something irrational and pained and bitter in his mind thought, Fuck Her for listening, fuck Cuddy for being here and hearing and pitying, and wanting to open her big fat sympathetic mouth, but he only thought that for an instant.

She shifted again, to cross her arms, sighing slightly.

He didn't want to sit down, so he stood the whole way up and stood there waiting for the muscles to get used to the weight, to shift, waiting for the pain to fade a little bit. Hoping to God that Cuddy wouldn't turn around and see him shivering there in his jocks.

He remembered Cuddy and rustled the gown, making like he was just taking his sweet time.

It hurt a little less. He fought the gown on savagely, just letting it drop down, sitting down as fast as he could (which wasn't very) with the sleeves concertinaed around his shoulders, breathing a long breath out, almost laughing, or coughing, deep in his throat.

A little while ago he never worried about how you could get dressed and only get up once.

A little while ago there was always a guitar pick rattling around in the bottom of his washing machine, and running trailmud tracked through onto the kitchen floor.

Then again, a little while before that he was yet to learn long division.

He was thankful that the leg hadn't spasmed, because he didn't like the carpet in Cuddy's office that much that he wanted it to meet his face, and blowing chunks in Cuddy's office, whether he wanted to or not, would be the clincher that would send him to the land of bumps and sneezes, the Clinic. Gross.

His leg still was still throbbing, but it wasn't as bad now, and he wanted to walk back to wherever he was going before he knew whether or not that little tantrum was the tidings of something much bigger and nastier.

He fixed himself up, stretched Leg: version 0.7, out, (no additions, some revision).

"Well, Cuddy, this is very revealing. Are you trying to tell me something?"

It was poor, but he wasn't feeling too crash-hot, and neither of them were counting.

He felt cold sweat on his forehead, on the back of his neck. His stomach and chest ached. He felt like shaking.

Good nap. Bad leg.

He wondered where Wilson had gone. Cuddy had sent him away, and he guessed that it wasn't to pick them all up a lollipop from the gift shop.

Cuddy turned around. Shock registered on her face for a second, and House almost checked if he'd left anything uncovered, but it was obviously just that he looked like crap. He wiped his face with the shoulder of the gown, reminding himself not to waltz around with it undone at the back.

He just sat there. He was good at being difficult. Being uncooperative came very easily.

Cuddy turned and gathered something off her desk, shuffled papers, straightened them by tapping them on the desk.

She said: "House. I do not wish to play games with you. I'm tired. Are you going to return to your room? Because your options are to either let me escort you back to your room or to refuse to return to your room and be escorted in a wheelchair by a very large security guard. You can sleep, or do whatever you do at night-"

That was a nice touch.

"-And in the morning you may be well enough to go home. I don't know. At the moment I don't care. If you try to sign out AMA, you're stupider than I thought you could be."

Every word was clear. Her mood was brusque, no-nonsense. That was no fun.

"Well, when you put it like that."

House raised his eyebrows and got his cane in his hands, gripped, re-gripped, prepared to stand.

Cuddy nodded. He waited until she'd turned away to walk out the door, but not so long that she'd have to turn around, before he started to rise.

It seemed like it was going to be OK. He launched up off the couch, scooting forward on his butt first, (deep couches could come back and bite you in a rather nasty fashion, he had found, lull you into into a false sense of security), grunting and taking the first long step in his left, and then he was on his way.

He stepped lightly for the first couple of steps, favouring the right badly, but by the time they were at the door through to the rest of the hospital his gait was almost back to normal. He stopped to lean against the door so Cuddy could do up the gown at the back, one knee bent, one hand high on the frame, bracing himself elbow, shoulder and hand. She hadn't thought that he'd like to get at it sitting down or with something better to lean against, and he didn't want to let on.

He could have said something. House thought that as he felt her hands for a second, heard her sigh in concentration. He could have said something, but he didn't. He shut up and breathed her perfume again. She'd been drinking instant coffee.

He felt more awkward than usual, more of an oaf than he usually did. He felt like he did before, a tall awkward guy who smelled of cigarettes and always pushed them away. But it wasn't the sleeping in Cuddy's office: he'd half expected that.

They walked back to the ward in silence, gathering a few puzzled looks (and knowingly annoyed glares, as well) in the lobby. Cuddy walked alongside House, guiding him with a hand on his elbow when they turned a certain way, or when they came up against a crowd of people.

When they came to his room Cuddy told the nurse he was fine for the moment, and he was shepherded in. Cuddy closed the curtains, wangling it somehow that they were in the room alone for a minute. He sat down. She took his cane.

