Muha! I posted fast! Everyone should clap for me! I'm in the process of writing chapter six, so it should be up soon too! Hee hee, thanks so much to everyone who encourages me! I've never had such wonderful responses for any of my writing! I love you all!

Disclaimer: sigh No, just no.

And the little line thingy, section divider, what ever the hell it is, isn't working for me STILL! So, we have more random wordness as secition breaks.

House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D.

Chapter Five

House was caught in some sort of loop, all he could see was the flashing of red and blue lights and his ears were still filled with the wail of sirens. He sat in the ambulance swimming in a thick haze as if he were the one who lay, only partially conscious, instead of James. Sounds and colors all seemed too loud. Sensations far too real in a surreal world.

The paramedics moved in the small space with the nimbleness that would have made a dancer envious. But House didn't even notice them, even when they stood between him and Wilson, he could still see the other man. The image of his face was imprinted in his mind so sharply, that nothing could come between them.

James, it seemed was existing in some plane that House couldn't really see. A place part way between life and death. His eyes were partially closed, his mouth was still part-way opened. His breathing was only semi-audible. And House was sure that he was only partly conscious to the things that were happening around him. Nothing was complete, yet nothing lacked existence entirely.

Are you leaving, James? Leaving, like everyone else in my life. Why should this have been any different? I should have known that you'd go one day. Slip out of my life, so that I'd be alone…again…

It's some sort of twisted joke that life plays on me. I get close enough to someone to give a damn and then they're gone. First Stacy…now you…

I'm condemned aren't I? Condemned to be alone. To never be able to really feel. Condemned to pain.

"Greg—" The voice was weak and he hardly heard it above the clamor of the sirens and the pounding of his own heart.

"James?" House turned and reached out his hand to touch Wilson's hand, but the ambulance doors were thrown open and Wilson was gone. The paramedics were racing him down the hall.

House slowly stood and gingerly slipped down from the ambulance and followed the retreating form of his friend through the far too bright, far too white corridors of Princeton Plainsbrough Teaching Hospital.

House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D.

Cuddy

I've decided, what ever son of a bitch decided that spike heels were appropriate attire for the head of a hospital was a sadomasochist and deserves to have his own invention shoved up his ass.

I'd had to run in heels before, it wasn't an experience I liked to repeat often, but House's page made it a necessity.

House had never sent me a page so disjointed and so worrisome. It was obvious that he was in extreme pain. I'd dialed 9-1-1 immediately, before I'd even finished reading the message. The dispatcher wasn't pleased about my inability to describe the situation. That's when years of dealing with House come in handy, anyone else is an amateur.

I didn't stop to grumble about the dispatcher…another bonus of them not being nearly as skilled at pissing me off as House was, I was used to the abuse and the sarcasm, it took much more than a whiney dispatcher to set me off.

God, if something has happened to him…

I'll kill him.

Dammit! I'll kill him! If anything is terribly wrong, I'll kill him.

If anything isn't terribly wrong and he's made me go through all this for nothing, I'll kill him.

What could he have possibly done? He'd probably overdosed on Viccodin…but if he'd done that he probably wouldn't be paging for an ambulance, it would've been Wilson.

Why hadn't it been Wilson who'd paged?

Maybe he'd fallen and Wilson was sleeping, maybe Wilson couldn't hear House from the other room. The two had such a strange connection though; you'd think that Wilson would instinctively know when something was wrong with House. I don't think that I understand those two; I don't think that I ever will. House is abrasive, stand-offish, and misanthropic. He's so involved in himself and the strength that it takes for him to go on everyday. Wilson is gentler, firm only when necessary, and he'd probably be far more personable if he weren't so wrapped up in House. But they cling to each other, because each is all the other has.

I skidded around the corner to the ER, nearly tripping over the damn red heels that I'd decided to wear this morning.

Tennis shoes. Tennis shoes. God, I'm going out and buying tennis shoes. I thought, it was some sort of mantra that I repeated in my head after each loud "click" of a heel.

The sliding doors to the ER whizzed open and a gurney flanked by three paramedics rushed in.

"What happened this time?" I asked, falling into step along side the first paramedic. I didn't even bother to look down at the man; I didn't want to look into those pain ridden eyes. I'd seen them too many times.

"Dunno." One of the paramedics answered.

I was going to snap at him for his inarticulacy, when one of his colleagues covered for the inadequate response.

"Tachycardia, pulse is 130, and tachypnea, respiration's 22, we might have to intubate soon if it gets worse. Pleuritic chest pain and a cough. No fever currently, but he's had one for the past three days or so."

