"Ohhh" House groaned miserably as a dull pain throbbed in his leg, ribs and shoulder…shoulder? "Shit…" he mumbled as he recalled where he was and how he got there; he pried open his eyes to find himself face to face with a pair of dainty, bare feet.

He looked up to find Cuddy crouching beside him, a look of disbelief on her face and two vicodin in her hand, she really knew how to comfort a man in pain; "I don't even want to know how it happened" she stated quickly as she did her best to keep her body covered possibly due the fact she was wearing a t shirt that looked suspiciously like one of his own. "Can you make it into bed?"

"Worried about Wilson coming back and finding me sprawled out on the floor?" he growled innocently as he swallowed the Vicodin hungrily, "or worried about him coming back and finding you looking like you're about to enter Princeton's Annual wet t shirt competition?"

"I'll take that as a 'yes I'm fine' answer" Cuddy scowled at his smirking face and made to leave the room; if he couldn't ask for help, he wouldn't get help – he could stay on the floor!

"I always knew you wanted to get into my pants" came a cheeky jibe from the man on the floor behind her, turning her scowl in to a devilish grin as she hitched his jeans up a little higher with her good hand.

"Somebody left me stranded with nothing to dry myself with in the bathroom, and I wasn't about to make my clothes soaking wet" she replied seductively.

"Please tell me you're wearing my boxers under there" he leered as best he could from his position on his aching side.

"That would be telling" she announced playfully as she walked to the door, smiling as she caught his look of pure glee. 'Only you would find this exciting' she thought, amusedly.

"You realise I'll have to build a shrine for them now" he called as she disappeared into the hallway, apparently chuckling to herself.

House allowed himself a minute to muster up the courage to drag himself off the cold floor; 'this is gonna hurt…' he thought as he scanned the room for his cane. He was right, it hurt, and it killed his jovial mood.

By the time he'd managed to drag his pathetic self onto the edge of the bed, he'd abandoned the cane and any thought of staying in his bed for the next few hours. Wherever he settled, he'd be there for a long, long time and he wanted some entertainment; exhaustion from simply moving had ensured that he was in no mood to argue as Cuddy returned, now in her own clothes. 'Damn'

"Whoa, where are you going mister?" she asked lightly, inwardly panicking as he used the walls and furniture to hold himself up whilst trying to barge, unsteadily past her to the front room.

"Couch" he grunted as he successfully made it into the hall without falling arse over tit, impressing not only Cuddy, but himself too. "Bring my pillow" he called back.

Cuddy sighed, grabbing a pillow and carrying it down the hall for him; she contained a gasp as she watched the injured man falter as he limped over to his couch, almost falling flat on his face. "House, you really need to rest" she said, ignoring the look he shot back at her.

"I would be asleep if it wasn't for you and Wilson treating me like I'm an idiot" he declared moodily as he desperately attempted to sit on the couch without jostling his ribs.

It was true; he'd probably be tucked up in bed if Wilson had trusted him enough not to check up on him on his lunch break and if Cuddy hadn't insisted on running into him while he was on his way for a toilet break. This reminded him, "Oh crap!"

"What?" she asked warily.

"Need to pee…"

"House!" she sighed exasperatedly; "you were just there" she pointed down the hall in annoyance. "Can't you hold it in?"

"I have been holding it in…look, there's a pan under the sink-" he started, desperation overcoming any sense of humiliation he might have previously had about peeing in front of his boss.

"No" this was one thing she did not want to be in charge of – urine disposal.

"Cuddy! This is a life or death situation – it is a bed pan!" he begged, to no avail.

"No"

"Wilson would let me" he pouted miserably, the thought of having to do his cripple-trapeze act again was enough to ruin his already shitty mood.

"Well, I'm not Wilson"

House scoffed, "if you were, you'd be pregnant by now…" he groaned in annoyance as he stood back up painfully; he considered faking Cuddy out by pretending to trip, but in all honesty, he wasn't sure he'd be able to catch himself in time. 'Best not then…'

"Don't you need your cane?"

"Jolted my shoulder when I fell - can't use it..." he grumbled in explanation as he began his unwelcome journey back to the bathroom. 'This is punishment' he thought angrily, 'for all the clinic patients I've ever mocked.'

"Yell if you need me" Cuddy called after him, using every inch of her self control not to follow him like a worried mother.

"Oh I need you" he laughed bitterly, holding onto the wall for support; for some insane reason the bathroom door looked at least twenty metres further away from his couch than it should be.

As soon as he reached the end of his agonising expedition, he simply dropped his pants and dropped himself onto the toilet seat; there was no way he could stand and pee right now.