Before he said anything she poked two fingers lightly onto his chest, (he felt her fingernails and the impact, first on his skin and then against the bone), and told him that if he ever pulled such a stupid fucking stunt again, she'd devise some punishment that he would find insulting and humiliating, she would. He was a doctor, not a child. He was not Ten Feet Tall And Bulletproof. He was a liability. He was the best diagnostician that she knew and it still astounded her how he could be so slackjawingly stupid. He was not well. You're gonna keep pushing, House. One day something's gonna push back in a way you can't handle.

House could suddenly see her think, oh, hot damn, maybe it had. He thought about that too. So that hung, awkwardly, like stale smoke with the windows closed.

Cuddy left, pulling open the curtains as she did.

They were really stiff, those curtains. He wondered how often they washed them. The nurse watched him.

He lay in the bed a maximum of thirty seconds, only really long enough to catch his breath and adjust all blankets and garments, to get in properly. Cuddy came back into the room, and straight through. Wilson followed her, looking slightly nervous, hanging back slightly. Cuddy didn't say anything, just came closer to the bed and took a wrist restraint out of her pocket, the soft-covered metal chain kind with a strap, and grabbed his left wrist. She was fast. He tensed every muscle in his arm and made to pull away, half in reflex, when he saw Wilson standing just behind Cuddy. One hand was on the edge of the bed, squeezing tight so his fingers were pooled red and white.

Oh. Well then.

She fastened the restraint around his wrist, fastened the other end of a short strap to the bedframe (so he could sit up if he wanted, but he was otherwise restrained), checked the tightness with a pinkie finger and breezed out. Wilson had half a wry smile on his face, but his eyes still had that sadness. House was in the right position to think Fuck Him, but he didn't, he just thought about the curtains again. Wilson left.

On second thoughts, that had been dumb. Still fun, though.

Just wait, House thought. He waited.

The nurse came and looked in on him at fifteen-minute intervals. When dinner came (fish fingers, thanks Cuddy, and accompanied by three overboiled pieces each of carrot and cauliflower and a little tub of tartare sauce that was little more than some sort of plastic mayonnaise with little green bits in it), she roughly cut it into portions so he could eat with one hand, and gave him a plastic spoon, the kind with smooth edges, presumably so he couldn't hurt himself with it. Protocol for people who were considered A Danger To Themselves Or Others Around Them. They were really taking this seriously.

The nurse still came in again at intervals. Once he told her that he needed to go to the toilet, so she left, returning with a burly orderly and a universal restraint key attached to a bright, bulky keychain. The orderly wasn't very good at hiding his surprise that the guy he was meant to be guarding was a rail-thin cripple with a wheeze. House urinated, washed, was escorted back to bed. The Nurse still checked. He fell asleep sometime in the middle of a special on plastic-surgery disasters.

He had an alright night's sleep considering that he had already slept in the afternoon and the fact that he was restrained. Now there's a word for you. Restrained.

...Greg must learn to show more restraint in concern with his conduct in class...

200 lines: I must learn to show restraint. I must learn to show restraint. I I I... Must must must...

Cuddy had recognised that he might have a particular way of sleeping (no doubt she knew very well that he had trouble sleeping, she probably considered it her business to know), and he wasn't that uncomfortable. He turned onto his left side, cramped, turned heavily onto his back. He woke around four with more pain in his leg. Well, it wasn't like he hadn't expected it. He waited in the lonely morning-time, unable to do anything, listening to Asthma Guy and Lip Piercing Kid sleeping and snuffling. He was used to that. When the hospital began to buzz and whirr again he listened, and dozed off in fits and starts. He was going home today.

Wilson came into the little cubicle after breakfast, looking fresh. He wouldn't have the key, and it didn't look like he was concealing bolt cutters or an electric jigsaw on his person either. House sighed. As for a lockpick? Mrs Wilson's boy?

How easy was it to pick handcuffs, anyway?

Now that House knew the end was in sight he was impatient with sitting around. That was him. Always burning out in the last hundred yards. Killing himself on the bell lap.

The nurse came and unlocked him. He dressed. He sat on the bed and passed muster for Curtis, which was a good thing. He didn't feel like arguing. They wanted another X-ray, though, so he walked down with Wilson carrying his bag, on the way to Out. That felt good.

He hobbled out of the room, paying no more than a glance towards his roommates and the nurses. (He reminded himself that he'd be watched by hawk's eyes whenever he came down here again).

He leaned against the wall in the lift. His shirt fit him like a wet tent, so he assumed that he'd lost weight. Nothing a little fried chicken couldn't fix.

The lift was silent. They were talking to each other again, but the silence fell.