House hadn't had a fever for the past few days…that meant…

I looked down.

It wasn't House.

"Wilson?"

I stopped short, the gurney continued on towards the ICU, and I watched it go, unable to get my mind around this development.

"Wilson?"

"You were expecting me, weren't you?" The voice startled me. I turned, here was the face that I had been expecting to see.

"Ye—I—ye—I—I—just assumed from your message that you were the one in pain." I fumbled for what to say. So much for my being quick-witted enough to keep up with House. I still hadn't quite realized that he was standing and that Wilson was the one being rushed into the intensive care unit.

Greg looked at me. I'd never really seen this look before, but I didn't have to be Wilson to read his thoughts. He was in pain, real pain. The kind of pain you only feel when you can't do anything about someone you care for being hurt. I'd been there hundreds of times before with him. I couldn't believe that look was coming out of those eyes.

"He's going to be alright." I offered, I wanted to do anything to rid his eyes of that look. "It's probably just pneumonia, it's been developing for days and it just finally peaked. He'll be okay."

"You blame me."

"What?"

"You blame me."

"I don't understand."

"I should have brought him in earlier." He turned his back to me and moved off down the hallway, in the opposite direction Wilson had gone.

I didn't know what to say to him.

I let him go. Sometimes House needed his solitude. He thought he was clever in sneaking away and hiding in his office or on the roof. But I always knew, I knew that he needed his space to hide.

"And you're right you know. It is my fault." His voice was barely audible over the distance between us.

And it wasn't just physical distance either. He was putting up those walls again, the walls that only came down for Wilson. If Wilson died, he wouldn't ever open up for anyone again.

But that wouldn't happen. James would be alright. Last time I checked, pneumonia was one of those diseases we could treat.

House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D.

Nine-forty four and forty seven seconds…

Nine-forty four and forty eight seconds…

Another twelve seconds and Cameron was officially off duty and could go home. Normally, she loved her job enough to want to hang around for a few minutes afterward, but she was exhausted today. House hadn't been in for days so she'd been covering all his clinic duty on top of her own. Chase and Foreman were content to lounge about the office while the boss was away, but Cameron had felt the need to clean and reorganize and answer years of House's unopened mail—something he'd never get around to doing himself. She'd hardly sat down all day, and she was only sitting now in order to run a few tests in the lab.

"Cameron?"

"Back here." She called.

Cuddy came in holding a couple of vials and a case file in one hand. She was wearing her lab coat, that wasn't a good sign. There was a new case and she needed Cameron to run tests.

Nine-forty four and fifty-five seconds.

Five seconds too soon.

Trying to hide her obvious disappointment, she turned to the administrator. "Mm-hmm?"

"I need these test results run, stat." Cuddy seemed worried, this also was not a good sign. "Especially check for signs of pneumonia."

"Wait, I'm running tests on a pneumonia patient?" She let a little of her annoyance slip past her sunshine-y exterior.

Cuddy handed her the file and placed the vials down on the counter. She was gone in a flash of red-leather heels and white lab coat.

Cameron opened the file.

Wilson, James.

It fell from her hands.

House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D.

"Severe thrombocytopenia, leukocytosis, BUN is very high, and he tested positive for nitrates and proteins in the urine." Cameron was standing in front of House's desk, her hand clenched nervously behind her back. "The X-ray came back and it's not good either. There are nodular infiltrates on both sides of the chest with fluid leakage into either side." Cameron said this all as quietly as she could, as if keeping her voice low would make the symptoms less severe.

He turned away from her to look out the window.

"That doesn't make sense. It can't be right."

"So much for our diagnosis of pneumonia." Cuddy had been listening from the door.

"Get Chase and Foreman in here now."

"House, they've gone home, it's nearly eleven."

"I don't give a damn! Get them in here, now! We need to do a differential!"

Cameron scrambled to disappear about the door as quickly as possible. Cuddy gave House one last remorseful look. He was already again lost in his own inner torment. He didn't notice it.

She paged Chase and Foreman.

She'd nearly left the room when she thought she heard House's whisper: "Dammit, James, you have to be alright." But she'd never be able to be sure if she'd really heard it or not.

House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D. House M.D.

A/N I'm going to explain what all the medical terms mean in the next chapter. So don't go looking them up…unless you really feel like it. Poor poor Wilson. Sorry, this is kinda a filler chapter, but some of those are needed I guess.

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