He did the business and pulled himself up; cursing once again as he saw the end result of his injuries. 'Blood, blood and more blood…much more than before' he noted, unfazed for the time being, as he washed his hands.

"Everything alright in there?" he heard Cuddy calling through the door, he rolled his eyes as she knocked on the door expectantly.

He sharply pulled open the door, causing his boss to almost fall into the bathroom with him. "Finished" he declared with fake relief plastered on his face, as well as a cheeky smirk.

"You didn't flush" she announced with disgust.

"Figured you'd like to indulge in your urine fantasy and check it out again" he said, his empty bladder apparently bettering his foul mood – weirdly, "so, go nuts!"

"Thanks for that" she deadpanned as she leant over the toilet to humour him. "Oh…" was all she could say when she saw the amount of red, watered-down blood in the bottom of the ceramic toilet. "But-" she turned to find that he was already halfway back to the couch.

She caught him up easily and tried to decide on the best way to interrogate him on how he was feeling; he probably wouldn't tell her whatever way she approached the conversation.

"That's a lot more than there was this morning" she began, trying to judge his reaction to her prying from the blank expression on his face. She didn't wait for any kind of explanation as she retrieved a cold pack from the kitchen, luckily she'd came prepared last night.

"How are you feeling?" she asked as she handed over the cold pack, momentarily surprising her 'patient' who hadn't counted on her actually performing any 'doctoral duties' over the weekend.

"Hungry" he stated as he took the pack and sat back down on the couch, searching for the television remote, trying to ignore her penetrating gaze.

"Hungry isn't really an emotion" she stated eventually as she held the remote up, smiling as he rolled his eyes. "Are you in more pain?"

"Yes" he said, offering no more details but expecting her to hand over the remote.

"You'll have to elaborate."

He sighed and took as deep a breath as he dared without crying out pathetically in pain. "My ribs are broken, causing all kinds of damage to my right kidney, which is actually a lot more painful than it sounds; I've somehow managed to contract the worst common cold known to man, most probably from some snivelling granny in the clinic, which means that my head hurts, my throat kills, my body temperature doesn't know if it wants to boil me from the inside or freeze me from the outside, I've got a cough that tries to dislodge my ribcage every five minutes, probably worsening the whole damaged kidney problem tenfold; plus, my leg really, really, really hurts, but then you know all about that…" he whined pitifully, "and I've got this babysitter who keeps trying to kill me; first she assaults me in the bedroom, she steals my clothes, she forces me to overexert myself continuously by walking miles around my apartment to save her sorry, bountiful ass from embarrassment, and what's worse, is that she's starving me and boring me to death with pointless conversations about whether or not I'm in pain…"

"You finished?" she asked, clearly bemused by his rant.

"Give me a second; I'm sure I can think of more…" House smirked as the remote travelled towards his crotch area with alarming force, luckily he managed to sick his hand out and stop it in its path. "Did I happen to mention assault?"

"What do you want to eat?" Cuddy wisely ignored his moaning. "Or should I actually go and see what you've got, then ask you what you want…" she added, remembering that this was the man who thought a Reuben-a-day with fries was part of a well balanced diet.

"You brought bagels yesterday" he announced knowingly as he gingerly placed the cold pack on his tender ribs, wincing as the coldness made his muscles tense up automatically.

"You looked in my bag?" she wasn't sure if that was supposed to shock her or not. It didn't for one second.

"You left it in my kitchen" he replied, pulling a childish face as if to reinforce his point.

"I'll have four please – cream cheese and everything" he said, hoping that Cuddy would give up already and go make him some food.

It must have worked because Cuddy gave up the fight and went off to slave over his lunch. 'House, 1: Evil Cuddy, 0' he thought triumphantly, dropping the cold pack to replace it with his pillow which he held tightly against his ribs, in an attempt at stopping them from trying to escape from his body, as he coughed for an agonizingly long time. 'House, 0: Crappy Common Cold, 50…'

On her return from the kitchen, House eagerly scoffed down two generously filled bagels before giving up on the third, much to Cuddy's aggravation. "So, you made me make four, filled bagels, and now you only eat two?" she asked crossly. "Do you realise how hard that was with a broken wrist?"

House didn't answer, instead he chose to frown to himself and grab the cold pack once more, pressing it further down towards his abdomen; this definitely concerned his 'babysitter' who was becoming increasingly worried about him and his mood swings. "You okay?"

He snapped his eyes up and gave her an unconvincing nod, "I'm fine…" he lied…