For just a moment the lift was silent. Wilson played with the strap of House's bag sitting against his shoulder.

House said, "You talked to Stacy."

Wilson felt the surprise appear on his face, then heat spreading as he blushed. Well, he felt about half an inch tall, didn't he?

There was a stagnant pause.

"Yes".

House was staring at him now, his face blank, his shocking eyes, searching.

Wilson tried not to look too sheepish. One hand crept up to the back of his neck, thumb playing along the back of his ear, then it was over and House turned his head, his eyes flicking away again.

House played his fingers against the wall, put his head back.

"How is she?"

"Good".

"Good".

That was all they said about it.

Wilson waited outside the X-ray while House held his breath, turned please, held his breath again, leaned against the wall.

While they were sitting outside on the little moulded plastic chairs, the constantly squeaking ones that force you to sit with your elbows on the next person's lap, waiting for House's number to be called, Wilson asked House how the leg was going. He said yeah, good.

Well, that was good to know. Wilson felt completely reassured.

Wilson had the seat in his car slightly forward when House got in. House did the awkward getting-into-the car thing, and when he got into position enough to realise that he was going to be sitting with his knees touching the glove box, he bent over awkwardly (with his head practically around his knees), and moved the seat forward, grunting as he reached for the lever.

Wilson got in, started up the car, reversed, shifted, accelerated, drove. House was silent, and Wilson could hear the metal bottle-opener on his keys bumping slightly against the steering column. He could also hear the gears turning in House's head. Only he could turn Smugly Contemplating into an art.

Whatever he had to say, he took his time. By the time they were almost out of the car park, he was positively bursting with his own brilliance. Wilson thought about prompting him (that was obviously what he wanted), but he wasn't sure if he wanted to take part in this conversation. Whatever it was, it would be cutting, that was for sure.

Wilson leaned out the window to pass his card over the scanner, and as he turned back into the car, House tapped his fingers once on his knees and said: "Has she got big knockers?"

Wilson stammered something, Who? His ears were hot. Red, he assumed. Oh God, he was right, he didn't want to have this conversation. Now this was embarrassing, like realising that you've left a prophylactic in your pocket as it's too late, or being forced to watch as someone leafs through your high school yearbook.

"Umm, you know, whatever her name is. She's short… and she wears…What is that? Chanel? It's nice, whatever it is. Not sneezy."

Oh. Right. Julie. Yes. She had ridden in his car. The seat was right forward and she hadn't moved it back. House was right, she was short. And, she had rather nice breasts.

Which all would have been OK, except for the fact that he was riding with the Nosy Wonder.

Wilson groaned inwardly and drove, now silently seething as he saw House smirk smugly in the corner of his eye.

There was traffic. House turned the radio on, played air drums halfway through a song, his mouth open, his tongue out to one corner of his mouth, one foot tapping. Music face. A guitar solo came and he played that to. (He seemed to know the name of the song, but it escaped Wilson. It sounded like the Who, but it wasn't). The song ended and a radio commercial came on, one of those sickening jingles for a tyre company, and Wilson turned it down as House looked to him for approval, eyebrows raised. They passed the drive-through at Mcdonalds, but House didn't look interested. He lay his head back slightly, resting against the top of the seat belt, and looked out the window.

Wilson remembered, once. His brother had gotten in trouble at a party or something, big trouble, and had rung brother Jimmy who could always work everything out, late at night, telling him to pick him up at a truck stop on the highway halfway to New York. Don't tell Mom and Dad, alright, buddy, I'm countin' on ya, and his breath had sounded ragged even through the phone line as the heavy traffic rushed by on the other end. Wilson had got out of bed early in the morning and found his brother, who had promised to be home by ten, blah blah blah, shivering on a bench outside a Mcdonalds. He had no shoes and his feet were dirty, his clothes torn, his careful nonchalance not masking the fear and shock on his face, because he was so young, he was always young. James hadn't even asked anything, just pulled up and told him to get in. His brother hadn't said anything, apart from 'I lost my wallet'. He smelled like vomit and beer. Something had gone wrong. God knows whatever he was doing, but it wasn't right. His eyes never stayed on anything. He still shivered in the warmth of the car, and he had stared out the window like that the whole way home, in between asking Jimmy to pull over and throwing up. He still had the courtesy not to throw up in his brother's crap-trap car. That wasn't the first time Jimmy had seen him drunk, but it was the first time he saw that sliding-away look to his eyes, smelt that fearful sweat, seen that confusion.

