"GUESSWORK"

- Chapter Twenty-Eight -

"Dumping"

Gregory House startled awake.

Hardcore nightmarish dream images scattered away into distant oblivion, leaving him restless, nervous and agitated. He did not understand why he felt so rattled. He was not in pain, or uncomfortable, or too warm or too cold, or otherwise distressed. His dreams, whatever-the-hell they were, had been harsh, and turned his lungs to putty, and played hell with his breathing and heartbeat. He listened, limbs going painfully rigid, wondering why it didn't transmit to the monitors.

He blinked his eyes and looked around, suddenly realizing that he was trembling, and his fists were clenched tightly by his sides. The stitches in his hand were pulled tight.

Ow!

Not far from his bedside, James Wilson sat in the same chair he had occupied into the wee hours of this morning. He was deeply engrossed in a pamphlet of some kind. House frowned, trying to relax his body and squint his eyes in order to make out the title.

He might have known. It was a technical piece on nanotechnology by a biomedical engineer at the University of Texas; an article about modified plastics for use in repairing traumatized and severed nerve endings. He could feel his body preparing to spazz into a bout of insane, hysterical laughter at the images that formed in his mind. He froze, then gasped for breath.

Wilson felt the electricity permeate the air, and picked up on the changes in his friend's breathing, wafting heavy around him. He looked up sharply into House's tense face, dropped the article onto the floor and hastened to Gregg's side.

"Hey … you're awake … what is it? You look like you saw a ghost. What's wrong?"

House could not speak for a few moments. He swallowed convulsively, fighting for control, staring hard into Wilson's kind eyes. "I … I …"

"Shhh … easy … you're stiff as a board. Relax for a second, okay? … before you hurt yourself?"

Gregg nodded and swallowed again. He shivered, and the sharp, involuntary movement irritated the wounds where the spikes entered through the skin of his thigh. His sore foot pounded with unadulterated ferocity. He did not know what was happening, or why.

Wilson reached across and gathered both House's hands into his own. "Are you in pain? Is it your foot? Can you answer me? Do you want me to get someone?"

"No!" The last question had galvanized him, and his eyes darted furtively from side to side.

Looking for what? Something had frightened him badly.

"What can I do to help?" Wilson insisted. He hefted a hip and settled himself carefully onto the bed at House's side.

"No … no time! Can't …" He knew he wasn't making sense. He could not seem to coax his brain into engaging his mouth so he could say something even vaguely coherent; intelligent.

Finally, one word: "Stay!"

"I'm not going anywhere …"

"Promise?" Gregg's eyes were changing. Bluing out. The icy sparks that leapt out of them were driven by pure, unrestrained panic. Wilson could see the frightened six-year-old who resided within.

He leaned closer, indulging the moment for his friend's peace of mind. This unique and

brilliant child-man was scared out of his wits and couldn't understand why. "Promise," he whispered.

Wilson eased gradually into the quiet of the interval that laid itself upon them, holding both Gregg's hands within his own. At last the corded muscles in the other man's taut body began to relax. House unwound from his coiled-spring state and returned to a position of more natural repose. "Better?" James asked.

"Uh … yeah," House was still speaking in monosyllables, but he looked better, and was finally answering questions with words that made sense. "S-s … sorry …"

"Hush! It's okay. I think you were dreaming. How about a drink of water?"

"Yeah. Better. Drink … yeah …"

"I'll go get you one. Be right back. You okay now?"

"Yeah …"

Wilson went behind the partition, pulled a bottle of fresh water out of the small fridge and returned. He screwed off the cap and handed it across.

House drank deeply and sighed. "Thanks."

"Sure. That was weird. Any idea yet what might have brought it on?"

"No. God! I don't ever want anything like that to happen again!"

"Me either. I thought at first your pain had come back … even with the stringers in there."

"That's a creepy thought."

"Yes it is … and it's soon time for Bill and Kip and Earl to come in and do that …"

"I know."

"Does it scare you? I mean … someone messing with your leg again?"

"Not sure. Maybe … some …"

"You … know I'm here … if you need me."

"Yeah, I know …"

House's eyes turned furtive again, resting everywhere except upon the person he was addressing. His lack of social graces where Wilson was concerned sometimes held him at a disadvantage. What could he say when Wilson's open and casual overtures of friendship reached out to him? There was always this niggling suspicion deep in his gut that suggested Wilson needed more than he was capable of giving in return.

And so he focused his gaze on the ceiling, the walls, the floor. He bowed his head like the tongue-tied six-year-old that he was; knowing that Wilson was probably smiling inside and thinking that his friend's non-answer spoke louder than words anyhow …

Silence stretched between them for long moments, and when Gregory House finally looked up, motivated by curiosity more than anything else, there was indeed a quiet smile on Wilson's face. It was like the sun emerging after a storm, and the resulting rainbow made the whole world look fresh and new again. He found himself returning the smile, tiny though it was.

"You mess with my mind, dammit!" he groused. He refused to give any more ground than that.

Wilson reached out again, palm up, fingers waggling. Gregg responded, even without conscious thought. He lifted his lame hand and extended it across, keeping the fingers curled inward because it felt better that way.

Wilson took it gently, in the same manner he had cradled House's broken hand the time he'd smashed it with the pestle. "You might want to try flexing your fingers a little," he suggested, "or this will stiffen up on you and make it a lot harder."

House nodded shortly. "Yeah. I know that too. It just didn't seem to be so much a priority right now …"

Wilson's brown eyes pinned him. "I understand." His tenth-grade psychological gambit had worked better than he'd anticipated. "You're a little apprehensive about what's going to happen with your leg today. I can tell. I feel the tension radiating off you. Your arm is like a power cord to the junction box of your body … and it feels like it's about to blow a fuse."

Busted!

House resorted to sarcasm, his one sure-fire defense: "Now you're an electrical engineer. You've been reading too damn many articles on the cure-all properties of nanocites, and you're seeing conduits shorting out everywhere you look! You're seeing the damn things hooking into people's brains and making robots out of them … then zapping them and frying them with itty-bitty ray guns … " He pulled his hand back and placed it gingerly across his concave stomach.

Wilson didn't flinch. "Your dream was about the return of the pain, wasn't it? Did you dream you were dying too?"

"No!

"No … not me …"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

148