The last time Jimmy had seen his brother, he'd been meeting him on and off at a street corner that he said was safe. He'd give him money, Leukoplast tape and band-aids, ask him to come home. The last time, his brother had said, Goodbye, Jimmy, and run off, his jeans damp around the bottom. Not I'll see you in a couple of weeks I've got this job lined up or I'll see you later. Goodbye. When he hadn't called for two weeks, three, Jimmy tried to think that it was just taking longer this time, that he was busy, that he had finally gotten off the street and found a caretaking job at a trailer park somewhere, but he knew deep down that his brother had actually dropped off the radar.

He cruised around aimlessly in the car hoping to see him, see someone he hung out with. He still scanned shelters and called the appropriate authorities and even called up hospitals asking for John Does with his description. He drove and walked and dialled until he convinced himself that he would forget his brother's name unless he did this one more thing.

Then he was gone. James Wilson had lost his brother. Hadn't found him yet.

From what he had seen House had an almost similar relationship with his parents than that his brother had. He'd always enjoyed the company of House's mother, she was pleasant and friendly and made wonderful Spinach and Fetta pie. She obviously loved House, loved her boy, and House had always seemed gentlest around her, truth be told.

He found House's father to be too loud and overbearing, laughing too loud at his own jokes, too rough, squeezing tighter than he needed to when he shook your hand. He had heard House refer to him as a prick, and he thought that too, really, but he'd never say it, because it's always wise to stay on the sidelines when it comes to your friends and their parents.

He'd got along well enough the times he'd met with House's parents, not always with Greg himself present. He'd seen them a bit when Greg was sick. He'd had conversations with House's mother that he could never had with House himself. Now, he knew things that House would never tell him himself, but which he would gradually acknowledge as being part of what they both knew. It was tricky, and talking with House was like trying to do your own dentistry work at the best of times, but he still remembered how he'd been so glad when House's mother turned up unannounced outside the hospital room at two-thirty one morning with a change of clothes for Wilson and a casserole in a Tupperware container, how he had thought he could love this woman even though he'd hardly talked to her. She was the archetypal Friend's Kindly Mother.

He'd only been to their house once, driving up with Greg about a year ago to attend a cushy seminar, the last one that he'd presented at.

Wilson had seen the presentation offers that they sent him. He'd also seen how surprised House had been at the reaction to his injury, how he'd winced a bit, just so Wilson could see it flash across his face, as his back turned to the hall and a whisper passed down the stacked rows of plastic chairs. He'd expected it, but not that much. He tried to tell Wilson after, that he thought they'd at least try to act like they didn't care, before laughing at himself, saying that he was a fool, why did he care? It had knocked him around, that lecture. He'd turned to Wilson as they drove away and said: Why, in God's name, do they want me to lecture? Shit, it must be them that are fucked up, right?

For House, that presentation (what was it? Something to do with Legionnaire's disease?) had asked a lot more questions than it had answered. Pandora's lecture.

On the way home, the long drive, they'd dropped in at his parents place, a place they'd bought after he moved out. Wilson was tired from driving all day, and House was just plain tired.

He'd done the usual chuckling at House's childhood, laughing most at the scowl on Greg's face, he smiled and nodded: This is Greg on his first day of school (A skinny child with incredibly blond hair and the boniest knees you've ever seen, squinting at the camera), this is Greg doing this, this is Greg doing that.

Mrs House was obviously extremely proud of him. Scholarship offers. Letters of recomendation. Inexpertly taken photos. All the while as Mrs House talked Greg up and regaled them with embarrassing stories of his childhood, House had stood there with a cynical grin on his face, joking around, saying things like Oh Mom, what's with the new colour scheme, equal opportunities painter?

So it had almost seemed like Greg was happy, even chuckling and playing around with his mother, stealing chopped carrots from the chopping board as she shooed him out of the kitchen, lying back on the lounge and leafing idly through old issues of National Geographic.

Dinner was, for the most part, silent. Greg had dropped out of the conversation about the time that his father had made a comment about music, something like that, something offensive and embarrassing, even to Wilson. He didn't remember, but he did remember how Greg had cleared his throat and squeaked his knife against his plate.

He'd spent the most of the night tinkering with some stupid electrical appliance that was broken, a steak knife in his hand, brow furrowed, talking mostly in monosyllables and grunts.

That visit had been awkward to say the least: to see House in his parent's house with his parents only made you wonder more. What had he been like as a child? Was he born like that, smartarsed and cynical? What, did aliens steal him away at the age of twelve, instill in him a deep-seated misanthropic urge and dump him back down naked in a field of corn?

He sometimes thought that the thing that annoyed House most about people was that they could find him interesting. That he couldn't work out what it was.

The first time he'd met House. House looking into his eyes for just a second, one word, something that sounded like a nickname or a callsign. House? The fingers were long and he felt a roughness there, something that suggested more than a life of rubber gloves and indoors. He had felt that hand in his, a strong but not intimidating, very short handshake, and the eyes sliding away from his and towards the floor almost as soon as they had looked him over. House had retreated back to his spot watching everyone from his position leaning on a table as soon as any necessary introductions were over, and Wilson had had to bite his cheek to stop from laughing when he had heard him referred to as Doctor House. So that was Doctor House. He wished he'd worked out that it was Dr Gregory House: Doctor Wonder, sooner, wished that he had been able to say something smart like "Your reputation precedes you.", but he had just blushed and wondered if he cared. House hadn't cared, at first, but Cuddy had. They both knew Cuddy.

A mutual friend. Could you even use that term when House came in to play? He wasn't so sure at the moment.

Cuddy. Huh. Sometimes he wondered about Cuddy.

Wilson drove. He looked across at House, still looking out of the window, his upper body partly turned away so he could lean against the door, put his cheek against the glass.

"House?"

"Mmm?"

"Can I ask you a question? About when you were sick?"

Greg opened his eyes and just flicked them over to Jimmy, raised his eyebrows.

"Do you mean now.. or Before?"

"Before."

He could see the little wheels spinning in House's head, just chockablock wanting to snipe about the athlete's foot he had when he was ten, hardi ha ha, but he held off. That was an odd sign. He just knew that this would be one of those conversations that he would regret wholeheartedly as soon as it started.

"What?"

"Do you remember being put in the coma?"

House tapped one hand three times on the window and turned his head towards Wilson. Oh yeah. He regretted it already, regretted the look on House's face right then and there.

House furrowed his forehead, took a quick breath and opened his mouth almost like he was going to say something, then didn't. His eyes got that thinking look for a moment, and Wilson turned all of his attention back to the road for a second, indicating, turning, his hands still firmly set at two and ten.

He thought that House might not answer, and he was thinking of encouraging him in a semi-distracted way himself (conversations with House were like that sometimes, you got used to how he could trail off and leave you dangling), because he thought that if he didn't want to talk about it he should at least have the decency to say that he didn't want to talk about it. Even a cut-down, or a scathing remark. Anything but the Silence.

But Wilson didn't need to shift or cough or say anything. House made a vacant sort of hmm noise, breathed in then out, quiet, and then said that Yeah, he did.

There was another silence, not long enough that it needed to be broken to keep the conversation going. The amount of time it takes to watch a pitcher do their little good-luck thing, see the ball rush down the pitch, start running. Wilson heard the car tyres humming beneath them.

"What?"

"What - What do you remember?"

"I remember… I was – asleep on my feet the whole time, you know. I was so out of it… I thought, I've got to do something… So I asked Stacy to talk to them- didn't really think she wouldn't. And… Cuddy telling me that it was all done, I'd be out in a minute, I talked to Stacy, she was there, luvvy-duvvy stuff.

It was like being really drunk, you know, or being hit over the head with something, minus the pain."

Now he was just talking, mumbling really.

House reached forward and started fiddling with the cigarette lighter in the centre console of the dashboard, looking out the front windscreen now, vacantly.

"Stacy?"

The traffic lights just ahead of them were orange, so Wilson slowed the car down and stopped just as they turned red. The car was suddenly very silent, but not oppressive. Oppressive was shouting, sighing, body language, not this.

Wilson heard something tick, a car-metal sound. House was still looking out the windscreen, his eyes resolutely focussed on the middle distance.

"She said all that lover stuff. Yeah, I think I did too. Gross."

He paused for a second. Wilson eased his foot onto the accelerator as the lights changed.

"Then she said sorry. I was so out of it, I could hardly hear her, and I said something like, 'that's Ok', something like that, reassuring her. I could hardly see, and I closed my eyes, and I didn't care any more, I just wondered, why is she sorry? That was it."

Wilson opened his mouth, but didn't say anything. When he actually said something inane like OK, and turned his head to look at House, he was looking out the side window again.

Oh, Jimmy. Always got to push it that little bit too far, haven't you? That last sentence was more than House had wanted to say and way more than Jimmy had wanted to hear. Why the Fuck did he say these things? Why did he care so much when House tried to tell himself he cared so little? Why did he have to pull out the 'shit' that House never wanted out of the attic?

They really didn't say anything more about Stacy.

Wilson drove. After three very quiet blocks House leaned over with a sigh-grunt in his throat and turned the radio back on.

He just put his head back and listened.